Latest / Pod Save America / Protests Rain on Trump's Parade
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- 1:04Speaker 1: no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm
- 1:28Speaker 1: Jon Favreau.
- 1:29Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
- 1:29Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
- 1:30Speaker 1: On today's show, we'll talk about the deranged right-wing reaction
- 1:33Speaker 1: to the political assassinations in Minnesota, the gigantic No Kings protests,
- 1:38Speaker 1: and Trump's not-so-gigantic military parade. The president directing ICE to
- 1:42Speaker 1: focus their raids on blue cities, and the latest grift
- 1:45Speaker 1: from the first family, a shitty gold phone that's probably
- 1:48Speaker 1: made in China. Then later you'll hear my interview with
- 1:51Speaker 1: Maryland Governor Wes Moore about his reaction to the latest news,
- 1:54Speaker 1: the Democratic Party's future, and his own. But let's start
- 1:58Speaker 1: with Israel's preemptive war against Iran, a war that Bibi
- 2:01Speaker 1: Netanyahu very much wants America to join, and Trump says, quote,
- 2:05Speaker 1: it's possible that we get more involved. Israel's surprise attack
- 2:09Speaker 1: has not only targeted Iran's nuclear infrastructure, but the regime itself.
- 2:13Speaker 1: Missile and drone attacks have so far left more than
- 2:15Speaker 1: 200 Iranians dead, including at least nine nuclear scientists, the
- 2:19Speaker 1: chief of staff of Iran's military, and the head of
- 2:21Speaker 1: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranian retaliatory strikes have so
- 2:26Speaker 1: far killed more than 20 Israelis. The U.S. military has
- 2:29Speaker 1: participated in trying to shoot down Iranian missiles. And we're
- 2:32Speaker 1: moving a second carrier group to the area. But that's
- 2:35Speaker 1: all we know so far about our involvement. It's also
- 2:38Speaker 1: been reported that Trump refused to give Israel permission to
- 2:41Speaker 1: assassinate Iran's supreme leader over the weekend. Nuclear talks between
- 2:45Speaker 1: Iran and the U.S. were called off on Sunday. Can't
- 2:48Speaker 1: imagine why. But Iran is now reportedly signaling through intermediaries
- 2:52Speaker 1: that it wants to ramp down the conflict and resume
- 2:55Speaker 1: negotiations with the U.S. if the U.S. will agree to
- 2:58Speaker 1: stay out of the conflict. And that's the major fault
- 3:01Speaker 1: line here. You have some Crusty Newt Gingrich Bush-era neocon
- 3:05Speaker 1: types saying we need to push for regime change, while
- 3:08Speaker 1: the isolationist MAGA crowd says we should stay the hell
- 3:11Speaker 1: away from yet another war in the Middle East. Trump
- 3:15Speaker 1: took a question about this at the G7 in Canada
- 3:17Speaker 1: on Monday. Here's what he said.
- 3:18Speaker 3: What have you heard?
- 3:19Speaker 4: What have you heard from the Iranians?
- 3:21Speaker 5: They'd like to talk, but they should have done that before.
- 3:25Speaker 5: I had 60 days and they had 60 days.
- 3:27Speaker 3: And on the 61st day, I said, we don't have
- 3:30Speaker 3: a deal.
- 3:31Speaker 4: They have to make a deal.
- 3:32Speaker 5: And it's painful for both parties, but I'd say Iran
- 3:36Speaker 5: is not winning this war, and they should talk, and
- 3:40Speaker 5: they should talk immediately before it's too late.
- 3:44Speaker 1: A new war on Trump's watch. I thought we were
- 3:47Speaker 1: supposed to have no more wars.
- 3:49Speaker 3: Well, yeah, they never would have happened if he was
- 3:50Speaker 3: president when it comes to October 7th or the Russian
- 3:54Speaker 3: invasion of Ukraine.
- 3:55Speaker 1: Yeah, and now, I guess, Iran and Israel. Tommy, can
- 3:58Speaker 1: you walk us through the Intramaga debate on this?
- 4:00Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. So you got it right there, the crusty neocons.
- 4:05Speaker 3: John Bolton, Trump's former national security advisor, is one of them.
- 4:08Speaker 3: Fox News guys like Mark Levin, a radio host. They
- 4:11Speaker 3: want the US to get directly involved in offensive military operations.
- 4:14Speaker 3: I say offensive military operations because we're helping with defense.
- 4:17Speaker 3: We're shooting down missiles. And the reason that's important, though,
- 4:21Speaker 3: is because most of the most important Iranian nuclear infrastructure
- 4:26Speaker 3: is buried deep underground or to the side of a mountain.
- 4:29Speaker 3: And the conventional wisdom is that to take out that
- 4:32Speaker 3: infrastructure like at Fordow, you need a weapon called the MOP,
- 4:36Speaker 3: the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. It's like a 30,000-pound bomb that
- 4:41Speaker 3: only U.S. planes can carry because it's so big. The
- 4:44Speaker 3: B-2 self-bomber is the only thing that can drop it,
- 4:46Speaker 3: like the Israeli Air Force's mostly fighter jets. So that's
- 4:50Speaker 3: why those neocons want the U.S. to get involved. The
- 4:53Speaker 3: folks they're fighting against are like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon,
- 4:56Speaker 3: Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I think on the merits– Our
- 4:58Speaker 3: best friends. I mean, on the merits and on the politics,
- 5:01Speaker 3: like I'm team Tucker, Steve, MTG here, fellas. So on
- 5:07Speaker 3: the merits, I think they have correctly identified, and they
- 5:11Speaker 3: did so before this week, that this wasn't really just
- 5:14Speaker 3: about weapons of mass destruction. This was a regime change war,
- 5:17Speaker 3: which has been confirmed by all these reports that Trump
- 5:20Speaker 3: is vetoing plans to kill the Iranian Supreme Leader. So
- 5:22Speaker 3: check for Tucker there. And then on the politics, I
- 5:26Speaker 3: just think that like Tucker and Bannon and MTG are
- 5:28Speaker 3: way more in tune with, with the MAGA base than
- 5:31Speaker 3: like the gang at National Review. And no one wants
- 5:34Speaker 3: another war in the Middle East. And no one is
- 5:37Speaker 3: going to believe another intelligence-based, trust me, worthy experts pitch
- 5:43Speaker 3: about why we need to go decapitate the leaders of
- 5:46Speaker 3: another Middle Eastern country.
- 5:49Speaker 2: Yeah, there was reports today that Trump has been sending
- 5:52Speaker 2: signals to get to the Iranians that, hey, as long
- 5:56Speaker 2: as you do not harm U.S. service members, we are
- 5:59Speaker 2: not going to get more involved. It doesn't mean they're
- 6:01Speaker 2: kind of getting that to Iran to keep them from
- 6:03Speaker 2: bombing U.S. bases or to go after U.S. ships. It
- 6:06Speaker 2: seems like Trump gets the politics of not wanting to
- 6:09Speaker 2: be dragged into this, but it's also, you know, first
- 6:14Speaker 2: of all, it's not clear what they're posturing versus what
- 6:18Speaker 2: they're actually planning to do versus what he's saying in
- 6:21Speaker 2: hindsight to justify what Israel did after the discussions last week.
- 6:24Speaker 2: It's just very hard to understand what's really going on.
- 6:27Speaker 1: I feel like we have, you know, this started saying, OK,
- 6:32Speaker 1: the Iranians were so, so close to getting a nuclear weapon.
- 6:35Speaker 1: It could have been any day. So really, this is
- 6:36Speaker 1: a preemptive strike to protect Israel from them getting a
- 6:40Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. And it was like, well, maybe they're like
- 6:42Speaker 1: a couple months away, but, you know, they had they
- 6:44Speaker 1: were going to get nuclear weapons. So whatever. And now
- 6:47Speaker 1: Netanyahu said in an interview with John Carl on Monday
- 6:49Speaker 1: that killing the supreme leader would, quote, end the conflict,
- 6:53Speaker 1: not escalate it.
- 6:54Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
- 6:55Speaker 1: Is regime change now an acceptable justification for preemptive war?
- 7:00Speaker 1: Because I thought we had this international community, international law,
- 7:03Speaker 1: we've got the United Nations, and I wasn't aware that
- 7:07Speaker 1: if you think a regime may get nuclear weapons at
- 7:10Speaker 1: some point, you can actually eliminate the entire regime.
- 7:13Speaker 3: Yeah, you just go bomb them. I will say, also,
- 7:14Speaker 3: the timeline for how quickly Iran could get a nuclear
- 7:18Speaker 3: weapon has been kind of jumping around when it comes
- 7:21Speaker 3: out of Netanyahu's mouth. I mean, the Trump administration's timeline,
- 7:24Speaker 3: as articulated by Tulsi Gabbard was that it would take
- 7:27Speaker 3: a year for Iran to get a nuclear weapon. There's
- 7:29Speaker 3: a bunch of different phases of this. There's the enrichment
- 7:30Speaker 3: phase where you have to enrich enough uranium to get
- 7:33Speaker 3: it to weapons grade, and then you weaponize it, and
- 7:35Speaker 3: then you need a delivery mechanism. So it's a little
- 7:37Speaker 3: bit technical and wonky, but I don't think this was
- 7:40Speaker 3: like a this weekend problem. You know what I mean?
- 7:42Speaker 2: Yeah, it's, yes. Like how close they are to it
- 7:47Speaker 2: versus what is the actual rationale for doing this when
- 7:50Speaker 2: Netanyahu says often, Their goal is to talk while continuing
- 7:55Speaker 2: to develop their program no matter what. So is this
- 7:57Speaker 2: because they were imminently on the break of getting a
- 7:59Speaker 2: nuclear weapon or is it because they saw an opportunity
- 8:01Speaker 2: to degrade Iran's capability and took it and are using
- 8:07Speaker 2: ad hoc justifications after the fact?
- 8:09Speaker 3: Yeah, but to your point, I mean, like the idea
- 8:11Speaker 3: that killing the Supreme Leader changes everything or like fixes
- 8:14Speaker 3: the problem is crazy. There's not some pro-Western, pro-Israel opposition
- 8:19Speaker 3: group sitting in Iran saying, waiting to march towards Tehran
- 8:22Speaker 3: and announce their commitment to democracy and pluralism. Like that's
- 8:25Speaker 3: just not what's going to happen here. You kill the
- 8:26Speaker 3: Supreme leader, guess what happens? They replace the Supreme leader.
- 8:29Speaker 3: And that replacement decision is made by a bunch of
- 8:32Speaker 3: hardline clerics and IRGC and the political elites. And you
- 8:36Speaker 3: get someone who is basically the same, or maybe the
- 8:39Speaker 3: IRGC stages a coup and they take power. And I
- 8:43Speaker 3: think recent history suggests that the guys with the guns
- 8:47Speaker 3: end up in charge. And so that's why Tucker was
- 8:49Speaker 3: saying on his show, or Tucker wrote this like kind
- 8:51Speaker 3: of op-ed length screed on Twitter where he said, so
- 8:55Speaker 3: why is Mark Levin once again hyperventilating about weapons of
- 8:57Speaker 3: mass destruction? To distract you from the real goal, which
- 8:59Speaker 3: is regime change. Young Americans heading back to the Middle
- 9:02Speaker 3: East to topple yet another government. He also said that
- 9:04Speaker 3: a war with Iran would amount to a profound betrayal
- 9:07Speaker 3: of Trump supporters. It would end his presidency. I really
- 9:09Speaker 3: think like Tucker's making some good points here.
- 9:13Speaker 1: I noticed someone. retweeting a video of Bibi Netanyahu in
- 9:19Speaker 1: 2002 telling America, quote, if you take out Saddam, I
- 9:22Speaker 1: guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on
- 9:25Speaker 1: the region. Do we think that a new regime in
- 9:28Speaker 1: Iran will have enormous positive reverberations on the region?
- 9:32Speaker 3: Worked great in Iraq, worked great in Libya. What could
- 9:34Speaker 3: possibly go wrong? It's really worth looking up Netanyahu's testimony
- 9:39Speaker 3: before Congress where he was advocating for the invasion of Iraq.
- 9:43Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's what that was.
- 9:44Speaker 3: He could not have been more wrong.
- 9:46Speaker 2: What's also just sort of confusing is, okay, the rationale
- 9:52Speaker 2: is based around degrading the nuclear capability. Then why are
- 9:56Speaker 2: you going after state television? Now, you can make an argument,
- 10:00Speaker 2: I'm sure they would, that that's a mouthpiece for a dictatorial, murderous,
- 10:05Speaker 2: terrorist regime. But it's not a means to degrade their
- 10:07Speaker 2: nuclear capability. Because on the other side of it, it's, oh,
- 10:13Speaker 2: this stops the second they stop having a nuclear program.
- 10:16Speaker 2: But that has nothing to do with having a nuclear program.
- 10:19Speaker 1: I mean, is there an example in the Middle East
- 10:21Speaker 1: in recent history of a nation where... It's coming from this.
- 10:25Speaker 1: Of a nation where there was an oppressive regime, like
- 10:28Speaker 1: there is in Iran, and the regime fell. It was
- 10:31Speaker 1: either ousted or fell on its own, like, you know, Assad.
- 10:34Speaker 1: And it was replaced by some stable government.
- 10:38Speaker 3: I mean, the only example right now could possibly be
- 10:41Speaker 3: Syria with the guys who just took over, former ISIS...
- 10:45Speaker 3: Al Qaeda guys, but time will tell. A little too
- 10:47Speaker 3: early to- Time will tell. But it's really been fascinating,
- 10:49Speaker 3: not only watching the Intramaga debate, but also the attempts
- 10:53Speaker 3: by the White House to spin it both ways. You
- 10:55Speaker 3: know what I mean? It was Trump sincerely trying to
- 10:59Speaker 3: have Steve Witkoff do these talks with the Iranians and
- 11:02Speaker 3: cut a nuclear deal, or was this whole thing subterfuged
- 11:05Speaker 3: the whole time and it was all in bad faith?
- 11:07Speaker 3: Either way, if you're Iran, what is going to bring
- 11:10Speaker 3: you to the table now? that Donald Trump was too
- 11:13Speaker 3: weak to control Netanyahu and prevent him from bombing you,
- 11:16Speaker 3: or that he was lying to you all along and
- 11:18Speaker 3: the talks were a ruse to somehow facilitate this Israeli
- 11:21Speaker 3: bombing campaign.
