Latest / Pod Save America / 12 Angry Hopefuls

Transcript

12 Angry Hopefuls · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Pride Demon Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the Republican field grows to 12%. As
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the RNC sets new criteria for the first debate, Donald
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Trump prepares to be indicted again. Ron DeSantis tests out
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: new lines of attack in Iowa. Nikki Haley does a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: CNN town hall that no one noticed. And Joe Biden
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: takes a debt-sealing victory lap with an Oval Office address,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: while his anti-vax Democratic challenger, RFK Jr., does a Twitter
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Spaces event with Elon Musk. How's that for a sentence?
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: How's all those words together? It's so hard. They all
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: mean something.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: And you know what? Or nothing.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: They mean nothing.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Our children use that paragraph to explain to our children
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: what happened. Why the waters rose and the Internet stopped working.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Then later, The Washington Post's Ben Terrace talks to Tommy
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: about his new book, The Big Break, which is a
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: riveting account of D.C. in the post-Trump era. But first,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: if you can, please donate to Vote Save America's Fuck Bans,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Leave Queer Kids Alone Funds. which are supporting organizations on
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the ground in states that are banning care and targeting
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: trans youth. Our original goal is $ 50, 000, but you guys
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: already crushed that in just a few days, so we're
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: going to try to make it $ 100, 000.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I think we can do that, right?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Double it.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: You can donate to either political impact organizations, tax-deductible non-profits,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: or both. Just go to votesaveamerica.com slash fuckbans to learn
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: more and donate today. Also, Crooked's go-to legal podcast, Strict Scrutiny,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: will be recording live at Howard University. And you can
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: now join via live stream on June 9th at 1 p.m.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Eastern.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Join hosts Leah Littman, Kate Shaw, and Melissa Murray with
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: President and Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Janai Nelson, and Crooked's own Shaniqua McClendon as they talk
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: all things Supreme Court. Get your live stream tickets today
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: by heading to crooked.com slash strict live. and get a
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: 25% discount if you're a Friend of the Pod subscriber.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Exciting stuff. All right, let's get to the news. The
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Republican presidential field will expand to a full dozen this week,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: with official announcements from Mike Pence, Chris Christie, and someone
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: named Doug Burgum, who is apparently the governor of North Dakota.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: For two terms.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Two terms?
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: I had to Google them. I did not know that.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: You got re-elected.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu has decided against running, which
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: is a blow to the tens of Sununu for President
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: fans out there.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Sad.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: The Republican National Committee is trying to put a tent
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: on this circus. They just announced that in order for
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: candidates to qualify for the first debate, which we now
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: know will be hosted by Fox and held in Milwaukee
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: on August 23rd, candidates have to meet the following criteria.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: They have to poll consistently above 1%, in a combination
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of state and national polls. They have to have at
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: least 40,000 donors across 20 states, and they have to
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee. All right, let's
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: start with the debate criteria. Who's already in? Who do
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: you think's worried? And how might this whole thing affect
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the debates and the race? Tommy?
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, I think Trump's in, DeSantis is in,
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: you know, Pence is probably in, Haley, they're all in.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Also- Vivek Ramaswamy has already qualified.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: He stands well. The groundswell.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Based on polling or donors? All the polling has shown
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: that he would qualify if nothing changes. And then they
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: said that they've reached the donor threshold. People who've reached
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the donor threshold, at least what they've said, is DeSantis
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: So I think the criteria, it's understandable. You don't want
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: any person who just says, hey, I'm running for president.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: I want to build a brand for myself and sell
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: a book to be able to be on that stage.
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: But I think they have the impact of nationalizing these
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: campaigns and incentivizing people these candidates to do a ton
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: of appearances on Fox News or the Ben Shapiro show
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: or other right wing outlets rather than grinding it out
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: in early states and talking to real voters. They also
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: force candidates who don't have a big donor list to
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: spend tons of money acquiring donors. I was talking to
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: a friend who you both know well, who worked on
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: the Democratic race in 2020 about these thresholds because the
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: Republicans basically stole the Democratic version of the debate thresholds.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: And he said, polling and donor thresholds make me want
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: to throw myself off a bridge and Because the thresholds
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: ratchet up and up and up over time. And so
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: that these candidates would learn about some new donor threshold
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: and have to tear up their entire plan to focus
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: only on getting more small dollar donors and not talking
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: to voters, spending 500 grand on Facebook ads. So that
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: you can get up to like 65,000 donors.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Or whatever the threshold is.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Now I know who you're talking to.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: So there's perverse incentives that are not really good. I mean,
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: they don't like, you know, they're not educating voters. You're
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: just kind of meeting the RNC or DNC thresholds.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Well, the idea is that, oh, you have enough support
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: out there in the country that you deserve a place
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: on the stage. But in practice, for a lot of them,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: it's they spend a ton of money per donor to
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: acquire the donors to reach the threshold because the threshold exists.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I think it might be. It doesn't
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: seem like a great set of criteria, but I wonder
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: if it's the best of a bunch of bad options.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Like if you want to set some criteria, you don't
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: want to just do polling because polls are polls and
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: they're not always accurate, especially national polls in a primary.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So then where do you go after that? Donors, I guess,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: make sense, especially since there's a lot of grassroots donors
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: these days.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: It's very imperfect. So we know that Trump, DeSantis, Haley...
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and Vivek Ramaswamy are in as of now. Tim Scott
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: is fine on polling. He's built a big fundraising base,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: so he's probable.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: My boy Tim's going to make it.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Your boy Tim's going to make it.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: My guy Tim's in it.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: On the fence, maybes, are Pence, who is fine on polling,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: but very iffy on fundraising, and hasn't committed to supporting Trump.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: And you have to commit to not participating in non-RNC debates.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: That's also true.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Well, it's funny because has Trump taken the loyalty pledge? No.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: And this was a giant fight last time.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Trump's going to take it and lie like he did
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: last time.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: So that's fine for him. I think it's tougher for
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: both Pence and Christie. Christie's also going to have the
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: same problem on both the supporting Trump thing and the fundraising.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: It's tough on Pence and Christie because part of their
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: whole argument, especially Christie, is Trump is unfit to be president.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: So if they say they're going to commit to supporting
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the nominee to get on the debate stage, but then
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: they lie, I wonder if it's harder for them than Trump.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: It's also like it's a very fuzzy... What is... It
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: depends on what the language is, right? Of course I'm
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: going to support the nominee. I'm going to be the nominee. Right.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: And then I got this thing. Right, yeah.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And then Asa Hutchinson also on the bubble. Larry Elder
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: also on the bubble, though. Larry Elder has a big
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: fundraising base because he ran in California. And then definitely
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: in trouble, Doug Burgum.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Doug, Dougie B.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Although it's your first day. Burgumentum is not what it
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: is yet. It hasn't formed yet.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: We are speaking to you on the first day Of
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the Doug Burgum.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: You know when before a tsunami, the water rushes out?
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: Is that where we are right now?
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: That's where we are in the Burgum wave. The water
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: is leaving. There are boats sitting on fucking rocks as
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: the Burgum wave comes to hit us.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: The other famous Doug in politics. He got Emhoff and Burgum.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Did you guys watch his little three and a half
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: minute bio video? Oh, you bet I did.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I missed it.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: It's kind of an interesting story.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I read about his story, but I didn't see the video.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: As one donor.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not giving him five bucks to get on
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: that stage.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: He was born in North Dakota.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: He got really rich because he literally sold a family
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: farm to invest in some software company and made hundreds
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: of millions of dollars.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: This is word for word from the fucking video. Yeah,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: elected twice. I mean, I don't think he made up
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: his bio.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We are here to give people information.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: It's called prep.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: You should try it. I've watched the fucking video. I
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: know everything you're saying. I know everything you're saying right now,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Did you wiki him? Because I did that too.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, good for you.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: When I first heard about him and his whole pitch
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: is like, he's running, he's a conservative in North Dakota
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: who's running against polarization and partisanship. That's bullshit. He's a
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: software exec, you know, he wants to do a business
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: first message focused on the economy and energy. But then like,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I looked into it a little bit and it's like, Oh,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: he also signed a six week abortion ban and made
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: gender affirming cares for minor a crime.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: So it's like, and the teaching of critical race theory, he,
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: in 2020, he seemed to push back on the party
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: for some of the more outrageous anti-LGBT things they were
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: saying within the North, uh, North Dakota GOP. But, and
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: then later on he signed all these horrible bills.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: It's, I was thinking about that just like looking at this, um,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: this wonderful field coming into view for us. And, um,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: a big difference from 2016 to now is 2016. There
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: really was underneath all the kind of aesthetic nonsense and bullshit.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: There was actual policy shifts happening as the Republican party
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: moved from, you know, Paul Ryan conservatism to the kind
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: of like, you know, right wing, anti-immigrant kind of making
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: that more central, anti-trans, anti-gay, the kind of more fascistic
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: version that Trump is doing. And all these people have
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: fully embraced that platform. They're just campaigning on aesthetics, right?
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: They're just going to do it with a nicer touch,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: which is obviously not enough. Did you see Trump's quote
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: on the race, the field expanding?
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: He said, people coming into the race, you know, they're
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: pulling at 1%, 2%. I don't know what they're doing.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: They must know something. But I know actually some of
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: them are pretty stupid. They're running for VP and cabinet.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: Maybe they are, but some of them won't happen.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I can tell you.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: That's so funny. It's pretty spot on. I asked Dan
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: this on Thursday, but- Pence and Christie. Do you think
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: it's possible that Vivek Ramaswamy finishes ahead of them?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I think it's... well, it's just like, is it possible
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: that Vivek gets more than 3%?
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: It's like they're so mismatched.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Here's what I can't figure out either. We haven't talked
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: about the fact that, although we've mentioned it before, that
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Trump might skip the debates, skip the primary debates. You're
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Chris Christy. You get into this race because you're like,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I just need to get on that debate stage. I'm
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: going to kick the shit out of Trump. I don't
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: care if Republican voters don't like me. I'm just on
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: a kamikaze mission to fuck up Trump. And then Trump
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't appear in the debates. Then what's Chris Christie doing?
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: And then he doesn't appear in the debates. He's got
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: two problems here.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: Chris Christie is doing this kind of debate pugilist New
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: Hampshire strategy, which I don't have a lot of faith
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: in that. Pence, at least, Pence, I think the last
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: poll had him at 5% in Iowa. And he's going
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: to go after the kind of white Christian evangelical nationalists
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: that make up a lot of the caucus goers in Iowa.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: So I think, look, I don't have a lot of
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: money on Pence, but I think he has a better
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: theory of the case than Chris Christie.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: I also feel like I'm in outer space. We've seen
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Chris Christie debate. He debated throughout the campaign and then
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: he lost profoundly. He just lost completely. We've seen him
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: do this. He debated Trump several times. The only time
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: he ever got traction is when he stopped debating Trump.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: and debated Marco Rubio for five seconds. And that was
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: his big moment. And then he was gone.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I just think that, yeah, I agree with all that.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I think Pence's constituency is like non-existent, right? He does
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: the right thing at the last possible moment that makes
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: the whole Trump base so angry at him that some
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: of them wanted to literally kill him. But for people
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: who don't like Trump, Pence also stood by for four
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: years and And applauded everything that Trump did. So, like,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: where is the where is the Pence supporter?
