Latest / Pod Save America / The JV Republican Debate (Preview)

Transcript

The JV Republican Debate (Preview) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor, and
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: we have a great show for you today. The first
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Republican primary debate is finally happening.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: This week on Wednesday in Milwaukee.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: And no surprise, the opposition research stories are flying around.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: They're hitting newspapers everywhere and they're signaling how these candidates
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: are attacking and going to be attacked. Also, we have
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: a brand new poll of Republicans in Iowa that helps
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: us set the stage and help us divine whether any
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: candidate has a chance of unseating Donald Trump in the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Iowa caucuses and the primary itself.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: And if so, what the right strategy is to do it.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Here to talk through all of it.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Is the one and only Tim Miller. Tim is the
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: co-host of the excellent podcast, The Next Level. He writes
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: for The Bulwark and In a Previous Life. He worked
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: on campaigns, including for Jeb Bush back in 2016. Tim,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: it is great to see you.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Thomas, thank you. It's good to see you. I noticed
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Lovett's gone again. Every time I'm here, he's faking a cold.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: You noticed that, did you?
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Whatever. It's fine. I'm just going to try not to
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: get my feelings hurt about it, but I'm happy to
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: be here with you.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I can't think of anyone better to help us understand
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: how to prepare for one of these debates, how to
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: try to win one of these primaries. As you mentioned,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Favreau and Lovett, they're on vacation this week. So we
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: are going to do this whole program together. We're going
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: to go behind the scenes into debate prep and strategy
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and what the hell success looks like in a debate
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: where there's 400 goobers on stage, where there's Burghams, Doug,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Let's talk about super PACs, how they're playing
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: a role in this cycle, brutal reporting about Ron DeSantis.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And then Tim and I, we're unhealthily obsessed with Vivek.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Ramaswamy and how he's gaining traction.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: Vivek.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: We'll cover that. Vivek, sorry.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: If we're going to do 20 minutes on Vivek, you
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: better be pronouncing his name right.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: You know why? Because Vivek the fake, as we learned.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it rhymes.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: From Jeff Rowe and SuperPAC.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And then, Tim, we got to do some donor fan
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: fiction because you tweet a lot about how you want
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to provide a service to donors that I'm hoping we'll
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: get into.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: And I know a lot of Republican donors listen to
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: this podcast. This will be a good way to get
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: my message out to them.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Well, Chris Christie asked at least two or three of
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: his friends to start. But let's start with this new
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Iowa poll. Because what everyone needs to know about this poll,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: it was done for NBC News and the Duane Register
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: by a pollster named Ann Seltzer, who is the best
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: in the business. No one questions that. So we really
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: trust these numbers, though, of course, they're a snapshot in time,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the time being August. So here's the top line numbers, Tim.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: 42% Donald Trump.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: 19% Ron DeSantis, 9% Tim Scott, 6% Nikki Haley, 6%
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence, 5% Chris Christie, 4% Vivek Ramaswamy. The good
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: news for everyone not named Trump is 52% of caucus
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: goers say their mind is not made up. 40% say
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: their mind is made up, but two thirds of Trump
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: supporters say their mind is made up. So most of
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the persuadables are with other people. So Tim, this largely
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: tracks up.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not great.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I would look, I think it largely tracks other polls
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: we've seen. Trump is way ahead, but DeSantis is doing
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a little better in Iowa than other places. I guess
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised to see Pence and Christie ahead of Vivek.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: That could just be statistical noise though. What's your takeaway
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: from this poll? Is the DeSantis cup, half full because
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: 58% of Iowans are not supporting Trump.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I was expecting a little more Vivek Mentum as
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: well out of this poll. And, um, it's good. This
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: Seltzer thing always triggers me. Um, because, you know, back
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: in our Iowa days, we were in Iowa at the
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: other time, you know, people would like wait at night
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: for the Seltzer poll to come out, like outside the register.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: And then in 20, it was the Seltzer poll that
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: made us all realize that the Biden election was gonna
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: be a little bit closer than we wanted it to be.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: You know, I, that was the one that, uh, keyed
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: an awful lot of panic. Um, So, you know, it
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: always is pretty much in the ballpark and they just
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: put the resources into it. And I don't see this
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: as good news for DeSantis. I could see how DeSantis
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: people could try to spin it as good news for him,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: you know, because it's not as just devastating as all
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: the other information and all the other polling that's been
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: out there about him lately. But, you know, he's still
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: down nearly 20 points. And then even when you are
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: over and then when you look at the first plus
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: the second ballot, you know, first choice plus second choice,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: you got Trump at 52. Now DeSantis at 39. So right,
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: so you're like, oh, you know, we're only down 13.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: But the whole premise of the case for being able
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: to beat Trump is that you could consolidate, you know,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: the Viveks and the Haley's and the Tim Scott's behind
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: one person. And then that person could maybe, you know,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: have enough to beat Trump. Trump's at 52 with people's
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: first and second choice. And as you mentioned, I just
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: think the most devastating number in this whole thing is
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: that two thirds of Trump's ballot number at 42%, two-thirds
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: of them have said that they're not looking at anybody else.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: And so he's got... you know, just a little quick
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: math here, 28% locked in based on the Seltzer poll.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: 28% has been enough to win the Iowa caucus most
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: years on the Republican side, right? You know, because it's
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: always the first one, big field, it's very divided. At 42%, Trump,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: if that's what he ended up getting in the caucus,
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: he would have the biggest vote share since Gerald Ford
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: on the Republican side. So, you know, you can kind
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: of spin this and say, hey, it's not like there
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: was a I moved down to New Orleans. You guys
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: are coming to New Orleans. So maybe we're going to
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: be seeing you. But in Louisiana, a poll came out
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: that had Trump at 75 and DeSantis at 10. So,
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: you know, it's looking better than in Louisiana, but still
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: not great. Could be worse is what you're saying. Still
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: not great.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I definitely agree with you, Tim.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I guess you can spin this positive maybe if you're
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, but you're right. This shows like a 28%
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: kind of hardcore floor for Donald Trump, like a hell
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: or high water vote that's not going anywhere. And unless
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: everyone else could consolidate, I don't know how you beat that.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: The other person I think has got to be a
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: little disappointed is Tim Scott. He's been spending real money
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: on TV in Iowa. 9% is fine, but I mean,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: it's not going to get you anything.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know. That can't be.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: No. And here's the, here's the big problem, right? Is
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: that there's no other option besides DeSantis. And I think
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: that's actually the best thing DeSantis has going for him, right?
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: You can't beat somebody with nobody. And, and, and the,
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: the anti-Trump, you know, 48%, let's say, if Trump's a
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: 52 with, with, with people being, you know, having him
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: as a first choice or second choice, that other 48%, like,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: is split right down the middle, right? It's 24% of
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: people that are super MAGA. They're just maybe ready to
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: give them the gold watch, but also could be persuaded
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: to vote for them, you know, if nobody else emerges.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: And then the other 24%, like kind of have begun
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: to dislike him. Like maybe they're not Tim Miller, Bulwark triggered, right?
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: But they're really looking for somebody else. And so Tim
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Scott can pull from that 24%, but it's tough for
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: him to get into the MAGA 24. And DeSantis, the
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: one advantage he had is he was kind of pulling
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: from both and and has now and is now struggling
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: with both right because the more normie republicans think he
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: went you know too far right on cultural issues and
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: the maga republicans are starting not to trust him because
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: donald trump's up there every day you know calling him
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: to sanctimonious and saying he's part of the deep state
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: and blah blah blah right so so he's like losing
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: altitude with both groups but those are the two groups
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: that you need to figure out how to unite and
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: it's just hard to see how tim scott does it
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: and he's like gauzy ads it's just i just don't
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: get it This is a presidential race, Tommy. People know
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: the candidates. The 32nd, meet this candidate. They're a nice guy.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: They have a positive vision. That shit works in house
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: races because you don't know who the people are. But
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: at a presidential level, these people are just burning their money.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Especially Iowa caucus goers who are super engaged.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: But Tim, the cliche about Iowa is there's two or
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: three tickets out of Iowa.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: That means you don't have to win the Iowa caucuses.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: You have to exceed expectations.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Then you'll get a bounce in the form of a
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: bunch of press coverage and some online fundraising. And maybe,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you know, that takes you into New Hampshire. Ted Cruz
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: won Iowa in 2016. Rick Santorum won Iowa in 2012.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Mike Huckabee won in 2008. None of them went on
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: to be president or won the nomination either, right? So
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: maybe that makes you feel better if you're a candidate
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: who's struggling right now. But do you think that cliche
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: holds up this year if Trump wins Iowa and exceeds
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: what he did last time?
