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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:22
Speaker 1: On today's show... We'll get into maybe the last round
0:26
Speaker 1: of Trump legal drama, which includes our convicted felon president-elect
0:30
Speaker 1: possibly being sentenced on Friday. We'll also talk about Trump's
0:34
Speaker 1: MAGAfest destiny plans to seemingly take over the Western Hemisphere
0:39
Speaker 1: and name more places America. And later, you'll hear Lovett's
0:43
Speaker 1: interview with Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy about what's next for
0:46
Speaker 1: Democrats and how they plan to respond to the Republican
0:50
Speaker 1: agenda in Congress. But first... I am recording this from
0:54
Speaker 1: our studio in Los Angeles, where we are currently surrounded
0:58
Speaker 1: by the worst fires the city has ever seen, and
1:02
Speaker 1: certainly the costliest in American history. To the west, more
1:06
Speaker 1: than 5,000 homes and other buildings have been lost in
1:10
Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood by the ocean that has been
1:13
Speaker 1: almost completely destroyed. To the east, around Pasadena, the Eaton
1:18
Speaker 1: Fire has destroyed at least another thousand homes. Six people
1:22
Speaker 1: have died, though the death toll is sadly expected to rise.
1:27
Speaker 1: More than 180,000 are under evacuation orders right now. We
1:31
Speaker 1: are recording this Thursday afternoon. And the Santa Ana winds
1:35
Speaker 1: have made it very difficult for firefighters to contain all
1:40
Speaker 1: the fires. The two big fires in Pacific Palisades and
1:43
Speaker 1: the Eaton Fire are currently at 0% containment.
1:48
Speaker 3: L.A.
1:48
Speaker 1: Fire Chief Kristen Crowley said on Thursday, quote, We are
1:51
Speaker 1: absolutely not out of danger yet. Been a pretty scary
1:56
Speaker 1: few days here, Dan.
1:57
Speaker 2: I can only imagine.
1:57
Speaker 1: A lot of crooked staff have evacuated. A lot of
2:01
Speaker 1: people know people who've lost homes, who've lost everything. My
2:06
Speaker 1: closest friend from high school and college, Dan, you know,
2:09
Speaker 1: my friend Josh, he had just moved to the Palisades
2:12
Speaker 1: a couple months ago, just got settled into a new
2:14
Speaker 1: home with his wife and two young kids, got a
2:18
Speaker 1: new baby, and... He was able to grab his kids
2:22
Speaker 1: and the two dogs and left and lost everything else.
2:26
Speaker 1: And there are so many people like that. A lot
2:28
Speaker 1: of our friends out here who've grown up in L.A.,
2:30
Speaker 1: just know countless people who've lost their homes. We have
2:33
Speaker 1: a couple friends who are in Altadena who lost their home,
2:36
Speaker 1: who just moved in as well. It is terrifying. And
2:41
Speaker 1: you've experienced this where you live. There's something about the
2:47
Speaker 1: speed of at which these fires sort of come at
2:51
Speaker 1: you and you get the evacuation notice and you see
2:54
Speaker 1: the flames and you have to make the split second decision.
2:58
Speaker 1: Do we go, do we stay? It is a, it's a,
3:02
Speaker 1: it's a fucking nightmare, man. It is a nightmare.
3:04
Speaker 2: It's so scary. You know, in 2019, I heard this,
3:07
Speaker 2: there were fires everywhere where I live in the East
3:09
Speaker 2: Bay of California. And, I heard this really, really loud,
3:13
Speaker 2: incredibly loud sound. I looked out the window and it
3:15
Speaker 2: was a low-flying, huge plane to drop water on a
3:18
Speaker 2: fire that had just sparked up nearby. And I looked
3:21
Speaker 2: out my window and my new neighbors, because we just
3:22
Speaker 2: moved into our house a few months ago, were throwing
3:25
Speaker 2: everything they had into their car and driving away. It
3:28
Speaker 2: ended up being they contained the fire very, very quickly.
3:30
Speaker 2: But I grabbed Kyla, who was one back then, and departed.
3:34
Speaker 2: It's all I mean, it's so incredibly scary and you just,
3:38
Speaker 2: and we'll get to this, but it's so hard to
3:40
Speaker 2: know what the right decision to make for your family
3:42
Speaker 2: is when you're on the border of an evacuation, right?
3:45
Speaker 2: You haven't been told to evacuate, but you don't know
3:47
Speaker 2: if you're going to be next to be told to evacuate.
3:49
Speaker 1: Well, and for those of you listening who don't know
3:52
Speaker 1: LA and LA's geography, the reason that this fire in
3:56
Speaker 1: particular is both so damaging and so shocking is, you know,
4:01
Speaker 1: I think we in LA are used to, and people
4:03
Speaker 1: have lived here much longer than I have, are used
4:05
Speaker 1: to fires up in the hills, beyond. A couple of
4:09
Speaker 1: years ago, my parents who live in Thousand Oaks, they
4:12
Speaker 1: moved out here a couple of years ago and they
4:15
Speaker 1: showed up at our house at two in the morning
4:17
Speaker 1: after trying to escape a fire in Thousand Oaks. And
4:20
Speaker 1: that's sort of a place that you expect that there
4:23
Speaker 1: may be fires. For the Palisades to be nearly completely
4:27
Speaker 1: destroyed as it has been is unprecedented for, uh, Pasadena, Altadena,
4:33
Speaker 1: places around there. I mean, it is just, we've never
4:36
Speaker 1: seen anything like this. And last night, Wednesday night, there
4:40
Speaker 1: was a fire broke out in Runyon Canyon. It got
4:42
Speaker 1: close to Hollywood Boulevard. That's when we were sitting, like
4:45
Speaker 1: Emily and I were like, do we leave? Do we
4:47
Speaker 1: pack up the, we packed up the car thinking maybe
4:50
Speaker 1: we should leave, but hoping that it wouldn't get further down.
4:53
Speaker 1: And fortunately the firefighters were able to put that fire
4:55
Speaker 1: out or at least contain it. Everyone's been dealing with that.
4:58
Speaker 1: The smoke is You know, the air quality is just
5:01
Speaker 1: horrendous right now. It'll probably be like that for a while. And,
5:04
Speaker 1: you know, God bless the firefighters who are unbelievably heroic
5:10
Speaker 1: and have been battling these fires and not just firefighters
5:13
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles, from all over. They've come from other counties,
5:17
Speaker 1: other states, and they have been working around the clock
5:21
Speaker 1: since Tuesday without sleep to battle these fires in extremely
5:26
Speaker 1: difficult conditions. The wind's Santa Ana winds, which are always
5:29
Speaker 1: an issue here are like, like we've not seen in
5:32
Speaker 1: years and years and years, 70, 80, 90, a hundred
5:35
Speaker 1: mile an hour gusts. And, uh, you know, it's been, uh,
5:39
Speaker 1: the conditions have been very, very dry, um, which is,
5:42
Speaker 1: you know, combines to make a real combustible situation that
5:46
Speaker 1: is very, very dangerous. Um, and so we're not out
5:48
Speaker 1: of the woods yet. Unfortunately, we have to talk about
5:51
Speaker 1: the political fight that has already broken out. even though, again,
5:56
Speaker 1: the two big fires are still 0% contained and people
5:59
Speaker 1: are still evacuated and still evacuating. Our incoming president has
6:04
Speaker 1: responded with half a dozen posts blaming the fires on
6:08
Speaker 1: outgoing President Biden, Governor Newsom, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
6:12
Speaker 1: This is how Newsom responded on Wednesday.
6:16
Speaker 3: People are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Kids
6:22
Speaker 3: lost their schools. Families completely torn asunder. Churches burned down.