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I guess the Pence supporter is someone who loved everything
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump did up until he tried to overturn the election.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: And then they then they got off the bus.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: He's just banking on the sort of far right evangelicals.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: And Chris Christie is just as full of shit. I mean,
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: he nearly died because Trump gave him COVID during debate prep.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: For Donald Trump, so.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, Trump almost killed both of them. And they're both,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: now they're back.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was also, it's like, it's a deeper, like
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: none of them are willing to make a real case
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: against Trump because they don't want to alienate the voters
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: they know they need, which is the problem at the
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: core of all this.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I think Christie may. I think Christie may make a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: real legitimate case against Donald Trump. I just don't know
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: that it will do anything.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Or that he'll make the stage.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: But he can't, but the thing is he can't, you know,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: he started, the case is predicated on a lie, right?
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Because he says this thing, like, if I knew then
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: what I knew now, I would never have gone so
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: far along with it. He was there the whole fucking time.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: He'd have to say, like, he'd have to say, I
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: fucked up. Right, but he won't say, he won't do that.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Like, so it's like, it's not like he was in
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: debate prep in 2016. He's in debate prep in 2020.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: So he's fully on board till the bitter fucking end.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Then Trump almost kills him. He's still on board. Then
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: he decides to run for president. And that's when he
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: discovers that Trump is unfit. That's the problem.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I think it was the, uh, The ABC green room
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: that pushed him after the after the overturning the election.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Suddenly he's on panels. He's criticizing. Oh, getting a little.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, people like this. A couple of granola bars in
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: my pocket on my way home.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: People are liking me again from Boston to Washington.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: An apple from this bowl.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: All right. So all the other major Republican candidates were
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: in Iowa this weekend. It's Senator Joni Ernst. Annual roast
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: and ride. Didn't realize the roast and ride was an
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: annual event.
• 13:20
  Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I'd never heard about it before.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: It's a biggie. It's a blast.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: With the exception of Donald Trump, he wasn't there. He
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: was very busy posting. He congratulated his friend Kim Jong-un
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: for getting North Korea elected to the executive board of
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the World Health Organization.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: That's the weirdest thing.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Too many questions there. He also complained that he's about
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: to get indicted again, this time for hoarding, possibly disseminating,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: and refusing to return classified information. And he also accused,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: he was in Iowa a week before, accusing too many
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: people of overusing the term woke without defining it. Just
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: hours before, he overused the term woke without defining it.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: It's gone sick. And I don't like the term woke
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: because I hear woke, woke, woke.
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: You know, it's like just a term that half the
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: people can't even define it.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: They don't know what it is.
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: A lot of things going on with our military, with
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: the woke and all this nonsense.
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: They're not learning to fight and protect us from some
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: very bad people.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: They want to go woke. They want to go woke.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: That was 10 hours after the first comment.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Very coherent.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Before we get to the Wokathon, let's start with the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: biggest Trump news. The grand jury in the classified documents
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: investigation is set to reconvene this week. Trump's lawyers just
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: had a two-hour meeting today with special counsel Jack Smith
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: and his team, which is often the last step before
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: an indictment. So far, it doesn't seem like the hush
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: money indictment has affected the race at all. Do you
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: guys think that being charged with hoarding classified information could
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: be different?
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think that I would be worried about
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: this one because it seems to go have gone beyond
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: just hoarding classified information into deep into obstruction of justice land,
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: because you have all these leaks about obstruction of justice
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: charges lying to the FBI. There's allegations that Trump essentially
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: told his staff to hide documents from the FBI before
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: they serve the subpoena and that there might be videotape
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: of these staffers doing it.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: There's the fire.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Remember they had the fire drill too.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: There's a dress rehearsal.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Crime dress rehearsal.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Everyone back to one.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: DOJ pierced attorney client privilege between Trump and one lawyer
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: because Trump might've lied to his lawyer in furtherance of
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: a crime.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: There's apparently a tape.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: There's audio.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: Of Trump talking about a classified war plan with how
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: to attack Iran with some guys doing a book about
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Mark Meadows, as one does.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: And that's like a separate charge. Disseminating classified information is
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: like a separate charge than just keeping it and obstructing
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the investigation.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's just a lot of threads here.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: The special counsel is looking into Trump's dealings with seven
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: foreign countries, including the Saudis and the UAE, which seems
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: like a suggestion that he's getting paid for this information.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: So there's just a lot of smoke here. And then CNN...
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: reports today that sadly, there happened to have been a
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: pool leak at Mar-a-Lago, and wouldn't you know where the
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: water from the pool went? To the server room. With
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: all of the video. Isn't that a shame? Don't you
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: hate it when your pool drains.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: Into your server room? God, what are the odds?
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: That stinks, because all the proof that he's innocent is
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: on those tapes.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: That's worse than Hillary with the hammer and the bleach bit.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, with the wiping.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: It's like a brain-dead Nixon move.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm curious what happens with that one. I'm excited
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: to hear more about that one. I like that.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: I realize it's tempting to believe that nothing matters with
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: regards to Trump. There was a Navigator poll from a
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: few weeks ago. 65% of all Americans now think Trump
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: has committed a crime that is up a net 12
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: points from just the month before. And that is just
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: about the Alvin Bragg hush money case.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of people.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: The greatest shifts came from independents and Republicans, particularly... Republicans
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: who do not identify as very conservative.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: I also say, you know, look, we've been talking about
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Trump's various and sundry crimes for the better part of
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: seven years now. Something does change when he does the
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: walk into the courtroom and they see the photo of
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: him behind a desk. There's certain things that just look
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: pretty bad. And one of them is a courtroom photo.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Like we can talk all we want about, like how
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: we think, you know, whether or not this is different
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: for people than the hush money payments. I don't know.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: But what will be different is all these different cases
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: starting to lead to procedures and trials and Trump having
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: to show up places and that being what the footage is. Like,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: nobody likes that.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I also think the story is easier to understand as
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a crime. And just that like, there's, you know, it's
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: not just Biden, Pence. Oh, they had classified documents. Doesn't
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: everyone have classified? No, this is like, If we're getting
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: into security camera footage, disseminating security camera footage, stealing war plans,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: sharing them, obstructing justice like this is it's easier to understand.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I will also say that.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: You got to take care of the Mark Meadows biographers.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: I also love it. Like also like the war plans.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, my God, they're going to bomb us.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: The also in that Navigator poll, you guys remember the
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: CNN town hall? Have you heard about that lately?
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: In the news recently, 66 percent. in that poll said
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that Trump's claim during the CNN town hall that he
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: was allowed to take classified docs raises doubts about him
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: being the Republican nominee, including 72% of independents and 40%
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: of Republicans. And that is about the same number who
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: had doubts about his proposal to pardon January 6th rioters,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: doubts about that making him the GOP nominee as well.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: They were like, it was those two plus him bringing
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: back child separation, family separation, that were the three biggest
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: concerns for voters from the CNN town hall. And we're
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: up to like 66% say that gives them some concerns
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: about Donald Trump. So that, you know, the whole CNN
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: town hall, Oh no, there's a travesty of democracy. Well,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: it had a bunch of people think, you know what,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: this guy maybe shouldn't be president.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: And we're going to talk about the Nikki Haley version
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: of this, but just, you know, it is amazing just
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: how self-fulfilling all of this is, right? Cause this, there
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: was like, we've had a fucking national debate, not about
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: the horrible things Trump said in that town hall, but
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: about whether or not the town hall should have taken place.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: You watch Five fucking paragraphs from Nikki Haley at her
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: town hall, which none of us knew happened until after
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: it was over. And it's just as much misinformation. It's
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: just as much hate filled bile about trans people and
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: immigrants and lies about crime and all the rest. No,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: not a not a peep from anybody. Nobody minds. It's
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: a pathology.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: There is a pathology around Trump. We're really getting down
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: to just media stories about the media. Yeah.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: That's all that breaks through these days. Everybody, take your nose.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Everybody upset about the media breaking through the media, media, media, media.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Look up from your stomachs.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Everybody, look up. Bunch of candidates just telling you what
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: they'd do if they were elected to lead the country.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Cover that a bit.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: But also, the classified information story, I mean, you can
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: tell that story in one photo of all these documents
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: lying on the floor at his country club slash house.
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: It's not a complicated one. And again, just keep an
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: eye on this foreign money, foreign business dealings part of
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: this investigation. Jared Kushner got $ 2 billion from the Saudis
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: for his investment company, even though he's never invested before
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: in his life. The Saudi-owned Live Golf Tour is dumping
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: money into Trump properties. There's something weird.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Going on there.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I have a question for you.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: I might have an answer.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: If it turns out that Jared Kushner and the Saudi
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: deal is involved, how many bonus episodes of Patsy of
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the World are we getting?
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: He's got a bonus episode on the table right now.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: You got him going. My case rests.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Let my counsel speak for me.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Here comes a Rhodes rant.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: So speaking of speaking of worldos, multiple Republican candidates hit
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Trump for congratulating North Korea's murderous dictator. Barely made the news.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I only saw a few stories about it.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Why not?
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Do reporters and Republican voters not care? Do we just
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: expect this kind of behavior from Trump now or could
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: it become an issue?
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: It is such a weird story. A horrible dictator was
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: elected to the board of the World Health Organization.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was my first question.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Why the fuck did that happen? Hey, I just want
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: to tell everybody.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: I'm going to look into this for tomorrow's episode of
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: Thoughts on the World, so I'll get back to you guys.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: I think that, yeah, I think, look, the Trump love
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: affair with Kim Jong-un is kind of priced in. I'm
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: glad all these Republicans criticized him for it. I do think, look,
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: Jake Tapper, to his credit, asked Nikki Haley about this
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: at the town hall. So I think Where there was
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: an opportunity to advance the story, they tried, but it
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: is weird. It's just Trump is obsessed with his love
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: letters with Kim Jong-un, the summit he had with him,
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: the meeting they had at the DMZ, even though literally
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: nothing got accomplished. North Korea's nuclear weapons program is far
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: further along today than when those meetings happened, but he
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: doesn't care.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: It's all about the optics.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: I also think that Republicans aren't quite making the best
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: case against him on this. Like, Because what Trump likes
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: to say about this is, yeah, I am friends with
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Kim Jong-un and I'm friendly with Putin and that keeps
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: us safe because they know me and they don't want
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: to fuck with me and I'm friends with them. I
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: have good relationships. And what the Republican candidates, what his
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: opponent should be saying is like, this murderous dictator who
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: regularly threatens the United States of America with nuclear weapons
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: has Donald Trump wrapped around his finger. You know, make
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: it about, you always have it, make it about like
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: strength and weakness and turn it into a weakness for him.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: And instead they're just like, that's bad. He shouldn't do that.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all very subtle. I had the same reaction.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Even DeSantis was like, I'm surprised that Trump would say
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: something like that. And then Trump spoke to her and
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: was like, Ron DeSantis is a tiny Italian fag and
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: he can eat dicks. They're so subtle with this fucking guy.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: That's what they did.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: It's unbelievable. No one is bringing anything to this fight.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: I've checked off one of my notes for this episode.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Speaking of anti-woke crusaders, why do you guys think Trump
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: hit other Republicans for overusing the term woke, which is
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: a term he uses all the time? Is there anything
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to that or is that just him?