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: No, if Trump wins Iowa, there's one and a half
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: tickets out of Iowa. Trump And friend of the pod,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Chris Christie, who will go to New Hampshire and try
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: to beat him in New Hampshire. It's a very different electorate,
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: very unique electorate. But the Christie thing is just, you know,
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: God love him, I guess. I kind of hate him, actually,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: but also God love him for, you know, speaking the
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: truth about Donald Trump. You know, do you see his
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: fave on faith in the Iowa poll?
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's real bad.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: 28-60. So 28% of Republicans like him, 60% don't like him.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: I bet his numbers might be better among the Democratic
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: electorate in Iowa, or at least close to that, 28-60.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: And those are just, that's a horrible number. So Christie
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: will go to New Hampshire no matter what. But if
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Trump wins, what path is there for anybody else? Iowa's
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: his weakest state because it's a caucus, because it's only
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: these super engaged people turn out, like Trump does very
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: well among The most casual kind of Republicans, people that
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: only vote, you know, only generally turn out to vote
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: in general elections like that. That is a core Trump base.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: So his numbers in Iowa are worse than they are
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada. Well, we already did Louisiana.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: So I just if Trump wins Iowa, this thing is over.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: And so you see this whole Mitt Romney convo that's
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: like we got to consolidate after New Hampshire. It's like, no, no, guys,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: I love it. You got to consolidate now. Or this
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: thing could be basically functionally over January 16th.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: And Trump's got like 50% in polls in South Carolina
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: right now. By the way, Pence was at 42, 53, fave, unfave.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: So Christie doing worse than the guy people wanted to hang.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: But we're getting ahead of ourselves, Tim. We're talking about
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: the winner of the Iowa caucuses. We have some debates
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: coming first. In a past life, you did opposition research.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: You did communications for candidates. including as Jeb's communications director
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in 2016. How did you guys prepare him for these clusterfucks?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Was there like debate?
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Camp?
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Did you have half of your staff playing different candidates? Like,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: how does that go?
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we did have a debate camp. And, you know, Jeb,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: just to just write off. I just have a deep
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: affection for him on a personal level. He's my favorite
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: candidate I ever worked for. Like, this was not his wheelhouse.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm not exactly speaking out of school to
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: anybody that watched the debates. Saying like that was not,
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: you know, him being on a stage with nine other
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: people and trying to be performative. Like, that was tough
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: for him. And so probably more so, you know, we
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: wanted him to be able to be himself and to
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: be able to speak extemporaneously because you want to be
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: natural when you're talking about issues. But we really kind
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: of focused on the attacks themselves. Like, okay, if Marco
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: says this and you're going to say that, like, let's practice.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: Not let's script you, but like, let's practice and get
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: comfortable with like what the critiques are going to be
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: of the other main competitors on stage. And so, yeah,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: you know, and we had somebody that tried to be,
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: that was Trump. We just basically had one other person
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: up there and they would be Trump and then they
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: would be Marco. And you kind of go through the different,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: you know, types of people and what their likely critiques
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: of Jeb were. Um, but it is, it's extremely hard
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: to prep for it. It's not exactly, uh, Tommy, I
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: don't know if you know this, but I've been, uh,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: I've been basically excommunicated from two, uh, debate prep teams. Um,
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: John Huntsman asked me to leave because I was too negative. Uh, and, uh,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: and I removed myself from the Jeb debate prep because
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: I was too negative and I was traveling with Jeb
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: and I was like, I got to save my, you know,
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: just any human interaction, right? Like just with a, with
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: a child or a parent or, anything you, you know,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: you want to do the compliment sandwich. And I wasn't
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: that good at the compliment sandwich, you know, the compliment
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: sandwich is nice job on this. Ooh, you could do
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: better on that, but Oh, also this is good. And
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: I was, I was more of a criticism sandwich. And
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: so I had to kind of save my, you know,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: my chips for, for the, for the road. And so
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: I removed myself from Jeb's debate prep, but that's not
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: an easy job.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Listen, giving bad news to anyone sucks, but like, Playing
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: a realistic Donald Trump in a debate where he will
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: literally say anything, the meanest thing you can imagine, he
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: will say to you, Hillary Clinton, what about your husband
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: and his affairs with interns? You have to turn to
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: your boss and replicate that? That's a nearly impossible task.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Really hard, yeah. And Trump attacked Jeb's life, right, before
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: one of the debates. And I think just in retrospect,
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: we probably didn't do a good enough job. Now you
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: have to kind of put your brain in this time of, oh,
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: this is the summer of 2015. So the Trump craziness
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: is just coming online. And you're like, is he really
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: going to do this shit on stage? And like, do
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: people even like this? Maybe we should ignore him, right?
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Like that theory is viable at that time. And so-
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: I think that from a staff perspective, we did not
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: do a good enough job prepping for that, you know,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: because you don't want, like, who is going to be
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the staffer that goes up there and is like, you know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Columba's an illegal immigrant, right? And to see, you know,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: like somebody might get punched by the candidate during debate prep, right?
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: And so I think that in retrospect, had we kind
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: of known that Trump's durability and how unhinged he was
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: going to be, we maybe could have done a better
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: job prepping. But again, I think that you have to
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: have a certain type of demeanor to even be in
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: the game with Trump on stage because he's just such
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: a different animal than anything else.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I think the different animal thing, it's hard to remember
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: now how different he felt then. I went back and
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I watched a bunch of old clips. Here is one
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: clip I thought of Trump and Jeb going back and forth.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: that I thought was illustrative. I didn't want to trigger you,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: but it might also do that.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: What Donald Trump did was use him in a domain
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: to try to take the property of an elderly woman
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: on the strip in Atlantic City.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: That is not public purpose.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: That is downright wrong.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Here's the problem with that. The problem was it was
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: to tear down.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Jim wants to.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Be a tough guy.
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: He wants to be a tough guy tonight. It was
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: tough as it to take the property from an elderly woman.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Let me talk.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Quiet. How tough is it? A lot of times.
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: That's all of his donors and special interests out there.
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: So that's what it is. And by the way, let
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: me just tell you, we needed tickets. You can't get them.
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: You know who has the tickets? I'm talking about to
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: the television audience. Donors, special interests, the people that are
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: putting up the money. That's who it is. The RNC
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: told us we have all donors in the audience, and
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: the reason they're.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Not loving me.
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: The reason they're not, excuse me, the reason they're not
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: loving me is I don't want their money. I'm going
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: to do the right thing for the American public. I
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: don't want their money. I don't need their money. And
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: I'm the only one up here that can say that.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Listen, that's a brilliant response to an entire auditorium of
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: people booing you, right? I don't think most people would
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: think to do that. Instead, he breaks the fourth wall.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: He's like, let me tell you how it really works.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Special interests are flocking to this place. They're buying up tickets.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: They're trying to rig how it sounds in here. I
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: don't need them.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: I don't care about them. I'm for you. I mean,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: that's an incredible debate moment.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: And you can hear Jeb, you know, trying to get
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: on the, you know, kind of the attack that he
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: had prepared.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I guess.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: And Trump's talking over him and he's trying to say.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: That's not tough to steal an old lady's house.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: You know, I guess that's the bit. Right. Like that's
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: like he's trying to say, you know, Trump acts like
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: he's a tough guy. He acts like he's mad at people.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: But actually, you know, he's a weakling and he's and
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: he's screwing over regular people.
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: And it's in his business life. And so, like, that's
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: the core of the attack. But like Jeb can't even
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: spit it, get it out. Right. Cause Trump is just
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: bowling over on it. And then there's crosstalk and the
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: people are cheering and then it's Trump that jumps in again.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: Right now we're at a free for all. This is
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: not anything you prepped. Now we're at a free for all,
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: but Trump is like instinctually jumps in again and then
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: starts loving the special interests hit. And so, you know,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: in future debates, like, Really, I think I was in
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: the next round of debate for this before I removed myself.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Like the main thing we practice is like talking back
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: over him. Right. Again, like this is like not something
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: that you had to do. And, you know, in his
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: debate with Lawton Childs in the Florida governor's race in 1998. Right. Like,
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: you know, this notion that this guy is just going
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: to start talking over you. you know, telling you to
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: shut up. And then he's going to not even at
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: all try to engage on the issue. Like he didn't
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: talk about eminent domain at all, right? Like he then
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: starts shouting about how your donors are in the crowd.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, like we didn't prep him for that. And
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: so that element, I think, is just, you know, was
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: tough to prep for. And Trump, and that's just right
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: in Trump's, like what, you know, I hate, I don't
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: want to compliment Trump, but that's his wheelhouse.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: He's good in that moment.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And so this debate will be different. I mean, the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: following candidates... qualified or we think they qualified for the debate.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: It'll be Trump, DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Pence, Haley, Tim Scott, Christie, Burgum,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Asa Hutchinson, and probably Perry Johnson. But obviously Trump is
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: not going to attend.