- 11:22Speaker 2: Yeah. And then on Trump's domestic politics, right? He wants
- 11:25Speaker 2: to be on the side of the Tom Cottons of
- 11:28Speaker 2: the world who are all cheering Israel on. He wants
- 11:30Speaker 2: to be seen as the ally Israel needs to those
- 11:32Speaker 2: kind of pro-war, pro-Israel hawks, while at the same time
- 11:36Speaker 2: signaling that he doesn't want to be more involved, that
- 11:38Speaker 2: he's not interested in the US becoming kind of an
- 11:42Speaker 2: offensive participant in this for the kind of more dovish
- 11:45Speaker 2: isolationist parts of his party.
- 11:46Speaker 1: Trump wants to be for what's happening. Whatever, you know,
- 11:49Speaker 1: he's always like, this thing goes south. We're going to
- 11:52Speaker 1: hear from him that he tried to stop this. And
- 11:55Speaker 1: he told Bibi that this was a horrible idea. And
- 11:59Speaker 1: why is Netanyahu, he'll turn on Bibi so fast if
- 12:02Speaker 1: this goes south. And if it goes well, then it's,
- 12:05Speaker 1: you know, he'll probably admit that it was that they
- 12:09Speaker 1: lied all along, that they didn't really want a deal,
- 12:11Speaker 1: that this was a whole thing to like get, you know,
- 12:13Speaker 1: he's just, he's just going to be for whatever's popular.
- 12:16Speaker 1: That's like, that's his whole foreign policy.
- 12:18Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, Trump basically attacked Netanyahu after October 7th
- 12:22Speaker 3: and like was just talking shit about them in the
- 12:25Speaker 3: immediate wake of this horrific existential attack on Israel. He
- 12:30Speaker 3: was like, ah, never would have happened. He blamed Netanyahu
- 12:32Speaker 3: for failing to prevent it. All things that are true,
- 12:34Speaker 3: but to your point, like he will turn on him
- 12:36Speaker 3: in a second if his operation goes south.
- 12:38Speaker 1: And remember, his problem with Gaza was not the fact
- 12:41Speaker 1: that so many civilians were dying. It's that like, it's
- 12:45Speaker 1: too public. They got to just, they got to, Netanyahu's
- 12:48Speaker 1: got to finish it and he got to keep it,
- 12:49Speaker 1: keep it behind, keep it behind closed doors. I don't
- 12:51Speaker 1: want to see so much of it, right?
- 12:52Speaker 3: I don't care about the people.
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- 14:11Speaker 1: slash crooked. All right, big story in this country over
- 14:17Speaker 1: the weekend was the assassination of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman,
- 14:22Speaker 1: a former Speaker of the Minnesota House, along with her
- 14:25Speaker 1: husband by a man named Vance Bolter, who arrived at
- 14:28Speaker 1: their front door in the middle of the night dressed
- 14:30Speaker 1: as a police officer. Bolter had just done the same
- 14:33Speaker 1: thing at the nearby home of state Senator John Hoffman
- 14:36Speaker 1: and his wife, both of whom miraculously survived the shooting.
- 14:39Speaker 1: The killer also had a notebook in his car listing
- 14:42Speaker 1: more than 45 other potential targets, all of whom were Democrats,
- 14:45Speaker 1: including Governor Tim Walz and Senator Tina Smith. There were
- 14:49Speaker 1: also Democratic politicians in other states, other members of Congress,
- 14:53Speaker 1: other governors, abortion providers. There were also papers in his
- 14:57Speaker 1: car that suggest he may have been planning to target
- 14:59Speaker 1: one of the No Kings protests on Saturday. Police finally
- 15:03Speaker 1: apprehended Bolter on Sunday, but not before a 24-hour period
- 15:06Speaker 1: where Republican senators and Trump influencers tried to spread the
- 15:10Speaker 1: completely fabricated story that the killer was a left-wing extremist
- 15:15Speaker 1: who targeted Democrats for voting against the party on immigration.
- 15:19Speaker 1: Mike Chernovich and others even suggested that Tim Walz might have, quote,
- 15:24Speaker 1: ordered the hit. Tim Walz ordered the hit himself. Sick stuff.
- 15:29Speaker 1: What did you guys make of the reaction to this
- 15:31Speaker 1: tragedy and the tragedy itself?
- 15:34Speaker 2: So there's an unrelated story about Elon Musk and Doge
- 15:38Speaker 2: and about how they came to start saying that 40%
- 15:41Speaker 2: of calls to social security were scammers, which is made up,
- 15:46Speaker 2: which is made up, but it was useful. And so
- 15:47Speaker 2: there's this consternation inside of the social security administration. They
- 15:50Speaker 2: want the staff want to put out a statement saying
- 15:52Speaker 2: it's not true. Katie Miller, who now works for Elon Musk,
- 15:55Speaker 2: but was then at the white house, picks up the phone,
- 15:56Speaker 2: calls social security and says, The number is 40%. Don't
- 15:59Speaker 2: contradict Elon. Don't contradict the president. They cannot, if there
- 16:03Speaker 2: is information that does not comport with their perfect, comfortable expectations,
- 16:10Speaker 2: worldview that doesn't help their political project, it is dismissed.
- 16:13Speaker 2: That is true for every kind of policy question. That
- 16:16Speaker 2: is true for every political debate. And it is even
- 16:18Speaker 2: true in the middle of an unfolding assassination plot that
- 16:23Speaker 2: is taking place in real time before this guy is
- 16:26Speaker 2: even caught, right? Somebody I went to college with, they
- 16:29Speaker 2: were on the list. And they get woken up in
- 16:33Speaker 2: the middle of the night saying, you got to get
- 16:34Speaker 2: out of your house. You got to get out. It's
- 16:35Speaker 2: not safe. This is unfolding. It is really happening. And
- 16:39Speaker 2: it's a real event affecting real people. But because this
- 16:42Speaker 2: exists online and it is immediately a political project, they
- 16:46Speaker 2: go right to what is useful, what helps me in
- 16:49Speaker 2: this moment. Even if it is a lie, even if
- 16:51Speaker 2: it is disgusting, even if genuine lives are at risk
- 16:55Speaker 2: in the moment when they're doing it.
- 16:57Speaker 1: Yeah, I watched it unfold on Twitter, and at first
- 17:03Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, Mike Chernovich, Pizzagate guy.
- 17:07Speaker 3: Worst of the worst.
- 17:07Speaker 1: Alex Jones. I was like, do we really need to
- 17:10Speaker 1: make a big deal of these crazies doing what they
- 17:13Speaker 1: always do, which is spread lies and garbage and filth?
- 17:16Speaker 1: Then you see Mike Lee, senator from Utah. What happened
- 17:19Speaker 1: to that guy? Who is fucking crazy, but this is
- 17:22Speaker 1: maybe some of the worst shit that he's pushed around.
- 17:26Speaker 1: he still has a pinned tweet up on his Twitter
- 17:29Speaker 1: feed saying that like, oh, nightmare on wall street, uh,
- 17:32Speaker 1: the picture of the shooter. And also like, this is Marxism, uh,
- 17:36Speaker 1: is a, is a mental illness. And this was Marxist.
- 17:38Speaker 1: This is what happens when Marxists don't get their way.
- 17:40Speaker 1: There were three different tweets from him. Bernie Moreno, Senator
- 17:43Speaker 1: from Ohio also said that it was left-wing extremists that
- 17:46Speaker 1: caused this. Elon Musk, Elon Musk said it as well,
- 17:51Speaker 1: that it's left-wing extremism. I mean, there's this whole thing
- 17:54Speaker 1: that happens now when there's political violence in this country
- 17:58Speaker 1: where everyone rushes, and it's very sad. We all rush
- 18:01Speaker 1: to see like, okay, whose side was the person on?
- 18:04Speaker 1: Is it a left-wing person? Is it a right-wing person?
- 18:06Speaker 1: And then what happens is if it's not your side,
- 18:09Speaker 1: then it's mental illness, right? The person, oh, the person
- 18:12Speaker 1: was just mentally, mentally ill. And if it's the other side,
- 18:15Speaker 1: then it's, oh, see? And like, that's sad and that's
- 18:19Speaker 1: like awful that we got to that point. But, for everyone, like,
- 18:24Speaker 1: tweeting that shit, Moreno, Mike Lee, all the rest of them,
- 18:27Speaker 1: what you are doing is just making life more dangerous
- 18:31Speaker 1: for elected officials and people in politics by tweeting that.
- 18:34Speaker 1: You're just doing it. You're just making stuff more dangerous. And, like,
- 18:37Speaker 1: there is no reason to do it. There's no reason
- 18:39Speaker 1: to start lying. There's no reason to jump to conclusions
- 18:42Speaker 1: before the police conduct an investigation. There's just no reason
- 18:46Speaker 1: to do that.
- 18:47Speaker 3: Yeah, my general expectations for political decency are rock bottom,
- 18:51Speaker 3: but Remember after Trump was shot in Butler, there's a
- 18:54Speaker 3: lot of these reports about how he's more spiritual now.
- 18:56Speaker 3: It changed him in some way, right? I mean, obviously
- 18:58Speaker 3: it does bullshit at the time, but you would look
- 19:03Speaker 3: getting shot. You would think would, would trigger in him
- 19:08Speaker 3: like a modicum of empathy when he hears about an
- 19:10Speaker 3: incident like this. And he would just maybe lob in
- 19:13Speaker 3: a call to Tim walls and, or the families of
- 19:15Speaker 3: the victims and just say something decent. But instead he
- 19:18Speaker 3: was asked if he was in a call. Tim Walz,
- 19:20Speaker 3: and he was like, nope, he's a terrible governor, incompetent person.
- 19:23Speaker 3: He goes, maybe I'll call him. You know, it's like
- 19:24Speaker 3: nothing has changed in this man. And the conspiracy theory
- 19:29Speaker 3: stuff from Mike Lee and the worst people on Twitter,
- 19:31Speaker 3: it just, it like makes you completely hopeless about the
- 19:35Speaker 3: information environment on social media in the wake of any tragedy,
- 19:38Speaker 3: any real problem, like any crisis. We're just cooked.
- 19:42Speaker 1: It also used to be that when they throw conspiracies,
- 19:45Speaker 1: they were, we were pretty sure that they were wrong,
- 19:48Speaker 1: that we were, they were wrong, right? But there was like,
- 19:51Speaker 1: you know, maybe a 2% chance that someone could possibly
- 19:54Speaker 1: believe the conspiracy was right. This is so dumb. The
- 19:59Speaker 1: shit that they were putting out there.
- 20:00Speaker 3: This makes sense.
- 20:01Speaker 1: Oh, they, uh, Tim Walls ordered an assassination because this
- 20:05Speaker 1: person voted against Tim Walls on, um, you know, making
- 20:10Speaker 1: sure that undocumented immigrants do not get Medicaid, right? That's
- 20:14Speaker 1: the theory. And then the list is out and it's like,
- 20:16Speaker 1: oh yeah, Keith Ellison, the attorney general, and also Tim
- 20:20Speaker 1: Walz and a U.S. senator and a bunch of other
- 20:23Speaker 1: Democratic politicians in other states were also on the list,
- 20:26Speaker 1: like had nothing to do with that vote. So that
- 20:28Speaker 1: doesn't match up at all. So you But none of
- 20:30Speaker 1: this stuff changes the conspiracy. They just, to your point
- 20:33Speaker 1: about the Katie Miller thing, they just go forward. All
- 20:36Speaker 1: the facts are showing like definitively, definitively that they're wrong
- 20:40Speaker 1: and they just keep going.
- 20:41Speaker 2: Well, so Mike Lee posts something more sensible on his
- 20:44Speaker 2: official account, but this post stays up. I think he
- 20:46Speaker 2: pinned it for a while, even after it was like,
- 20:47Speaker 2: he doesn't delete it. He doesn't apologize, doesn't take it back.
- 20:50Speaker 2: Amy Klobuchar, who is friends with Melissa Hortman, told MSNBC
- 20:55Speaker 2: that she was going to confront Mike Lee directly about it.
- 20:57Speaker 2: And I hope she does.
- 20:58Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
- 20:58Speaker 5: Good.
- 20:59Speaker 2: Because like.
- 21:00Speaker 1: She should.
- 21:00Speaker 2: You know, it's all fun and games on the internet.
- 21:02Speaker 1: People should make floor speeches. They should go down to
- 21:05Speaker 1: the Senate floor and yell at Mike Lee.
- 21:08Speaker 2: I think they already have started doing that.
- 21:10Speaker 1: Great.
- 21:10Speaker 2: Tina Smith apparently confronted Mike Lee.
- 21:14Speaker 3: Good, good.
- 21:15Speaker 2: And was asked about her talk with him. And she said,
- 21:18Speaker 2: I think that honestly he seems a little surprised to
- 21:19Speaker 2: be confronted.
- 21:21Speaker 3: Awesome.
- 21:21Speaker 2: Great.
- 21:22Speaker 1: Good for you, Tina Smith. I love that. These people
- 21:24Speaker 1: have to defend their bullshit. like live and in person
- 21:29Speaker 1: until like you hide behind your Twitter account and you
- 21:32Speaker 1: send out your bullshit tweets and then you just like
- 21:34Speaker 1: slink away as everyone starts believing it. Like, no, you
- 21:36Speaker 1: need to defend this in front of an audience.
- 21:39Speaker 3: It's all, it's just the Trump assassination attempt, the arson
- 21:43Speaker 3: attack on Josh Shapiro, the shooting at the DC Jewish museum,
- 21:46Speaker 3: the firebombing of people in Colorado. January 6th, Gabby Gifford,
- 21:51Speaker 3: Steve Scalise, like there's just a lot of this. And
- 21:54Speaker 3: there is so little to protect politicians. I mean, like
- 21:58Speaker 3: president gets secret service, but like Mitt Romney, remember that
- 22:00Speaker 3: exit interview he did? He talked about one of the
- 22:02Speaker 3: reasons he was quitting politics was he was worried about
- 22:05Speaker 3: attacks from, I mean, I think he specifically named like
- 22:08Speaker 3: Trump super fans on him or his family. And he
- 22:11Speaker 3: talked about the massive cost of security. And like, he's
- 22:15Speaker 3: a rich guy, he can afford it. But like a
- 22:16Speaker 3: state representative in Minnesota, they've got no resources. There's no
- 22:20Speaker 3: way to protect yourself. You're not doing this job. You're
- 22:22Speaker 3: not going to be able to protect yourself. And also,
- 22:25Speaker 3: what upside is there for people to get into politics
- 22:28Speaker 3: if an Minnesota state rep is getting targeted?
- 22:30Speaker 1: That's what really worries me. I mean, the Times did
- 22:33Speaker 1: a story on just elected officials all across the country
- 22:37Speaker 1: being very scared about this based on this episode of
- 22:40Speaker 1: political violence and all the other ones that you just mentioned.