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: My sincere pet theory is that Trump saw some of
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: the coverage after the DeSantis-Elon debacle that talked about DeSantis
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: being too online and that's how his brain translated it.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: That's really what I think it is.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I thought it was, I think that could be some
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: of it. There's also, there were, I forget who's been
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: asked to define woke before. There were some other candidates
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: who were asked to define, or some other Republican politicians.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: Haley did with Jake Tapper.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Haley did. But then even like Republicans in Congress
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: have been asked before.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: None of them can.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: And they, none of them can. And there's sort of
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: like embarrassing clips about it. And I wonder if he
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: saw those viral clips and he's like, ooh, that seems bad.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Was it Megan McArdle or- someone like that, that got
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: asked by.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, no, it's like Megan McArdle. It's Bethany Mandel.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, Bethany Mandel.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:33
  Speaker 7: Sorry.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: Sorry.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I was asked about it and had a trouble defining it.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: Well, she had in her defense, she had written an
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: entire book about it. So that's why would she be
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: able to, uh, divide it?
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: I think that Trump probably saw that DeSantis is getting
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: some traction, just yelling about these things. It's like his
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: whole identity is defined as being, making Florida the place
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: where woke goes to die to the point where Ron
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: DeSantis' wife was wearing a black leather jacket.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what?
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: It had a picture of Florida on the back of it,
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: and it said, where woke goes to die, despite the
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: fact that it was 85 degrees at this roast and
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: ride or whatever. By the way, Mike Pence was wearing
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: like a Sons of Anarchy Halloween costume.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Did you see him?
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: It was really embarrassing.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: On the bike.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: It was very awful.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: It was something.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: So I suspect Trump saw DeSantis having some success there.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: in this lane and decided to whine about it and
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: just be like, I don't even care about that term anymore.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, DeSantis is also sounding like a fucking parody
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: of himself when he's doing that. He has that riff
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: that everyone noticed again this weekend, though he's been doing
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: it for a couple weeks now, which is like, we
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: will fight the woke in the streets. We will fight
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the woke in the classrooms. We will fight the woke
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: in the amusement parks.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: So fucking embarrassing. A reprise of a speech about fighting
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: the literal Third Reich. Yeah. about, you know, I don't know,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: kids wearing T-shirts he doesn't like?
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Well, fortunately, in response to this Trump riff about people
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: saying woke too much, DeSantis was asked to try to
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: define woke himself. And he also tested out a new
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: line about how Republicans need a president who can serve
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: two terms in order to get done what they want
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to get done. Let's listen to both moments.
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: Look, we know what woke is. It's a form of
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: cultural Marxism.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: It's about putting merit and achievement behind identity politics. And
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: it's basically a war on the truth. And as that
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: has infected institutions, it has corrupted a lot of institutions.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: So you've got to be willing to fight the woke.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: We've done it in Florida. And we proudly consider ourselves
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: the state where woke goes to die. You really need
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: to ensure that we have a two term president to
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: be able to see this to a conclusion. I mean,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: you do one term and they reverse.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: It when they come in. You can't have it be reversed.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: So Trump's response, of course, is I only need six
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: months to fix everything. Why does he need two terms?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And then DeSantis comes back, then why didn't he do
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: it his first term? Yeah. You know, they're mixing it up.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Do you think any of these, either of these DeSantis
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: attacks has any potential to draw blood?
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: No.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: The two-term thing is stupid to me. I don't understand that.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: What a waste of time.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: It's also like, I was on the fence about it, actually,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: because my first reaction was Tommy's, which is to say,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: so your point is Trump would be amazing, but he
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: can only do it for four years, so you need
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: somebody else. It's kind of back to part of the
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: case that a lot of these Republicans have been making,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: which is, Trump is great, but we need to do
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: something different. And like, oh, so if he was eligible
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: for it, so that's the problem. And the problem is
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: just that he can't do it as long as, you just,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: you want someone that great to be there for longer,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: which is a little bit embarrassing though. There is something
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: about DeSantis calling him a lame duck that I think
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: could catch on. Like, we don't want to elect a
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: lame duck. We don't want to elect a lame dunk.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: There was a way in which he was saying it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: If you actually look at the longer DeSantis term, quote
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: about wanting to have somebody new. It's like, we need
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: somebody who's going to hit the ground running on day one,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: who's going to be focused and disciplined in attacking the
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: bureaucratic state. That's a multi-year process. And so he kind
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: of put it into a larger argument around Trump's weaknesses
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: that I thought could be something.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I think that all of his arguments seem too cerebral
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: for me and too cerebral for, I would argue, much
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of the Republican base. First of all, defining woke, always
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: tricky when you define a word by using the word
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: multiple times. He's like, you know, woke is we got
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: to fight woke. Woke is a war on the truth.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: And then, you know how many people know cultural Marxism.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Regular people are always talking about cultural Marxism.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. Like, at least he's clearly ready with
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: that answer. It's not an answer for it's not an
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: answer for. normals.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: It's not an answer for us. We have right.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: But it is a graffiti, a conservative pollster pointed out
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: that like many of the top answers when we talk
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: to Republican primary voters, but things they're.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Concerned about involve the word woken some days.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: They're all channeling this same fear of people that are
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: different times changing, et cetera.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: It's just like, it's like, it's not new politics.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: It is cerebral and it is too sophisticated, but I
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: will say the way he described it is probably the
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: closest thing to like, um, like, I think a sincere
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: explanation for how they would define it to each other.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Like that, that's how I
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: took that.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know what cultural Marxism is.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, like, sure you don't. Right. Like, but
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: it is like a wing towards, this is a kind
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: of far left collegiate academic ideology that, that is infecting
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: our institutions, that makes identity more important than these other qualities, right?
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Like that's- You even said it earlier, like, I don't
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: know what, putting merit and achievement behind identity politics. I
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: was like, what the fuck does that mean?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think it means something to them, right?
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: But I mean, because it's a way- It's a real
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: dog whistle.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, I think part of, it's a
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: dog whistle about gay issues. It's a dog whistle about
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: affirmative action. It's a dog whistle around DEI. But like,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: that makes sense. That's like, it's coherent in their world.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I just think for a lot of these voters, it's
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: like much simpler. They're like, Trump, Trump seems like he's
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: an honest liar, doesn't sound like a typical politician. Ron
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: DeSantis sounds like a typical politician.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: I think that the cultural Marxism is an attempt to
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: reach the voters who think that Christian values are being
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: removed from schools and academia and everything else. And I
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: think Trump doesn't know how to blow that dog whistle
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: or play that note because he's not religious at all
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: and doesn't understand those people.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: And that was Pence's job.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I also think to the two terms thing. I'm trying
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: to figure out the Trump supporter who's having second thoughts
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: because Trump can only serve four years. Because I think
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: what they'll look at both Trump and DeSantis, they'll look
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: at both of them and think, I like Trump better
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: than DeSantis. So I'll vote for Trump for the next
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: four years. And then I'll vote for DeSantis for the.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Four years after that. He's young.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: This is why DeSantis has such a high approval rating
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: in many polls higher than Donald Trump. They like DeSantis
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: just fine. They just like Donald Trump better.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: There was a line in one of the stories about
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: the one-term argument that I thought gave away the game
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: a little bit, which is for people who– I think
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: it was actually Mick Mulvaney. who said this, It was
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: for people that want to move on from Trump, but
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: want to be able to say it to their pro-Trump
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: friends in a way that doesn't get them in trouble.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: They can say they're worried about the terms, which tells you. Yeah,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: which just tells you how weak this anti-Trump coalition really is.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: So there's also an open question as to whether DeSantis's
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: electability argument is getting a bit tripped up by his
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: culture war extremism. We talked about the six week abortion
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: ban a couple of weeks ago. He recently signed a
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: ban on gender affirming care for young people. that is
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: also affecting trans adults because it prohibits you from getting
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: care from physician's assistants, which, at least in Florida, approximately
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: 80% of trans people do. So now Florida has the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: most extreme trans ban in the country. Missouri was gonna
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: do something like this, I think you brought that up
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: a couple weeks ago, and that fell apart, so now
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Florida's is the most extreme. Do you think that that
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: helps DeSantis with Republican primary voters, or is this like
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the six-week abortion ban which he is avoiding talking about.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: So first of all, these things are like each other
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: more than just politically. These laws around restricting care, even
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: for adults, take a page from the anti-abortion laws, right?
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Because they don't put in place an outright ban, but
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: they put in place onerous, scientifically unjustifiable restrictions on care.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: So you need to have a doctor sign off. You
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: have to do it in person. All these things are
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: just supposed to make it more difficult, including raising the
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: stakes for doctors by making it easier to sue doctors,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: like a lot of steps like that that have been
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: used in the anti-abortion movement, they're applying here. The Times,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I believe, talked to a bunch of voters at this
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Iowa Roast and Ride event. And it was interesting, even there,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: you start to see people saying, hey, I'm like frustrated.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: No one said health care. Like they're only talking about
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: these issues. You have Nikki Haley saying that, uh, uh,
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: trans athletes in sports is the most pressing women's issue
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: of our time. And the fact that even amongst these
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: far right loons that are showing up for this fucking
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: event where Mike Pence wears a costume and gets on
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: a motorcycle, even for them, they're like, can we talk
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: about something else besides fucking trans people for five seconds?
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: I think tells you that these people are a bit
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: out of touch. And because the campaign is so about
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: aesthetics and they can't make actual policy distinctions and they're
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: afraid to go after Trump on the merits, they all
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: end up trying to outdo one another on these fucking issues.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: and pushing themselves further and further away. Forget the median voter,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: even the median Republican voter.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Well, that's because they're in this echo chamber of, like,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the most partisan online voices. You know, to an extent
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: it can happen, it happened in 2020 on the Democratic side,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: in certain issues, right, in certain times. But it's really
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: bad on the Republican side now, where all these Republican candidates,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: all they're listening to is, like, what's happening on the
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Daily Wire, what's happening in Steve Bannon's podcast, what's happening
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: on Fox News, what's happening in primetime, right? And they
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: think that the people who are talking about these issues
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: there represent all the voters. And by the way, it
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: does represent some of the most committed activists, some of
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the most committed grassroots donors. But like you said, it's
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: not even the median Republican voters.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Right. Even Republican voters that are consuming a lot of
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: this content and are maybe angry about woke stuff or
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: have been made fearful of the cities because of reports
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: on crime. They still have car payments. They still have
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: credit cards. They still have health care issues like those
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: issues continue to exist because those issues continue to exist.
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: You know, I think this is a trend for DeSantis
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: now because initially, like the the the They said critics
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: of the don't say gay law were being hysterical. These
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: are just, you know, this is focused on third graders
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: and to kindergartners.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Right. And then they expanded that law.