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: Perry J.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Perry J. So no Trump.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: So it's probably nine candidates on the stage. This time
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: candidates will not give opening statements, but they will have
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: 45 seconds for closing remarks, which is the dumbest use
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: of time you could possibly have, but whatever. You get
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: one minute to answer questions, 30 seconds for follow ups.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: The moderators are Brett Baer and Martha McCallum from Fox News. Apparently,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: the moderators will be playing clips, including of Trump.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: This is a quote.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: He'll even be there even if he's not there, said
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: jilted lover slash moderator Brett Baer. So, Tim, let's do
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: like kind of figure out what people need to do.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: The candidates need to do in this debate. And let's
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: start with meatball Ron DeSantis and what he needs to
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: accomplish on Wednesday night, because he is.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: The biggest boy at the kids table.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: The New York Times reported on a memo that DeSantis'
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: super PAC released, maybe accidentally, kind of not accidentally. Here's
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: a clip of DeSantis getting asked about this memo and
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: his debate strategy.
• 17:55
  Speaker 7: Your campaign said the other day that the knives are
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: out for you at that debate. I got to ask
• 18:01
  Speaker 7: you about that. Plus, I got to ask you, I
• 18:03
  Speaker 7: know it's not your campaign, but never back down, put
• 18:05
  Speaker 7: out a memo that people are talking about. So I'd
• 18:08
  Speaker 7: like to get your reaction to both.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Well, on the memo, it's not mine. I haven't read it.
• 18:12
  Speaker 8: And it's just I think it's something that we have
• 18:14
  Speaker 8: in the put off to the side. But in terms
• 18:17
  Speaker 8: of the debate, look, when you're I know from the military,
• 18:20
  Speaker 8: when you're over the target, that's when you're taking flack.
• 18:22
  Speaker 8: And if you look really in the last six to
• 18:23
  Speaker 8: nine months, I've been more attacked than anybody else. Biden, Harris,
• 18:28
  Speaker 8: the media, the left. other Republican candidates. And there's a
• 18:31
  Speaker 8: reason for that, because people know that I'm the biggest threat.
• 18:34
  Speaker 8: So we view it as positive feedback. We'll be ready
• 18:38
  Speaker 8: to do what we need to do to deliver our message.
• 18:40
  Speaker 8: But we absolutely expect that and we'll be ready for it.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: And that means punching back.
• 18:45
  Speaker 8: It means it means yes, it means defending ourselves, but
• 18:48
  Speaker 8: more importantly, showing why we are the leader to get
• 18:51
  Speaker 8: this country turned around.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: So according to this brilliant memo, DeSantis needs to win.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Attack Joe Biden in the media to state his positive vision.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Three to five times.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Three, hammer Vivek Ramaswamy at some point. Four, defend Trump
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: when Chris Christie attacks Trump. Tim, do you agree that
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Ron's key to success here is defending the guy, beating
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: him by double digits?
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: I don't. I don't concur with that. Just listening to
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: that answer, man. I mean, he just sounds like a politician.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: This is the thing. This is what Republicans liked about
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: that Trump freak show. We listened to the Jeb exchange, right?
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: It's like the Republican base wants somebody that does not
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: sound at all like anything from the pre-Trump world. Even
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: the people that might be ready to move on from
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Trump like Trump, like this change, like the bare knuckles,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: like being an outsider. And DeSantis is just kind of
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: like weaselly response. We put that memo off to the side.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: It's like part of me... would say if I was
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: if I had my head on and be like, I'm
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: a run, you know, tiny tease, you know, comms person.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: I've been like, if you could ask about that memo,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: you should say. Fuck those donors and the super PAC.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: I don't know where that came from, and I'm not
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: going to listen to them. And frankly, I thought their
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: advice was stupid, and that's why they're giving me money
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: and they're not the governor of Florida like me. Something
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: like that. He needs to demonstrate that he is an alpha.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: When he was doing well with the Republican base, what
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: was he doing? He was yelling at 24-year-old local news reporters.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: They liked that. He was sending defenseless, helpless migrants from
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Texas to Martha's Vineyard for no reason other than to
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: troll like the librarian at the Martha's Vineyard library, right?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Like that's, Yelling at kids for wearing masks.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Yelling at kids for wearing masks. That's what Republican voters liked.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: When I went to Arizona for the circus, Blake Masters
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: and those guys, their biggest applause lines were talking about
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: DeSantis' migrant deal. So that was his strength. He seemed tough.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: He seemed like a guy that was going to be
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: a middle finger to the establishment, to the media. And since,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: and he hasn't been able to be the big guy
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: on since, since he's gotten in because Trump has big
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: footed him at every step of the way. And he
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: seems weaselly and, and, and whiny. And so at the debate,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: he's got to figure out a way to, to, to
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: fix that. It's all like, it's less about the substance
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: of what he's talking about and more about like his carriage.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: And I, is he capable of that? I just, I'm
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: not sure he is.
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, Trump just sounded so different. He was so
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: much more entertaining.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: The analogy I think about sometimes is like, The entire
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: electorate was raised watching America's Funniest Home Videos with my man,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Bob Zager.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Remember that show?
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Good show.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Hilarious, cute videos, funny bloopers, lots of nut shots. And
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, Trump gets up there and
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: plays Jackass the movie for us. And you're like, oh,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: my God, I didn't know it could be this intense
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: and crazy and so different and like, you know, counterculture.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: And now like Duran DeSantis is going back to this
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: like old school pollen.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Who wants that? It's boring. They don't like it.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: They don't want it. I mean, there's a certain amount
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: of people that want it, but not enough. And so
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: how does he get back that mega crowd that was
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: happy about turning the page? That would be all I
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: would be thinking about if I was their team when
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: I'm out there. And then he's got Chris Christie who's
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: better at him than this, who's been on these stages,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: who's more natural. One thing that would keep me up
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: at night if I was a DeSantis person is I'd
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: be like, maybe the best way... to kind of get my,
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: you know, chutzpah back would be to go right at Christie, right?
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: But maybe my man isn't capable of doing that, right?
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: So we might have to coach him and come up
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: with something else. We might have to, you know, attack,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: you know, some marginalized group that's offstage in an offensive way.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Or the moderator or something. Yeah, or the moderator.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: By the way, Tim, for folks listening, if you don't
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: want to watch this Republican debate alone or on Elon
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Musk's Twitter, join the Crooked Media Friends of the Pod community.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: We'll be watching it together. We're making jokes so we
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: don't cry on the Discord. For you folks like me
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: who are a little older, Discord is basically a chat room.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: You also get access to bonus content, ad-free episodes, Pots
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: of America, first access to tickets to live shows in
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: places like Louisville, San Diego, San Jose. So go to Crooked.com
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: slash friends to join now. Tim, the other weird thing
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: about that whole clip was the SuperPAC element. I know
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: in 2016, Jeb's campaign leaned hard on his SuperPAC for
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: fundraising to pay for TV ads, basically.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: But you and I have talked about this a number
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: of times. I just don't get how DeSantis can basically
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: run his entire campaign through the Super PAC. They're paying
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: canvassers to knock on doors in early states. The Super
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: PAC is setting up events. DeSantis himself attends in Iowa.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: He's doing polling, research, strategy memos, as we all read,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: thanks to them getting released to Maggie Abramson somehow. Again,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: I get that this is all about raising money and
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: that Super PACs can raise big money easily. But do
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: you think it's worth it when you can't coordinate your
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: activities properly?