6:27
Speaker 3: This guy wanted to politicize it. I have a lot
6:31
Speaker 3: of thoughts and I know what I want to say.
6:33
Speaker 3: I won't. I stood next to a president of the
6:36
Speaker 3: United States of America today and I was proud to
6:39
Speaker 3: be with Joe Biden. And he had the backs of
6:41
Speaker 3: every single person in this community. He didn't play politics,
6:43
Speaker 3: didn't try to divide any of us.
6:44
Speaker 1: So just to dig into the specific accusations here, Trump
6:48
Speaker 1: says Biden is leaving him, quote, no money in FEMA.
6:51
Speaker 1: because he wasted it all on the, quote, green new scam.
6:55
Speaker 1: And he accused Newsom of refusing to sign a water
6:58
Speaker 1: restoration declaration that supposedly would have allowed more water to
7:02
Speaker 1: flow into California from the north. And the reason that
7:05
Speaker 1: Newsom allegedly didn't sign this, what is an imaginary water
7:09
Speaker 1: restoration declaration, is that he, quote, wanted to protect an
7:13
Speaker 1: essentially worthless fish called a smelt. Do you have any
7:17
Speaker 1: idea what Trump was referring to with regard to FEMA
7:20
Speaker 1: or Or Smeltgate?
7:23
Speaker 2: I'm embarrassed to say that I do, John.
7:25
Speaker 1: You do?
7:26
Speaker 2: I do. So let's try to fact check these, if
7:29
Speaker 2: you will. But let's start with FEMA because that's the
7:32
Speaker 2: simpler one. It is true that earlier this year, the
7:37
Speaker 2: disaster relief fund at FEMA, which sends out money in
7:40
Speaker 2: situations like this, was depleted. It was depleted not because
7:43
Speaker 2: of whatever the Green News scam is. It was depleted
7:45
Speaker 2: because of Hurricane Helene and other natural disasters. However, that
7:50
Speaker 2: fund is not at zero. It is at $ 27 billion
7:53
Speaker 2: right now because Congress passed and Joe Biden signed a
7:56
Speaker 2: bill in December to do exactly that. Now, it may
7:59
Speaker 2: be that $ 27 billion is not going to be enough
8:02
Speaker 2: for what we are dealing with in California. But the
8:04
Speaker 2: reason it's at $ 27 billion and not something more is
8:06
Speaker 2: because Republicans in Congress cut Joe Biden's request. He asked
8:11
Speaker 2: for $ 40 billion and they cut him down to $ 27 billion.
8:13
Speaker 2: So the idea that Joe Biden is leaving Trump with
8:15
Speaker 2: a depleted FEMA is just completely factually incorrect. Now on
8:20
Speaker 2: to Smeltgate. What Trump is referring to is the historic
8:25
Speaker 2: debates we have in California about how much water to
8:28
Speaker 2: move from Northern California, where you get water from the Bay,
8:32
Speaker 2: the Delta, the Snow Belt from the mountains up near Tahoe,
8:35
Speaker 2: and how much to send primarily to the Central Valley
8:38
Speaker 2: for farmers. If you ever drive from Northern California to
8:40
Speaker 2: Southern California, you will go past a whole part of
8:43
Speaker 2: the country where every farm has a sign yelling at
8:45
Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom asking for more water. The Trump administration and
8:50
Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom had a dispute about how to manage the water.
8:55
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, this is, I think, is what triggered Trump.
8:57
Speaker 2: The Biden administration just put, in fact, a new plan,
8:59
Speaker 2: which deals with one of the issues around this is
9:02
Speaker 2: the smelt, which is a fish, and salmon, which are
9:05
Speaker 2: endangered and threatened species. And so this has been a
9:09
Speaker 2: debate for a long time. Now, what's important about this
9:11
Speaker 2: is it has zero to do with the fires in
9:13
Speaker 2: Southern California. Southern California, and LA in particular, do not
9:16
Speaker 2: get their water from Northern California. They get it from
9:19
Speaker 2: two aqueducts east of LA. One, the Colorado River one
9:24
Speaker 2: on the Arizona-California border, and the Owens Valley aqueduct east
9:29
Speaker 2: of LA. California, there have been reports, and this is
9:32
Speaker 2: all sparked by reports, that some fire hydrants were not
9:35
Speaker 2: having water come out of them during the fire. That
9:38
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with a shortage of water in
9:40
Speaker 2: Southern California. The reservoirs in Southern California are at or
9:44
Speaker 2: above their historic levels right now. The reason why people
9:48
Speaker 2: were not, some fire hydrants were not putting water out
9:50
Speaker 2: was the tremendous strain on the system from fighting all
9:54
Speaker 2: of these huge fires at the same time. For example,
9:58
Speaker 2: in the Palisades fire, prior to the fire, there were
10:02
Speaker 2: three 1 million gallon tanks of water that were positioned
10:06
Speaker 2: for this, which should have taken care of any normal fire.
10:10
Speaker 2: They needed three times that to get there. They could
10:13
Speaker 2: not refill the tanks fast enough to meet the need,
10:17
Speaker 2: and that's a problem. So there's a larger question about
10:20
Speaker 2: updates to the system, updates in the infrastructure to make
10:23
Speaker 2: it more prepared for these sorts of things, but it
10:25
Speaker 2: has absolutely zero to do with where Gavin Newsom is
10:29
Speaker 2: sending water in California.
10:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, it is- I can't believe we
10:34
Speaker 1: still have to do that. It is so fucking stupid.
10:36
Speaker 2: I know, but we do.
10:37
Speaker 1: And look, if you're dealing with, if you've lost your
10:41
Speaker 1: home or you're evacuated somewhere, you're scared and you're wondering like,
10:44
Speaker 1: how could this have happened?
10:45
Speaker 4: Right.
10:46
Speaker 1: Like how could we have not been prepared for this?
10:48
Speaker 5: Right.
10:49
Speaker 1: Like so it is it is natural to have these questions.
10:51
Speaker 1: It is natural to be upset. I do not think
10:53
Speaker 1: that state and local officials are beyond criticism by any means.
10:56
Speaker 1: I'm happy to criticize them if they've done something wrong.
10:59
Speaker 1: It is clear that here in California and all across
11:01
Speaker 1: the country, we are not ready for the extreme weather
11:07
Speaker 1: events that are going to happen now because of climate change.
11:11
Speaker 1: And this isn't to say climate change did it and blah, blah, blah.
11:13
Speaker 1: We've all contributed to climate change. We've all lived on
11:16
Speaker 1: this planet and in this country, right? And we are
11:19
Speaker 1: now past the like, oh, climate change is going to
11:21
Speaker 1: do this. Climate change is doing it. We are dealing
11:24
Speaker 1: with extreme weather events that would happen anyway, but are
11:27
Speaker 1: made worse and more extreme by climate change. That's just
11:30
Speaker 1: a fact. And we have to focus on climate resilience
11:34
Speaker 1: and preparing for disasters like we are seeing right now
11:38
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. And to the extent that local, state,
11:40
Speaker 1: and national officials of either party aren't doing that, they
11:43
Speaker 1: should be criticized for it. And we should elect officials
11:45
Speaker 1: who do make sure that we are ready with every
11:48
Speaker 1: means possible to face down disasters like this. But you're right.
11:54
Speaker 1: The Pacific Palisades, those water tanks are used for residential use.
12:00
Speaker 1: They are not for fighting urban fires. In fact, fighting
12:04
Speaker 1: urban fires is extremely difficult for firefighters to do. They are,
12:08
Speaker 1: especially in LA and California, they're used to fighting like wildfires.