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: And now they are restricting reproductive health education for six
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: or 12 year olds. They claim that the Florida book
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: bans were about these extreme examples that no young kid
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: should ever be reading. And then we read about Amanda
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: Gorman's book being banned, like a poem she read at
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: the inauguration. There are these restrictions on transgender kids are
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: making it impossible for adults to get treatment. I mean,
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: the six week abortion ban. The fight with Disney, like
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: it is painting a picture of an incredibly extreme governor
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: in Ron DeSantis and like deep, big government overreach into
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: people's lives in ways that I think will sound bizarre
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: to most people, even most Republicans.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: And I think that the way Trump is handling it
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and probably will handle it is not necessarily by saying
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: what Democrats would, which is like, this is extreme and dangerous,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: these positions. But he's going to try to be like,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: this guy's a weirdo. You all thought before I came
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: along that the Republican Party at its worst was a
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: little weird, a little extreme, a little too religious. Then
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I came along, divorced all the time, probably paid for
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: a bunch of abortions myself. Don't give a shit about
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: any of this culture stuff, right? Don't like immigrants, for sure.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: But on the culture stuff, Trump was sort of like, eh,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: you know, governed horribly. Governed horribly, but at least his rhetoric, right,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: wasn't as extreme as some of these. And I think
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: he's going to do that with DeSantis. I think he's
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: going to try to paint him as an extreme weirdo.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: Libertarian streak in the Republican Party. And all of a sudden,
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: the Florida government is reaching into all these different parts
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: of people's lives, whether you're a child or an adult.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: And it's just weird. It's totally unnecessary.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: And I don't think this helps DeSantis with the anti-Trump
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: or beyond Trump Republicans that he absolutely needs. That also
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: includes a lot of donors. These people think about electability
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: a lot. And they hear this stuff about DeSantis, just
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: like they heard about the abortion ban. They're not going
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: to like that. And then the question is, does it
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: peel away any of the MAGA diehards from Trump, which
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: remains to be seen? Maybe it does on the margins.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: But for DeSantis to pull this off, he needs like
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: all the, or at least most of the anti-Trump people,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: most of the people concerned about electability. And he needs
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: a big chunk of the MAGA vote, right? He needs
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: everything to go well. And this is just like pissing
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: too many people off.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: You have to start like, forget the MAGA diehard, right?
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Let's say Trump takes the MAGA diehards, right? They're just
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: with him, right? Let's say that's a third of these
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: primary voters. He needs to build a coalition that brings
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: together All the people that have never liked Trump and
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: never wanted Trump to be into it. And then a
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: bunch of people that have liked Trump all along, continue
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: to like Trump, don't agree with a lot of the
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: criticisms of him, think it's all overblown, just want basically
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Trump without a lot of the chaos. And I don't know.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I think the hardest coalition to assemble, which someone needs
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: to if they're going to be Trump, is the evangelical
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Christians who have never been too high on Trump, but
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: went along, you know, voted for him. And the anti-Trump
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: college educated crew. Like, getting both of those groups of voters,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I think, is hard for a Republican politician.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: I also do think, too, a lot of the polling
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: around evangelicals has gotten pretty muddled because as that's become
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: basically an identity or a brand, like, more people have
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: chosen it. And it kind of expands it to mean,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: kind of, I'm a good Republican in a lot of
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: different ways. And so you end up with, like, it's
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: a very, like, a curious group of people. First of all, like,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: why wouldn't they stick with Trump, the most successful anti-choice president?
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I read this great book. It's called The Flag
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: on the Cross and it's about white Christian nationalism and
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: the strains of religion and anti-democratic movements in this country
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: and the way they come together to tell people how
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: to live their lives. And I think that's like a
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: powerful chunk of the Republican base that Trump has captured,
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: but that Pence and DeSantis.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Are both competing for now.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: And another sign that DeSantis is having some trouble is
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: his issues with grassroots enthusiasm. So he had 40,000 donors
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: last quarter who gave an average of more than $ 200
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: per donor. That's pretty high. For comparison, Bernie Sanders' average
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: donation was around $ 26. How much do you think this
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: matters for DeSantis?
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's an indication of potentially less
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: broad-based enthusiasm for his candidacy. The other thing we don't
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: know is you can give $ 3, 300 in the primary and
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: then $ 3, 300 in the general election. DeSantis' team is accepting
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: money for both the primary and the general. So we
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: don't know how much of that 8.2 million is actually
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: locked up for the general election. And he'll have to
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: return it, literally, if he doesn't win the nomination. So 8.2 million,
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: it's a good chunk of change. But you would much
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: rather have many, many more donors the way Bernie Sanders had,
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: who gave you a lower amount of money so you
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: can go back to them again. Because that is the
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: lowest hanging fruit for fundraising is hitting up someone who
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: already wanted.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: To give you money. Yeah.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is early and it's the first quarter
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: for him, but usually challengers to front runners who are
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: going to have a shot tend to have a lot
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of grassroots energy behind them. Obama versus Hillary, Sanders versus Clinton,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Sanders and even Warren in 2020. And most of those
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: folks still didn't win, right? Obama was the only one
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: in that group that did win. So if you don't
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: have at least the grassroots support and you're a challenger
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: who's a long shot against a, and the establishment favorite,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: which Trump is, I think it's even harder. Now, we'll
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: see what happens next quarter, but not great.
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: Just in terms of raw cash, though, DeSantis is going
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: to have $ 200 million sitting in a super PAC, they say.
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: They say they're budgeting a $ 200 million spend. Super PAC
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: spends are less efficient when you're talking about media buys
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: for boring reasons that we don't have to get into.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: So look at Jeb Bush and the way it all
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: sort of worked out for him. He had most of
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: his money in his super PAC and his campaign did
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: a lot less spending. So DeSantis will have a lot
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: of money, but yeah, the enthusiasm piece is sort of notable.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: I just think it doesn't matter.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: It's not the money issue, it's the enthusiasm issue.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because by the way, what, 8.2 million, like that's
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: a massive amount to get right out of the gate.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: I do think it's just, will there be enthusiasm behind
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: it over time or does it represent like a fatal
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: flaw of his campaign?
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: As for the rest of the GOP field, again, apparently
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley participated in a CNN town hall. moderated by
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Jake Tapper on Sunday night. They should have televised it.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: So stupid.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Here are some of the highlights.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: If a six-week ban theoretically came to your desk, would
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: you sign it?
• 39:41
  Speaker 7: I will answer that when you ask Kamala and Biden
• 39:46
  Speaker 7: if they would agree to 37 weeks, 38 weeks, 39 weeks.
• 39:50
  Speaker 7: Then I'll answer your question. I know that Trump and
• 39:53
  Speaker 7: DeSantis have both said we're not going to deal with
• 39:54
  Speaker 7: entitlement reform. Well, all you're doing is leaving it for
• 39:57
  Speaker 7: the next president, and that's leaving a lot of Americans
• 39:59
  Speaker 7: in trouble. I think it's important to be honest with
• 40:01
  Speaker 7: the American people. We are in this situation. Don't lie
• 40:05
  Speaker 7: to them and say, oh, we don't have to deal
• 40:07
  Speaker 7: with entitlement reform.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, we do.
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: Yes, we do.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: It's the reality.
• 40:12
  Speaker 7: I'm always going to tell the truth. Is it going
• 40:14
  Speaker 7: to hurt? Yes, but for our kids, they know they're
• 40:17
  Speaker 7: not going to get it anyway. I mean, the idea
• 40:19
  Speaker 7: that we have biological boys playing in girls' sports, it
• 40:23
  Speaker 7: is the women's issue of our time. How are we
• 40:25
  Speaker 7: supposed to get our girls used to the fact that
• 40:27
  Speaker 7: biological boys are in their locker rooms? And then we
• 40:31
  Speaker 7: wonder why a third of our teenage girls seriously contemplated
• 40:35
  Speaker 7: suicide last year.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: So it seems like Nikki Haley is trying to combine
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: pre-2016 conservatism with a pretty lame MAGA impression. You guys
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: think that's a winning strategy?
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: I found that one of the most sort of pathetic
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: displays I've seen from a major candidate. It's unbelievable. Refusing
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: to have an answer on abortion, but having an answer...
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: On cutting Social Security and Medicare, then having the fucking
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: audacity to claim, which is, by the way, like the
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: mental health crisis for teens and teen girls is a
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: huge and important and like serious fucking issue. And the
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: idea that you're going to lay that at the feet
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: of like trans fucking teens is so disgusting. It is disgusting.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: It's disgusting. It's also just silly and nonsensical. The idea
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: that like teenagers are committing suicide because they are seeing
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: something trans women in a locker room? Even people who
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: are anti-trans probably don't believe that.
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, she sort of got the what does
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: woke mean question and she said basically it's like communities
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: like the trans community pushing their views on everyone else.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: So she tried to have more of a simple answer.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: She also tried to straddle this tone of being compassionate
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: and trying to listen to the other side while having
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: her own position. Abortion was like the number one example.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: Like she said, she refused to answer whether she should
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: support a six-week abortion ban. She refused to comment on
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: a 15-week abortion ban. She also said, I don't want
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: to demonize people who are pro-choice. I want to come
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: together and agree on stuff. So it was a weird
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: effort to try to straddle these issues. She gave a
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: speech about abortion a couple weeks ago. And the whole
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: point of the speech was, I think, simply to say, like,
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: to highlight the fact that she is the lone woman
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: in the field. And that is sort of the, like,
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: she's trying to have a brand around being pro-life.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: About being anti-abortion. without actually taking a position on the issue.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: She gives a whole speech on the subject, does not
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: come out in favor of any particular policy, continues to
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: avoid having a position on any particular policy. It's just like,
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: to what end?
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: I wanted to pick those clips because I really think
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: she hit the trifecta there. On abortion, she sounds like
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: a typical politician by dodging the question. She doesn't answer
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: the question, which voters don't like. She manages to take
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the Paul Ryan position on entitlements that is not only
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: unpopular with the general electorate, but now unpopular with the
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Republican base. And then her trans answer is guaranteed to
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: push away the anti-Trump Republicans that she absolutely needs if
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: she has any prayer of competing in this. So she's
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: just like three things just just fucked it all up.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: Well, the good news for her is this was on
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: opposite an NBA finals game.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: So no, I heard that.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: I will say, look, I'm not going to Tim Scott
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: this shit, but I do say I.
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: Watched, I watched, I watched with very low expectations. And
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: I did think by the end of it, like the
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: last questioner, uh, uh, complimented her for taking a more
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: positive tone. And she went with a couple of contrasts
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: that I don't think were like maybe electorally beneficial, but
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: were interesting. She criticized Trump on the Kim Jong-un comments and,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: She was pretty critical.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: She was strongly in.
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: Support of giving Ukraine weapons, which is a strong contrast
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: from Trump and DeSantis. And she sort of overtly hit DeSantis.
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: And then the Social Security Medicare part was weird. She
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: came out for raising the retirement age for future Social
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: Security recipients, which.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: What is the polling on that?
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Terrible?
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: She talked about like raising their, she talked about like
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: her own kids should know now that they're not going
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: to get Social Security at 65.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: That should be what? 67, 68.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: No, it's the pre-2016 Tea Party version of the world.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: Because you can't raise the cap and tax rich people more.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: And she's a hawk, right? And so she's basically the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Paul Ryan, George W. Bush party, right? She's still got that.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: That's who she is. And yet she knows that to compete,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: she needs to do a MAGA impersonation. So that's where
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: the trans thing comes from. And that's where the non-answer
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: on the abortion ban comes from.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: What is so silly about the whole thing is even
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy, one of those cynical fucking people has figured
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: out not to talk about social security and Medicare. Like,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: like dumber politicians than Nikki Haley have cracked this fucking code.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: And the idea that like, she's going to be like
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: mendacious on all these subjects, but for whatever reason, she
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: feels like she needs to speak to tell her on truth.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Tell her on Medicare, but I won't tell you what
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I think on abortion. It's not actually abortion ban in
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: my state.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: Of course it's not true. None of it's actually not true, right?
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: We don't need to make these draconian cuts. We can
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: obviously afford to keep paying people social security and Medicare.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: So it's like, I'm going to like every piece of
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: it is, is, is misinformation.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: She's pretty critical of DeSantis on the Disney fight too.