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: Are they not coordinating? It is weird. The whole thing
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: is weird. So when I went to that event and
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: I went to a dissenters event in Tama, Iowa, I
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: got into a little bit of trouble because I took
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: a picture of how empty it was that ended up
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: on Drudge. And then also that Trump bleed it out
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: on social, which made me feel bad. I felt good.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: I felt good. I was like, yeah, I was like, sorry, Ron,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: I've owned you. And then Trump put it out. And
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: I was like, wait a minute. Am I kind of
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: helping Trump now? This is now making me sad. You just,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: you know, we can't have joy anymore. Tommy, nothing is pure.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: But anyway, I walk out as we were waiting for
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: him to come in. I'm in the press section, which
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: is still kind of weird. And his little press flat
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: comes over and he's like, and that actually works on
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: the campaign. And this guy's like, oh, the governor will
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: be here in five minutes. And then and then he
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: rolls up in the Super PACs bus. on a very
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: large motorcade, by the way. I thought that they were
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: pinching pennies, but not on the SuperPAC side. And then
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: he gets off, and it's like, how do you know
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: that he's on? The whole thing is very strange. How
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: did he get on the SuperPAC bus? How did you
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: time this? If you can't coordinate, it's like, did they
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: publish The schedule on Jeff Rose Consulting Firm's website, the
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: same place that they published this debate memo.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Like, how do you know where to meet?
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: You know, when do you know when lunch break is?
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: The whole thing is very strange. And the non-coordination is
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: very challenging. We got frustrated. So back when this was,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: you mentioned this with Jeff. You know, I think that
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: those guys on the Super PAC side rightly saw Rubio
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: as a bigger threat than Trump because they're like, if
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: we can't get past Rubio, you can't win. And then
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: maybe you win a mano-a-mano with Trump. And they did
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: a lot of negative Rubio ads. And at a certain point,
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: as Trump tried to gain more and more momentum, that
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: felt a little sad, kind of, you know, it felt
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: a little off key, right? And it was like, and
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: we on the campaign were wishing that they would do
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: anti-Trump ads, you know, if not, not necessarily because that
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: would help hurt Trump, but because it would boost Jeb, right?
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: It would like boost him vis-a-vis Trump and, you know,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: kind of give us a little bit you know, give
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: him a little more backbone behind his attacks on Trump.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: And so, but we couldn't do anything about it, right?
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: It doesn't, I'm not sure that's true of the DeSantis campaign.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: It sure seems like they're coordinating, but the whole thing
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: I think gives, makes you feel, you know, in a
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: strange way, it's like all these fucking, that's one thing,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: one of the other things Trump is white about is
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: my second Trump compliment of this podcast, no more after this.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: It's that all these strategists were full of shit. And
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: we're kind of wimps, right? And it's like Trump had
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: his plane. It was the golf caddy. It was Hope Hicks.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: It was like stabby eyes Lewandowski. And like that was it.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: And it was just Trump, right? Like that was it.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: And DeSantis now, it makes him look weak. That it's
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: like these super PAC guys are writing a memo about
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: him and they're writing a campaign.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: And he's on their bus. Vivek, our boy Vivek, was
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: was talking about this at a different event I went
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: to in Iowa. So anyway, the whole thing I just
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: think doesn't work.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: And it speaks to how broken our campaign finance system is.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Speaking of which, The Washington Post had a big story
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: about Ron DeSantis raising money in Florida that basically outlines
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: the legalized corruption. That's OK, because, you know, Florida is
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the wild, wild west and has no campaign finance rules.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: The Post reported that after getting elected, DeSantis had his
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: staff make a list of 40 lobbyists and 100 of
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: their top clients to basically target to shake down for cash.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: DeSantis wanted nine of these lobbyists to raise him a
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: million bucks each. He was personally calling them. One DeSantis
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: aide named Heather Barker actually wrote in an email, quote,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I could sell golf for 50K this morning. Apparently golf
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: was a big part of this strategy. Ron went to
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: one course so often that the club called his staff
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: and said, please tell him to join the club. or
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: to stop showing up, but we just can't have him
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: every other day, which is amazing. So Tim, I read
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the story and I thought, one, like, how is this
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: not illegal? Two, boy, does Ron DeSantis probably regret firing
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Susie Wiles, who was his former top advisor, who now
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: works for Trump, and I'm guessing is a source for
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: this story and many others, because she was probably, has
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: all these emails somewhere. And then three, like, you know,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: probably not a coincidence that this story lands right before
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the debate. So Trump's drain the swamp rhetoric was obviously,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: you know, bullshit, but it was quite effective. Do you
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: think Ron DeSantis is worried that this is going to
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: come at him?
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Will it matter?
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, again, I think it all plays into this
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: narrative that he's just the same old politician. In one
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: of Sarah Longo's focus groups at the Bulwark, this one
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: stuck with me. Some person said they think DeSantis is
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: deep state or might be deep state. And it's like,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: this is the kind of shit that makes people think
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: of that, right? And by the way, I just, and
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: this might be somewhere that I get crossways with some
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: of the progressive folks on the, on the pod. You
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: might disagree with me on this, Tommy, but like, I
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: just don't, I think that money corruption or related to
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: money is a problem, you know, at the gubernatorial level, right.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: That like maybe he's doing favors backscratching for real estate
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: developers or whatever, but in presidential politics, I just don't
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: think money matters that much anymore. I think all of
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: the campaigns spend way too much time raising money and
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: caring about money. Ron DeSantis' TV ads, TV ads do
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: not matter in presidential politics unless it's really, really good
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: and breaks through on social, on TikTok, and they're playing
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: it on the news. It's like people don't watch commercials
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: that much. They're used as introductory tools in House and
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Senate races. local races where people get to learn about
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: the candidates. People are learning about Ron DeSantis on sports
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: talk radio, on news talk radio, on podcasts, on Facebook,
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: on Tik TOK, on cable, like the presidential news is everywhere.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: People can't escape it. And so he's giving away, you know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: he's making himself seem like a tool of the donors
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: in exchange for 50 grand. That's going to buy you
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: four more ads that I, that I think have diminishing
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: returns in the first place. I just don't think money
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: is that big of a deal at president, at the
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: presidential level. And I think Trump, The Trump campaign showed that.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Biden showed that, really. Biden's comeback in the Democratic primary
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: was not based on money. It was like based on
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Jim Clyburn endorsement and then a bunch of memento.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think at some point, you know,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: if you don't have enough money, you'll have to make
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: hard decisions like, do I run ads in North Carolina
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: or not? Do we compete in Florida at all or
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: do we just concede the same? Like there's decisions like that.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: But I agree with you in general, like there is
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: such a diminishing return in the next campaign ad, especially
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: if it's not backed by some sort of earned media narrative. Or,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: you know, and most of these controversies are manufactured at
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: some point. And speaking of which, Tim, for some reason,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: DeSantis did an interview with an outlet called the Florida Standard,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: which is some like brand new news site that was
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: created by a 26 year old kid who I think
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: used to work for Trump or was a Trump fan
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: who manages to somehow now get access to DeSantis because
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: basically kisses Ron's ass. So during this interview, DeSantis suggested
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: that Republicans shouldn't mindlessly follow Trump.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Here's a clip.
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: The movement has got to be about what are you
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: trying to achieve on behalf of the American people? And
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: that's got to be based in principle, because if you're
• 30:39
  Speaker 6: not rooted in principle, if all we are is listless
• 30:43
  Speaker 6: vessels that just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens
• 30:46
  Speaker 6: to come down the pike on truth social every morning,
• 30:49
  Speaker 6: that's not going to be a durable movement.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Setting aside why he's talking to the quote Florida standard
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: when you need to be winning in Iowa. Trump's team
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: is calling this Ron's basket of deplorables moment, Tim, which
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: is how Hillary described the kind of hardcore MAGA base
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: in 2016. Maybe I have some points.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: She had some points with that.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Do you think they're going to make this one work?
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Channel my inner James Carville. You're a Louisiana guide. Will
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: this dog hunt?