12:12
Speaker 1: But to have a neighborhood like the Palisades burned down,
12:14
Speaker 1: it's much more difficult to fight those fires. And the
12:17
Speaker 1: officials in LA were saying a firefight with multiple fire
12:20
Speaker 1: hydrants drawing water from the system for several hours, let
12:23
Speaker 1: alone 15 hours straight, is unsustainable to known fact. Fire
12:28
Speaker 1: hydrants have also run dry like that in the case
12:30
Speaker 1: of other wildfires that spread to urban areas, which is
12:33
Speaker 1: the situation, including the 2017 Tubbs fire, the 2024 Mountain fire,
12:38
Speaker 1: and 2023's fire in Maui. And so the reservoirs in
12:42
Speaker 1: California right now are full. They are well above historical averages.
12:45
Speaker 1: There is no shortage of water in California. And like
12:49
Speaker 1: you said, there was low water pressure because they use
12:51
Speaker 1: so much water. And because there's low water pressure, it's
12:55
Speaker 1: harder to push the water uphill and the Palisades are
12:58
Speaker 1: on hills. So the water wasn't coming out of the
13:00
Speaker 1: fire hydrants because of that. They went and they fixed
13:02
Speaker 1: the situation. They got the water up. But the bigger
13:04
Speaker 1: point here is like, and I've seen a lot of
13:08
Speaker 1: firefighters say this on the news and quoted in stories.
13:11
Speaker 1: When you are fighting fires this big with winds this speed,
13:18
Speaker 1: even like fire hoses are just not going to get
13:20
Speaker 1: it done. And the other big problem, the reason they
13:23
Speaker 1: were relying so much on the reservoirs and the fire
13:26
Speaker 1: hydrants is because they couldn't get any helicopters into the air, right?
13:30
Speaker 1: Usually you have aerial water supply that can dump water
13:33
Speaker 1: on a fire, which is exactly, by the way, what
13:35
Speaker 1: happened last night and why they got the Hollywood Hills
13:37
Speaker 1: fire out, or at least contained it so quickly. Tuesday night,
13:40
Speaker 1: when this was happening, 60, 70, 80 mile an hour
13:43
Speaker 1: wind gusts. I mean, they were diverting planes from Burbank
13:47
Speaker 1: airport because they couldn't land there. They were sending them
13:49
Speaker 1: to Phoenix even because the winds were so bad. And
13:52
Speaker 1: so they couldn't get any planes up in the air
13:54
Speaker 1: to drop water on the fire, which meant that they
13:56
Speaker 1: were using even more water from the hydrants, right? And again,
14:00
Speaker 1: I know this is a detailed explanation, but like there's
14:02
Speaker 1: just so much misinformation going around. And again, this is
14:07
Speaker 1: not to like defend any official here or there. It's just,
14:11
Speaker 1: People should know exactly what's happening. And there's going to
14:14
Speaker 1: be some things that we don't know the answers to
14:16
Speaker 1: yet because that takes time. And I know that we're
14:18
Speaker 1: in the middle of a crisis and everyone wants answers
14:19
Speaker 1: right away. But that's why you have leaders who don't
14:24
Speaker 1: do this kind of shit like Trump's doing right off
14:27
Speaker 1: the bat as we're still trying to contain this disaster.
14:31
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just another four years of this we're
14:34
Speaker 1: going to deal with. I mean, we dealt with it
14:35
Speaker 1: the last four years, even when he wasn't president.
14:37
Speaker 2: I mean, this is Hurricane Helena all over again.
14:48
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Speaker 1: Let's face it. After a night with drinks, I don't
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14:57
Speaker 6: You were great at bouncing back.
14:58
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Speaker 1: 15% off. There was also a whole thing going around
16:23
Speaker 1: that Karen Bass has been criticized for budget cuts to
16:26
Speaker 1: the fire department. That was also not true. And, you know,
16:31
Speaker 1: perhaps this initial misinformation was based on just a misunderstanding,
16:34
Speaker 1: but there was... There was actually a $ 53 million increase
16:39
Speaker 1: this year over the previous year in the LA City
16:42
Speaker 1: fire budget. The reason it didn't appear in the original
16:45
Speaker 1: approved budget, which is where some of these stories were
16:48
Speaker 1: based off of, the original approved budget from earlier in
16:50
Speaker 1: the year, was because at the time that budget was approved,
16:54
Speaker 1: the city was still negotiating with the firefighter union over
16:58
Speaker 1: their salaries, compensation, pay increases. So none of their salary
17:02
Speaker 1: compensation and pay increases appeared in that original budget, it
17:07
Speaker 1: only appeared once the deal was done later in the year.
17:11
Speaker 1: And so, lo and behold, instead of a $ 17 million cut,
17:15
Speaker 1: as has been reported some places, it was actually a
17:17
Speaker 1: $ 53 million increase. Now, again, you can argue $ 53 million
17:23
Speaker 1: isn't enough. We should have even more firefighters. We should
17:26
Speaker 1: have an even bigger firefighting budget in a state like California,
17:30
Speaker 1: in a city like LA that's vulnerable to to wildfires
17:33
Speaker 1: like this, which is a totally fair argument if you
17:35
Speaker 1: want to make it. But the idea that there was
17:36
Speaker 1: a $ 17 million cut is just, it is just not true.
17:39
Speaker 1: Mayor Bass was also criticized because she was part of
17:43
Speaker 1: a delegation sent by President Biden to Ghana for the
17:46
Speaker 1: inauguration of the new president. She left after there were
17:49
Speaker 1: warnings that there could be some pretty severe fires and
17:53
Speaker 1: weather conditions. And we knew that the winds were going
17:56
Speaker 1: to be bad. We Again, we didn't know for sure
18:03
Speaker 1: that the fires would break out. No one knew the
18:05
Speaker 1: extent of the fire, but I just think, and look,
18:08
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before in terms of like optics.
18:11
Speaker 1: I actually don't think, I think it's beyond optics. It's
18:13
Speaker 1: beyond politics. Like when a disaster strikes, and you can
18:16
Speaker 1: feel this being in LA right now and trying to
18:19
Speaker 1: figure out when to evacuate, where to evacuate, how, what's real,
18:23
Speaker 1: what's not. What you want more than anything is a
18:26
Speaker 1: leader who is in constant communication all the time with
18:31
Speaker 1: people on whatever channel they can do that. And that,
18:34
Speaker 1: I think that is more important now in this like
18:37
Speaker 1: very fractured, more than fractured media environment where it's hard
18:43
Speaker 1: to get news from the same place. It's hard to
18:45
Speaker 1: get reliable information from the same place. In that environment,
18:49
Speaker 1: you want leaders who over-communicate, who are talking all the time,
18:53
Speaker 1: who are there and like letting you know what's going on, right?
18:57
Speaker 1: And I don't know that, I mean, obviously this is,
19:00
Speaker 1: we're talking about Karen Bass now, but in fairness, I
19:03
Speaker 1: don't know if a lot of leaders have really figured
19:06
Speaker 1: that out that we are in this new communication environment
19:09
Speaker 1: where because of what has happened to the media and
19:12
Speaker 1: social media and everything else, you just have to be
19:14
Speaker 1: out there all the time in a crisis talking constantly.
19:17
Speaker 1: I mean, some leaders did this during the beginning of
19:19
Speaker 1: the pandemic successfully, but I do think that every time
19:22
Speaker 1: there's a crisis, especially if you're a local leader, you've
19:25
Speaker 1: got to be there all the time.
19:26
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, he is a very flawed individual, but
19:30
Speaker 2: Governor Cuomo did this very well at the beginning of
19:31
Speaker 2: the pandemic. Governor Newsom also was doing daily briefings that
19:35
Speaker 2: were sort of required. We would stream online just to
19:38
Speaker 2: know what was happening in the early days. I mean,
19:40
Speaker 2: even the Trump administration had Fauci and those folks out early.