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: She said, oh, he took 50 grand from them and
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: appointed a bunch of Disney people to board positions. Now
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: he's using the state to go after them. Like we
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: shouldn't do that. That was sort of interesting. She also
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: told the full story about taking down the Confederate flag
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: after the AME church shooting, which I just thought was
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: an interesting choice because most Republicans like to pretend that
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: racial divisions don't exist in this country anymore and that
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: you're not allowed to talk about it. But she kind
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: of led with it.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Did she do the whole... I remember in her bio video,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: in her announcement video, she sort of glided over it.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: She mentioned the flag, but she didn't want to say racism.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: No, she got into it pretty deep.
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: And she led her whole thing with a rant about earmarks.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: So back to your pre-2016... Yeah, this.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Is what I'm saying. This is who she is.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: She talked about being an accountant.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: I was like, what? She took out the DeSantis hit
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: on Disney. She took that out for a spin a
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: couple weeks ago. I always just like when... they're too
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: afraid to do a similar hit on Trump directly. So
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: they just kind of go after each other, kind of
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: try to seem tough with each other.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Best way to make him the nominee.
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: The thing that I think connected her with the audience
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: is they talked about how her husband is about to
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: deploy for a year overseas to Africa. He's in the
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: military and there's a military family's message and a veteran's
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: message that I just, it seemed to endear her with
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: the people listening, as did some of the nastier.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: So we got one for Tim Scott, one for Nikki Haley.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: And I'm a Doug Burnham guy.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Burgum?
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Burgum?
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Burgum. I'm a Doug Burgum guy.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Can we do a version of Haley train? Could that work?
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Haley train, yeah. Let's talk about Joe Biden, who took
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: a victory lap after.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: Just carefully.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Who took a victory lap after signing the bipartisan budget
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: deal that saved us from default. The president delivered an
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Oval Office address on Friday night. One of his super
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: PACs is running a new ad about the deal, and
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: his advisors told reporters at the Associated Press and the
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Washington Post that the way Biden handled the debt ceiling negotiations...
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: affirms their reelection strategy of marginalizing MAGA Republicans while cutting
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: bipartisan deals with non-MAGA Republicans. Here's a clip from Biden's
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Oval Office speech.
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: My fellow Americans, when I ran for president, I was
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: told the days of bipartisanship were over and that Democrats
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: and Republicans could no longer work together. But I refuse
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: to believe that because America can never give in to
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: that way of thinking. Passing this budget agreement was critical
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: The stakes could not have been higher. If we had
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: failed to reach an agreement on the budget, there were
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: extreme voices threatening to take America for the first time
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: in our 247 year history into default. So it was
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: critical to reach an agreement. And it's very good news
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: for the American people. No one got everything they wanted,
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: but the American people got what they needed.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Why do you guys think the White House wanted to
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: do an oval on this address, knowing that they are
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: few and far between and you don't get a Oval
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: anytime you want. And what'd you guys think of the speech?
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think, look, getting this debt ceiling agreement
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: or the budget agreement sorted out was a real accomplishment
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: that required bipartisan work. And there's probably a lot of
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: people in the country who just want Republicans and Democrats
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: to work together.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: They hate what they usually hear out of Washington. So
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: you're sort of speaking to them.
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: And I think that's why the speech led with infrastructure,
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: the CHIPS Act. He sort of did like a greatest
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: hits of all the bipartisan work I've done, which I
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: think is effective.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: 350 laws he signed, bipartisan laws. He mentioned that at
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the beginning.
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: The fundamental challenge to a speech like this is it's
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: hard to take a victory lap on a bill that
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: you passed and made it less bad in the process.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: Like they talked about all the things he protected from
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: Republican cuts in the process. He talked about all the
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: things he's going to keep fighting for, like taxing billionaires more,
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: talked about unity at the end. But I do think, like,
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: they put so much time and work into this. There
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: are a lot of people who are legitimately scared, myself included,
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: that we could default. So, I mean, I think it
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: makes sense to go out and take a victory lap.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: It sucks that it.
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: Was on Friday night, but I'm glad the networks took it.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. First of all, I just think it seems like
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden is just genuinely proud to have made this
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: deal and the way that the deal was made. I
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: think if he feels, it seems like he personally views
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: it as a success for him and his sort of
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: theory of politics. I think he's proud of the relationship
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: he has with Kevin McCarthy. And look, we talked about this,
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: that like, look, like, you know, you can, you can,
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: you giving into having a negotiation or, or not having
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: dealt with this in the past. There's a hundred paths
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: that could have been taken to maybe avoid this altogether.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: But once we were in this mess, it's hard to
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: imagine coming out of it, uh, with something much better
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: than what we did. And I think that's another place
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: where he seems, uh, to be genuinely sort of proud
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: and then has an opportunity to walk through all the,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: the ways in which his sort of theory of how
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: to govern has been pretty well fucking vindicated given the
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: number of things he's been able to pass.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: I think that the presidential bully pulpit is, uh, Not
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: as powerful. It's never been as powerful as people think
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: it is. It's certainly not as powerful now in an
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: age of very fractured media. But he still has a
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: bigger megaphone than Kevin McCarthy if he wants to use it.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: And I think they wanted to use it to make
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: sure that McCarthy didn't get all the credit, which a
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: lot of Hill reporters were.
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: Oh, God.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys saw it.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: Lavishing praise on it.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Dan Pfeiffer's a little upset about this.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Was Dan mad? I feel like there was some pieces,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: like Kevin McCarthy went into that room with no leverage. No, no,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: the debt, the fucking, remember the fucking ticking clock with
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: the bomb on it attached to all of our chests?
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: That was the leverage.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: You know what's interesting, Tommy, to your point, it's hard
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: to sell people on something bad that didn't happen and
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: just what he protected. It's like all our financial crisis speeches. Yeah,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: and so there was a lot of that in the speech.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Then there was one section where, that I thought was
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: a little different. And I really hope he sort of
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: uses that going forward in the reelect. He said, Republicans
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: may not like it, but I'm going to make sure
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the wealthy pay their fair share. I proposed closing special
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: interest tax loopholes for big oil, crypto, hedge fund billionaires
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: as part of these negotiations. Republicans defended every single one
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: of those loopholes, but I'm going to be coming back.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: And with your help, I'm going to win. I think
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: that's a great way to frame it. So, because then
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: you're out of the, here's what I accomplished. Here's what
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: I prevented from happening. It's I'm going to fight with
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: these guys. It's not over yet. I'm going to come
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: back and I'm going to go after those loopholes. They
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: want to protect them, right? And I think you do that.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: They're going to go after Medicare. I want to protect it.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: They're going to do this. I'm going to protect it.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: And you make it an ongoing battle that you're engaged
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: in and it's on behalf of the American people. And
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: that's why you need the other next four years.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think it was a political success for
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: the Republicans that even the idea of tax increases being
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: part of this negotiation was just It was barely part
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: of the conversation. It was just always understood from the
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: jump that that was a nonstarter. So frustrating. It was
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: really frustrating. And so, you know, it became a conversation
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: about what the what the percentage of cut would be
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: as opposed to how we could raise funds, especially on
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: some of the most ridiculous fucking loopholes, carried interest, real estate, whatever.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: What's your take on the reelection strategy that Biden's team
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: was laying out to reporters? Basically, that he is distinguishing
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: once again between MAGA Republicans, who he is warning are
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: extreme Republicans. And regular Republicans who he keeps saying he
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: can work with and is proving it with a lot
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: of these deals and bipartisan legislation.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: My my feeling on it is that I feel like
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: it describes maybe a theory of governing, but doesn't actually
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: describe the way Joe Biden talks about Republicans on the
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: campaign trail, because for the most part, he doesn't say, oh, well,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: there are some good ones. But, oh, but we've got
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: to stop these ones. He makes the case that this
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: is not your father's Republican Party. He says that all
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: the time. We've got to stop these MAGA Republicans, these
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: MAGA extremisms. I suppose there are like.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, but then he talks about how he likes Mitch
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: McConnell and everyone flips the fuck out.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: He does definitely say.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, but I'm just saying the larger case
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: is about we are fighting Republican extremists. And I agree
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: that he does make his sort of paeans to the
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Republicans that he can work with. But for the most part,
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: it's a case that's trying to make the Republican Party
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: the MAGA. We made the whole fucking news cycle about,
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: what was it? mega, mega, mega, mega, mega, mega, mega,
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: mega millions, mega, mega trickle down, right? Mega, mega trickle down.
• 53:24
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: I've had a similar reaction.
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't think you can argue that the
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: MAGA portion of the Republican party is isolated or marginalized.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: Please refer back to our primary conversation we had 30
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: minutes ago, but I do think big picture, this isn't
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: a novel argument that Biden is making. He's saying, look
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: how extreme they are. I'm someone who's reasonable. I can
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: work with them. Look what I did with Kevin McCarthy. Like,
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: you know, That's good. You're trying to find a sliver
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: of Republicans or independents or moderate Republicans to vote for
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: you or stay home. I think that's a smart strategy.
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: I think that's what it's all about.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's partisan news junkies like us don't necessarily
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: see the difference between MAGA Republicans and the rest of
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: the party. And I think we have a point. Most
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Republican politicians supported Donald Trump, supported him after he tried
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: to overturn an election and cite an insurrection, right? But
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: I think Biden wants to give Republicans, Republican-leaning independents, a
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: place to go. And you give them a place to
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: go by saying, hey, there's some Republicans that I'll still
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: work with. If they want to work with me, I
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: can do it. Look, I have this record of bipartisan accomplishment,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to fight like hell to beat the
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: extreme Republicans. And here's what they're planning on doing. So
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: I do think it's a very fine line to walk
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: because I think as we saw in 2020, one of
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: the reasons I think the Republicans did so well in
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: the House races is even as Donald Trump lost, is
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: because Biden in that campaign really said Trump is very
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: different than the Republican Party, and he made Trump very different.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I think in 22, he was more adept at saying
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: that it's actually MAGA Republicans, it's not just Donald Trump,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of the party, and tried to separate
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: MAGA Republicans from regular Republicans. Now, there is a risk
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: that if you're a Republican who voted for the budget deal,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: you can go say, well, I'm not one of the
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: extreme ones he's talking about, and it might help them, right?
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: So there's a risk in that, but I do think
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: giving Republicans and Republican-leaning independents a place to go is
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: why he won in 20 and why Democrats did well
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: in 2022.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: There's another sort of, I think, risk on the nuance
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: of it, which is similar to what he had to
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: do in 2020, but it's slightly different now, which is
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: he has to basically say, these Republicans are dangerous, they
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: are extreme, and together we got a lot done. And
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: there is that, he has to be able to, I
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: think part of his appeal was that he was going
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: to bring the country back together, that he was someone
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: stable and reliable and not a partisan bomb thrower, but
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: he has to also make this case against the far
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: right without losing access to those voters.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: And I think ultimately he's going to be, I'm the
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: only thing standing between extreme Republicans and them taking over
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: the whole country and having their agenda forced on the
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: whole country. So you want me in there. And some
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: competition for the Democratic nomination, anti-vax conspiracy theorist, Robert F.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Jr., who just did a Twitter Spaces event hosted
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: by Elon Musk where he said COVID wasn't a real disease,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: proposed completely sealing the U.S. border with Mexico, called mainstream
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: media organizations propaganda vessels, and said that Elon Musk is, quote,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: a key instrument for rescuing American democracy. Kennedy was also
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: endorsed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey over the weekend and
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: in a recent CNN poll received support from 20 percent
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: of Democratic primary voters. with an additional 44% saying they
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: would consider supporting him. So what the hell's going on
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: with this guy? And how big of a problem do
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: you think RFK Jr. 's candidacy is for Biden and
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: by extension, America?