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Do anybody know what a listless vessel is? I don't know.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: I don't think that– I don't know. It doesn't make
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: any sense. I don't think– I think it goes to
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: show how tough the situation around DeSantis is in. If
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: you offer any criticism that kind of sounds like a
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: criticism of the MAGA movement, all of a sudden people
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: start clutching their pearls and they get triggered, the MAGAs
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: get triggered, and they start attacking you. So I don't
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: know that this dog is going to hunt, but he
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: is making a good point kind of awkwardly. And so
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: it's almost like, can our party, can our movement, can
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: the MAGA movement move beyond whatever the latest obsession of
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump's personal life is? But the problem is, I
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: think he gets himself in these awkward situations because He's
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: trying to decide what he can say. He can't say
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: the truth. He can't come out and say, Donald Trump
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: is obsessed with himself and himself only, and he's always
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: been that way, and he's a narcissistic egomaniac, and maybe
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: we should care about other people and other issues besides that.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: You can't say that, right? So he's trying to delicately
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: say it, and he accidentally makes fun of mega voters.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Tough break.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: So there are other candidates on the stage. Donald Trump
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: is not on the stage again, but he will be
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: featured by the Fox News host. Tim Scott and Nikki
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Haley are candidates who will be up there.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: They are.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: You know, they have solid name ID, right? They have
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: like pretty good establishment resumes. Tim Scott has a ton
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: of money because of some big donors. Neither have gotten
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: much traction. What do you think Nikki Haley or Tim
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Scott needs to get done at this debate?
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: What are they trying? Can I ask you a question first?
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: What are they trying to do? Are they trying to
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: be the president?
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: I think Nikki Haley is trying to be the vice president. Yeah,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: that would be my guess. I don't know about Tim Scott, though.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: If they're trying to be the vice president, I guess
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: I would spin up some nonsense about how the deep
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: state is targeting Mr.
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: Trump.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: Poor Mr. Trump. I don't understand what they're doing. They
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: don't have any chance. I went at one of the
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: other Iowa events I was at. It was this cattle call.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: A bunch of the candidates spoke. And Nikki Haley gave
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: this speech that appeals to me. It was mostly about
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: how we should be more serious about foreign policy. And
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: she's criticized the Biden administration for not giving enough money
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: to Ukraine. and giving more resources to Ukraine. In this room,
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: it was like, if I wasn't a journalist and I
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: was allowed to clap, I would have been the only
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: one clapping at that observation. I don't understand what she's doing.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: She doesn't have any appeal in this party. They like
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: her fine. She's not Chris Christie. They don't hate her,
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: but they're never going to nominate somebody from the before
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: times who does not offer them the culture war lib-owning
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: stuff that they like. And so I don't know what
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: advice to give them. I don't know what their purpose is.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: If somebody would be honest, Tim Scott claims that he's
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: running for president. It doesn't seem like it to me.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Maybe he'll just pull out his phone and just show
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: all the Tinder matches he's gotten to sort of put
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: that to rest. Be like, look, these ladies love me.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: You shut up, everyone else.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: The ladies love me. I'm not a virgin.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: I was a virgin until 32. Okay, that's it, though.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: Which is normal. If you're a 32-year-old virgin out there,
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: it's going to happen for you. It happened for Tim Scott.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: There's nothing to be ashamed of.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an American story.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: All right, so in terms of debating ability, you mentioned
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: this earlier, expectations are probably the highest for Chris Christie.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip from 2016 that helps explain why. The
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: first voice you're going to hear is Marco Rubio. This
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: is edited down from multiple moments at this debate. And
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: then Chris Christie swoops in and punches him in the mouth.
• 34:55
  Speaker 9: And let's dispel once and for all with this fiction
• 34:57
  Speaker 9: that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows
• 34:59
  Speaker 9: exactly what he's doing. Barack Obama is undertaking a systematic
• 35:03
  Speaker 9: effort to change this country, to make America more like
• 35:06
  Speaker 9: the rest of the world.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: But I would add this.
• 35:08
  Speaker 9: Let's dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know
• 35:11
  Speaker 9: what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: He is trying to change this country.
• 35:16
  Speaker 9: He wants America to become more like the rest of
• 35:18
  Speaker 9: the world.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: Here's the bottom line.
• 35:19
  Speaker 9: This notion that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing
• 35:22
  Speaker 9: is just not true.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: There it is.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: He knows exactly what he's doing.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: There it is, the memorized 25-second speech.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: That's the reason why this campaign.
• 35:28
  Speaker 9: Is so important.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Marco, the thing is this.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: When you're president of the United States, when you're governor
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: of a state, the memorized 30-second speech where you talk
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: about how great America is at the end of it
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: doesn't solve one problem for one person. They expect you
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: to plow the snow. They expect you to get the
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: schools open. And when the worst natural disaster in your
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: state's history hits you, they expect you to rebuild their state,
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: which is what I've done. None of that stuff happens
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: on the floor of the United States Senate. It's a
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: fine job. I'm glad you ran for it. But it
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: does not prepare you for president of the United States.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: So that clip was as good as I remember it.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's pretty good.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: That was a cut down from the WMUR debate in
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire in 2016. As you heard, Marco Rubio, we
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: edited this down. Marco Rubio keeps repeating the same odd
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: line over and over again about how Obama knows what
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: he's doing. I don't even understand like the value of
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: that line done delivered once well, but he sounds like
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: a glitching robot. Christie pounces on him, makes him into
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: a national joke. Unfortunately for Christie, Trump's not at this debate, right?
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: So he can't show his chops and defeat Trump at
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: the debate. There's no direct combat opportunity. Do you think
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Christie needs to humiliate someone else again to show that
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: he's there? And then also, Mike Pence is going to
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: be there. Is anyone going to notice?
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: I'm a rare, lonely, hate-Chris-Christie-hater-and-never-Trump world. I think that, A,
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: what he did at that debate only served to help
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. Then he went and endorsed Donald Trump. He's
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: a tough guy. He never actually took on Donald Trump.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: He had like eight tries.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: He's full of shit.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: I agree with you there. We had a bunch of debates.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: So anyway. And I said when he got in this time,
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: it's like, it's nice. I agree. It's nice when he
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: goes on Fox and it's satisfying when he says the
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: truth about Donald Trump and he says the truth about
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: his criminality. He had a good interview where he attacked
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: some of the other candidates about trans issues and how conservatives,
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: I thought conservatives didn't want government making decisions for parents.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: And why are we doing it on trans issues? I
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: liked that. But like, I think the most likely thing
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: is that he goes up there and just defenestrates, shout
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: out to Pac, the other candidates on stage, despite only
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: having 28% approval rating. And it's like, then what? It's like,
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: he didn't take out Trump. I think he might take
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: out Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott. And then it's like,
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: what was the point of this again? I thought the
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: point of this was to stop the guy that tried
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: a coup. And I don't think you can do that
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: when only 28% of the party likes you. So anyway,
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: I think that's what's most likely to happen. If I
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: was Chris Christie's advisor, I'd tell him, just attack Trump,
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: leave these other poor people on stage alone. But I
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: don't think he's going to do that. Mike Pence. I
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: think he's just trying to get his dignity back. And
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: he's doing a little bit. He's doing okay on that,
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: I guess. But I don't understand the point of his
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: campaign either, really. Except for maybe it's just to get
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: his dignity back, which is, I guess, a good reason
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: to run.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Mike Pence was 3% in the New York Times Iowa poll,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: 6% in this most recent one.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Don't call it a comeback.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: My favorite stat from the New York Times Iowa poll
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: is that RFK Jr. 's favorability is was like 3x
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: better than Mike Pence's. Like the last Republican vice president now,
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: because he didn't go along with the coup, for that
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: one reason, is less popular than like a lifetime lefty
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: who now Republicans like because he thinks vaccines are bad
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: and like goes on Steve Bannon's podcast.
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Not ideal. Not ideal. It doesn't make me feel good
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: about the country. All right, Tim. So we got to
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: the main course here, which is Vivek, our guy. He's
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: 38 years old. He wrote Woke Inc.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: He got rich off this biotech company that he started.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Now he's spending all his cash running for president. He
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: seems to be trying to be kind of a happy
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: culture warrior, if those things can coexist. Vivek's team tweeted
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: out a clip of his debate prep.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Here it is.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: That was Vivek playing Shirtless tennis somewhere. I wish you
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: guys could see how red and flushed.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: My mom's going to listen to this podcast on the drive,
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: on her drives. Tim, you've been to Vivek's events.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: You've seen his 10 commandments. What do you think the
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: appeal is?