- 22:43Speaker 1: And one Ohio state senator posted on Facebook, honestly, I'm
- 22:47Speaker 1: struggling with this news. I'm worried for my family. I
- 22:49Speaker 1: worry I'm putting them in harm's way by being in office.
- 22:51Speaker 1: It's a terrible feeling. Like that's just, that is. Yeah,
- 22:55Speaker 1: it's awful.
- 22:58Speaker 2: Part of this too is, so in the sort of whatever,
- 23:02Speaker 2: the uncovered list that this person had, there's also a
- 23:05Speaker 2: bunch of like people finder websites for finding people's home addresses. And,
- 23:12Speaker 2: you know, we, for a long time, we just, there
- 23:15Speaker 2: was just an assumption that the homes of the addresses
- 23:18Speaker 2: of public officials would, one way or another, be public,
- 23:21Speaker 2: whether it's on a filing document or their voter registration
- 23:23Speaker 2: or simply just through the fact that so much of
- 23:26Speaker 2: this information is already public. But, like, that is in a, like,
- 23:29Speaker 2: we do not have to accept that. Like, yeah, it's
- 23:31Speaker 2: hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube, but
- 23:32Speaker 2: we should have privacy laws to protect addresses for people.
- 23:37Speaker 2: That's a small step that is hard to make work,
- 23:39Speaker 2: but it could at least help over the long run
- 23:41Speaker 2: to kind of make it possible to get this information
- 23:44Speaker 2: off of the internet. We need a national privacy law.
- 23:47Speaker 2: That feels like a hard thing to do, but, like,
- 23:49Speaker 2: we have to make it harder for this kind of homes,
- 23:52Speaker 2: like for where people live needs to be harder, uh,
- 23:54Speaker 2: to get at. And that's just like making people now
- 23:57Speaker 2: part of the problem there, right. It's like, there's some
- 23:59Speaker 2: amount of public accountability for where people live, right. They
- 24:01Speaker 2: have to live in the district. It matters if, you know, when, uh, uh,
- 24:05Speaker 2: what's his name when Dr. Oz was campaigning and it
- 24:07Speaker 2: was like, what's his actual address, this big home, is
- 24:09Speaker 2: it that big home? Like it's a part of politics,
- 24:11Speaker 2: but like, there's just like compromises that need to happen there.
- 24:14Speaker 2: The other part of this too, is, you know, we,
- 24:17Speaker 2: as you were saying this, John, that like we, you know,
- 24:19Speaker 2: you kind of in this bleak moment, it's a cycle.
- 24:22Speaker 1: All right.
- 24:22Speaker 2: What were the motivations? Were they good? Were they, were
- 24:24Speaker 2: they ones we, were they on our side or their side?
- 24:26Speaker 4: Right.
- 24:26Speaker 2: And it's like, we don't step back and look at
- 24:29Speaker 2: the kind of underlying conditions that would lead somebody regardless
- 24:33Speaker 2: of their ideology. The ideology is just a, it's just
- 24:35Speaker 2: an ultimately a rationale for whatever kind of active kind
- 24:38Speaker 2: of political violence, which is rooted in whatever feeling of powerlessness,
- 24:42Speaker 2: a desire to kind of get revenge, whatever it may be.
- 24:45Speaker 2: And like social media is a part of that, right?
- 24:49Speaker 2: Like We see growing support polling-wise for political violence, polling-wise
- 24:53Speaker 2: for just the justification for assassinations, justifications for the killing
- 24:58Speaker 2: of the CEO of United Healthcare. I was out there
- 25:01Speaker 2: over the weekend, a lot of people with very ironic
- 25:03Speaker 2: Luigi signs, right? And that all contributes to a sense
- 25:11Speaker 2: that we live in a violent society where violence is
- 25:15Speaker 2: is part of politics where the other side may use it.
- 25:17Speaker 2: So you should use it before they do. And in
- 25:20Speaker 2: sort of a broad way, right, it leads people to
- 25:22Speaker 2: feel both powerless and radicalized, but also in acute ways, right? Well,
- 25:27Speaker 2: these people that pop up, like they are being radicalized
- 25:29Speaker 2: in acute ways by these same kinds of mechanisms. And
- 25:32Speaker 2: I just like, we need to be honest about that.
- 25:34Speaker 2: We need to think about that. We need to figure
- 25:36Speaker 2: out ways for leaders to kind of attack that culturally
- 25:42Speaker 2: and also like the underlying problem of what happens to
- 25:44Speaker 2: people when they radicalize online. Yeah.
- 25:46Speaker 1: And that's why you, that's why you got to condemn
- 25:49Speaker 1: violence and extrajudicial violence where, and political violence, wherever it happens,
- 25:53Speaker 1: whoever commits it, whoever it's against and doing so does
- 25:57Speaker 1: not like stop that violence from happening, but not doing
- 26:01Speaker 1: so creates an environment where it starts to be a
- 26:04Speaker 1: little more likely and maybe someone else thinks it's okay.
- 26:07Speaker 1: And who's, who's, who's not doing well. And it's just, that's, you,
- 26:10Speaker 1: You just got to condemn it when it happens. And
- 26:13Speaker 1: politicians and leaders in both parties need.
- 26:14Speaker 2: To do that.
- 26:15Speaker 3: A little gun control would be good, too. Yeah. A
- 26:17Speaker 3: little more gun control.
- 26:18Speaker 2: The other thing, too, though, is like there's a political
- 26:20Speaker 2: scientist who's an expert in political violence talked about this
- 26:23Speaker 2: in The Times about how actually what might be most
- 26:25Speaker 2: useful is for Democrats and Republicans to make statements together.
- 26:28Speaker 2: But one big fucking problem is that Donald Trump just
- 26:30Speaker 2: pardoned all the insurrectionists and sent a signal that there's
- 26:33Speaker 2: a certain kind of political violence that he's a huge,
- 26:35Speaker 2: huge fan of.
- 26:36Speaker 4: Right.
- 26:36Speaker 2: And is one of the biggest stokers of political violence
- 26:38Speaker 2: in our country, kind of constantly calling his enemies vermin
- 26:41Speaker 2: and all the rest. And so like the, the kind of,
- 26:44Speaker 2: it's just, uh, well, and when Trump was shot, literally
- 26:47Speaker 2: everyone condemned it. Every single Democrat, every Republican, former presidents, like,
- 26:52Speaker 2: you know, it was like, it was everywhere.
- 26:54Speaker 3: Everyone did. And in this case, like we can't get
- 26:56Speaker 3: Trump to say, yeah, I'm going to call Tim walls.
- 26:59Speaker 3: I'm going to, I'm going to wish him well, like it's,
- 27:01Speaker 3: it's completely infuriating.
- 27:03Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 27:04Speaker 1: The news about the shootings broke on the day of
- 27:06Speaker 1: the No Kings protests, which continued as planned, even in Minnesota,
- 27:09Speaker 1: where Governor Walz tried to warn people away from participating
- 27:12Speaker 1: because of the No Kings flyers found in the killer's car.
- 27:15Speaker 1: Across the country, an estimated 5 million people showed up,
- 27:18Speaker 1: which makes it one of the single largest protests in
- 27:20Speaker 1: American history. Overwhelmingly peaceful, very few arrests. The protests were
- 27:25Speaker 1: planned to coincide with Trump's military parade in Washington, D.C.,
- 27:28Speaker 1: which turned out to be fairly subdued and sparsely attended.
- 27:32Speaker 1: One guy in attendance told The Guardian he thought Trump
- 27:34Speaker 1: was politicizing the army and that the parade was, quote,
- 27:37Speaker 1: just kind of lame. Trump himself may have briefly fallen asleep.
- 27:41Speaker 1: What did you guys make of the No Kings events? Well, Tommy,
- 27:46Speaker 1: you were with me.
- 27:46Speaker 2: Yeah, they were fun.
- 27:47Speaker 1: I love it. You were downtown.
- 27:48Speaker 3: Went to West Hollywood so I could bring my daughter, Lisette.
- 27:52Speaker 3: As we were parking, we walked up. A bunch of
- 27:54Speaker 3: people jogged by, ripped and shirtless. And she kept saying,
- 27:57Speaker 3: why is he nicky-nicky?
- 27:58Speaker 1: Why is he nicky-nicky? I was like, We were in WeHo.
- 28:01Speaker 3: Welcome to West Hollywood, honey.
- 28:02Speaker 2: Had a good time in WeHo, yeah. I went downhound.
- 28:04Speaker 2: You guys went hung out with the fans.
- 28:07Speaker 3: It was fun though. It was like joyful, you know,
- 28:09Speaker 3: people singing songs, good speeches. I don't know. Every protest
- 28:13Speaker 3: I've ever gone to is, it's a joyful affair. It's
- 28:17Speaker 3: people happy to be together, especially in person, especially after COVID.
- 28:21Speaker 3: I don't know, it was good.
- 28:22Speaker 2: Yeah, like we went downtown and we were in front
- 28:26Speaker 2: of City Hall and At first, it didn't seem like
- 28:29Speaker 2: it was just sort of gathered right on the steps
- 28:31Speaker 2: of City Hall. But then as we were there, more
- 28:34Speaker 2: and more people started coming. And there were these sort
- 28:36Speaker 2: of marches coming from all directions, kind of filling the park.
- 28:40Speaker 2: And then we kind of followed that. And first of all,
- 28:44Speaker 2: it was interesting, right? Because you saw what looked like
- 28:47Speaker 2: what I would say is sort of like a women's
- 28:49Speaker 2: march adjacent group of people, right? There was a lot of...
- 28:51Speaker 2: There was kind of like the No Kings, kind of
- 28:53Speaker 2: resistance marches. libs. They were out in force, but there
- 28:56Speaker 2: were also tons of anti-ICE pro-immigrant protests that have been
- 29:02Speaker 2: sort of showing up at downtown for the last couple
- 29:05Speaker 2: of days. And it all kind of blended together into
- 29:08Speaker 2: what looked to me as like the most adverse protest
- 29:10Speaker 2: I've ever been to in Los Angeles or ever. And
- 29:15Speaker 2: we walked down just sort of seeing where all the
- 29:17Speaker 2: different protests were going. And we ended up wandering down
- 29:19Speaker 2: to the federal building where a lot of the kind
- 29:21Speaker 2: of confrontations and sort of the Sort of more kind
- 29:23Speaker 2: of the vandalism has happened, some of the violence and
- 29:26Speaker 2: kind of back and forth with the police have happened.
- 29:28Speaker 2: And we went to the federal building and there were
- 29:30Speaker 2: the Marines standing in front of the federal building, just
- 29:33Speaker 2: fucking standing there. There was a police officer with them.
- 29:35Speaker 2: And so when somebody would kind of walk to kind
- 29:37Speaker 2: of press the line a little, the cop would talk
- 29:39Speaker 2: to them, the Marines. really didn't, at least that I saw. But, uh,
- 29:42Speaker 2: you know, some people were shouting, uh, uh, at the
- 29:46Speaker 2: Marines angrily, some people kind of more forlornly being like,
- 29:49Speaker 2: you shouldn't be here.
- 29:50Speaker 3: Right.
- 29:50Speaker 2: You saw like everything there. Um, but what, what I
- 29:53Speaker 2: felt seeing them, the Marines, God, like in the same way,
- 29:56Speaker 2: like the trump forcing like the military to kind of
- 30:00Speaker 2: march in front of him on his birthday sending these
- 30:02Speaker 2: fucking guys to a federal building and you're like why
- 30:05Speaker 2: are they guarding the federal building to protect them from
- 30:07Speaker 2: the protesters why are the protesters there to be because
- 30:09Speaker 2: they're angry about the marines yeah and it just like
- 30:11Speaker 2: you felt i just felt bad for them yeah like
- 30:14Speaker 2: i i just felt yeah exactly i just felt bad
- 30:16Speaker 2: for them like the whole thing like felt combustible like
- 30:19Speaker 2: you just felt like oh this is where later to
- 30:21Speaker 2: this is where it's going to happen because as as
- 30:23Speaker 2: all these protesters that came for the main event start leaving,
- 30:26Speaker 2: that will just be left behind some of the more
- 30:27Speaker 2: kind of, uh, uh, like the, the people that have
- 30:29Speaker 2: been kind of fucking throwing shit and making kind of, uh,
- 30:33Speaker 2: trouble over the last couple of days. And sure enough,
- 30:35Speaker 2: that is what happens. And, and that, that happened as
- 30:38Speaker 2: the night wore on, but like, for the most part,
- 30:40Speaker 2: it was incredibly moving and inspiring to be down there.
- 30:42Speaker 1: I will just say to huge credit to our friends
- 30:45Speaker 1: at Indivisible and other groups who organize these protests. That is,
- 30:49Speaker 1: I mean, that is a very tough thing to organize
- 30:52Speaker 1: and to pull off well. And from what I saw
- 30:55Speaker 1: at our protest, there was also like a discipline involved.
- 30:58Speaker 1: You know, the first speaker was like, it's going to
- 31:01Speaker 1: be peaceful. We want to make sure that everyone can
- 31:04Speaker 1: speak who's speaking. Also like turn to someone next to
- 31:07Speaker 1: you who you don't know, shake their hand.
- 31:09Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't like that part.
- 31:11Speaker 1: Of course.
- 31:11Speaker 3: Don't touch me, you sweaty, sweaty person.
- 31:14Speaker 1: But I had a couple.
- 31:16Speaker 2: Some people go to We Here To Be Touched, not Tommy.
- 31:18Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 31:18Speaker 1: I did have a couple of friends ask me like, what,
- 31:21Speaker 1: so what's the point of these protests? Like Trump's, you
- 31:24Speaker 1: can't beat Trump again. He's already president. It's year one.
- 31:27Speaker 1: But I, and I get that, but I think like
- 31:30Speaker 1: building this capacity and sort of exercising the muscle right
- 31:34Speaker 1: now of, you know, on a beautiful day in June,
- 31:39Speaker 1: getting 5 million people out in the country to protest
- 31:42Speaker 1: Donald Trump is going to be important in the coming years,
- 31:45Speaker 1: especially if you know, Trump continues to push us away
- 31:48Speaker 1: from democracy and towards authoritarianism because you're going to want
- 31:51Speaker 1: to have this capacity. And I think it is also
- 31:54Speaker 1: very valuable for people to get out of their fucking
- 31:57Speaker 1: houses and offline and actually see people in real life
- 32:01Speaker 1: who are also feeling the same way you do about things.
- 32:04Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. Also be nice to the, uh, poor military
- 32:07Speaker 3: guys who were deployed in California.
- 32:09Speaker 1: I know, I really felt that.
- 32:09Speaker 3: Especially the active duty guys, the Marines. I bet they
- 32:11Speaker 3: were like, what, 18 to 20?