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: First of all, man, that Kennedy name, what a fucking
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: shadow on like Jesus Christ. It's just a name. It's
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: just the name Kennedy. Why do people like it so much?
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: I don't get it. I don't get you fucking Northeasterners.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: You never see a Kennedy you won't vote for.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: It's called people who don't consume a lot of news.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Name ID.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Name ID. And it's most American voters. And what do
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: they know about politics? They know about Trump. They know
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: about Biden. They know about Obama. They know about Bush.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Who knows about the Kennedys?
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: The Kennedys. I'm in on a Kennedy. I just don't
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: know about the Kennedys. Biden's old and a Kennedy I've.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: Never heard of.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: If you ask people to name five presidents, I bet
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: 90% of them would put John F. Kennedy in there.
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a bad reason to vote for somebody.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: It's my fault.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Welcome to America.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: It's my fault we're talking about this.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is your fault. This sucks.
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: If it makes you feel any better, I listened to
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: most of this Twitter space. It also included that schmuck
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: David Sachs.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: That guy.
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: You love David Sachs. Tulsi Gabbard was on for a while.
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: It was just like a who's who of annoying people.
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: And so what I'm worried about with Robert Kennedy Jr.
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: is not that he's going to beat Biden in a primary,
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: is that he might run as a third party candidate
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: and maybe be able to get on the ballot in places.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: What the path would be there. But he could siphon
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: away votes from Biden if he does. And it seems
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: like that's why people like Steve Bannon are propping him up.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: It might not just be to have him attack Biden
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: in the primary, although that is helpful too. And obviously
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: he gets an audience because he is named Kennedy. But
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: if you listen to him speak, he sprinkles in comments
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: about like what his dad or his father did or
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: said with sort of these interesting bits of history, along
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: with totally made up lies about Conspiracy theories, anti-vax sentiment.
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: He says that the CIA killed JFK and his father.
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: He compared COVID lockdowns to Hitler's Germany. And it sounds
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: like authoritative enough and anti-establishment enough that I think it
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: works and plays well with the kind of Bernier busts
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: like Bitcoin to take down the banks, Joe Rogan, Tulsi
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: Gabbard crowd that love to think that there's a grand
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: conspiracy that's making their life worse.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: And some of the things.
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: He says, you're like, yes, he's like, he criticizes Washington.
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: It's overrun by lobbyists, right? Like there's some things you're like, okay,
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: this guy's got a point here. But then he talks
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: about how he says Zelensky is responsible for the Russian invasion.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: COVID was a bioweapon. So I don't know.
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: It's not, it's worrisome. It's worrisome that he's polling at 20%.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: I don't know what to do with these bad feelings
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: I have, but I feel.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Like we have to take this guy seriously because I
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: don't know. I don't want to be a spoiler in
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: some way.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: Well, I will say there's, there's people that I know,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: people that we know who I'm afraid to ask about
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. because I think they might say, oh, he
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: has a point. So if you're listening and you have
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: people like this in your life, we should give people
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: what he said. It's not just anti-vax. He thinks that
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: a pandemic preparation plan from 2019 was part of a
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: secret CIA plan to enrich drug companies.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: That tabletop exercise on YouTube.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: By the way.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's been for years. Secret plan on YouTube.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: He thinks COVID vaccines killed more people than they saved.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: He has thought long before COVID that vaccines cause autism.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: He called Tucker Carlson breathtakingly courageous. was friends with Roger Ailes.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: How about this one? Thinks John Kerry actually won the
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: 2004 race.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a real twist. Let's hear him out. And again,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: Jack Dorsey is an idiot.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: He's part of the two-headed Hydra that kind of, I
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: guess he's sort of helping run Twitter now, but he's
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: a billionaire, so he could cut a big check to
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: a super PAC that helps RFK Jr.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: And causes a bunch of trouble.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: So just, it's scary. And there is one. Super PAC
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: has already raised 5.7 million for him, so anyone can
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: contribute to that. 20% of the 44% who were considering
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: voting for him said that it was because of his
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: name and his family. So you hope the more information
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: that gets out there, the better he did. Did you
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: guys know he tried to run in Alabama in 2017
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: for the Doug Jones seat?
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: I remember that. I remember that popping up.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: And he lost by 38 points. That's Alabama. And then
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: here's the... I think it's Bannon and all those people.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: I think what they really want is just him embarrassing Biden, right?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: That's probably right.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: And Kennedy is... He's making his big play in New Hampshire, where,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: of course, his family is even more well-known and has
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: done well in the past. And New Hampshire is dead
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: set on still going first, even though the DNC and
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: Biden have decided that South Carolina is going to go first.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: So they're going to penalize, the DNC will penalize candidates
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: who run in New Hampshire. They won't give them the delegates.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: So there's a chance that Biden doesn't file to run
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: in New Hampshire primary because it's against the DNC rules.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: But if New Hampshire holds the contest anyway... And RFK
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: competes and Biden's not competing. And you could have a
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of headlines about RFK Jr. winning the New
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Hampshire primary.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: And I just think you have to remember, we're talking
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: about Arizona. Joe Biden wins by about 10,000 votes. Georgia,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: he won by about 12,000 votes. We could go down
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: a long list here of how close this race will
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: be in key swing states. And if RFK Jr. is
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: able to get a lot of press attention attacking Joe
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: Biden in all these different ways or somehow siphon votes
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: away from him in general, It's a real problem, and
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: Republicans love that.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I really don't know about the ballot access questions for
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: the general, because he is going to have to contend
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: with no-labels candidate Joe Manchin.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: My guy.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Who, by the way, was asked over the weekend if
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: he was going to run as a third party, and
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: just once again, all he said was no labels, is
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: trying to make sure that they have a bipartisan ticket,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: and that's important, and this debt ceiling deal showed that
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: it's not about the extremes, it's about the center. Which,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: by the way, might have been another reason that the
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Biden people wanted to really stake out that ground in
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: the hopeful address because Manchin's hanging out out there.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: But in the RFK thing, it's also just like, there
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: have always been fucking kooks. There have always been fucking rich.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: Lyndon LaRouche types. You know, rich, out of touch, wackadoo
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: people for whom politics is a joke and a game.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: And they've always been around. But man, that we have
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: these people like Jack Dorsey and Elon who have just
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: so much power. just over the conversation and are so
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: fucking cavalier about politics, just so glib about the consequences
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: for actual people that like Jack Dorsey can say that
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: he actually thinks this is a good idea just for,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: I suppose, the fun of it, just for the outrage
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. in the conspiratorial mindset towards government and politics
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: does align with the fucking tech bro view of the universe.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: You talk to these fucking people, And they have such
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: disdain for government and politics. And they think that we
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: should innovate our way out of every problem. And the
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: government is out to get everyone. It does fit that
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk genuinely believe this shit.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it does. But also, Robert Kennedy Jr.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: Spoke at a Bitcoin conference in Miami and name-checked Jack's company.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: There is a conspiratorial worldview that is very.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: Closely tied to like the Joe Rogan, Tulsi Gabbard world
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: that I think this guy speaks right to. And I
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: think he will get on all those shows and get
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: a big audience.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: It just, but it just goes to the, for so
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: many of these people, you know, Rogan types, the, the
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: Dorsey's like politics isn't a means of coming together to
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: figure out how we use our limited resources to solve problems.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: It isn't about budget numbers and Medicare outlays and who
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: gets relief and who doesn't and how much people pay
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: in taxes. It's an aesthetic fucking game show. that they
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: watch from home and they buzz in and they get
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: to play and they like certain competitors and they don't
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: like others. It's a game show to them.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: And by the way, Jack, the tipping point for him
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: seems to be Joe Biden tripping over a sandbag on stage. Therefore,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: he comes out and endorses this crazy anti-vax conspiracy theorist.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: And I also think a big point of contention here
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: is going to be that the Democratic National Committee is
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: not holding Democratic primary debates because RFK Jr. and Marianne
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Williamson aren't serious candidates. And so then You're going to
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of people saying, just hold the debates.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Why are you so afraid to debate? Which is, you know,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: fucking James Van Der Beek. Dawson's Creek fame was out
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: there with a viral video that went all over Fox,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: that was played all over Fox News, like yelling at
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: the DNC for not holding debates.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: Is he anti-vax now? Yes. And the point is, he
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: doesn't want to wait for his life to be over.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: And again, it's like we hear James Van Der Beek
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: and we think, I don't want to wait. But like,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: there's a whole conservative infrastructure.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: He was working on his sentence. There's a whole.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: Conservative infrastructure out there to lift up those comments and
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: mainline them to people who might want to hear them.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: Anyway, we got all the way from Donald Trump to
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden to James Van Der Beek.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: My guy.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: When we come back.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Team Pacey.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Tommy.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: John. Oh, here we go.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: Can we, can we do a quickie?
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: Can you phrase it differently?
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 5: You're disgusting.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: Can we phrase it any other way than that?
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: The segment is called Quickie. Can we do, can we
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: have a Quickie?
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: I don't even know what the right phrase is.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: No, we're going to workshop that. Get to your point.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: Well, I just want to first thank the subscribers who
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: sent me this wonderful piece of content on our community discord.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: Go subscribe at crooked.com slash friends. Please say crooked.com slash friends.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Crooked.com slash friends.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: Last week, Republican Congresswoman, I'm doing this because it's a
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 5: dead-setting thing. It's one more piece of news. Republican Congresswoman
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: Lauren Boebert did not show up for the vote on
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: the budget bill.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: I want to play you two quick clips.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: So good.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: It's a shot and a chaser. Here's the shot. It's
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: Lauren Boebert explaining that she did not show up because
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: she was protesting the bill.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: They served us up a crap sandwich. Call it a
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: no-show protest, but I certainly let every one of my
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: colleagues and the country know I was against this garbage
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: of a bill.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: And here is the chaser. What you're about to see
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 5: is Lauren Boebert sprinting up the steps of the Capitol
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: trying to get the vote in on the night that
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: it happened. And I'm telling her that they closed the vote.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: They just closed it.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: They closed it?
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Hey.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah. What we're watching for everyone at home is her sprinting,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: literally sprinting up the steps of the Capitol, trying to
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: make the vote that she said that she was protesting.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: Well, it's funny to say it's a no-show protest vote.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: The way you protest, you vote no.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: You get to vote on it. She tried to be
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: technically accurate there by saying, call it a no protest vote.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: It wasn't.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: But you can call it that. If you want to
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: call it a no protest vote, I'm fine with that.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: She said this garbage of a bill, which means that
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: was at their best take. I love it. I love
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: just not getting your homework in in time and then
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: saying it's because of climate change. I love it.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: Brutal.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: What do you guys make of Marjorie Taylor Greene and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: Lauren Boebert both dropping at the same time and the
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: kind of different trajectories that they've taken?
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: Marge is Kevin's bud. They're going separate ways. She's now establishment.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: Serious Marge.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: But did you see that Steve Bannon is trying to
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: lead an effort to get a primary candidate against her?