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: Here's the appeal. It might be phony. I don't know.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: He might be Vivek the fake. I'm not. I'm not sure.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: Or he might have just gotten red-pilled and this is
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: all real. But he is good at making the argument
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: for the new nationalist MAGA GOP in a way that
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: sounds intelligent. And that's very hard. And I'm not comparing
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: these people on the merits of their policies or whatever.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: But in the same way that I think Pete appealed
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: to people in Iowa because they showed up to his
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: events and they could ask him questions and he would
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: sound really smart. I think Pete's answers were genuine. Vivek,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: when you go to these things, people ask him questions,
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: and he sounds smart. I suffered through his valedictorian speech
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: on YouTube. That's how obsessed I am with him. He's
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: very smart. He went to all these schools. He is
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: a skilled speaker. I think he has schooled himself in
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: the Daily Wire world and talking points. He kind of
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: sounds like Candace Owens, and he sounds like Matt Walsh,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: and he sounds like Ben Shapiro. And that's what a
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: lot of Republican voters want now. And so I think
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: that unlike DeSantis, who feels like a real politician who's
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: trying to do some MAGA culture war stuff, Vivek kind
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: of seems like he's of the Trump movement. And it
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: might be phony, but he is speaking like he might
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: be how a MAGA person in the crowd wishes they
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: could speak if they had Vivek's level of education, right?
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: And so they see him and they're like, yes. I
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: do think that we're spending too much money in Ukraine.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: And I do think we should spend the military to
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: the border. And I do have a couple of questions
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: about 9-11. He is hitting that nerve. And so, you know,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: he's also a 38-year-old Hindu. And so I think that's
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: not really probably great for Iowa. And so I think
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: that if he was like a 43-year-old evangelical, my guess
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: is that he'd be in second place right now. But
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: I think that he at least recognizes something that, you know,
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: the Nikki Haley, the Tim Scott, the consultants that these
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: people don't, which is like what the Republican party voters,
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: not all of them, but like 75% of them, a
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: significant majority, what they're looking for. And they're looking for MAGA.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think to the question of whether he's
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Vivek the fake or real, I talked to someone the
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: other day who worked with him back in the day
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: when he was a tech bro. And, uh, they suggested
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: that this is the certain, a lot of performance happening here.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I like, I agree with you.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: I think, I think there's a few parts of this.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Like I think, uh, Conservative white audiences love it when
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: a person of color confirm their feelings about race.
• 42:18
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: And this long piece in The Atlantic, Vivek says he
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: didn't mind being racially profiled on a flight to Israel
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: right after 9-11 because he said, quote, it was data driven.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that means, but it's, you know,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: a pretty weird, gross thing to say.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: I agree with you.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: I think he's kind of pulling on the Joe Rogan,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Russell Brand conspiracy theory heartstrings talking about, you know, the
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: 9-11 commission lying to us. Um, he's doing isolationism on steroids.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: He doesn't like supporting Ukraine. He, he said, you know,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: let's let China take Taiwan, uh, after 2028, you know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: to his credit, I agree with you. Um, you know,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: he is young, he's campaigning really hard. There is a
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: lot of that mayor Pete strategy and he's saying things
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: that do make him sound genuinely different from others. The
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: thing I think is going to be hard for him
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: is everyone's clearly coming for him. Now they view him
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: as a threat to consolidating the anti-Trump vote. And like,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Part of what got released from Ron DeSantis' super PAC
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: was APA research on Vivek. It wasn't like, you know,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: private investigators following him around. It was, you know, quotes
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: and votes and, you know, sort of his failure to
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: vote presidential campaigns, things he said in the past. But also,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: I think I made you listen to this, Tim. Vivek
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: did a long interview with Hugh Hewitt, who is this
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: kind of like Trump supporter, but guy who fancies himself
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: sort of a foreign policy thinker. And Vivek was unraveling
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: his like Fordy chess kind of Watch me logic my
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: way through international affairs, answers about China and Ukraine, etc.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: And at the end, he says to Hugh, you know,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't know much of this stuff until six months ago.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: And like, that's an honest answer. But, you know, it
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: certainly doesn't provide him any, you know, it doesn't shake
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: his hubris, which I think, you know, will be a
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: problem down the road.
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: Maybe.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it could be a problem. I don't know about
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: I think people coming at him on the debate stage
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: is a mistake, man. I just just just looking at
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: performance ability, nothing else. He was much the Vivek I
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: saw was much better than all the other candidates in
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: that cattle call. Chris Christie wasn't there. Trump wasn't there.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: But everyone else on stage, I think he's been better.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: And I think going after him would be going after Vivek.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: The fake would be a mistake. And Dr. Sussi in terms,
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: if I was these guys, because even if the hit
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: is good, just like you saw the jab, the hit
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: was good on him in a domain. But performance is
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: like 80% of the battle.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's agile. Yeah.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: I also noticed that Vivek is saying that he was
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: talking to Chris Ruddy, the head of the Newsmax network,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: about coverage. He's complaining that he's only getting covered in
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: the middle of the day. And Ruddy basically said to him, well,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: one way to fix that is to buy some ads.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: So it's sort of nice when people tell you who
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: they are. I noticed this in The Atlantic. The Atlantic
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: did a long profile of Vivek, Tim, where the author,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: the reporter wrote, After the Cuomo interview, we drove to
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Ramaswamy's house. It's bright and white with giant ceilings, suburban palatial.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: One of the family's two nannies appeared and started putting
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: together a spread. Chili, kale, watermelon salad, tofu tacos. Tim,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: do you think the MAGA base wants watermelon salad and
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: tofu tacos? They want burned steak. They want ketchup on
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: the wall.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: I just, I don't know. I don't think it's going
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: to last.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: There's only so much phoniness. He might have the talking
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: points down, but nah, man. They want McDonald's and ketchup
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: on the wall for sure.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Not at all. Okay, Tim, so let's get to our
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: front runner. Trump is a no-show in Milwaukee, as we discussed.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: He sent a.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Truth yesterday, I believe, Sunday, where he said he will
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: be skipping debates, plural. NBC News reported that that comment
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: means Trump is going to skip the first two debates,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: which are both hosted by Fox. It's Fox News and
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: then Fox Business, which makes me feel good inside about
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: their blood feud still going. Instead, Trump is going to
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: do an interview with Tucker Carlson. Sadly for us, he
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: canceled the big press conference that was supposed to happen
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: on Monday. where Trump had promised to detail how the
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: election was stolen, which, you know, might have been used
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: in court against him. Tim, do you think skipping the
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: debate is the right move? And does, will a Tucker
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: interview have the juice to kind of get him into
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: coverage the way he wants?
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: Have you heard that the Tucker interview has already been taped?
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: It's already, it's a pre-taped interview?
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: It's like pre-taped. Yeah, just, I just saw this before
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: we go on. So, I mean, it's not even, doesn't
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: even have the zah, zah, zah, you know, the excitement
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: of who knows what these two jokesters are going to say,
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: like what kind of, You know, racist jokes are they
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: going to put out there to distract attention? No, but
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess it allows Tucker to choose the
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: most inflammatory stuff.
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: No, I think it probably will. There is now some
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: percentage of the Republican Party that is not insignificant that
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: has decided that Fox is, you know, too corporate, too
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: establishment and are mad about Tucker leaving. And these people will,
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: just despite Fox, watch Trump and Tucker. The thing is, though,
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: that is a clean overlap, I think, with the people
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: that are already not considering any other candidates in this primary, right?
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: And so does losing those viewers matter? Probably not that much.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: The thing I would look out for, for whether it
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: could work, is if there is enough outrageous stuff, or
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: if he has to surrender to Fonny Willis the next day,
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: the day after coverage could be blunted, especially if that
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: undercard debate happens. is as boring as I think it
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: could be. I went back and looked because I had
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: to refresh my memory. The one debate that Trump skipped,
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: which was ahead of the Iowa caucuses last time, it
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: was an Iowa debate. It just wasn't that interesting. I
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: rewatched some of the coverage of it. I was like,
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: what was Jeb's angle in that debate? I couldn't even remember.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: That's just the nature of the world that we're living
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: in now. The Trump you know, persona is just so different.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: And so I don't it's possible that this debate ends
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: up being kind of boring. But, you know, the Tucker thing,
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: I don't think is the strongest counter program he could
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: have come up with.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I should note that on Monday, we learned that
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Trump's bond in the Fulton County case has been set
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: at 200 grand. So not nothing, but you know, not
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: much for him. He also has all these substantial restrictions
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: against witness intimidation. He Trump can't threaten co defendants or
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: witnesses or victims or the community at large in Georgia.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: That includes social media posts.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: How is that going to be enforced?