19:44
Speaker 2: Then Trump joined and really kind of shat the bed.
19:46
Speaker 2: But you're exactly right. And people may listen to this
19:49
Speaker 2: and say, like, truly who gives a shit about a
19:53
Speaker 2: dispute over the California– the Los Angeles City fire budget
19:56
Speaker 2: and who gives a shit about the smelt and Trump's bullshit?
20:00
Speaker 2: But the reason why it matters is we have to
20:03
Speaker 2: make real decisions about how we're going to deal with
20:06
Speaker 2: problems like these over the long term to make sure
20:08
Speaker 2: that the next fire is not as bad. to deal
20:10
Speaker 2: with whatever the next thing that happens from climate change is.
20:13
Speaker 2: And you can't do that if you're fixing a bunch
20:16
Speaker 2: of bullshit that's not right. You actually have to have
20:18
Speaker 2: a real conversation, right? You're not going to solve the
20:20
Speaker 2: problem by running the water past the smelter in the
20:23
Speaker 2: Central Valley. You're going to be better prepared the next
20:26
Speaker 2: time because you have better equipment, more water prepositioned. You
20:30
Speaker 2: have better tankers, more water pressure. That's the conversation to have,
20:34
Speaker 2: not this other stuff. And when Trump sends us down
20:37
Speaker 2: these fucking rabbit holes. It gets so much harder to
20:39
Speaker 2: get back to the actual issues that matter to help
20:41
Speaker 2: us be better prepared the next time.
20:43
Speaker 1: We just a month ago had a debate that probably
20:47
Speaker 1: very few people in the country were paying attention to
20:49
Speaker 1: because the federal government almost shut down and people were
20:54
Speaker 1: fighting to keep it open to make sure that the
20:55
Speaker 1: disaster relief, the added disaster relief funding that you talked
20:59
Speaker 1: about earlier was included in the budget and that the
21:01
Speaker 1: government didn't shut down because People in North Carolina and
21:04
Speaker 1: on the East Coast who dealt with Hurricane Helene still
21:07
Speaker 1: weren't getting the funding they needed. And it doesn't seem
21:10
Speaker 1: as urgent or important to people after the fact as
21:13
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, well, yeah, disaster relief funding, whatever. And
21:16
Speaker 1: then when shit like this happens and people are dealing
21:19
Speaker 1: with on the local level, they're like, where's all the money?
21:21
Speaker 1: Where did it go? It's like, well, these bigger fights
21:23
Speaker 1: that we have in Congress or people have in state
21:25
Speaker 1: houses or city governments have like it matters to have
21:29
Speaker 1: enough money to so that you can fund emergency response
21:33
Speaker 1: like this and recovery, especially. I mean, the other reason
21:36
Speaker 1: that Trump's tweets or truths or whatever the fuck they
21:39
Speaker 1: are matter is because he's about to be president. The
21:42
Speaker 1: federal government typically provides around 75% of rebuilding costs after
21:46
Speaker 1: a major disaster. And Trump many times just did it
21:51
Speaker 1: during the last campaign, has just threatened to withhold money
21:54
Speaker 1: from California because he's pissed about Gavin Newsom, or he's
21:59
Speaker 1: pissed about this, Gavin Newsom, not listening to him or
22:01
Speaker 1: about the smelt or whatever else. And, and, you know,
22:04
Speaker 1: there were all these stories that people in the Trump
22:06
Speaker 1: administration told about how he had to be shown that
22:09
Speaker 1: people in Orange County voted for him. How many people
22:12
Speaker 1: voted from Orange County before he released disaster funds to
22:15
Speaker 1: California when he was president the last time. So it's
22:18
Speaker 1: a very scary prospect that, you know, we're going to
22:21
Speaker 1: have other natural disasters, have them here in California, have
22:25
Speaker 1: them anywhere in the country. And the idea that you're
22:27
Speaker 1: only going to get money from the federal government to
22:29
Speaker 1: help clean up and recover and to respond if you
22:33
Speaker 1: agree with Trump's politics or you haven't pissed Trump off
22:35
Speaker 1: lately is insane.
22:37
Speaker 2: I mean, that is– you could hear that in Gavin
22:39
Speaker 2: Newsom's answer on the clip we played earlier on the podcast.
22:42
Speaker 5: Yes.
22:42
Speaker 2: Where he is tempering his– like he clearly is outraged
22:46
Speaker 2: and morally offended and infuriated by what Trump said. But
22:49
Speaker 2: he's not going to say anything about it in part
22:51
Speaker 2: because this is not the moment to do that, but
22:53
Speaker 2: also because he knows– that his state may not get
22:57
Speaker 2: help if he further angers Trump. And that is a
23:01
Speaker 2: totally fucked up and scary situation for the country, that
23:05
Speaker 2: your politics are gonna determine whether you get help, right?
23:07
Speaker 2: It's just very, very scary.
23:09
Speaker 1: I will say one last thing about the information environment
23:12
Speaker 1: before we move on, because when you're actually in it
23:17
Speaker 1: and you're trying to find information that could help you
23:22
Speaker 1: and your family and your friends, Like I just, you know,
23:26
Speaker 1: in the 2010s, you could go on Twitter and one
23:31
Speaker 1: really good use of Twitter back then was it can help.
23:35
Speaker 1: It's probably the best platform, better even than television news
23:39
Speaker 1: for like up to the second information to just help
23:43
Speaker 1: you in a situation like this.
23:44
Speaker 4: Right.
23:45
Speaker 1: And now went on, you know, go on X the
23:49
Speaker 1: last couple of days and it is just like littered
23:52
Speaker 1: with misinformation and conspiracies and people yelling at each other
23:55
Speaker 1: about politics and bullshit. And I'm like, I just want
23:58
Speaker 1: to know like where the fire is, what the update is.
24:01
Speaker 1: Thank God there is a, an app called watch duty,
24:04
Speaker 1: which people have been alerting everyone to here, which actually
24:07
Speaker 1: it's like a, it's a nonprofit and it's someone who
24:09
Speaker 1: runs it. That is figuring like it's constantly updated information
24:13
Speaker 1: about where the fires are. Um, you know, where the
24:16
Speaker 1: evacuation zones are. It's really, really helpful. Everyone should go
24:19
Speaker 1: download it if you're in California or basically anywhere. where
24:22
Speaker 1: there could be fires. But it's wild that we don't
24:26
Speaker 1: have that on X anymore.
24:28
Speaker 2: We don't have it anywhere. We don't have it anywhere.
24:30
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing is like, and then you turn
24:31
Speaker 1: on national news and it's, I turned on cable and
24:33
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, they got to be covering this, right?
24:35
Speaker 1: And they're talking about, which we're going to talk about soon,
24:37
Speaker 1: which is like, Trump wants to invade Greenland. Let's talk
24:40
Speaker 1: to the former US ambassador to Denmark. And I'm like,
24:42
Speaker 1: what about the, you know, and local news has been good.
24:45
Speaker 1: I will say local news here in LA has been good.
24:48
Speaker 1: And Watch Duty is amazing. And then, you know, LA
24:50
Speaker 1: Times has done fantastic reporting. They've lifted their paywall during this.
24:54
Speaker 1: And by the way, like they're, you know, they're struggling
24:57
Speaker 1: just like every other media outlet. So like good for
24:59
Speaker 1: them for the reporting they're doing. And they lifted the
25:01
Speaker 1: paywall for this. LAist, the Cal Fire Evacuation Guide, CalMatters,
25:05
Speaker 1: they're all doing fantastic work. But man, the one takeaway
25:10
Speaker 1: from this is like we are going to face more disasters,
25:14
Speaker 1: more crises. And when people need information in a situation
25:17
Speaker 1: like that, is really hard to get with the social
25:20
Speaker 1: media platforms we have right now and even the just
25:24
Speaker 1: media environment we have right now.