- 32:13Speaker 2: They look so young.
- 32:14Speaker 3: The active duty guys are so young when you see
- 32:16Speaker 3: them in person. The National Guard, you tend to be older.
- 32:20Speaker 3: They're like... People with other jobs are in their 30s.
- 32:22Speaker 3: They're from California, but like- They're not happy either. None
- 32:24Speaker 3: of them want to be on those streets. It sucks
- 32:27Speaker 3: for them just as much as for us, like having
- 32:29Speaker 3: them here in our city.
- 32:31Speaker 2: And it just felt, you just feel how unnecessary it
- 32:33Speaker 2: all was. Just like, they are there because Donald Trump
- 32:36Speaker 2: doesn't give a fuck about them. They are a prop
- 32:39Speaker 2: to create the illusion of whatever. And that just sort
- 32:43Speaker 2: of made me feel really sad about the whole situation.
- 32:45Speaker 2: But also like, you know what? Like, yeah, millions of
- 32:48Speaker 2: people are showing up and it is raising- It raises
- 32:51Speaker 2: the price for what they're trying to do. Even if
- 32:55Speaker 2: it is not a specific response to a specific raid,
- 32:58Speaker 2: like all these people showing up, it raises the price
- 33:01Speaker 2: on whether they try to do mass deportations, they go
- 33:04Speaker 2: to kind of farm country, whatever they're trying to do.
- 33:06Speaker 1: Speaking of the military, what'd you guys think of the
- 33:09Speaker 1: parade in DC? The army turned 250 and Donald Trump
- 33:14Speaker 1: decided to co-opt their birthday for his own. He got
- 33:17Speaker 1: himself a little parade. I did not like watch any
- 33:21Speaker 1: of it unfold live. I saw clips on Twitter, but what,
- 33:23Speaker 1: what did you guys think?
- 33:24Speaker 3: I didn't watch one second of it. And the clips
- 33:27Speaker 3: I saw, I mean, obviously they were mostly clipped by
- 33:30Speaker 3: people with partisan political agendas, right. As, as, uh, happens
- 33:35Speaker 3: on Twitter. I don't know. I maybe wonder if we
- 33:37Speaker 3: all hyperventilated about it a little too much, uh, and
- 33:40Speaker 3: whether the lead up was a little silly and made
- 33:43Speaker 3: everyone involved look silly. And it was just a stupid parade.
- 33:45Speaker 3: It was a waste of time and money and whatnot.
- 33:48Speaker 2: But, Yeah, I had the same feeling. I couldn't tell.
- 33:51Speaker 2: John and I talked about this on YouTube a little
- 33:53Speaker 2: bit too, but like that, like when I actually saw it,
- 33:57Speaker 2: I was like, oh my God, like, you know, America
- 34:00Speaker 2: doesn't do authoritarian North Korea style military parades. And so
- 34:04Speaker 2: even when Trump tries to do one, it ends up
- 34:06Speaker 2: just looking like Veterans Day, you know? And like, you know,
- 34:09Speaker 2: just there are people in a park. Some people, I think,
- 34:11Speaker 2: because they're Trump supporters, some people because there's just a
- 34:13Speaker 2: thing happening. It all looked very sort of unthreatening in
- 34:17Speaker 2: the end. And maybe that's also in part because the
- 34:19Speaker 2: military does not want to participate in an authoritarian display
- 34:22Speaker 2: of military power on behalf of our autocrat. So you
- 34:26Speaker 2: end up seeing guys with fives and the tri-corner hats.
- 34:28Speaker 2: It's hard to get mad about that. Hard to be
- 34:30Speaker 2: sad when you see those guys.
- 34:32Speaker 1: I always thought it was a wasteful, dumb thing to do.
- 34:35Speaker 1: And also that, you know, the idea here is to
- 34:38Speaker 1: fulfill Trump's clearly authoritarian intentions, whether it was an actual threat.
- 34:43Speaker 2: It.
- 34:44Speaker 1: The threat seemed lessened by the fact that the week prior,
- 34:48Speaker 1: there were actual federal troops, federalized National Guardsmen and Marines
- 34:52Speaker 1: on the ground here in L.A. because of protests. So
- 34:55Speaker 1: that seemed like much more of a threat than the parade.
- 34:57Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 34:57Speaker 3: And to be honest.
- 34:58Speaker 1: Sort of stole the spotlight from the parade being threatening.
- 35:01Speaker 2: The L.A.
- 35:01Speaker 3: Deployment and us kind of like living in that kind
- 35:04Speaker 3: of upped my anxiety about the military parade, which ultimately,
- 35:08Speaker 3: I agree with you, was the reverse.
- 35:10Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 35:10Speaker 3: It was just like, who cares?
- 35:11Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think the... 5 million people peacefully protesting
- 35:15Speaker 1: also helped too. Like that was an outlet for people's
- 35:18Speaker 1: anxiety over the parade. And the fact that they smartly
- 35:21Speaker 1: did not hold one in DC.
- 35:23Speaker 2: Which I think was, you know, I didn't totally get that.
- 35:25Speaker 2: And I, once I saw how it all unfolded, it
- 35:27Speaker 2: was really, really smart. Every, it took the microphone from him.
- 35:30Speaker 2: And by the way, just a lesson of protest over
- 35:32Speaker 2: the last decade, we are now at the 10 year
- 35:33Speaker 2: mark of fucking Trump coming down the escalator. Protests take
- 35:36Speaker 2: the microphone away from Donald Trump. Like His parade was
- 35:39Speaker 2: not the big story. The protests were a much bigger
- 35:41Speaker 2: story because it was more interesting, exciting, and newsworthy. Except
- 35:44Speaker 2: on Fox News.
- 35:45Speaker 3: Except on Fox. Which did not cut to the protests
- 35:47Speaker 3: any time in their three-hour broadcast.
- 35:49Speaker 1: The protests, they weren't talking about Iran and Israel most
- 35:52Speaker 1: of that time. They weren't talking about the political assassinations
- 35:55Speaker 1: in Minnesota. It was just like the most important thing
- 35:58Speaker 1: in the world right now is this fucking parade.
- 36:00Speaker 3: Look at the treads on that tank. It was all
- 36:01Speaker 3: that kind of crap.
- 36:02Speaker 1: It's so wild.
- 36:03Speaker 3: Ridiculous. They're embarrassing.
- 36:14Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Summers
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- 37:51Speaker 1: One of the big issues that brought people out to
- 37:52Speaker 1: protest is Trump's mass deportations, which have become very unpopular
- 37:56Speaker 1: very quickly. Late last week, Trump even acknowledged that his
- 38:00Speaker 1: immigration raids were hurting farmers and the hospitality industry, and
- 38:03Speaker 1: the administration issued new guidance to ICE, telling them to
- 38:07Speaker 1: pause raids and arrests in the agricultural, hotel, and restaurant industries.
- 38:12Speaker 1: But then on Sunday, Trump made it clear that his
- 38:14Speaker 1: deportation policy isn't really about targeting criminals and protecting farmers
- 38:19Speaker 1: and hospitality workers. It's about targeting immigrants in blue states
- 38:22Speaker 1: and protecting them in red states. He directed ICE via
- 38:26Speaker 1: Truth Social to quote, expand efforts to detain and deport
- 38:29Speaker 1: illegal aliens in America's largest cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago,
- 38:33Speaker 1: and New York, because, quote, these and other such cities
- 38:37Speaker 1: are the core of the Democrat power center where sanctuary
- 38:40Speaker 1: cities play such a big role. You don't hear about
- 38:43Speaker 1: sanctuary cities in our heartland. At the G7 on Monday,
- 38:46Speaker 1: Trump responded to a reporter's question about his post.
- 38:49Speaker 4: You did a post last night where you said you
- 38:51Speaker 4: want us to really target Democrats.
- 38:53Speaker 5: I want them to focus on the cities because the
- 38:55Speaker 5: cities are where you really have what's called sanctuary cities,
- 38:58Speaker 5: and that's where the people are. I look at New York,
- 39:01Speaker 5: I look at Chicago, look at L.A., L.A., those people
- 39:04Speaker 5: weren't from L.A., they weren't from California, most of those people.
- 39:07Speaker 5: All blue cities, all Democrat-run cities, and they think they're
- 39:12Speaker 5: going to use them to vote. It's not going to happen.
- 39:15Speaker 1: I mean, it's been reported that Trump only changed his
- 39:17Speaker 1: mind on the farmworkers after lobbying by his agriculture secretary,
- 39:23Speaker 1: who was getting help from some of the big farmers
- 39:25Speaker 1: and producers. many of whom in red states, also business owners.
- 39:29Speaker 1: What do you make of Trump's back and forth on this?
- 39:31Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it feels like it's policy in progress.
- 39:35Speaker 3: You know, I'd like farm, farms, construction sites, restaurants, meatpacking plants,
- 39:40Speaker 3: they will all shut down if I deport every undocumented
- 39:43Speaker 3: person who works there. And so I'm sure he's getting
- 39:46Speaker 3: calls from the CEOs and business interests and business lobbying
- 39:50Speaker 3: groups to tell them that much and tell them to
- 39:52Speaker 3: dial it down a little bit. It's, but on the
- 39:54Speaker 3: political front, we've been saying this all for the past week.
- 39:58Speaker 3: Like Trump wants a fight with liberal cities. They think
- 40:00Speaker 3: it's good politics. His staff is giddy when he starts
- 40:03Speaker 3: a fight with California or Gavin Newsom, they run to the, uh,
- 40:06Speaker 3: you know, DC tip sheets to tell them how great
- 40:09Speaker 3: it's going for them. And then the polling comes out
- 40:10Speaker 3: and it shows the opposite. But I did find like
- 40:13Speaker 3: what was remarkable about that true social statement. was Trump
- 40:16Speaker 3: not kind of like dropping the pretext that it was
- 40:18Speaker 3: about safety and security and just saying that Democrats, quote,
- 40:20Speaker 3: use illegal aliens to expand their voter base, cheat in elections,
- 40:23Speaker 3: and grow the welfare state, while real Americans are cheering
- 40:26Speaker 3: ICE on. That's just not a compelling rationale, I think,
- 40:29Speaker 3: for most people to explain an ICE raid.
- 40:32Speaker 1: Undocumented immigrants don't vote. How many times are we fucking
- 40:36Speaker 1: going to do this again? This whole theory, the whole
- 40:39Speaker 1: replacement theory is so ridiculous. They don't vote. And by
- 40:43Speaker 1: the way, Trump won naturalized immigrants in the last election.
- 40:47Speaker 4: It's so stupid.
- 40:51Speaker 2: Saying that he's not going to go after farm workers
- 40:53Speaker 2: or hospitality workers, those are two of the three big categories.
- 40:56Speaker 2: Tommy mentioned the third, construction. It's interesting he hasn't mentioned
- 40:58Speaker 2: that yet. I'm sure people will, his fucking real estate
- 41:01Speaker 2: developer buddies will get him on the phone and the
- 41:03Speaker 2: next thing you'll know say, we're not going to go after,
- 41:04Speaker 2: we need the construction workers. Because by the way, there
- 41:06Speaker 2: are already shortages of construction workers. But it's like, what
- 41:08Speaker 2: does Trump want? He wants... to declare victory, he wants
- 41:12Speaker 2: images of mass deportations, but he doesn't want the mass
- 41:17Speaker 2: deportations to impact the economy. So it's like almost what
- 41:20Speaker 2: he wants is deportations without deportees, right? He wants to
- 41:24Speaker 2: be claimed to be successfully doing the thing of kind
- 41:29Speaker 2: of this kind of campaign against immigrants, but then he
- 41:31Speaker 2: doesn't want the economic consequences. So California, we're a so-called
- 41:36Speaker 2: sanctuary state. The population of undocumented immigrants in California has
- 41:40Speaker 2: been going down. It has gone down. It went down
- 41:43Speaker 2: by 100,000 from 2019 to 2022. Texas passes a law
- 41:47Speaker 2: banning sanctuary cities in 2017. Undocumented immigrants living and working
- 41:50Speaker 2: in Texas goes up. Florida passes a law in 2019.
- 41:53Speaker 2: In the three years since passing that law, Florida's population
- 41:56Speaker 2: of undocumented immigrants goes up by 400,000. Why? It is
- 42:00Speaker 2: not because of the politics. It is despite the politics
- 42:03Speaker 2: because people go to where they can afford to work
- 42:06Speaker 2: and to live. California is too fucking expensive. So for
- 42:09Speaker 2: the same reason that Florida and Texas brags about their
- 42:11Speaker 2: economy all the time, they are drawing all these undocumented immigrants.
- 42:14Speaker 2: And so what has happened? They have created a situation
- 42:16Speaker 2: where the most hostile places actually have a growing economy
- 42:21Speaker 2: built on the backs of a growing population of undocumented labor.
- 42:25Speaker 2: And so then you have now Trump saying, I'm going
- 42:27Speaker 2: to go after what the blue cities, that's where the
- 42:29Speaker 2: immigrants are. It's just not true, right? There are no
- 42:32Speaker 2: sanctuary cities in Florida. There are no sanctuary cities in Texas.
- 42:35Speaker 2: The politics of the cruelty of what they're doing to
- 42:39Speaker 2: immigrants or immigrants feeling less safe in those places has
- 42:42Speaker 2: had no impact on this, right? Because this is an
- 42:44Speaker 2: economic problem. It is not a kind of, you can
- 42:47Speaker 2: try to enforce your way out of it without hurting
- 42:49Speaker 2: the economy.
- 42:49Speaker 1: It's just not possible. And so Trump acknowledges that these
- 42:53Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants are vital to our economy and he thinks
- 42:56Speaker 1: that they should be protected. And he also just wants
- 42:59Speaker 1: to make sure that people who've are here illegally who've
- 43:02Speaker 1: committed crimes get deported. So one idea for him is
- 43:06Speaker 1: the people who are here who are undocumented, perhaps if
- 43:11Speaker 1: they're working, we can give them some kind of like
- 43:15Speaker 1: a path where they can then become fully citizens. And
- 43:18Speaker 1: then folks who commit crimes, we can deport them back.
- 43:22Speaker 1: And then we can have a sort of tough security
- 43:24Speaker 1: at the border to make sure we don't have more
- 43:26Speaker 1: illegal crossings. That's one idea. Now, the reason that we
- 43:29Speaker 1: don't have that is because Stephen Miller, who's actually running
- 43:33Speaker 1: most of Trump's policy, is telling him that they're all criminals.