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: Against Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and she was like texting Matt Gaetz about it.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she texted Matt Gaetz a rejoinder and somehow that
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: ended up in the news.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: She's like, tell Steve if he picks this fight, I'll
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: take the house and the kids.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: But for a while.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: You can send this text to him.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: Marjorie was like, she was basically a co-host on the
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: War Room podcast with Steve Bannon for a long time.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: You hate to see it.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: Big break.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: It's too bad. Anyway, I don't know how we got
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: to Marjorie Taylor Greene, but you know, Lauren Boebert.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: They don't like each other. It's the narcissism of small differences.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: They got in a fight in the bathroom. They fought
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: each other. Those are the days. Just like arguments with
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: their words.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Anyway, thank you, Elijah. Thank you for that quickie.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 5: Anytime.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: When we come back, Tommy talks to Washington Post reporter
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: Ben Terrace about his new book, The Big Break.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: Ben Terrace is a reporter for The Washington Post. He
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: is the author of the new book, The Big Break,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: which is available today.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: I've already read it.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: Spoiler alert. It's great.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: Ben, welcome to the show.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 8: Thanks so much for having me.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for doing this. And thanks for sending
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: me a PDF of the book. although I also paid
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: for one.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: So we'll be arriving in my Kindle shortly. It's a
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: great book. It's a very fun page turning quick read.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: So I highly recommend folks read it if you want
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: to learn about some of the more interesting characters in Washington.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: Is that a fair sort of summary of who you
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: like to focus on?
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I'd say so. I tried to find the most
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 8: interesting people who actually were also either important or influential or,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 8: you know, said something more about kind of the current
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 8: state of politics.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think that sort of characterizes a lot
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: of your reporting in the post too. It's like coverage
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: of these entertaining characters in politics and then using them
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: to tell a bigger story about the city, the industry
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: around politics, which I think is a great.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: Way to do it.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: So I was hoping we could start with one of
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: the folks in the book that really interested in me,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: a guy named Robert Strick. Can you tell us who
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: he is and what his job was?
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 8: Robert Strick is definitely one of the more interesting people
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 8: in this book, which I have to say is full
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 8: of interesting people. I honestly believe that, but he is
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 8: truly a unique character. He's a longtime lobbyist who was
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 8: never really successful until Donald Trump came around and then
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 8: was just one of the most wildly successful financially one
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 8: of the most wildly successful lobbyists in all of Washington.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 8: This kind of cowboy, swaggery, libertarian, Trump-loving, but also Trump-skeptical
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 8: in some ways guy who lived out on a farm
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 8: in Middleburg, Virginia that he called Alibi Farm. And he
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 8: was this guy who just really could not make it
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 8: work until Donald Trump came around, and he just found
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 8: a way to take advantage of the chaos and become
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 8: a power player in Washington. And I was interested in him,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 8: not just because he made it work in Washington. When
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 8: Trump was around, I wanted to know what happened to
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 8: this guy after Trump was gone, right? It's one thing
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 8: for a guy to come in when the door is
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 8: open to him to take advantage of this really chaotic moment.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 8: But what happens when Washington reverts a little bit back
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 8: to normal? Once Joe Biden comes in, once the kind
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 8: of usual suspects return, what happens to a chaotic character
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 8: like him?
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: And he seemed sort of seemed like the ultimate example
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: of fake it till you make it, right? I mean,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: he didn't seem like an individual who was particularly that
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: well connected within the Trump orbit. But basically, he bluffed
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: his way into some of the biggest lobbying contracts you
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 4: could imagine with foreign countries, right?
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 8: So his story, his origin story in the Trump years
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 8: is fascinating. He was a very low level kind of
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 8: guy out in Oregon helping out for Donald Trump. got
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 8: connected to some people who ended up being big players
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 8: in the Trump world. But he got big. He had
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 8: his big break, which is the name of the book.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 8: The book is called The Big Break because the country
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 8: went through a big break, but also because all these
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 8: new people have the opportunity to kind of seek out
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 8: big breaks of their own. And his came in a
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 8: really strange fashion. He came to Washington right after Trump won. Well,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 8: he's around for the election night. He was there and
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 8: continued to be there after he won, kind of partied
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 8: for four nights, drinking an endless amount of whiskey with
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 8: his friends and smoking cigars. And one night he was
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 8: out at the Four Seasons in Georgetown outside on the
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 8: patio smoking cigars and drinking when a dog came and
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 8: sniffed his crotch and he kind of pushes this dog away.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 8: He's like, what the heck's going on here? And a
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 8: woman comes and she apologizes and he notices that she
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 8: has an accent but can't quite place it. Turns out
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 8: she works for the New Zealand embassy. And she's having
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 8: a tough time connecting her country with Donald Trump. I mean,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 8: when Trump became president, all these countries had to scramble
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 8: to figure out what to do. They were all kind
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 8: of expecting it would be Hillary Clinton. He's sitting there
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 8: and he says, oh, you want to get connected to
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 8: Donald Trump? I can do that. He did not know
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 8: in that moment if he could really do it or not.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 8: But he had enough of a chance and decided he
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 8: was going to take a gamble on this. And he
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 8: was able to do it. He helped connect New Zealand-
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 8: to Donald Trump and uses that as a jumping off
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 8: point to just work for all these countries, many of
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 8: which were kind of controversial countries looking for, you know,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 8: a leg up in Trump's Washington.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 4: And so, yeah, I mean, and these are like massive contracts, right?
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, you're talking like $ 100, 000 a month as sort
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: of a starter if you're lobbying for, I don't know,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: name some of these unsavory characters that were in the book.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 8: Well, one place that he got a huge contract for
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 8: was for like $ 5 million for Saudi Arabia. And he
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 8: didn't even end up doing anything for them. They saw
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 8: an opportunity. There were not a lot of people who
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 8: could say, look, we're connected to Donald Trump. He was
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 8: saying it. They gave him this huge contract and ultimately
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 8: didn't even ask anything from him. I mean, there's so
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 8: much money out there in foreign contracts because to a country,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 8: $ 5 million is nothing, right? But if you can use
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 8: it to... I don't know, get yourself off of potential
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 8: sanctions lists, or if you can use it to, you know,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 8: bend the ear of someone in the State Department, just
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 8: the chance of that is worth so much more than
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 8: a few million dollars. It could be worth billions of dollars.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 8: And so, you know, people could throw around money and
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 8: he could collect.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: Five million dollars to do nothing. Must be nice.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: Another person you spend a lot of time with in
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: the book is a guy named Matt Schlapp. I find
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: him to be one of the more craven, disgusting, phony
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: people in Washington. Just a quick summary for listeners who
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: don't know Mr.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: Schlapp.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: He's a lobbyist who is the chairman of the American
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 4: Conservative Union, which organizes the CPAC conference. CPAC used to
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: be this kind of fringe political circus. It is now
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: basically kind of like the heart of the MAGA movement.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 4: And it's spreading that brand of politics to other right
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 4: wing populist countries and leaders. Nat was also accused of
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 4: sexual assaulting someone on Herschel Walker's campaign. Can you talk
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: about why you wanted to include Nat in the book
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: and like a little bit about his evolution from sort
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 4: of a Bush guy who, you know, worked in the
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: Bush White House and was kind of a standard Republican to,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: I don't know, the leader of the MAGA movement?
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 8: I mean, so I set out to write this book because, um,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 8: A lot of people, pretty much everyone can tell that
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 8: Washington is broken, right? But it's hard to know exactly
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 8: how it got that way. I have this kind of
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 8: great job, sometimes a terrible job, but a great job
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 8: in that I can spend my days trying to figure
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 8: out answers to that question. I can talk to people.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 8: I can get inside rooms that most people can't get into.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 8: I can spend tons of time researching them and talking
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 8: to everyone who knows them. And I wanted to know
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 8: kind of how the Republican Party became what it is today,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 8: how it went from the GOP of 20 years ago
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 8: or even 10 years ago, how it turned into a
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 8: party that just cares about Donald Trump and loyalty to him.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 8: And I felt like it's hard to write about an
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 8: entire party. But as a profile writer, I could spend
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 8: time with Matt Schlapp, who is a very good example
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 8: of this, maybe the best example of a Washington Republican
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 8: who went from the establishment to Donald Trump And I
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 8: felt like if I could kind of get to know him,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 8: his motivations, the way that he spun his story, the
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 8: way that he explained how he could be a compassionate
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 8: conservative one day under George Bush and be a fighter,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 8: a loyalist for Donald Trump, talking about stolen elections and
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 8: going to bat for Trump from everything, from defending him
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 8: when he was accused of sexual assault to, you know,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 8: you name the thing that Donald Trump has done, Matt
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 8: Schlapp has defended it. And spending time with him was
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 8: a very, it was, it was difficult to do right.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 8: To spend time with, with any political person for that
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 8: much time and to be writing about them and thinking
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 8: about them. But it did give me kind of a
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 8: good insight to how the party could move from one,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 8: from one place to another.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: Did you ever get a sense of why he would
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: agree to talk with you? Did he just think that
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: getting more coverage would help his business? I mean, this
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: is obviously someone who had a lot to hide.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: We've come to learn.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 8: Um, I don't know exactly why people talk to me sometimes.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 8: I'm glad they do. I think the reason is because
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 8: I am fair. I spend a lot of time trying
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 8: to get to know people and understand their motivations and
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 8: give their worldview at least some time to breathe. But
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 8: I'm also fair in that I'm going to write what's true.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 8: And so if Matt Schlapp comes across as somebody who
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 8: gave up a lot of his values for Donald Trump,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 8: If I write about the fact that he has been
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 8: accused of groping a male staffer and did that while
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 8: also kind of disparaging gay people and making jokes about
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 8: gay people to me, like I will put that in
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 8: the book because I'm trying to tell the full picture
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 8: of somebody. And so he might not like the, you know,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 8: the way that he's portrayed in the book, but at the,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 8: at the beginning of it, you know, I told him
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 8: I would be fair. And at the end of it,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 8: I do think I'm fair. It just doesn't necessarily mean that, um,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 8: everybody I write about loves the story at the end
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 8: of the process.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 4: So I lived on and off in DC from 2002
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: to about 2015. I think that I'm, you know, fairly cynical.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty hard on the city when I talk about it.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: I came away from reading your book with an even darker,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: more cynical take on Washington.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: And I'm wondering, you.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 4: Know, if that takeaway is accurate, if you really do
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: have an incredibly dark and cynical view of Washington, and
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: if you think DC was always that way, or if
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 4: you think it has gotten worse over the last few years.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: And I should mention that you didn't just profile Republicans
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 4: in the Trump era. There are a bunch of Democrats
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 4: in here too.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 8: You know, I think you started off by talking about
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 8: how you thought this book was a fun read. And
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 8: I thank you for that. And I agree. I hope
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 8: that's true. And so I think when people read this book, like,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 8: it can be a romp. It can be funny. It
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 8: can be an adventure. But yeah, there is a real
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 8: darkness to it, right? These are dark times. The country
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 8: is not in a great place. And Washington is not
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 8: necessarily up for the challenge in a lot of ways.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 8: And so there are characters throughout this book, and there's
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 8: lots of different characters who are all trying to make
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 8: this kind of new frontier work, sometimes just for them,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 8: sometimes just for their own benefit, sometimes, though, to try
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 8: to make the world a better place. And so while
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 8: I do not have, like, the most positive view of
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 8: Washington as a whole, there are lots of parts of
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 8: it that do give me a lot of hope, and
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 8: I think that's in the book as well. And sometimes
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 8: you find that in dark places, right? I spend a
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 8: lot of time... in this book with Hill staffers, some underappreciated, underpaid,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 8: undercovered staffers who are often voiceless in Washington, the people
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 8: who kind of really make the city work. Some of
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 8: them are going through terrible times. I spent time with
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 8: a former Dianne Feinstein staffer who makes a splash in
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 8: this book by taking a bunch of mushrooms after he's fired,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 8: breaking into his boss's office, smoking a joint at her
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 8: desk and filming a protest video to try to get
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 8: attention for the things that he's seen, right? Like that's
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 8: not a happy story. It's interesting, but it's not happy.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: Definitely interesting.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 8: But underneath that, it helped me kind of get to
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 8: know a whole world of people who are desperately trying
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 8: to do good work. People talk about Washington as just
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 8: filled with cynics and people who are desperate for power.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 8: And there are a lot of those, but more people
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 8: come to Washington to try to do good stuff. And
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 8: that hasn't changed Even after Trump, in some ways, I
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 8: feel like more and more people are coming because it
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 8: feels more important than ever. And so I think even
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 8: if you read this book and see a lot of darkness,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 8: there are glimmers of hope in there, too.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, I worked on Capitol Hill for a while.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 4: I don't want to dissuade anyone from working in government
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: or working in politics generally, but they can be really
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 4: tough jobs.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: You are underpaid. You are overworked.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: The work itself doesn't always feel all that gratifying, especially.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: When you're younger at a lower level.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 4: But like my overall take on Washington having worked in
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 4: the White House or sort of the duration of my
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 4: time there was most of the city was kind of
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 4: really well-meaning, earnest people that are a little nerdy in
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 4: a good way and focused on making the world a
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: better place. Do you think the Trump era changed that
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: makeup to include more people like Robert Strick, the first
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 4: guy we talked about, who sort of used his little
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 4: bit of access into administration to make a ton of
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: money by lobbying for unsavory people?