25:25
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I could talk about this for days.
25:27
Speaker 2: I mean, I sort of wrote a book about it.
25:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say you wrote a book
25:31
Speaker 1: about it, yeah.
25:32
Speaker 2: But the problem we have is the distribution mechanism for
25:37
Speaker 2: credible information has been absolutely corrupted, where the point in
25:41
Speaker 2: the 2010s that you're referring to is when media companies
25:44
Speaker 2: decided that the their primary distribution method was not going
25:47
Speaker 2: to be people coming to their website. It was going
25:49
Speaker 2: to be social media platforms delivering it to people's apps.
25:51
Speaker 2: So instead of waking up every morning going to NewYorkTimes.com, WashingtonPost.com, LATimes.com,
25:56
Speaker 2: you just open up Twitter or Facebook and you got news.
25:58
Speaker 2: And there were moments when that worked great. There was
26:01
Speaker 2: also all kinds of misinformation. You remember shootings would spread
26:05
Speaker 2: in the first minutes. People were accused of things who
26:08
Speaker 2: were totally innocent because they looked like the perpetrator or
26:12
Speaker 2: whatever else. But it was– It was better than where
26:15
Speaker 2: we were before. And what happened is Twitter and Facebook
26:19
Speaker 2: and Meta primarily just decided that they were no longer
26:22
Speaker 2: going to prioritize giving you credible information. In fact, in
26:25
Speaker 2: Twitter's case, they're going to give you the exact opposite
26:27
Speaker 2: of that. That they're going to basically, if you think
26:30
Speaker 2: of sort of the internet and social media as a highway,
26:34
Speaker 2: Musk puts all the merchants of misinformation, the people most
26:36
Speaker 2: likely to spread misinfo and lie and politicize things, puts
26:41
Speaker 2: them in the HOV lane. And it just clogs everything
26:43
Speaker 2: up and you can't see what's happening. And this is,
26:45
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the problem, right? This is central
26:48
Speaker 2: to what happened in the election. It's central to democracy.
26:50
Speaker 2: It's central to everything else, which, and this is the
26:51
Speaker 2: thing I think about all the time as it relates
26:53
Speaker 2: to like Crooked or what I'm trying to do with
26:55
Speaker 2: my Substack newsletter is how do we get people good
27:01
Speaker 2: information from credible sources to help them understand what is going,
27:05
Speaker 2: how do you fight back against the confusion that is
27:08
Speaker 2: being sown by Trump and his allies? And that, That's
27:11
Speaker 2: essential because that's where they thrive, right? They thrive in
27:13
Speaker 2: the confusion. They thrive in the chaos. And they don't
27:16
Speaker 2: want you to know what's actually happening. Because if people
27:18
Speaker 2: focus on the fact that this fire was in part
27:20
Speaker 2: because of climate change, maybe we do something about climate change.
27:22
Speaker 2: And it wouldn't be a great idea to have a
27:23
Speaker 2: president and a Congress or a bunch of climate change deniers.
27:26
Speaker 2: And so that is the thing. How can progressives, how
27:29
Speaker 2: can people like us solve the media distribution problem to
27:32
Speaker 2: get people information they need? Not just in a crisis,
27:36
Speaker 2: but like on a day-to-day basis. How many times, you
27:38
Speaker 2: and I are literally, and I I hate saying this.
27:41
Speaker 2: We are professional news consumers. That is what we do.
27:44
Speaker 2: How many times do we get on the morning call
27:46
Speaker 2: for this podcast and we're like, anyone know what Trump's
27:48
Speaker 2: doing this week? And we're like Googling. It's like fucking
27:50
Speaker 2: impossible to find out. There's no, or there's like 17
27:53
Speaker 2: times of the Biden press conference and you just can't
27:56
Speaker 2: figure it out.
27:57
Speaker 1: And this has gotten worse over the last several years.
28:00
Speaker 1: It didn't even used to be like this when we
28:02
Speaker 1: started this company.
28:03
Speaker 2: No, it has been worse. Since 2020, the undergirding of
28:09
Speaker 2: American media and social media has basically collapsed. The internet
28:12
Speaker 2: is– the worldwide web, if you think about it, barely exists.
28:14
Speaker 2: Even when you talk about local news sites, I was
28:16
Speaker 2: going through all these local news sites today, like trying
28:18
Speaker 2: to find information for this podcast. I'm clicking all these links.
28:21
Speaker 2: It's like they're crashing your browser with a number of
28:23
Speaker 2: digital ads that are popping up at all times. It's
28:26
Speaker 2: impossible to even read what's happening.
28:28
Speaker 1: Well, it's also, it's like, in order for the source
28:31
Speaker 1: to be credible in people's eyes, they have to trust
28:35
Speaker 1: the person, right? And I do think that, as you
28:39
Speaker 1: were just talking, like, progressives have to figure that out. But,
28:41
Speaker 1: you know, when people are seen as, like, partisan Democrats
28:43
Speaker 1: or progressives, like, people are going to maybe trust them less, right? And,
28:48
Speaker 1: you know, I was talking about all the bullshit that
28:49
Speaker 1: I've seen mostly from, like, you know, Elon Musk was
28:53
Speaker 1: spreading that maybe the one problem with the LA fire
28:57
Speaker 1: department is DEI. And that was somehow related to the fire.
29:01
Speaker 1: Libs of TikTok has been spreading all kinds of bullshit, right?
29:03
Speaker 1: So it's like those kind of people. But there's some
29:07
Speaker 1: left-wing craziness out there, too. We've talked about this for
29:09
Speaker 1: the last several crises, incidents, whatever, over the news topics
29:13
Speaker 1: that we've talked about over the last year now. You know, there's... God,
29:18
Speaker 1: I fucking saw... I don't even want to give him the...
29:21
Speaker 1: Don't do it.
29:21
Speaker 2: Don't do it. I'm not going to do it.
29:23
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to
29:24
Speaker 1: do it. I'm not going to do it. So I
29:30
Speaker 1: do think you need credible sources of information that people
29:35
Speaker 1: are going to say, okay, even if you believe not
29:39
Speaker 1: what I believe politically, I'm going to be able to
29:41
Speaker 1: trust you for at least giving me the information and
29:43
Speaker 1: facts that I need.
29:46
Speaker 2: Let me go back and rephrase what I said before.
29:49
Speaker 2: I said how should progressives try to address this problem.
29:51
Speaker 2: The better way to say it is how should people
29:53
Speaker 2: in the pro-democracy movement. try to do this.
29:55
Speaker 5: Right.
29:55
Speaker 2: It's not ideological. It's if you believe we need it,
29:59
Speaker 2: people need access to actual information on what's happening to
30:02
Speaker 2: be able to make more informed choices about their lives
30:04
Speaker 2: and their political choices, then we have to find a
30:08
Speaker 2: way to get them accurate information like that. And that
30:11
Speaker 2: is a, that is the challenge.
30:13
Speaker 1: Speaking of good information. If you want to help people
30:16
Speaker 1: who are dealing with these fires right now, people who
30:19
Speaker 1: have evacuated, who've lost their homes, what's safe America and
30:22
Speaker 1: crooked ideas. have put together a fund to support disaster
30:26
Speaker 1: relief efforts. It's going to help on the ground groups
30:28
Speaker 1: that include World Central Kitchen, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank,
30:32
Speaker 1: and a lot more. You can make a donation today
30:34
Speaker 1: at votesaveamerica.com slash relief. That's votesaveamerica.com slash R-E-L-I-E-F. And we will,
30:42
Speaker 1: of course, continue updating the fund with different organizations. And
30:46
Speaker 1: we'll also put the link in the show notes. So
30:49
Speaker 1: if you want to help, that would be really fantastic.