- 43:36Speaker 1: And because Stephen Miller actually wants every undocumented immigrant and
- 43:41Speaker 1: most documented immigrants out of the country. And he's been
- 43:43Speaker 1: very clear on that. He doesn't want legal immigration. They
- 43:46Speaker 1: just added another. They're thinking of adding another 36 countries
- 43:49Speaker 1: to the travel ban list. It used to be Muslim
- 43:51Speaker 1: majority countries. Now it's just a lot of people in Africa,
- 43:54Speaker 1: people of color.
- 43:55Speaker 3: Right.
- 43:55Speaker 1: Stephen Miller just doesn't he just doesn't want immigrants here
- 43:58Speaker 1: because he hates immigrants because he's hated immigrants since he
- 44:00Speaker 1: was in fucking high school in Santa Monica. And he would,
- 44:02Speaker 1: you know, shout racial slurs at them. So, like, that's
- 44:05Speaker 1: the kind of dynamic here. And Trump's looking at himself like,
- 44:07Speaker 1: I want the good ones and I don't want the
- 44:09Speaker 1: bad ones. And he's just too stupid to realize what
- 44:11Speaker 1: the fucking difference is.
- 44:11Speaker 2: Well, he's even said that he even said some version
- 44:13Speaker 2: of like they should be able to stay. There should
- 44:14Speaker 2: be some sort of a way for them to stay.
- 44:16Speaker 2: He's describing comprehensive immigration reform. But then, you know, Stephen
- 44:20Speaker 2: Miller then says, go to Home Depot. They start going
- 44:22Speaker 2: to the Home Depots. What does that do? That terrifies
- 44:24Speaker 2: people to go to work. It makes it so that
- 44:26Speaker 2: people don't show up to do their jobs because they're
- 44:28Speaker 2: afraid and it shuts down construction.
- 44:30Speaker 3: It shuts down businesses. Politically, he should just take the win.
- 44:34Speaker 3: Like you shut down the border, go to the border
- 44:36Speaker 3: once a week and brag about it in states where
- 44:39Speaker 3: the local law enforcement will work with ICE, deport people
- 44:43Speaker 3: who are arrested, deport actual criminals in the sanctuary cities
- 44:46Speaker 3: where they won't work with you. Let the governor deal
- 44:48Speaker 3: with it. You know, like there's just an obvious, like
- 44:50Speaker 3: smart political win for him that doesn't involve picking a
- 44:54Speaker 3: fight with Los Angeles and New York, but clearly they
- 44:57Speaker 3: just want the fight. They want the news cycle.
- 44:59Speaker 1: Miller wants the fight and Miller wants them all gone.
- 45:00Speaker 1: I mean, ICE's own figures, CNN just had a report
- 45:03Speaker 1: on this today, and this is from ICE, less than
- 45:06Speaker 1: 10% of the roughly 185,000 people booked into ICE custody
- 45:12Speaker 1: from October through May 31st have been convicted of serious
- 45:17Speaker 1: crimes like murder, rape, assault, or robbery. Less than 10%.
- 45:21Speaker 1: So this whole idea that they're going after the worst
- 45:23Speaker 1: of the worst, And, you know, DHS put out another
- 45:28Speaker 1: statement this morning saying, we're only going after the worst
- 45:30Speaker 1: of the worst. We know exactly who we're going after.
- 45:32Speaker 1: That's not true. Because the Wall Street Journal reported last
- 45:34Speaker 1: week that Miller said, you don't have to have lists
- 45:36Speaker 1: of people that you're targeting anymore. Just go out and
- 45:39Speaker 1: make a bunch of arrests, 3,000 arrests a day. That's it.
- 45:41Speaker 2: And then they start signaling at home and signaling this. Oh,
- 45:43Speaker 2: don't worry. We're going to go after the employers next.
- 45:45Speaker 2: Don't worry. We're going after the employers. That'll help us
- 45:48Speaker 2: pick up the deportations or the self-deportations. And then you say, well, okay.
- 45:53Speaker 2: You're going after employers, but the president just said to
- 45:56Speaker 2: leave agriculture alone, and the president just said to leave
- 45:59Speaker 2: hotels and restaurants alone. That's the two biggest sectors, or
- 46:02Speaker 2: two of the three biggest sectors.
- 46:04Speaker 1: Unless you're a hotel or a restaurant in a blue city.
- 46:08Speaker 1: Then I'm sure he doesn't want to leave you alone.
- 46:10Speaker 2: Because it's all just being made up. They're making it
- 46:13Speaker 2: up as they go.
- 46:14Speaker 1: All right, before we get to my interview with Wes Moore,
- 46:16Speaker 1: I do want to touch on an exciting new product
- 46:19Speaker 1: launch from our friends in Trump world. On Monday, Eric
- 46:22Speaker 1: Trump announced that his family is getting into the mobile
- 46:25Speaker 1: phone business. That's right, for just $ 500, you'll be able
- 46:29Speaker 1: to get yourself a shiny gold T1 phone from Trump Mobile.
- 46:33Speaker 1: And for a monthly fee of just $ 47. 45, you can
- 46:37Speaker 1: sign up for the 47 plan that includes unlimited talk, text, data,
- 46:41Speaker 1: and so much more. Tech journalists are pointing out that
- 46:44Speaker 1: the America First phone looks an awful lot like a
- 46:46Speaker 1: model already made by the Chinese company WingTech and available
- 46:49Speaker 1: on T-Mobile. But it is gold. It is gold. A
- 46:52Speaker 1: reporter at 404 Media tried to pre-order the T1 smartphone
- 46:56Speaker 1: and said the website failed, went to an error page,
- 46:58Speaker 1: and charged in the wrong amount for the down payment.
- 47:02Speaker 1: Were you guys able to put in your pre-orders yet?
- 47:04Speaker 3: That's so funny. Charging in the wrong amount is such
- 47:06Speaker 3: a nice little shift. These things are so stupid. First
- 47:08Speaker 3: of all, there's not going to be a real Trump
- 47:11Speaker 3: cell phone network. It's a virtual mobile network. Remember Patriot Mobile?
- 47:17Speaker 3: They were selling like anti-woke cell service. And then when
- 47:20Speaker 3: you really dig into the details, they just buy, they
- 47:22Speaker 3: license in bulk access to AT & T, T-Mobile, all
- 47:26Speaker 3: the so-called woke providers that they're railing against in their ads.
- 47:29Speaker 3: So you're just getting played. And then there's just literally
- 47:32Speaker 3: no way the Trump team can build these phones in
- 47:36Speaker 3: the US unless this rollout is like five years too early.
- 47:38Speaker 3: Like there's just no infrastructure to build a smartphone in
- 47:41Speaker 3: the United States right now. And so if you look
- 47:43Speaker 3: at the website, it says Trump Mobile, its products and
- 47:45Speaker 3: services are not designed, developed, manufactured, distributed, or sold by
- 47:48Speaker 3: the Trump organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals.
- 47:51Speaker 3: So they're clearly just like licensing out some Chinese phone
- 47:56Speaker 3: and then pretending they have their own network. And then
- 47:58Speaker 3: in practice, Trump is now like a fake telecom phone operator,
- 48:02Speaker 3: but also oversees the FCC, which is- Which.
- 48:04Speaker 1: Is no longer independent.
- 48:05Speaker 3: Totally ethical and normal.
- 48:08Speaker 1: He's taken away the independence of the FCC and- He's
- 48:10Speaker 1: got a Trump stooge in charge of it. And now
- 48:13Speaker 1: he's in the mobile phone business.
- 48:15Speaker 2: But I just, yeah, I saw the announcement. I did
- 48:19Speaker 2: not think he was building a 5G network of his own.
- 48:21Speaker 2: And I did not think he was making a phone
- 48:23Speaker 2: in the United States because nobody does that. We don't
- 48:25Speaker 2: do that. So I was like, yeah, okay. So he's
- 48:27Speaker 2: doing like a kind of whatever.
- 48:28Speaker 1: He's not building a 5G network of his own because
- 48:30Speaker 1: RFK Jr. is like, don't do that.
- 48:32Speaker 3: That's a good point. Those are bad.
- 48:34Speaker 1: It's going to mess with your boop.
- 48:36Speaker 3: Makes you gay.
- 48:38Speaker 2: Makes the frogs gay. 5G makes the frogs gay, but the, uh, uh, but, uh, yeah,
- 48:45Speaker 2: but the, the, like, what, what are you guys doing?
- 48:47Speaker 2: You guys, you're gonna, you're buying, maybe they're assembling them
- 48:51Speaker 2: or doing something to make it made in America or
- 48:53Speaker 2: assembled in America at some point, which I don't even
- 48:55Speaker 2: think they figured this part of it out yet. It
- 48:56Speaker 2: doesn't totally seem like, by the way, everyone's like, oh,
- 48:58Speaker 2: this is definitely the phone. Are you sure that's the phone?
- 49:00Speaker 2: Or did somebody grab a picture of a phone off
- 49:03Speaker 2: the internet and put a fucking gold thing on it?
- 49:05Speaker 2: And they have no idea what the phone's going to
- 49:07Speaker 2: be yet. Uh, so like this whole thing is so stupid.
- 49:09Speaker 2: I don't even understand who this grift is for. It's
- 49:11Speaker 2: more expensive than some of the cheaper, uh, like similar
- 49:14Speaker 2: kind of fake phone brands. So it's like, so this
- 49:16Speaker 2: is for like some small subset of Trump super fans.
- 49:19Speaker 1: I think it's like licensing too, because I read that
- 49:22Speaker 1: they're working with some of the carriers. So it's not
- 49:24Speaker 1: like they're inventing their own Verizon or T-Mobile. They're like
- 49:27Speaker 1: working with some of these companies to license the mobile carriers.
- 49:30Speaker 2: Yeah. It's just a white label on a, just another service.
- 49:33Speaker 1: It's just ridiculous.
- 49:34Speaker 2: And I just don't know. Like, I just truly like,
- 49:36Speaker 2: I don't know, like I'm a pretty big Barack Obama fan,
- 49:38Speaker 2: but I wouldn't buy a phone from the guy.
- 49:40Speaker 1: Remember the Obama phones?
- 49:41Speaker 3: Remember that scandal?
- 49:43Speaker 1: This is now a real Obama phone thing.
- 49:46Speaker 3: Those are allegedly giving out free to people. Yeah, the
- 49:49Speaker 3: whole grift is I think they partner with some idiotic provider,
- 49:53Speaker 3: someone who's going to like buy these phones in bulk.
- 49:55Speaker 3: They slap their name on it and they take like
- 49:56Speaker 3: a 20% rip on whatever the sales are.
- 49:59Speaker 2: Right, that's right. There is a company that says they
- 50:01Speaker 2: can do this, right? There's a company that says they
- 50:02Speaker 2: can do that. That company charges something on top of
- 50:06Speaker 2: what it costs to get the service. And then Trump
- 50:09Speaker 2: and the family charges a service on top of that.
- 50:11Speaker 2: And so whatever the delta is between the cost of
- 50:13Speaker 2: like whatever, T-Mobile or whatever, Boost Mobile or whatever, that's
- 50:19Speaker 2: the profit they make off the backs of like some
- 50:21Speaker 2: dumb fuck, MAGA dumbass buying this phone off of the internet.
- 50:25Speaker 1: So anyway, exciting announcement from us. Buy your own crooked phone.
- 50:30Speaker 3: We got to do this.
- 50:31Speaker 2: God, what a stupid time. What a stupid, dangerous time.
- 50:35Speaker 1: Look, you know, you got to have a phone that
- 50:37Speaker 1: aligns with your values.
- 50:38Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 50:40Speaker 2: Sometimes the news is.
- 50:40Speaker 1: That's what Eric Trump said. We need a phone that
- 50:43Speaker 1: aligns with our values.
- 50:44Speaker 2: What does that mean?
- 50:45Speaker 3: I know I don't.
- 50:46Speaker 1: I don't need my phone to agree with me. The
- 50:49Speaker 1: phone's going to raid a.
- 50:52Speaker 3: What's the phone going to do?
- 50:54Speaker 2: Stop a trans swimmer?
- 50:55Speaker 3: My phone doesn't have an agenda. What are you talking about?
- 50:57Speaker 2: This phone stops trans swimmers. This machine stops DEI hiring policies.
- 51:04Speaker 1: I do want to get our hands on one, one
- 51:05Speaker 1: of the Trump phones, if it does come to pass,
- 51:07Speaker 1: just to see what it looks like.
- 51:07Speaker 2: They did the watches. They did the NFTs. It's like
- 51:10Speaker 2: they're just skimming off the top of their stupid political organization.
- 51:14Speaker 1: Well, he's making a lot of money, I think.
- 51:15Speaker 4: I guess.
- 51:16Speaker 1: His last disclosure was like he's made like $ 600 million
- 51:19Speaker 1: so far as president.
- 51:20Speaker 2: He's finally a billionaire.
- 51:21Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 51:22Speaker 2: He's finally a billionaire. It's unbelievable.
- 51:23Speaker 3: I know to them, I'm not a business guy, but
- 51:25Speaker 3: I would just say stick to the crypto. You're selling vaporware.
- 51:28Speaker 3: You're selling nothing. Getting paid all that.
- 51:31Speaker 1: Don't stick to that either. Maybe try to be ethical.
- 51:34Speaker 1: Maybe try to make money the real way. All right,
- 51:36Speaker 1: Jiminy Cricket over here. Fucking Jimmy Carter over here. I'm
- 51:40Speaker 1: going to go sell my peanut farm. When we come back,
- 51:43Speaker 1: you'll hear my conversation with Maryland Governor Wes Moore about
- 51:46Speaker 1: how governors should be responding to this moment. But one
- 51:49Speaker 1: quick thing before we do that, check out the latest
- 51:50Speaker 1: episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. Stacey is joined
- 51:53Speaker 1: by political commentators Aaron Parnas and Khalil Green to talk
- 51:56Speaker 1: about why Democrats are losing young voters. They dig into
- 51:59Speaker 1: how the right has figured out platforms like TikTok and
- 52:01Speaker 1: YouTube and how Democrats are still playing catch up. Listen
- 52:04Speaker 1: to Assembly Required wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube.
- 52:07Speaker 1: When we come back, Wes Moore. Pod Save America is
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- 53:21Speaker 1: slash crooked and use code crooked for 20% off your
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- 53:27Speaker 1: at checkout. Bombas.com slash crooked and use code crooked. Governor Westmore,
- 53:35Speaker 1: welcome to the pod.
- 53:36Speaker 4: It's great to be back.
- 53:37Speaker 1: Great to be back. So Trump had a military parade
- 53:40Speaker 1: over the weekend. It was held in your backyard. I
- 53:43Speaker 1: saw that instead of attending, you went for a run
- 53:46Speaker 1: with service members at Fort Meade. Having served in the
- 53:49Speaker 1: military yourself, how did you feel watching whatever coverage you
- 53:53Speaker 1: saw of the parade?