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: I have no idea.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: I would like for that to be enforced. That's, you know,
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, it seems like that's kind of like just
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: an average threatening witnesses is kind of like how he
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: wakes up in the morning.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's par for the course.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I did wonder if, you know, maybe the message at
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: the end of the day was going to be surrendering
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: to Fonny Willis and, you know, taking over everything that way.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: But you're right. It still could happen. It could happen
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: on Thursday.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: Right. Thursday or Friday. So, yeah, I mean, this whole
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: thing is so fucking bizarre. And it's just like, in
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: what world are you living in where Donald Trump's surrendering
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: for trying to overthrow the last election to Fannie Willis
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: in Georgia would be like a positive piece of distraction
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: news for him? But it just is. It just is.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: And a big part of the reason why that is,
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: by the way, is that all of his supposed opponents,
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: most of the big personalities on Fox, most of the
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: big Republican personalities outside of Fox are echoing his talking
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: points about this, right? Like if everyone else is telling
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: the voters, yeah, Donald Trump is being persecuted by a
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: two-tier system of justice, they're going to believe it. I mean,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: certainly many, many Republicans would still believe it if it
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: was only Trump saying it. But it certainly helps him
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: that everybody else is echoing his talking points. And I
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: think that it's like creates this environment where bizarrely, you know,
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: his 92nd indictment or whatever it is, felony indictment is
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: helping him on the margins in the primary.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, certainly we've seen it in all the polling.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: It's helping him consolidate the vote, including in this latest
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Iowa poll. So speaking of like the polling and how
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: you beat Trump, Tim, so the New York Times reported
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: that Republicans now think Joe Biden is so weakened politically
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: that that electability arguments are not working with them. Basically,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: they've been convinced by, you know, edited clips of Joe
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Biden stuttering or falling on stage when he tripped over
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: a sandbag or whatever it is, that anyone can beat
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, especially Trump. And I guess my question is,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: do we really believe that? I feel like voters are
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: a little bit trained to say that the answer to
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: a question about whether you care more about issues or
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: electability is to say issues because that's pure and that
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: makes you, that's the right answer. That's the good answer.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: And winning ultimately is everything. But if it is true
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: and electability is kind of not on the table to
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: make an argument against Trump, like what is left besides
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: the plan I know you subscribe to, which is drafting
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin into the race?
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Let's table my Glenn Youngkin plan. a couple of listeners
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: are going to tune out of this podcast and not
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: hear the end. And they're going to think I really
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: am a Glenn Youngkin stan. Okay, whatever. I thought that
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: it was Shane Goldmack that wrote that piece. I thought
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: it was super insightful. And I think that there are
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: two categories of voters here that we're talking about. Just
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: going back to the beginning of the pod, right? Like
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: there are the mega types that live in mega media
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: world that are watching Newsmax and You know, that are
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: listening to daily wire pods that are on their Facebook
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: feeds with all kinds of weird shit coming at them.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: And I do think that in that world, if you
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: are deeply ensconced in the mega media bubble, you are
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: convinced that Joe Biden is riddled with dementia and can
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: barely stand. And it's a weekend for Ed Bernie situation.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Kamala's running the show.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And by the way, you're also convinced that Trump
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: won last time.
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: And then it was stolen, right? So there is a
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: very significant, maybe majority or very strong minority within the
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: Republican Party that lives in that world, right? Where Trump
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: actually won last time and Joe Biden is weekend of Bernie's.
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: And so why would they have to think about electability?
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: That's there. Then I think that there's another more rational
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: group that... was part of the reason why they were
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: looking at Ron DeSantis, right? Because he won by 19
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: in Florida in the year where a lot of the
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: Trump candidates did poorly. And I think that he's really
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: harmed his electability argument with that group by his performance
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: in this primary and going so far right on abortion,
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: on gay stuff, on cultural issues. And a lot of
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: people look at him, and I think that you could
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: make a rational case looking at Trump and DeSantis and say,
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: I'm not really convinced that DeSantis is more electable.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: Like Trump is actually a little chiller on cultural issues. Like, yeah, sure,
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: he might have done a coup and like he might
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: be a racist, but like he's a little bit chiller
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: on abortion.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: And he won already.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: And this guy's a little weird.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: He won in 2016.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and he won already.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: So I think that that is right. I think the
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: electability argument has been neutralized by the big lie, by
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: the mega media's coverage of Joe Biden and by DeSantis'
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: weak performance.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: That's depressing.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I still think– I'm hopeful that as we get closer
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: to the election, voters will start to think back to 2020.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: They'll think about 2022 and the midterms and you can
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: make an argument that's like this guy is toxic.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: Look at all the people he endorsed. He's going to lose.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: We can't afford another four years of Joe Biden.
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: I agree.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: This is why– why didn't they just stick with– had
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: DeSantis gotten in the race at Thanksgiving or had somebody
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: else and had the whole Republican Party apparatus just stuck
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: with that? message that was resonating i mean like it
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: really was trump was tied with desantis and that was
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: this was the sole reason why it was the poor
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: midterm performance they blamed him and and yet i think
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: that for some reason desantis decided the right thing to
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: do was stall six months you know enact the most
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: extreme far right like social issue legislative session in like
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: the history in the history of florida an alabama style
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: legislative session and then a launcher campaign on elon musk's
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: whatever they're calling Twitter now, right? That, I think, was
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: very poor decisions that happened over the period of six
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: months that neutralized this argument that was working with Republican
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: voters last Christmas.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Which is why you and Rupert Murdoch are trying to
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: get Glenn Youngkin into this race. Two men of equal
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: stature and influence in the Republican Party.
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: All the people, it wasn't the Axios guy who was
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: reporting this like, Big donors are getting a little bit
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: nervous about the players on the field. And they're looking
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: at Brian Kemp and Glenn Youngkin. And it's like, nobody
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: wants these guys. Meet a Republican voter. Meet some Republican voters, please.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: I am begging these people to actually leave Manhattan, leave
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: the Hamptons, fly down here. I'm going to go to Lafayette,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: Louisiana for the Louisiana GOP convention this Friday. They can
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: come with me. We can talk to some of these people,
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: and if you think that they want a former hedge
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: fund manager in a fleece vest to come off the
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: sidelines and talk about comity and family values, you're fucking delusional.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: It's been a decade. This was an understandable thing to
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: be confused about in 2018. It's 2023, right? I think so, yeah.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Time is hard to keep track. But
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: these guys, the whole thing is fucking enraging. And they
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: just haven't accepted the reality. The only person that could
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: come off the sidelines and challenge Trump is the guy
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: that's doing the interview with him on Wednesday.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my big fear. That is my biggest fear.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's too late for that. But
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: that's the only guy that could come off the sidelines
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: and actually shake this up. It's sure as shit not
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: going to be Glenn Youngkip.
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: No, no.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: Give me a break.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Finally on today's show, Crooked Media's Hallie Kiefer has joined
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: us for a new segment, a new game, a new
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: something that I know nothing about, but I've been prompt
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: to ask, how much am I going to hate doing this?
• 55:52
  Speaker 10: You know, it's hard to know. I think you're going
• 55:54
  Speaker 10: to excel, which I think will thrill you, but the
• 55:58
  Speaker 10: fact you'll know so much will also make you sad
• 56:00
  Speaker 10: that this is what you've chosen. You have to know
• 56:02
  Speaker 10: all the dirty details about a bunch of dirty dogs.
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 56:06
  Speaker 10: Because, of course, this is about the Georgia indictment. There
• 56:09
  Speaker 10: are a few dirtier dogs than those guys in America.
• 56:13
  Speaker 10: Timmy and Tom.
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 56:15
  Speaker 10: You know as well as anyone that recently the devil
• 56:17
  Speaker 10: went down to Georgia. He was looking for a soul
• 56:20
  Speaker 10: to steal. I'm sorry. I'm senior. Those are the lyrics
• 56:22
  Speaker 10: to a song. The Charlie Daniels Band's classic, The Devil
• 56:25
  Speaker 10: Went Down to Georgia. I'm not sure how this got
• 56:27
  Speaker 10: in here, but on related news, recently Donald Trump and
• 56:30
  Speaker 10: 18 of his cronies were indicted for their attempt to
• 56:32
  Speaker 10: undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
• 56:36
  Speaker 10: They have until Friday to turn themselves into authorities, which
• 56:39
  Speaker 10: gives us five full days of laughs. Now, I assume
• 56:43
  Speaker 10: by now you've both had time to read all 96
• 56:46
  Speaker 10: pages of the indictment, which is why we're playing a
• 56:49
  Speaker 10: little game I'm calling I'm So Indicted. Now, Tommy, could
• 56:53
  Speaker 10: you repeat back to me what the name of the
• 56:55
  Speaker 10: game is?