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Speaker 1: for sponsoring this episode. So by the time you hear this,
32:38
Speaker 1: the next president of the United States may have been
32:41
Speaker 1: sentenced for the 34 felony counts of fraud he was
32:43
Speaker 1: convicted of by a jury of his peers. As of
32:45
Speaker 1: this recording, Trump has asked his pals on the Supreme
32:48
Speaker 1: Court to block the sentencing. citing the presidential immunity they've
32:52
Speaker 1: given him, even though he's not yet president. And Judge
32:55
Speaker 1: Mershon said that Trump won't be getting jail time, so
32:58
Speaker 1: it's not going to interfere with him, you know, becoming president.
33:02
Speaker 1: In a wildly timed coincidence, the incoming president made what
33:05
Speaker 1: I'm sure was a perfect phone call to Supreme Court
33:08
Speaker 1: Justice Sam Alito just hours before Trump filed the appeal.
33:12
Speaker 1: But don't worry, Alito says he was just recommending one
33:14
Speaker 1: of his former law clerks for a White House job.
33:18
Speaker 1: and wasn't even aware of Trump's appeal at the time
33:20
Speaker 1: that they chatted. Meanwhile, another one of Trump's favorite jurists,
33:24
Speaker 1: Eileen Cannon, remember her? She has blocked special counsel Jack
33:28
Speaker 1: Smith from making public his final report about his two
33:30
Speaker 1: indictments of Donald Trump, the classified documents investigation, and the
33:34
Speaker 1: attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The Department of Justice
33:38
Speaker 1: has already filed an appeal saying they are happy to
33:41
Speaker 1: just let Congress view the classified documents part of the report,
33:45
Speaker 1: but want the election interference case and that part of
33:48
Speaker 1: the report to be made public. My question for you is,
33:52
Speaker 1: to what extent does any of this matter? Clearly, Trump
33:55
Speaker 1: doesn't want people reminded that he's a convicted felon who's
33:59
Speaker 1: been charged with committing all kinds of crimes. But since
34:02
Speaker 1: American voters and their great wisdom gave all that a
34:05
Speaker 1: big thumbs up, is this just about it's important to
34:08
Speaker 1: uphold the rule of law and get the truth out
34:10
Speaker 1: there for people? What do you think?
34:11
Speaker 2: Well, he should be sentenced because he committed these crimes
34:14
Speaker 2: and he was convicted by a jury of his peers.
34:15
Speaker 2: And so whatever that sentence is, I think it's absurd
34:18
Speaker 2: that they might just sort of give him no punishment
34:21
Speaker 2: at all just because he won an election. I don't
34:22
Speaker 2: know that you want to just for– I don't think
34:25
Speaker 2: sentencing the incoming president of the United States to prison
34:29
Speaker 2: is complicated, I guess I would say. But like give
34:31
Speaker 2: him a fine, right? Make him do community service. Like
34:33
Speaker 2: that would be cool. Like put on an orange vest
34:35
Speaker 2: and go pick up some trash. I don't know. But
34:36
Speaker 2: you should do that. As for the report, I would
34:40
Speaker 2: say that that is probably– the saddest consolation prize in
34:45
Speaker 2: recent history. It's like we were on the cusp of
34:48
Speaker 2: Donald Trump of a huge high profile trial where all
34:52
Speaker 2: the evidence was laid out, which could have ended in
34:54
Speaker 2: Donald Trump being convicted for conspiracy to violently overthrow the government. Instead,
34:59
Speaker 2: we're going to get a report with no power for
35:02
Speaker 2: at least days before the Biden administration ends. Now, I
35:05
Speaker 2: agree with you that the voters have voted. It seems
35:07
Speaker 2: unlikely it's going to have a huge political impact. It's
35:10
Speaker 2: not going to affect.
35:11
Speaker 1: What impact? That's it.
35:12
Speaker 2: He's never running again.
35:13
Speaker 1: Never running again. I don't think it's going to change
35:15
Speaker 1: his poll numbers.
35:16
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to help us win the midterms.
35:17
Speaker 2: I don't think it'll help us in the Virginia gubernatorial
35:19
Speaker 2: election coming up. So the political impact in the short
35:22
Speaker 2: term is very limited. I do think it's important for
35:28
Speaker 2: the rule of law, for democracy, for history- Right.
35:31
Speaker 1: What do autocrats like Trump- Again, all things that voters
35:33
Speaker 1: clearly care about a lot.
35:34
Speaker 2: Well, let's try to separate ourselves briefly. Just let's go
35:38
Speaker 2: against time and briefly separate ourselves from short-term political needs.
35:42
Speaker 1: I'm playing devil's advocate to myself, Dan.
35:43
Speaker 6: Yes.
35:44
Speaker 1: Okay.
35:44
Speaker 2: Look, the reason why I think it matters and it
35:47
Speaker 2: should be released is autocrats like Trump, they come in
35:50
Speaker 2: and one of the first things they do is try
35:53
Speaker 2: to erase all the evidence of the crimes they committed
35:56
Speaker 2: to get into power. And so you can imagine- what's
36:00
Speaker 2: going to happen to the evidence with Pam Bondi and
36:02
Speaker 2: Kash Patel to the reports. Or they'll put out something
36:05
Speaker 2: else that will be dishonest, or they will cherry pick
36:09
Speaker 2: pieces of evidence that are sitting in the FBI somewhere
36:11
Speaker 2: to proclaim his innocence. And so that report should be
36:15
Speaker 2: put out. And I think it matters for history, because
36:16
Speaker 2: there has been this clip of Ben Shapiro circulating in
36:19
Speaker 2: the last few days, sort of around the January 6th anniversary.
36:23
Speaker 2: It's a clip of Ben Shapiro right after January 6th,
36:25
Speaker 2: and he is despondent. He says this is a terrible
36:29
Speaker 2: thing that's happened in the country, one of the worst
36:31
Speaker 2: things that's ever happened in the country, the worst thing
36:32
Speaker 2: that happened to America since 9-11. And that's how everyone
36:36
Speaker 2: felt in the moment, even Ben Shapiro. And then we all,
36:40
Speaker 2: not you and I, but the country writ large, lost
36:42
Speaker 2: our minds and we stopped caring about it. But I
36:45
Speaker 2: would like to believe that one day, if we can
36:47
Speaker 2: make it this far, in history, people will look back
36:50
Speaker 2: at that and think about it like Ben Shapiro and
36:52
Speaker 2: so many others talked about it in that moment. And
36:54
Speaker 2: so putting out the report I think is important to that.
36:56
Speaker 2: I think historians will look back at it and will
36:58
Speaker 2: truly– like imagine trying to teach a history class 50
37:01
Speaker 2: years from now to explain that the outgoing president refused
37:05
Speaker 2: to give up power and incited a violent mob to
37:07
Speaker 2: attack the United States Congress as they were trying to
37:09
Speaker 2: certify his opponent as the next president of the United States.
37:13
Speaker 2: Then you have to explain the whole part about how
37:14
Speaker 2: he got elected four years later.
37:15
Speaker 6: Is that hard?
37:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say. That's a tough one.
37:17
Speaker 2: But I think we'll look back on that as– Like
37:23
Speaker 2: a very dark moment in this history. And this is
37:24
Speaker 2: a part of that evidence. And we should put that
37:26
Speaker 2: out before Trump and his goons can do something to
37:29
Speaker 2: try to hide that evidence, destroy that evidence, or put
37:31
Speaker 2: out a bunch of bullshit to confuse the story.