- 53:55Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, honestly, I didn't watch any coverage of
- 53:58Speaker 4: the parade. I'm not sure I really missed much. You know,
- 54:03Speaker 4: and it looked like not many people watched it there
- 54:05Speaker 4: in person either. You know, but it is one of
- 54:08Speaker 4: these things where, you know, I have a deep love
- 54:12Speaker 4: for the United States Army because this is an organization
- 54:15Speaker 4: that really helped to save my life. You know, I
- 54:18Speaker 4: joined the army when I was 17 years old. I
- 54:21Speaker 4: joined the army. I wasn't young enough to I wasn't
- 54:23Speaker 4: old enough to sign the paperwork. My mom signed the
- 54:24Speaker 4: paperwork for me. But this was an organization that didn't
- 54:27Speaker 4: just change the trajectory of my life. I think everything
- 54:31Speaker 4: I learned, everything that I that I gained from serving
- 54:34Speaker 4: in the military have been things that I still use
- 54:37Speaker 4: to this day. These are these are my brothers and
- 54:39Speaker 4: sisters for life, the people who I serve with in Afghanistan.
- 54:43Speaker 4: And so I took the 250th as something that was
- 54:45Speaker 4: very deeply personal. where it's a, you know, the fact
- 54:48Speaker 4: that we could be out there and enjoy the freedoms
- 54:51Speaker 4: we enjoy, someone had to fight for those, right? Someone
- 54:55Speaker 4: had to protect those freedoms. And oftentimes it was the
- 54:57Speaker 4: people who were wearing the uniforms that I wore, the
- 55:01Speaker 4: uniforms that the people, you know, who we celebrate wore,
- 55:04Speaker 4: and also as a celebration of those who died in
- 55:07Speaker 4: those uniforms. And so I just thought that there was
- 55:10Speaker 4: a much better way for us to be able to
- 55:13Speaker 4: remember the importance of the United States Army. There was
- 55:15Speaker 4: a much better way for us to be able to
- 55:17Speaker 4: remember the importance of those men and women who raised
- 55:20Speaker 4: their hands to serve in an organization that has helped
- 55:22Speaker 4: to make this country as strong as it is. There's
- 55:25Speaker 4: a much better way to remember those. And frankly, when
- 55:28Speaker 4: you were watching an administration who's doing things like cutting
- 55:31Speaker 4: the budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs, cutting benefits
- 55:35Speaker 4: for veterans, that is firing federal workers at just this
- 55:40Speaker 4: breakneck speed. regardless of the fact that one in three
- 55:43Speaker 4: federal workers are military veterans themselves, but then you think
- 55:47Speaker 4: that a celebration of the army is throwing a parade
- 55:49Speaker 4: on your birthday. I just find it to be, you know,
- 55:53Speaker 4: just deeply tone deaf and frankly, deeply offensive.
- 55:58Speaker 1: Yeah, I was saying to a friend earlier that I
- 56:01Speaker 1: sort of felt for the troops watching the parade. And
- 56:05Speaker 1: I wonder having, you know, served yourself and, you know,
- 56:09Speaker 1: received the training you did, you know, not asking you
- 56:12Speaker 1: to put yourself in the, in the minds of every
- 56:14Speaker 1: service member, but how do you think it feels in
- 56:18Speaker 1: the armed services right now? You have, you know, federal
- 56:22Speaker 1: troops in the streets of LA or federalized guard. You
- 56:26Speaker 1: have Marines here as well. There was that speech at
- 56:30Speaker 1: Fort Bragg the other week where Trump, they screened participants
- 56:35Speaker 1: for loyalty to Trump and you had some service members
- 56:38Speaker 1: behind him who were more pro-Trump and they were booing
- 56:41Speaker 1: names of Democratic officials when Trump was attacking them and
- 56:44Speaker 1: cheering when he was making fun of others. How do
- 56:46Speaker 1: you think it feels to be serving in the military
- 56:49Speaker 1: right now, considering the political backdrop?
- 56:54Speaker 4: It's sad, and I do feel for them. I think
- 56:57Speaker 4: your description is right. I just feel horrible for them
- 57:01Speaker 4: because that's not why we signed up. I had the
- 57:05Speaker 4: honor of serving with some of the most amazing men
- 57:07Speaker 4: and women that I've ever met, and I And there
- 57:11Speaker 4: was one question I never asked a single one of them.
- 57:14Speaker 4: What's your political party? I never asked one of them
- 57:17Speaker 4: how they voted in the last election. I never asked
- 57:20Speaker 4: one of them, you know, what your voter registration is. Never.
- 57:24Speaker 4: The men and women who I led, the men and
- 57:27Speaker 4: women who I served with, the only thing that we
- 57:30Speaker 4: had in our minds was our ability to take care
- 57:32Speaker 4: of each other and to do everything in our power
- 57:35Speaker 4: to make sure that we were bringing the other one home,
- 57:37Speaker 4: you know, that no matter what, that we would do
- 57:40Speaker 4: everything in our power to make sure that you got
- 57:41Speaker 4: back home to your family. And, um, and, and I,
- 57:45Speaker 4: and I think about just how different an experience this
- 57:49Speaker 4: is for these men and women who are, who are
- 57:51Speaker 4: serving in some cases, again, you know, I have members
- 57:54Speaker 4: of the 82nd airborne division. That was, that was, that
- 57:56Speaker 4: was my unit in Afghanistan. And it's just kind of
- 57:59Speaker 4: unimaginable to think that that's something that, uh, that they're
- 58:03Speaker 4: being asked, uh, now about their political loyalties, whether or
- 58:06Speaker 4: not they're going to get a chance to be seen
- 58:07Speaker 4: on television or not. Uh, I just think that the
- 58:11Speaker 4: work is too serious for that. The consequences are too
- 58:15Speaker 4: dire for that. And that these are people who have
- 58:19Speaker 4: put their hands on a Bible and pledged allegiance, not
- 58:23Speaker 4: to an individual. Now, I never took a pledge. I
- 58:26Speaker 4: never took an oath to the president of the United States.
- 58:28Speaker 4: My oath was to the constitution, right? My oath was
- 58:31Speaker 4: to the values. My oath was to protect this country,
- 58:35Speaker 4: to fight and win our nation's war. to protect our
- 58:38Speaker 4: country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That was the
- 58:41Speaker 4: oath that I took. It was never to an individual,
- 58:43Speaker 4: no matter who the commander-in-chief was at the time. And
- 58:46Speaker 4: I just think it's really important that the way we
- 58:48Speaker 4: honor the service of these individuals who are part of
- 58:53Speaker 4: the less than 1% who have raised their hand of
- 58:56Speaker 4: this country to be able to protect it and defend
- 58:58Speaker 4: it and to give their lives if necessary, the way
- 59:01Speaker 4: you honor their service is by respecting the oath that
- 59:04Speaker 4: they took. And I just felt like that was a,
- 59:08Speaker 4: and the things that we've seen, it wasn't just one incident.
- 59:10Speaker 4: It's just now kind of repeated a series of incidents.
- 59:13Speaker 4: Just seemed to be a real deviation of the oath
- 59:16Speaker 4: that we all took.
- 59:17Speaker 1: So also this weekend, it seems like an estimated 5
- 59:20Speaker 1: million or so people came out to protest Donald Trump,
- 59:23Speaker 1: one of the single largest protests in American history. I've
- 59:26Speaker 1: had a couple of people ask me, What's the actual
- 59:29Speaker 1: goal of these protests and where do they go from here?
- 59:32Speaker 1: What do you think?
- 59:33Speaker 4: You know, I respect people's First Amendment rights. And I
- 59:38Speaker 4: think that we all have a right to the freedom
- 59:42Speaker 4: of assembly, of a freedom of speech. And I think
- 59:45Speaker 4: that people should pay attention that there is a very
- 59:47Speaker 4: real frustration to what's happening with this administration. And it's not,
- 59:53Speaker 4: the really interesting thing about the protest is it's not
- 59:55Speaker 4: a frustration to an individual incident. It's not a frustration saying, oh,
- 1:00:00Speaker 4: it's the policy around immigration. Or, oh, this is a
- 1:00:04Speaker 4: policy around the potential cuts to Medicaid. Or, oh, this
- 1:00:08Speaker 4: is a protest to the way that we are firing
- 1:00:12Speaker 4: federal workers. Because the motivations for so many people who
- 1:00:16Speaker 4: are out there marching is varied and it's different. But
- 1:00:19Speaker 4: it's all tied up in one theme. And that is
- 1:00:23Speaker 4: this idea that no one is above the law and
- 1:00:27Speaker 4: everyone has an obligation to defend it, protect it, and
- 1:00:30Speaker 4: follow it. That's the whole idea of no kings, right?
- 1:00:35Speaker 4: And so that's the thing that I think is really
- 1:00:38Speaker 4: powerful in some ways about the protest is there's not
- 1:00:42Speaker 4: a single political issue that got people out there. But
- 1:00:46Speaker 4: it is just on this idea that we believe that
- 1:00:48Speaker 4: the president of the United States should actually follow the law.
- 1:00:52Speaker 4: And we believe that the people collectively, that our voice
- 1:00:56Speaker 4: is much bigger and much stronger than just an individual
- 1:00:59Speaker 4: or even a individual political party that's involved. Because I
- 1:01:02Speaker 4: think even out there, you didn't just see Democrats, right?
- 1:01:05Speaker 4: There were Democrats, independents, Republicans, agnostics out there, but they're
- 1:01:10Speaker 4: all protesting the idea of protecting a value and something
- 1:01:14Speaker 4: that we as Americans take very seriously and very personally.
- 1:01:18Speaker 4: And so I think the thing that we've got to
- 1:01:19Speaker 4: remember in all this, though, And the question of where
- 1:01:21Speaker 4: do we take it from here? We have to remember
- 1:01:24Speaker 4: that this energy and this push is not about a
- 1:01:28Speaker 4: singular day. It's we have to keep the intensity up.
- 1:01:33Speaker 4: And we also have to remember that the results that
- 1:01:37Speaker 4: people are hoping for and hoping to see in their
- 1:01:38Speaker 4: own lives, that that's something that we're not willing to
- 1:01:41Speaker 4: compromise on either. How we're going to be remembered in
- 1:01:43Speaker 4: this moment, 10 years from now, is not how loud
- 1:01:46Speaker 4: we yelled. It's not how many people showed up to protest.
- 1:01:51Speaker 4: It was the fact that were we able to deliver
- 1:01:54Speaker 4: on the hopes that people actually have for what their
- 1:01:57Speaker 4: government can provide. And I think if we do that,
- 1:02:00Speaker 4: then we can turn this thing from just a, from a,
- 1:02:03Speaker 4: from a moment to a much larger, to a much
- 1:02:05Speaker 4: larger movement.
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: So I'm sure you were horrified by the news of
- 1:02:10Speaker 1: the political assassinations in Minnesota over the weekend. I didn't
- 1:02:14Speaker 1: think it could get any worse until I saw the
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: reaction from prominent right-wing figures in who spread obviously false
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: conspiracies about the shooter's politics.
- 1:02:21Speaker 2: U.S.
- 1:02:22Speaker 1: Senator Mike Lee said this is what happens when Marxists
- 1:02:24Speaker 1: don't get their way. Senator Bernie Moreno, Elon Musk both
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: said it shows how the left has become violent. Trump
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: influencers like Mike Chernovich and Alex Jones even suggested that
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: Tim Waltz was behind the assassination. You had tweeted how,
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: you know, saddened you were by it. And you also
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: said that we need a renewed commitment to civil discourse.
- 1:02:44Speaker 1: How do we even begin to do that when, that's
- 1:02:48Speaker 1: the reaction from some of the most influential people in
- 1:02:50Speaker 1: the Republican party.
- 1:02:52Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:02:53Speaker 4: Um, it's tough. It's tough when, um, when something so horrific, uh, happens, uh,
- 1:03:02Speaker 4: to two people. And, and, and frankly, I, I, um,
- 1:03:06Speaker 4: I don't care what your political affiliation is. I don't
- 1:03:10Speaker 4: care if you agree or disagree. Um, when you have
- 1:03:15Speaker 4: two public servants who were who were taken out, I mean,
- 1:03:20Speaker 4: literally targeted assassinations and then targeted assassination attempts for, you know,
- 1:03:28Speaker 4: because of a political ideology. I, you know, you cannot
- 1:03:32Speaker 4: tell me that the attempts that we saw, that we
- 1:03:38Speaker 4: saw on Franklin and President Trump, that that should break
- 1:03:41Speaker 4: your heart any more or any less than what we
- 1:03:44Speaker 4: saw in Minnesota. And I think it says a whole
- 1:03:47Speaker 4: lot about people who, uh, who think that, uh, that, uh,
- 1:03:51Speaker 4: that somehow that, uh, the politics was behind one of
- 1:03:55Speaker 4: the danger of this political violence, uh, is, is more
- 1:03:59Speaker 4: dangerous from one than the other. You know, we have,
- 1:04:01Speaker 4: we have to remember that, um, that in this time,
- 1:04:04Speaker 4: it is important for us to be able to, um,
- 1:04:07Speaker 4: both turn down the, the language and the rhetoric, um,
- 1:04:12Speaker 4: and to know that, you know, that, that, Being a
- 1:04:14Speaker 4: public servant should not mean risking your life. And we've
- 1:04:17Speaker 4: passed legislation here in the state of Maryland that's focused
- 1:04:20Speaker 4: on things like protecting our judges and protecting our election
- 1:04:23Speaker 4: workers because we've had election workers attacked. We've had a
- 1:04:27Speaker 4: judge recently in the state of Maryland, over in Western Maryland, assassinated,
- 1:04:33Speaker 4: killed in front of his own home. So we've been
- 1:04:37Speaker 4: very clear that this level of political violence and political
- 1:04:40Speaker 4: vitriol is not just dangerous and must be stopped, but...
- 1:04:44Speaker 4: But we have to be able to have the courage
- 1:04:46Speaker 4: to be able to call it out no matter what
- 1:04:49Speaker 4: it looks like and no matter who's doing it.
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: Is it something you've worried about for yourself, your own family?