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: I'm So Indicted.
• 56:57
  Speaker 10: No, you have to sing it. I'm sorry.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: I'm So Indicted. Thank you. All right.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: And I just can't fight it.
• 57:03
  Speaker 10: Oh, and God knows we're going to watch him. Gentlemen,
• 57:07
  Speaker 10: are you ready?
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 57:09
  Speaker 10: Okay. Which of the following is not a real person
• 57:15
  Speaker 10: charged in the Georgia indictment? I'm going to read four names. Okay.
• 57:20
  Speaker 10: And one of them is not real. Not someone who's
• 57:22
  Speaker 10: really indicted.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: Are you ready? Does Tim get to guess first? Or
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: do you want me to guess first?
• 57:26
  Speaker 10: Tim, I'll let you go first.
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: How about that?
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: That's pressure.
• 57:30
  Speaker 11: All right. A.
• 57:31
  Speaker 10: Sean Micah Tresher Still. B, Harrison William Prescott Floyd. C,
• 57:38
  Speaker 10: William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus. And D, Ray Stalling Smith III.
• 57:46
  Speaker 10: So again, those are three real people who were indicted
• 57:49
  Speaker 10: and one that is a fictional person.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: B and D were definitely real. Ray Stalling Smith is real.
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: So I'm down to, I'm at a 50-50. And I
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: think it's the George Rufus case. I think George Rufus,
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: the third name.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take the one Tim didn't take.
• 58:08
  Speaker 10: Tim, you nailed it. Those are actually Kiefer Sutherland's middle names.
• 58:13
  Speaker 10: That's too many middle names, Kiefer. Don't know what happened there.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I honestly, if you hadn't gone first, I would have
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: been 0 for unknowing any of those.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: Kiefer George Rufus Sutherland?
• 58:26
  Speaker 10: Yes, it was Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland.
• 58:30
  Speaker 10: Don't know why.
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: Simply too many gentlemen's names. I didn't even catch the kefir.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: There were so many names there.
• 58:35
  Speaker 10: All right. Okay, true or false, aside from Donald Trump,
• 58:38
  Speaker 10: Rudy Giuliani was the only other defendant to rack up
• 58:40
  Speaker 10: 13 counts.
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: True?
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Tim?
• 58:48
  Speaker 10: Tim, how you feeling?
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: I was going to go with false. I don't think,
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: did Rudy get 13? It is true.
• 58:54
  Speaker 10: He's the only one who also got 13, and you
• 58:57
  Speaker 10: know he's just drenched in hair dye right now. just
• 59:00
  Speaker 10: sweating over that baker's dozen. The man's barely human at
• 59:04
  Speaker 10: this point, Tim.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: And he has no money to pay for any of
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: the bills.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: Incontinent.
• 59:08
  Speaker 10: He's a David Cronenberg creature. and he's just walking around
• 59:11
  Speaker 10: in society right now.
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: Think how cheap the bourbon is that he's drinking now,
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: that scotch. He's just down to the bottom of the,
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: you know, bottom shelf.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: Maxing out credit cards.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: He doesn't have any money anymore.
• 59:21
  Speaker 10: Oh, well, you're seeing he's selling his New York apartment.
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: It looks nice.
• 59:24
  Speaker 10: Just right into bourbon. You gonna make a bid?
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: No, but I mean, maybe it's gonna be tourist.
• 59:29
  Speaker 10: I can't see why you wouldn't. Kenneth Chesbro. What do
• 59:33
  Speaker 10: you want to call Cheesebro? It is Cheesebro.
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: It's Cheesebro, yeah.
• 59:37
  Speaker 10: Again, that's a fictional name. Kenneth Cheesebro, a human being
• 59:42
  Speaker 10: who faces seven felony counts for his role in developing
• 59:44
  Speaker 10: the fake elector's plot, was a registered Democrat as recently
• 59:47
  Speaker 10: as 2016, and in 2004 said Barack Obama would, quote,
• 59:51
  Speaker 10: make a pretty good Supreme Court justice. Is that true
• 59:54
  Speaker 10: or is that false?
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: That's true. I know a lot about Kenneth's cheese, bro.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: I think that's true.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: And I think it's also true that he was with
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: Alex Jones at the Capitol on January 6th.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 10: And both those things are true.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: He was a Democrat and then he got rich off Bitcoin.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 10: And that'll do it, unfortunately.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: I would watch a documentary on that.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 10: Stephen Lee, an Illinois handyman, was indicted for his efforts
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 10: to intimidate Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman. True or false?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: True?
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: I was.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: I think I was false. I was pretty sure. Wasn't
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: it Kanye West's spokesperson that was indicted for that? I
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: don't believe that he is a handyman from Illinois, but
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: I could be wrong.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 10: Now, Stephen Lee was indicted, but technically this is false
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 10: because he's not an Illinois handyman. He's a Lutheran pastor
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 10: because that's how corrupt Republicans have become. They've invented an
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 10: evil Lutheran. Prairie Home Companion would be ashamed.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 10: Indicted former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 10: the Wall Street Journal that I believe that the charges
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 10: that were filed on me are, for a lack of
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 10: a better word, baloney. Is that true or is that false?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Did he call it baloney? I don't think I've read
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: him calling it baloney. I'm going to say false.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: Tim?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: Tim? I also feel like I would have heard baloney,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: but I let my Wall Street Journal subscription lapse when
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: I left the Republican Party. So it's possible I just
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: didn't see it behind the paywall. But I'm going to
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: say it's false.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 10: You're both right. It is false. And the person who
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 10: did say it was, of course, the person you just mentioned,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 10: Cuddy's indicted former publicist Trevion Cuddy. One of the lesser
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 10: known indictees is Trump's former lawyer, Lionel Hutz, who previously
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 10: worked as an ambulance chaser and once ran a shoe
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 10: repair business out of his legal office. True or false?
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: Tommy.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: True.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: Tommy, I'm embarrassed.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know this one.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 10: I just thought.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: Hutz is false. Lionel Hutz was the Simpsons lawyer.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 10: He's a lawyer for the Simpsons. I only did that
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 10: because I was like, we're all the same age. You'll
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 10: get a Simpsons reference.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's so embarrassing.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: Tommy's older than me. Jesus Christ.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 10: I'm assuming... Two left, if you can believe it.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 6: Please.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 10: I'm assuming you guys probably covered this, but on Monday,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 10: Donald Trump agreed to a $ 100, 000 bond as well as
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 10: other terms of his release. True or false?
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: False.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: $ 200, 000.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 10: False? Yes, agreed. He agreed to a $ 200, 000 bond, to
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 10: which I say, and finally, if convicted, Trump would have
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 10: to serve five years before a pardon could even be possible.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 10: It would have to be issued by the state's board
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 10: of pardon because in Georgia, the governor does not have
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 10: pardon power. Is that true or is that false?
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 10: It's blissfully, wonderfully true, gentlemen.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful. It's a wonderful, wonderful.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 10: Thank you for having me. See, like, are you glad?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 10: Are you happy?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, Hallie, that was great.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Although I do feel like I am slipping if I
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: got the old Simpsons lawyer.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: I think this is a question.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: That was a bad miss for you.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: This is worse than when I went on your show
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: and you asked me who the prime minister of Pakistan was,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: and I can only name the former one.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: And Tim roasted me.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: That was really bad.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: To his many viewers.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: That was really bad.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: He compared me to a quiz given to George Bush
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: who was running for president.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 10: My God.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: It was vengeance for George Bush. It was vengeance for
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: poor George Bush. How was he supposed to know Benazir
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: Bhutto or whoever was the prime minister?
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: How was he supposed to know the name of countries
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: he might invade?
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 10: That was, I'm so indicted. Thank you for having me, gentlemen.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much. That's it for us today. Thank you,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: Tim Miller, for coming on a very long broadcast. Everyone
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: has been saying how you outshined both Favreau and Lovett.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: So thank you again for doing the show.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 10: Yeah, total duds.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: I appreciate that.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 10: Absolute duds.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 11: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 11: producer is Michael Martinez. Our producers are Andy Gardner-Bernstein and
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 11: Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 11: Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 11: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 11: Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 11: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 11: Ben Hefko, and David Tolles. Subscribe to Pod Save America
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 11: on YouTube to catch full episodes, exclusive content, and other
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 11: community events. Find us at youtube.com slash at Pod Save America.