37:34
Speaker 1: Or, by the way, use the lack of evidence to
37:39
Speaker 1: go after January 6th committee. Like if they end up
37:41
Speaker 1: going after Liz Cheney and the J6 committee and Jack
37:46
Speaker 1: Smith and all the other people in Congress, It could
37:50
Speaker 1: be harder for them to do that with all of
37:52
Speaker 1: this out there in public. So that's probably a good
37:55
Speaker 1: reason to have it out there, too. Here's some Trump
37:57
Speaker 1: news that probably matters more. During a press conference this week,
38:00
Speaker 1: the incoming president made it very clear that he is
38:02
Speaker 1: not joking about his desire to play a real life
38:06
Speaker 1: game of risk and take over the Panama Canal, Greenland
38:09
Speaker 1: and Canada. Let's listen.
38:12
Speaker 4: Can you assure the world that as you try to
38:16
Speaker 4: get control of these areas, you are not going to
38:19
Speaker 4: use military or economic coercion? No. Can you tell us
38:23
Speaker 4: a little bit about what your plan is?
38:26
Speaker 5: I can't assure you. You're talking about Panama and Greenland. No,
38:29
Speaker 5: I can't assure you on either of those two.
38:31
Speaker 1: Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire?
38:35
Speaker 4: No.
38:36
Speaker 5: Economic force. We're going to be changing the name of
38:40
Speaker 5: the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which
38:45
Speaker 5: has a beautiful ring that covers a lot of territory.
38:49
Speaker 5: The Gulf of America. What a beautiful name.
38:51
Speaker 1: What a beautiful name. The Gulf of America.
38:54
Speaker 2: Wait till he finds out about New Mexico. New America.
38:58
Speaker 1: There it is. New America. Here's how Trump's planned invasions
39:02
Speaker 1: are playing with his fellow Republicans. This is a brand
39:04
Speaker 1: new Republican congressman from Texas. 30-year-old Brandon Gill. Just heard
39:09
Speaker 1: of him.
39:09
Speaker 7: I think that the people of Panama, I think that
39:11
Speaker 7: the people of Greenland, I think that the people of Canada,
39:15
Speaker 7: for that matter, should be honored that President Trump wants
39:19
Speaker 7: to bring these territories under the American fold.
39:22
Speaker 1: What kind of feudal lord shit is, like, what is happening?
39:26
Speaker 2: It's so stupid. It's all so stupid.
39:30
Speaker 1: Tommy and Ben did a great job covering all the
39:33
Speaker 1: national security and diplomatic implications on this week's Pod Save
39:37
Speaker 1: the World, so you should take a listen to that.
39:39
Speaker 1: But can we talk a minute about the politics.
39:41
Speaker 2: Here of our next.
39:43
Speaker 1: President taking over Greenland, our neighbors to the north making
39:47
Speaker 1: Canada the 51st state, the Panama Canal. How do you
39:51
Speaker 1: think this craziness might land with people? Because I'm afraid
39:54
Speaker 1: of the answer.
39:56
Speaker 2: Well, I would say the caveat to all what I'm
39:58
Speaker 2: about to say is I was unloading the dishwasher this morning,
40:02
Speaker 2: listening to Pod Save the World, as I do. And
40:04
Speaker 2: I'm listening to talk all this stuff. I'm learning about Sudan, everything.
40:08
Speaker 2: And I just hear Ben, and I'm not really paying
40:10
Speaker 2: a ton of close attention. And I hear Ben just
40:12
Speaker 2: say he takes the Greenland thing very seriously. Says it
40:15
Speaker 2: like three times, very seriously. And Ben's not an alarmist.
40:18
Speaker 2: Because my take before listening to Ben was, who cares?
40:22
Speaker 2: And I sort of think that should be up until
40:26
Speaker 2: the moment when Donald Trump either starts talking about sending
40:31
Speaker 2: troops to Panama or raiding the Social Security trust fund
40:36
Speaker 2: for a $ 50 billion to buy Greenland or whatever Greenland costs.
40:39
Speaker 2: I don't know what the going rate of Greenland is
40:40
Speaker 2: in inflation these days.
40:42
Speaker 1: But up until that moment- It's not cheap, Dan.
40:45
Speaker 2: This would be- Land is very expensive. Housing is expensive.
40:48
Speaker 2: Especially if you don't have to buy a whole new country,
40:50
Speaker 2: that's expensive. I think this is the example of the
40:53
Speaker 2: sort of MAGA marginalia bullshit we used to follow Trump
40:58
Speaker 2: down the rabbit hole all the time that we should
40:59
Speaker 2: avoid now. Because until he actually does something here, it's
41:05
Speaker 2: not worth focusing on.
41:06
Speaker 1: Then it's too late. Well, I mean, I think we're
41:08
Speaker 1: going to get some warnings. Then we've already invaded Greenland,
41:10
Speaker 1: you know?
41:10
Speaker 3: Right.
41:12
Speaker 1: I will come on this- Then we're sending troops to
41:14
Speaker 1: Toronto and suddenly it's- I will come- Sorry, it's just
41:17
Speaker 1: economic force with Canada. It's just economic force.
41:20
Speaker 2: I will come on this podcast and apologize if Trump
41:24
Speaker 2: launches a surprise invasion of Greenland.
41:28
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to know whether to laugh or
41:30
Speaker 1: not with some of these things. First of all, the Gulf,
41:32
Speaker 1: I will say the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of
41:35
Speaker 1: America- fucking knock yourself out, idiot. Whatever. That's, that's definitely
41:39
Speaker 1: like chasing down the right. I don't like, go ahead,
41:41
Speaker 1: say whatever you want to do.
41:43
Speaker 2: We need to bring back freedom fries politics right here.
41:45
Speaker 3: Yeah.
41:46
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, where are we going to, we're
41:48
Speaker 1: going to rename Europe, East America. Now what else is,
41:50
Speaker 1: are we just naming everything? America, Texas, New London, Connecticut.
41:56
Speaker 2: We can, we can go for a, we can go
41:57
Speaker 2: a long way here.
41:58
Speaker 6: Yeah.
41:59
Speaker 1: Like whatever, man, go fine. But just, I do think
42:04
Speaker 1: that there is, you, you, You brought this up when
42:07
Speaker 1: you said raiding the Social Security Trust Fund to buy Greenland.
42:11
Speaker 1: I do think there's an argument to be made to
42:12
Speaker 1: people like, do you really want your tax dollars spent
42:16
Speaker 1: on buying Greenland or buying Canada or buying the Panama Canal? Like,
42:21
Speaker 1: that's what you think? That's what you think you want
42:23
Speaker 1: your money spent on? We're running a deficit in debt and,
42:26
Speaker 1: you know, we got like the... Medicare and Social Security
42:29
Speaker 1: might not make it. So we're going to spend billions
42:33
Speaker 1: and hundreds of billions of dollars on other countries? Is
42:36
Speaker 1: that what we're going to do?
42:37
Speaker 2: It's like you can't not talk about this. He's the
42:39
Speaker 2: president of the United States. He has the biggest megaphone
42:41
Speaker 2: of anyone, not named Elon Musk, in the world. And
42:45
Speaker 2: so he's going to do it. But how we– like
42:47
Speaker 2: the way– here's how not to talk about it. Like
42:51
Speaker 2: getting all– high-dudgeon about the rule, about our ally. What
42:56
Speaker 2: message does this send to our allies at this time?
42:59
Speaker 1: The Washington crossing the Delaware tone. It's like, stop. No,
43:04
Speaker 1: none of that.