- 1:04:54Speaker 4: I mean, listen, I think it's something that for each
- 1:04:56Speaker 4: and every one of us we worry about. I mean,
- 1:04:59Speaker 4: I unfortunately, you know, I get FBI and intelligence reports
- 1:05:04Speaker 4: every single week. I know how the level of threats
- 1:05:10Speaker 4: have increased since I've been the governor. As the first
- 1:05:13Speaker 4: black governor in the history of the state of Maryland,
- 1:05:16Speaker 4: as only the third African-American ever elected as a governor
- 1:05:20Speaker 4: in this country's history, I've seen the data about the
- 1:05:26Speaker 4: increase in threats that have come. I also know this,
- 1:05:31Speaker 4: that the thing we're asking of our public servants and
- 1:05:35Speaker 4: the promise we make to our public servants is for
- 1:05:39Speaker 4: people who are willing to raise their hands. for people
- 1:05:41Speaker 4: who are willing to serve something bigger than themselves, for
- 1:05:45Speaker 4: people who are willing to go into this work, understanding
- 1:05:48Speaker 4: the difficulties that it presents to you and your family members,
- 1:05:52Speaker 4: at least that we can do is to make sure
- 1:05:55Speaker 4: that you can feel safe in your own home, in
- 1:05:58Speaker 4: your own communities, in your own skin, that your families
- 1:06:02Speaker 4: can feel safe. And that it's not just the obligation, frankly,
- 1:06:05Speaker 4: of law enforcement to be able to provide that, For us,
- 1:06:09Speaker 4: it's up to the citizens, whether they are supporters of
- 1:06:12Speaker 4: us or not, to be able to say that we can,
- 1:06:17Speaker 4: even if we disagree with what a person is saying,
- 1:06:20Speaker 4: it should never get to a point that we are
- 1:06:22Speaker 4: then threatening them or their families or their family's safety.
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: So we still have American troops deployed here in Los Angeles,
- 1:06:30Speaker 1: and Trump just directed ICE to expand operations in blue
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: state cities. How are you planning to handle a potential
- 1:06:39Speaker 1: expansion of immigration raids in a city like Baltimore, or
- 1:06:43Speaker 1: even a deployment of troops in your state, or Trump
- 1:06:47Speaker 1: trying to federalize the Maryland National Guard. There was a
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: Washington Post story last week that said Trump wants the
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: National Guard to play a bigger role in immigration enforcement
- 1:06:56Speaker 1: going forward.
- 1:06:57Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, as both the commander-in-chief of Maryland's National Guard,
- 1:07:03Speaker 4: and as someone who's worn the uniform, you know, truthfully,
- 1:07:06Speaker 4: I take that role very seriously. In fact, just this
- 1:07:09Speaker 4: past weekend, I was with the members of our National
- 1:07:12Speaker 4: Guard as they were training up to be able to
- 1:07:17Speaker 4: help protect our citizens if we called out orders for
- 1:07:22Speaker 4: them to do so. And I'm a big believer that
- 1:07:25Speaker 4: the people on the ground have the best understanding about
- 1:07:28Speaker 4: what's happening. There's a reason that we have an escalation
- 1:07:31Speaker 4: of resources that we can deploy, that I know how
- 1:07:35Speaker 4: many local law enforcement officers we have. I know how
- 1:07:38Speaker 4: many state law enforcement officers have. I know what we
- 1:07:41Speaker 4: have in terms of our national guard. And so that's
- 1:07:46Speaker 4: why I think for the people on the ground, we
- 1:07:47Speaker 4: have the best understanding of what's needed and what's required
- 1:07:50Speaker 4: in situations to make sure that our people are safe,
- 1:07:53Speaker 4: which for me is the number one priority, to make
- 1:07:55Speaker 4: sure that the people in my state are safe. And
- 1:07:58Speaker 4: I take that responsibility very seriously. But when it comes
- 1:08:01Speaker 4: to immigration, I also know that this is a very
- 1:08:04Speaker 4: personal issue. You know, I was raised by an immigrant
- 1:08:08Speaker 4: single mom and our immigration system is functionally broken. And
- 1:08:13Speaker 4: there's one group who can solve it. And that's Congress.
- 1:08:17Speaker 4: And the truth is the president of the United States
- 1:08:19Speaker 4: could fix the immigration problem right now if he chose to.
- 1:08:22Speaker 4: He could just simply go to the Speaker of the
- 1:08:23Speaker 4: House and say, I need a comprehensive immigration bill on
- 1:08:26Speaker 4: my desk next week. And it would be on his
- 1:08:28Speaker 4: desk next week because he has the votes. He has
- 1:08:31Speaker 4: the House. He has the Senate. He has the White House.
- 1:08:33Speaker 4: And he's not doing it. He's just simply choosing to
- 1:08:36Speaker 4: use executive actions, many of which illegal, to be able
- 1:08:40Speaker 4: to deal with an issue because he has no interest
- 1:08:43Speaker 4: in dealing with the issue. And so it is very,
- 1:08:46Speaker 4: very frustrating as the chief executive of a state and, frankly,
- 1:08:50Speaker 4: as a commander-in-chief of a National Guard in the fact
- 1:08:53Speaker 4: that we do have a broken system. But the commander
- 1:08:57Speaker 4: in chief of the United States Army does not seem
- 1:09:00Speaker 4: to have an interest in actually fixing it, just has
- 1:09:03Speaker 4: an interest in weaponizing it.
- 1:09:06Speaker 1: Yeah, and not just weaponizing it, but it does seem
- 1:09:08Speaker 1: like his policy is, okay, if you're a farmer or
- 1:09:14Speaker 1: you're in the hospitality industry and you're in red states
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: or places that voted for me, maybe we can back
- 1:09:20Speaker 1: off on immigration enforcement and we'll just target blue states.
- 1:09:24Speaker 1: That's been the case on many of his policies and
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: many of the institutions he's targeted since becoming president. How
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: do you see this as, you know, a governor of
- 1:09:34Speaker 1: a blue state in terms of just sort of Trump
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: using the office to sort of declare war on blue America?
- 1:09:41Speaker 4: Yeah. The way that I see it is none of
- 1:09:45Speaker 4: this is terribly shocking. None of this is terribly surprising. Um, I,
- 1:09:50Speaker 4: we've been, we've been, we've been battle boarding, um, for
- 1:09:53Speaker 4: this type of scenario for a very long time. Uh,
- 1:09:56Speaker 4: so the thing that we do is, you know, we
- 1:09:58Speaker 4: control the things that we can control. And one of
- 1:10:01Speaker 4: the great things about being a governor, honestly, John, is that,
- 1:10:04Speaker 4: you know, we're able to show what an alternative looks
- 1:10:05Speaker 4: like where, you know, we tell our people where, you know,
- 1:10:08Speaker 4: we have a, we have a president of the United
- 1:10:10Speaker 4: States who right now is, uh, is with his whole
- 1:10:13Speaker 4: Doge project, um, uh, is now actively just firing people.
- 1:10:18Speaker 4: federal workers. And we have a greater level of exposure
- 1:10:21Speaker 4: in the state of Maryland than anyone else because I
- 1:10:23Speaker 4: have over 260,000 federal employees in my state. And while
- 1:10:27Speaker 4: he is arbitrarily firing federal workers, we're spending our time
- 1:10:31Speaker 4: making sure that our federal workers are supported by actually
- 1:10:33Speaker 4: streamlining them into available state and private sector jobs and
- 1:10:38Speaker 4: making sure that if I have a person who is
- 1:10:39Speaker 4: qualified and interested, I want to get them as quickly
- 1:10:43Speaker 4: as possible, get them in classrooms, right? Get them in hospitals, right?
- 1:10:47Speaker 4: Get them in places where we have a shortage to
- 1:10:49Speaker 4: know that their skills are necessary and know that we
- 1:10:51Speaker 4: have a society that is going to benefit from their
- 1:10:55Speaker 4: continued service. When we have a president of the United
- 1:10:57Speaker 4: States who is spending their time being able to use
- 1:11:01Speaker 4: a budget to be able to shrink the economy. We
- 1:11:05Speaker 4: saw a contraction of the U.S. economy in the first
- 1:11:07Speaker 4: quarter for the first time that we've seen in years.
- 1:11:10Speaker 4: And in our state, we've actually gone from 43rd in
- 1:11:13Speaker 4: the country in unemployment to now being amongst the lowest
- 1:11:16Speaker 4: unemployment rates in the entire country by being able to
- 1:11:19Speaker 4: focus on things like apprenticeship programs, by making Maryland the
- 1:11:22Speaker 4: first state in the country to have a service year
- 1:11:24Speaker 4: option for all of our high school graduates, by doing
- 1:11:26Speaker 4: the largest mass pardon in the history of the United
- 1:11:29Speaker 4: States of America and getting people back into the workforce,
- 1:11:31Speaker 4: particularly people who've been excluded for the workforce for things
- 1:11:34Speaker 4: like a misdemeanor cannabis conviction from the 1980s. And so
- 1:11:38Speaker 4: I think the thing that we've really focused on in
- 1:11:40Speaker 4: our state is that this binary, this us versus them, this,
- 1:11:46Speaker 4: you know, that the only way that I can win
- 1:11:48Speaker 4: is if you lose, that we're just showing in the
- 1:11:51Speaker 4: state of Maryland that we think differently, that we actually
- 1:11:54Speaker 4: think that part of the goal is that we can
- 1:11:56Speaker 4: build a society where, as I learned in the military
- 1:11:58Speaker 4: when I was 17 years old, where we leave no
- 1:12:00Speaker 4: one behind. And that is the kind of society that
- 1:12:04Speaker 4: shows that we don't have to just fall in lines.
- 1:12:07Speaker 4: with what the president of the United States is doing,
- 1:12:09Speaker 4: that we can actually provide an alternative. And I think
- 1:12:12Speaker 4: the people of our state are responding well to it.
- 1:12:16Speaker 1: When Governor Newsom spoke about the raids and the troop
- 1:12:18Speaker 1: deployment last week, he said, quote, democracy is under assault
- 1:12:22Speaker 1: right before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived.
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: Trump is taking a wrecking ball to our founding father's
- 1:12:28Speaker 1: historic project. Do you agree with all that? Are you
- 1:12:31Speaker 1: at the same level of alarm?
- 1:12:33Speaker 4: Well, I think you can't look at what's happening right
- 1:12:36Speaker 4: now and think that this is normal. These are very
- 1:12:41Speaker 4: abnormal times. And these are times when we're watching not
- 1:12:45Speaker 4: just an overreach of executive authority, but in many ways
- 1:12:49Speaker 4: an illegal reach of executive authority. The thing I would
- 1:12:53Speaker 4: also say about that, though, is this, is I'm also
- 1:12:58Speaker 4: very honest about our country's history. I'm also very honest
- 1:13:02Speaker 4: about about our founding fathers and what their intent was.
- 1:13:06Speaker 4: And I'm not sure if I was part of their
- 1:13:08Speaker 4: full intent when our founding fathers first put together the
- 1:13:12Speaker 4: documents of this country and first put together the foundation
- 1:13:15Speaker 4: of this country. I think this country is a constant evolution.
- 1:13:19Speaker 4: I think this country has had a deeply uneven history.
- 1:13:23Speaker 4: But that's actually the thing that also gives me hope
- 1:13:27Speaker 4: is that I don't sit there and act like the
- 1:13:33Speaker 4: country's history doesn't exist. I think the country's history is
- 1:13:36Speaker 4: real and it matters. And this country has had a
- 1:13:38Speaker 4: very brutal history for a lot of groups. I also
- 1:13:42Speaker 4: know that the reason that I can stand here as
- 1:13:45Speaker 4: the governor of Maryland is because there were Marylanders like
- 1:13:50Speaker 4: Harriet Tubman and Marylanders like Frederick Douglass and Marylanders like
- 1:13:54Speaker 4: Thurgood Marshall, who when they saw this type of breakage,
- 1:13:59Speaker 4: when they saw this type of unevenness, when they saw
- 1:14:01Speaker 4: these type of illegal activities taking place, that they fought.
- 1:14:05Speaker 4: And they're willing to fight for, they didn't know me
- 1:14:08Speaker 4: by name, but they fought for the hope of me.
- 1:14:11Speaker 4: And that's the responsibility that I very much take on
- 1:14:14Speaker 4: right now, is that this country has seen these type
- 1:14:17Speaker 4: of behaviors before. This country has had these type of
- 1:14:20Speaker 4: behaviors as part of its core foundation before. But I
- 1:14:24Speaker 4: think understanding that history is also the thing that gives
- 1:14:28Speaker 4: me a real sense of realism and frankly hope that
- 1:14:35Speaker 4: joy does come in the morning, but you got to
- 1:14:37Speaker 4: fight for it. And that's exactly what we've chosen to
- 1:14:40Speaker 4: do here in Maryland.
- 1:14:41Speaker 1: Speaking of our country's history, back in May, you vetoed
- 1:14:44Speaker 1: legislation that would have created a commission to study the
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: issue of reparations for slavery in Maryland. Your basic reasoning
- 1:14:50Speaker 1: has been, we don't need another study. And, you know,
- 1:14:53Speaker 1: it's time to focus on the work itself of tackling
- 1:14:55Speaker 1: racial disparities. Obviously, you know, you've got some heat for that.
- 1:14:59Speaker 1: Studies aside, though, do you believe reparations are justified? Yeah.
- 1:15:04Speaker 4: You know, when I when I looked at the bill
- 1:15:07Speaker 4: and the length, the language of the bill literally lays
- 1:15:10Speaker 4: out that we are going to do do do this,
- 1:15:13Speaker 4: do the this study, this commission. And then in two years,
- 1:15:17Speaker 4: they bring the recommendation to the governor. My point is this.
- 1:15:21Speaker 4: I am the governor. I don't need two years. Let's
- 1:15:24Speaker 4: get to work. And I think about the work that
- 1:15:26Speaker 4: we have done in the state of Maryland. No state
- 1:15:28Speaker 4: has been as aggressive in these past two years on
- 1:15:31Speaker 4: this worker repair that we've seen in the state of Maryland.
- 1:15:34Speaker 4: That in the past two years, we've invested over $ 1. 3
- 1:15:37Speaker 4: billion going towards our HBCUs, which is a 60% increase
- 1:15:41Speaker 4: than we saw from our predecessor. And we've gotten it
- 1:15:43Speaker 4: done in two years. That we have created over 1,600
- 1:15:46Speaker 4: new black homeowners in the state of Maryland by making
- 1:15:50Speaker 4: sure we're prioritizing investments to first-time homebuyers, that we have
- 1:15:54Speaker 4: been able to invest over $ 800 million going towards Black-owned businesses.
- 1:15:59Speaker 4: And by being able to do things from procurement reform,
- 1:16:02Speaker 4: expungement reform, sign the largest mass pardon in the history
- 1:16:05Speaker 4: of the United States of America, there is nobody who
- 1:16:08Speaker 4: is questioning my commitment to this work or my commitment
- 1:16:11Speaker 4: to the work of repair. But what I am saying
- 1:16:13Speaker 4: is this, is that there's been a whole series of
- 1:16:16Speaker 4: scholarship on this issue There's been a whole series of reports.