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 8: I mean, I do think more people come to Washington
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 8: because they're idealistic than come to make money. I just think, look,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 8: if you really want to be rich, you go to
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 8: Wall Street. If you really want to be famous, you
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 8: can go to Hollywood. I don't think it's the number
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 8: one place to come for that. I do think more
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 8: people than usual... have come to Washington since Donald Trump
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 8: and during the Trump era is because of that, because
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 8: all of a sudden the door is open to more people.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 8: Like the way I think about this is I've always
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 8: liked to write about kind of sideshow characters because I
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 8: find them interesting. I often think sideshow characters do a
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 8: very good job of kind of explaining the world that
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 8: you can read a profile of somebody who seems kind
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 8: of strange and weird. And at the end of it,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 8: you understand the world better. but now these sideshow characters
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 8: realize they can be on the center stage. I mean,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 8: that's what happens in the Donald Trump years. Like you
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 8: can all of a sudden become a power player, even
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 8: if in any other era you could not. But I
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 8: still think there are more people that come here to
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 8: just do good work. And it can be, you know,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 8: that doesn't mean that everybody stays in Washington as an idealist.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 8: Washington can change people. You can come here idealistic and
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 8: leave cynical and You can come to try to change
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 8: the world and then realize it's actually easier to just
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 8: make money. So, you know, again, there's a lot of
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 8: cynicism in Washington and I'm as jaded as the next guy. But,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 8: you know, I do think that when people saw what
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 8: Donald Trump was doing to politics, a lot of idealistic
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 8: people said, well, I'm needed more than ever to go and,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 8: you know, fight the good fight.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, I do think that maybe the differences between
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: when I started and what the Trump era is there,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 4: like there's obviously been lots of people that went to
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: Washington and did brand building and left. I mean, I
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: am one of them. Let's just be clear about that.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: But it was more like George Stephanopoulos worked at the
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 4: White House. He was the communications director and then he
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 4: left and got a job at ABC News or whatever.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: Now there is like a brand building on steroids with
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: social media. And you have a guy like Boris Epstein,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 4: who is, you know, some like tier D surrogate in
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: the Trump campaign. I think he did like surrogate scheduling
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: in the White House, got pushed out. And now he's
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: like Trump's legal consigliere, seemingly running point on all the
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: cases defending him against the very special counsel investigation. So
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: maybe that's the thing that has changed over time. It's
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: this ability to like have your star turn, do it
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 4: very quickly on your own terms on social media, and
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 4: then leverage that into something financially.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, institutions in Washington have
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 8: changed and a lot of them have crumbled. It used
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 8: to be you'd have to work your way up through institutions,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 8: but now people are making their own.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe Brookings isn't the shortcut it used to be.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 4: One thing you didn't talk about a lot in the
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 4: book is the mainstream media and how mainstream media.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: Institutions and organizations are doing at this time.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 4: You do talk about the role of social media, especially
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 4: on Capitol Hill, and some sort of new media outlets
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 4: that are trying to tell the stories of communities that
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 4: have been marginalized in those jobs or on Capitol Hill generally.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: But how do you feel like the mainstream media is
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: doing to kind of, I don't know, keep tabs on
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 4: some of the self-dealing and that we were just talking
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 4: about at the top?
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 8: Look, I mean, I think some of the best journalism
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 8: in the world is still being done today. You know,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 8: if you look at, you know, the best work that's
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 8: out there, it's amazing. People are just doing incredible work and,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 8: you know, they're speaking truth to power. I'll also admit
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 8: that it's a struggling industry right now, both financially, but
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 8: also with how to do the job as a whole.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 8: And so I think while some places are knocking it
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 8: out of the park, it's just hard to keep up
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 8: and The book is about a Washington that is not
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 8: fully prepared for the possible return of Donald Trump, right?
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 8: It's not like once Trump was gone, all these guardrails
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 8: went up and everybody prepared for the second coming of
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 8: Trump or someone like him. And I think the same
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 8: is true in the media. I think a lot of
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 8: television media, a lot of places that are struggling financially
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 8: are making the same mistakes that they made the first
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 8: time around and need to learn some lessons.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agreed with that.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, speaking of learning lessons, so this is
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: not in the book, but this is part of your
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 4: Washington Post profile writing. You wrote this piece a few
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 4: weeks ago about a guy named Morgan Murphy, who was
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 4: Senator Tommy Tuberville's military aide. He ended up resigning or
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 4: getting pushed out after your story ran. Can you tell
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 4: us a little bit about Morgan Murphy and what got
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 4: him into trouble?
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 8: Morgan is the kind of person that would have fit
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 8: very well into this book, honestly. He's a kind of
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 8: character who in another era would not have been at
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 8: the center of American policymaking necessarily, but was up until
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 8: last week in that role. He was Tommy Tuberville's national
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 8: security advisor, but he had this kind of crazy backstory
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 8: and he worked for Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair. He
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 8: became an adventure writer for Forbes magazine. He wrote books
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 8: about eating his way through the South If you looked
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 8: him up on Wikipedia, it didn't say Morgan Murphy, National
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 8: Security Advisor. It said Morgan Murphy, food critic. And this
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 8: food critic was at the center of a big kerfuffle
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 8: happening in Washington right now. Tommy Tuberville was pretty much
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 8: single-handedly holding up nominations for Pentagon positions that are crucial
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 8: to American safety. He's doing so because he's trying to
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 8: fight against a Department of Defense organization abortion policy. And
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 8: Morgan Murphy was a key advisor helping Tuberville kind of
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 8: figure this out. I wrote about him because it felt
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 8: to me like, here's an example of a guy who
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 8: wouldn't be in Washington if not for Trump. The only
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 8: reason he got here was because he's a captain in
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 8: the Naval Reserves. And during the Trump years, he ended
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 8: up working at the Pentagon. And because there was kind
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 8: of a void in communication leadership, he rose very quickly
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 8: to become a traveling press secretary, the traveling press secretary
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 8: for the Pentagon. So all of a sudden, this guy
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 8: who is a food critic is now speaking on behalf
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 8: of the American military and then ends up working for
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 8: a former football coach who's now a senator who is
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 8: single-handedly blocking Pentagon from doing its job. That to me
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 8: is like, oh, things are different in Washington and here's
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 8: a character that represents that.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, things are different in Washington.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: And just to sort of like double stamp what Tuberville
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 4: is doing, he's got a hold on all U.S. Department
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 4: of Defense officials general and flag officer promotions because the
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: Department of Defense will give pay time off and travel
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 4: funding for service members and dependents seeking abortion services if
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: they live in states where those services are now illegal.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: So Tuberville is holding up hundreds of promotions. The Department
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: of Defense says there are about 650 officers covered by
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: this blanket hold, sort of like a one to four
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 4: star general.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: It's so.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: Aggressive that Mitch McConnell opposes this idea. But what do
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 4: we make of the fact that holding up hundreds of
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 4: promotions for members of the military who have no part
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 4: of this policy that Tuberville says he opposes, that doesn't
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 4: get you in trouble? But Morgan Murphy taking credit for
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 4: the policy and taking some of that credit away from
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 4: Tavi Tuberville, that gets you fired.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 8: I mean, you know, it's one of those things where
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 8: Washington has changed in a lot of ways since Donald Trump,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 8: but in some ways it remains the same. And, you know,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 8: one way that it remains the same is if you're
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 8: a principal, if you're a member of Congress, if you
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 8: are an elected official, you like to be the person
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 8: that gets all the credit or all the blame. uh, for,
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 8: you know, for policies that come out of your office.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 8: And if somebody steps out in front of you and
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 8: makes it look like they're, you know, maybe, uh, pulling
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 8: the strings, it's, uh, it's not a good look.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: Don't get in the boss's way.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: Uh, Ben, thank you for doing the show. The book
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 3: again is the big break.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 4: It is available now. It's a great read, uh, buy it,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 4: take it to the beach with you. Uh, you'll learn
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 4: a lot about Washington, but don't let it make you
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 4: too cynical. Cause there's some good stuff too that you
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 4: can do, uh, if you want to work there, but
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 4: I really appreciate you doing the show.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 8: Thanks so much for having me.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Ben Terrace for joining us today, and we'll
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: talk to you again on Thursday. Pod Save America is
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Andy Gardner-Bernstein and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman, Ben Hefcoat, and David Tolles.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: Subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube to catch full episodes,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: exclusive content, and other community events. Find us at YouTube.com
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: slash at Pod Save America. We're all tired of the
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: both sides media.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: Hate it.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: And in this existential battle, we find ourselves not with
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: the both sides media, but in between authoritarianism and democracy.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: We need media that actually defends democracy unapologetically. That's why
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: you should check out the Midas Touch podcast.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 2: Good as gold.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: Hosted by three brothers with diverse backgrounds. The Midas Touch
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: podcast releases daily and is a great source for news
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: and commentary. See why our very own Dan Pfeiffer called
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: Midas Touch's unique approach to covering the news a quote
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: sign of hope in his latest book. And subscribe to
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: the Midas Touch podcast today. How about that? We're quoting
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: Dan Pfeiffer books here.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: That's N-E-I-D-A-S-T-O-U-C-H. Know both sides. Just the truth. Endorsed by
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: Dan Pfeiffer. Unapologetically pro-democracy. Tune in for new episodes daily
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.