- 1:16:20Speaker 4: There have been four others in just the past 25
- 1:16:23Speaker 4: years in Maryland that have been along these lines, right?
- 1:16:27Speaker 4: And my only point is this, is this is the time,
- 1:16:31Speaker 4: and I'm excited to do that work with the members
- 1:16:33Speaker 4: of our General Assembly, with the members of the Black Caucus,
- 1:16:36Speaker 4: who have done really good work on this, and a
- 1:16:38Speaker 4: lot of stuff we've done together. And this is the
- 1:16:40Speaker 4: time for continued action, that I don't need two years.
- 1:16:46Speaker 4: I'm ready to go right now. And that's the focus
- 1:16:49Speaker 4: that I want to be able to take because the
- 1:16:50Speaker 4: truth is, is that I know how much time I
- 1:16:52Speaker 4: have left. In fact, you know, a clock sits on
- 1:16:55Speaker 4: my desk that I now have 500, I believe now
- 1:17:00Speaker 4: 21 days left in my first term. I'm not wasting
- 1:17:03Speaker 4: one of them. And I'm ready to be able to
- 1:17:05Speaker 4: continue the work of repair that our state needs because
- 1:17:09Speaker 4: the truth is, is that the history of racism is
- 1:17:11Speaker 4: littered throughout every single aspect of the state of Maryland.
- 1:17:16Speaker 4: And people know this. It's time for us to be
- 1:17:20Speaker 4: able to do action on it.
- 1:17:21Speaker 1: It also sounds like you believe that the work of
- 1:17:25Speaker 1: reparations can more effectively be done with some of the
- 1:17:31Speaker 1: policies and some of the steps you've taken in Maryland
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: to help target racial disparities as opposed to reparations, which
- 1:17:38Speaker 1: is a politically loaded, controversial word that may not have
- 1:17:43Speaker 1: the political support necessary to in comparison to some of
- 1:17:47Speaker 1: the policies that you've taken on in Maryland. Is that right?
- 1:17:49Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think racism is not an act, right?
- 1:17:55Speaker 4: Because I think it actually lets people off the hook
- 1:17:57Speaker 4: too easy. Because I think it's like, you know, a
- 1:18:00Speaker 4: person's like, well, I don't wear a hood. I don't
- 1:18:03Speaker 4: say the N-word, so I'm not racist. Racism is not
- 1:18:07Speaker 4: an act. Racism is a system. Racism is a system
- 1:18:12Speaker 4: that allows an eight-to-one racial wealth gap. in the state
- 1:18:15Speaker 4: of Maryland. And we have an eight to one racial
- 1:18:16Speaker 4: wealth gap, not because one group is working eight times harder, right?
- 1:18:20Speaker 4: It's a system that is put in place.
- 1:18:22Speaker 6: That racism, that it's not an act that caused historical redlining.
- 1:18:30Speaker 6: It's not an act that caused unfair appraisal values in
- 1:18:33Speaker 6: historically redlined neighborhoods.
- 1:18:34Speaker 4: It's not an act that caused business creation to be
- 1:18:38Speaker 4: so dispersed and to be so divided. It's not an act.
- 1:18:42Speaker 4: that cause access to capital to be so limited, particularly
- 1:18:45Speaker 4: in black communities, that this is a system that has
- 1:18:48Speaker 4: created that. And so I believe deeply, deeply, that the
- 1:18:53Speaker 4: work of repair is about repairing systems. Because you could
- 1:18:59Speaker 4: have a conversation about how are we addressing individual acts
- 1:19:04Speaker 4: all you want. If the people still exist in a
- 1:19:07Speaker 4: system That doesn't work. If people still exist in a
- 1:19:10Speaker 4: system that is broken, if people still exist in a
- 1:19:13Speaker 4: system that allows children not to get the education that
- 1:19:16Speaker 4: they need, for racism to show itself in the air
- 1:19:19Speaker 4: that people are breathing, in the water that people are drinking,
- 1:19:22Speaker 4: in the homes that people are living in, in the
- 1:19:24Speaker 4: way that they are policed, in the transportation assets they
- 1:19:26Speaker 4: have and do not have, then the work of repair
- 1:19:30Speaker 4: is not going to be done by addressing an act.
- 1:19:33Speaker 4: The work of repair is only done when you're addressing systems.
- 1:19:37Speaker 4: And that's why I think the focus that we've had
- 1:19:39Speaker 4: in the state of Maryland over these past two years
- 1:19:41Speaker 4: where we collectively have moved on these issues faster and
- 1:19:45Speaker 4: more aggressively than anyone else in the country. And I
- 1:19:48Speaker 4: don't think there's anyone who can claim anything different. Focusing
- 1:19:52Speaker 4: on this issue of work, wages, and wealth that I
- 1:19:56Speaker 4: am deeply aware of our history. That's why I'm so
- 1:19:59Speaker 4: aggressive on it. But I also know I'm not going
- 1:20:01Speaker 4: to let people off the hook by simply saying we're
- 1:20:03Speaker 4: going to address it by addressing individual acts. I am
- 1:20:06Speaker 4: attacking systems because I think that's the only way that
- 1:20:09Speaker 4: we're going to be able to address this in a
- 1:20:11Speaker 4: longstanding fashion.
- 1:20:12Speaker 1: So you've been very clear that you are not currently
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: running for president. You've talked about focusing on the urgency
- 1:20:20Speaker 1: of 2025 before we get to 2028. Fair enough. Your
- 1:20:24Speaker 1: recent travel schedule has also included events in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia,
- 1:20:28Speaker 1: Michigan in a few weeks. Fair to assume also that
- 1:20:32Speaker 1: you're at least thinking about it?
- 1:20:34Speaker 4: No, I'm not running. It's not fair to assume. Because honestly,
- 1:20:38Speaker 4: if you look at where.
- 1:20:39Speaker 1: So you will not run? No, no, no.
- 1:20:43Speaker 4: I'm not, no. And here's actually I think the important
- 1:20:45Speaker 4: thing for people to remember with this is I will
- 1:20:49Speaker 4: go anywhere and everywhere. to be able to not just
- 1:20:53Speaker 4: talk about the good things that our state is doing,
- 1:20:55Speaker 4: but also make sure that more people are coming to
- 1:20:56Speaker 4: my state. You know, the states that you mentioned are important,
- 1:20:59Speaker 4: but also it doesn't mention the other places that we've
- 1:21:01Speaker 4: also gone that might not be quote unquote battleground states.
- 1:21:04Speaker 4: But you know what I was doing? I was talking
- 1:21:05Speaker 4: to businesses to try to get them to come to
- 1:21:06Speaker 4: the state of Maryland, just like I was doing in
- 1:21:08Speaker 4: those states. And when I say I'm not running and
- 1:21:11Speaker 4: why I feel so confident and very secure in that
- 1:21:15Speaker 4: is I'm also very much a person who I, you know,
- 1:21:19Speaker 4: when I You know, I remember when I have a
- 1:21:21Speaker 4: mentor of mine, the great Elijah Cummings, who was a
- 1:21:26Speaker 4: congressman out of Baltimore, who was not just a dear friend,
- 1:21:29Speaker 4: but a mentor. And when he passed away, there were
- 1:21:31Speaker 4: a lot of people who came up and said, you know,
- 1:21:33Speaker 4: you should really consider running for his seat. And it
- 1:21:36Speaker 4: was very humbling to include people very close to him.
- 1:21:39Speaker 4: And it was very humbling. But I knew in my
- 1:21:42Speaker 4: heart that's not what I wanted to do. So there
- 1:21:44Speaker 4: was nothing that anyone could tell me to make me
- 1:21:47Speaker 4: do it. Um, I remember when I was getting ready,
- 1:21:50Speaker 4: when I said to myself, and I thought, I was like,
- 1:21:52Speaker 4: I want to run for governor. There were a lot
- 1:21:54Speaker 4: of people who tell me I shouldn't run for governor.
- 1:21:56Speaker 4: They're like, you can't win. I don't know why you're
- 1:21:58Speaker 4: doing this. This is going to end really, really badly
- 1:22:00Speaker 4: for you. Um, and I knew there was nothing that
- 1:22:03Speaker 4: anyone could tell me to make me not run. So
- 1:22:07Speaker 4: I am, I am, I'm very comfortable with, uh, and,
- 1:22:11Speaker 4: and confident with, and thankful for the fact that, you know,
- 1:22:14Speaker 4: I'm a kid who literally you know, had handcuffs on
- 1:22:16Speaker 4: my wrist when I was 11 years old, whose mother
- 1:22:20Speaker 4: didn't get her first job that gave her benefits until
- 1:22:22Speaker 4: I was 14. And I'm now serving as the chief
- 1:22:25Speaker 4: executive of my state. Like I am like, I'm playing
- 1:22:27Speaker 4: with house money right now. And I'm loving the work
- 1:22:30Speaker 4: that we're doing in Maryland because I think Maryland is
- 1:22:31Speaker 4: just leading the country in so many different things in
- 1:22:33Speaker 4: terms of raising wages, in terms of, you know, driving historic,
- 1:22:37Speaker 4: historically low unemployment rates, driving historic drops in violent crime.
- 1:22:41Speaker 4: being able to actually create wealth and wealth opportunities for
- 1:22:44Speaker 4: everyone in our communities. Like I'm, I love my job
- 1:22:46Speaker 4: and I love what I'm doing. And I'm also very
- 1:22:49Speaker 4: clear that, um, that, that, uh, when I decided something, um,
- 1:22:53Speaker 4: no one can tell me different. Uh, and, uh, and,
- 1:22:56Speaker 4: and I know I'm not running for, I'm not running for,
- 1:22:58Speaker 4: for anything else, except I'm running for, I'm running for reelection, uh,
- 1:23:00Speaker 4: next year. And I hope people in my state give
- 1:23:02Speaker 4: me an opportunity to, uh, to have another four years.
- 1:23:05Speaker 1: Well, then last question for you. Um, we need good
- 1:23:08Speaker 1: presidential candidates in this party. Uh, In general, how do
- 1:23:12Speaker 1: you think the National Democratic Party is meeting this moment?
- 1:23:17Speaker 4: Um, it's a hard question because I don't, um, honestly,
- 1:23:21Speaker 4: I don't, I don't focus on it that much. I mean,
- 1:23:25Speaker 4: you know, and I just being, just being totally honest,
- 1:23:26Speaker 4: like I went, I remember when I ran for, for governor, um,
- 1:23:30Speaker 4: we ran against, there's like 12, there's like 11 other
- 1:23:32Speaker 4: people running for governor. They had, we had statewide elected officials.
- 1:23:36Speaker 4: We had two Obama cabinet secretaries. We have, uh, We
- 1:23:40Speaker 4: had a former head of the DNC, literally had a
- 1:23:42Speaker 4: former head of the Democratic Party who ran for governor.
- 1:23:45Speaker 4: And then me, the guy who had never run for
- 1:23:47Speaker 4: office before in my life, who is now saying, hey,
- 1:23:51Speaker 4: I want to run for governor. And I ended up
- 1:23:53Speaker 4: getting more individual votes than anyone who'd ever run for
- 1:23:55Speaker 4: governor in the history of the state of Maryland. So
- 1:23:58Speaker 4: I guess kind of my point is, is that I
- 1:24:00Speaker 4: was never the party's choice before. The party didn't ask
- 1:24:04Speaker 4: me to run. The party didn't come in and say,
- 1:24:07Speaker 4: you're the guy who we want to be the next
- 1:24:09Speaker 4: governor of Maryland. The people did. And so I've decided
- 1:24:13Speaker 4: I'm not the best person to give the party advice
- 1:24:17Speaker 4: as to what they should do because I was never
- 1:24:19Speaker 4: the party's choice in the first place. But I do
- 1:24:22Speaker 4: think that what does become really important in this moment
- 1:24:25Speaker 4: is if you're not delivering results for people and if
- 1:24:29Speaker 4: people don't find you to be authentic, they're never going
- 1:24:31Speaker 4: to support you. You know what I mean? Like the
- 1:24:35Speaker 4: reason that we are doing really nation-leading work around young
- 1:24:39Speaker 4: men and boys is here in the state of Maryland
- 1:24:42Speaker 4: is not because we lost them as a voting bloc
- 1:24:45Speaker 4: in 2024 and what are we now going to, like, nah,
- 1:24:48Speaker 4: the reason we've been doing this work since day one
- 1:24:50Speaker 4: of our administration is because it was a core part
- 1:24:52Speaker 4: of why I decided to get in this race in
- 1:24:53Speaker 4: the first place. And I think when you're looking at
- 1:24:56Speaker 4: who voted for us and the fact that we did,
- 1:24:58Speaker 4: we've done very well with young men and boys in
- 1:25:01Speaker 4: our elections is because they know it's real. And it's authentic, right?
- 1:25:05Speaker 4: The reason that we focused on having a service year option,
- 1:25:10Speaker 4: making Maryland the first state in this country that has
- 1:25:12Speaker 4: a service year option for every one of our high
- 1:25:14Speaker 4: school graduates is not because it polled well. In fact,
- 1:25:16Speaker 4: when I first moved virtually, it didn't poll well at all,
- 1:25:19Speaker 4: but it's because it's authentic. And I believe in it.
- 1:25:22Speaker 4: I believe in this time of this political divisiveness and
- 1:25:24Speaker 4: political vitriol that service will save us. And so I
- 1:25:28Speaker 4: think that the, I don't know, the best advice I
- 1:25:30Speaker 4: guess I can give, and again, I don't get my
- 1:25:33Speaker 4: talking points from the party. But the thing that I
- 1:25:36Speaker 4: would suggest that people do is be authentic and don't
- 1:25:40Speaker 4: forget why you got in this business in the first place.
- 1:25:43Speaker 4: And if you do that, I think the people will
- 1:25:45Speaker 4: respond because I think they'll see that you care about them,
- 1:25:49Speaker 4: you care about their families, you care about their legacy,
- 1:25:53Speaker 4: and that you are doing everything in your power to
- 1:25:55Speaker 4: be able to make sure that that's gonna be protected.
- 1:25:59Speaker 4: And I guess like we saw in our campaign, in
- 1:26:02Speaker 4: our race that the people will reward you for.
- 1:26:05Speaker 1: That's good advice. You should be giving more to the party.
- 1:26:08Speaker 1: Governor Westmore, thank you so much for joining Playsave America.
- 1:26:12Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Great to talk to you again.
- 1:26:14Speaker 4: Thank you.
- 1:26:19Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Dan and I will be
- 1:26:21Speaker 1: back with a new episode on Friday. Bye, everyone.
- 1:26:23Speaker 5: Bye.
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