43:05
Speaker 2: The way, I think you've got to take all of
43:06
Speaker 2: this stuff, this insanity that Trump's talking about, and put
43:09
Speaker 2: it in the bucket of, for the voters that decided
43:13
Speaker 2: this election for Trump, the ones who were skeptical of him,
43:15
Speaker 2: who switched from Biden to Trump, or came out to
43:17
Speaker 2: Trump for the first time, what they heard from him is,
43:21
Speaker 2: He is going to come to Washington and be laser
43:23
Speaker 2: focused on lowering costs for me and my family. And
43:27
Speaker 2: all the stuff that Trump does that doesn't achieve that goal,
43:29
Speaker 2: we should hold that against him. How is picking a
43:32
Speaker 2: fight with Panama or trying to spend taxpayer dollars to
43:36
Speaker 2: buy Greenland or getting a pissing match with Canada, how
43:40
Speaker 2: is that lowering the cost of gas and groceries and
43:42
Speaker 2: housing for you? Just put it all in that bucket.
43:44
Speaker 2: That's the frame as opposed to you.
43:46
Speaker 1: Are we, are we, are we, are we covering Canadians
43:50
Speaker 1: with social security and our new friends in Greenland? And
43:53
Speaker 1: is that what's happening by the way? Are we, are we,
43:55
Speaker 1: are they getting taxed? How's this going to work? I haven't,
43:58
Speaker 1: I noticed some Democrats too being like, well, he doesn't
44:00
Speaker 1: realize that they'd all be blue States too. It's like, oh, okay,
44:03
Speaker 1: do we really think he's going to give them voting
44:05
Speaker 1: rights or he's just going to pull a, like, come on.
44:07
Speaker 1: We can't get Washington, D.C. to get representation, voting representation
44:13
Speaker 1: in Congress.
44:14
Speaker 2: I don't know if you listen to all of Pod
44:16
Speaker 2: Save the World, but I guess sort of got to
44:17
Speaker 2: the part about the upcoming Canadian election. Doesn't seem great.
44:20
Speaker 2: Seems like they're flirting with a very Trump-like fellow right now.
44:24
Speaker 1: But it's also, I think, important to be honest with people,
44:27
Speaker 1: and I think Ben laid it out well on Pod
44:29
Speaker 1: Save the World, which is, this is what, like, aging
44:32
Speaker 1: autocrats this is what they do right like this is
44:35
Speaker 1: this is what nationalism is literally the definition of nationalism
44:39
Speaker 1: like america must expand and so if you're an american
44:43
Speaker 1: you should be proud that we are going to expand
44:45
Speaker 1: our footprint to greenland and canada and oh you might
44:48
Speaker 1: think we're invading or that people want to be free
44:50
Speaker 1: and independent no no no we're going to go You know,
44:53
Speaker 1: we're going to go interview some people in Greenland and
44:55
Speaker 1: Canada and Panama who say, oh, we want to be
44:58
Speaker 1: part of the United States. Just like this idiot Brandon Gill. Like,
45:01
Speaker 1: what a, oh, what an honor that Mr. Trump said
45:04
Speaker 1: that we could be part of the United States. Meanwhile, like,
45:07
Speaker 1: you know, 95% of their populations don't want to become
45:10
Speaker 1: part of the United States. But, you know, we're not
45:12
Speaker 1: going to publish those polls. We're just going to interview
45:15
Speaker 1: the other people on Fox and Newsmax and OAN and
45:18
Speaker 1: Greenland and Canada who say how excited they are to
45:21
Speaker 1: be part of the United States of America. And they're
45:23
Speaker 1: going to whip up this nationalist fervor. I'm like, this
45:25
Speaker 1: is what fucking happens with dictators.
45:28
Speaker 2: Now you're making me more worried about this than I
45:29
Speaker 2: was before.
45:30
Speaker 1: So thank you for that. I can see it. I
45:33
Speaker 1: can see it all.
45:34
Speaker 2: The question is, how do you get to actual implementation
45:36
Speaker 2: of this plan? I understand the politics from Trump's perspective
45:40
Speaker 2: of trying... This is how he views politics, right?
45:42
Speaker 1: His.
45:43
Speaker 2: like his like resting state is dictator cosplay. And so
45:48
Speaker 2: standing astride the world stage and demand using threatening military
45:51
Speaker 2: force and economic sanctions for territorial acquisition, like that is
45:55
Speaker 2: how he views the world. And like that, that persona
45:59
Speaker 2: has benefited him politically, right? That strength benefited him particularly
46:02
Speaker 2: compared to Biden when he was running against Biden. How
46:05
Speaker 2: does he get to implementation of this plan?
46:07
Speaker 4: Right.
46:07
Speaker 2: How does he actually get Greenland or the Panama canal?
46:10
Speaker 2: I mean, or Canada, like he may put tariffs on Canada.
46:12
Speaker 2: I don't think the net result of that is going
46:14
Speaker 2: to be Canada just folding up tent and saying, come
46:16
Speaker 2: to America, but you can take something seriously and then,
46:20
Speaker 2: but be strategic in how you respond to it. I
46:23
Speaker 2: guess maybe the way you say it.
46:24
Speaker 1: I just think, I think it does fit in, in
46:26
Speaker 1: terms of how to talk about it. If he gets
46:29
Speaker 1: serious about it is like you said, this guy ran
46:32
Speaker 1: for president saying he would take care of Americans, make
46:35
Speaker 1: life more affordable for Americans and keep us out of wars. And,
46:40
Speaker 1: Now he wants to take care of Canadians and people
46:43
Speaker 1: in Greenland and Panama. And if not, then maybe send
46:47
Speaker 1: our military.
46:48
Speaker 2: What?
46:48
Speaker 1: What's going on? We just want to make things cheaper
46:51
Speaker 1: for Americans. That's all. That's what we're trying to do here.
46:53
Speaker 1: Why is he trying to spend all our money on Greenland?
46:56
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. But yeah, none of the... Our alliances are
47:00
Speaker 1: at risk.
47:01
Speaker 2: What would this do to the G20?
47:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. This isn't how a NATO member acts. Anyway, one
47:10
Speaker 1: last thing before we go. The funeral for Jimmy Carter,
47:13
Speaker 1: the U.S. 's 39th and longest living president, was held
47:16
Speaker 1: on Thursday at Washington National Cathedral in D.C. Carter passed
47:19
Speaker 1: away before the new year at age 100. President Biden,
47:22
Speaker 1: who was the first sitting senator to endorse Carter's bid
47:24
Speaker 1: for the White House back in 1976, delivered the eulogy,
47:28
Speaker 1: which did include what may have been a reference to
47:30
Speaker 1: Trump when he mentioned, quote, the greatest sin of all,
47:33
Speaker 1: the abuse of power. The five remaining living presidents all
47:36
Speaker 1: attended with their spouses. with one notable exception, Michelle Obama,
47:40
Speaker 1: who cited scheduling conflicts that seemed all the more urgent
47:45
Speaker 1: and understandable when footage from the funeral showed that her
47:47
Speaker 1: husband was seated next to Donald and Melania Trump. There
47:50
Speaker 1: were a few clips that showed Obama and Trump talking
47:53
Speaker 1: to each other, even laughing. Barack Obama was laughing at
47:56
Speaker 1: something Donald Trump said. But the most viral clip was
47:59
Speaker 1: George W. Bush's greeting for Obama, walked by him, did
48:02
Speaker 1: a little belly tap, tapped his belly. Do you think
48:07
Speaker 1: that's how they usually greet each other?
48:08
Speaker 2: I think that's how George W. Bush greets most people.
48:10
Speaker 1: Just a little belly tap?
48:11
Speaker 2: His general persona in every interaction is either right before
48:15
Speaker 2: or right after a keg stand at a fraternity house.
48:17
Speaker 2: He also– there's another clip going around of him.
48:20
Speaker 1: Smacking– We're lucky it was that high up then.
48:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're lucky. There's also a clip of him smacking
48:27
Speaker 2: Dan Quayle with a program. Really?
48:29
Speaker 4: Yes.
48:30
Speaker 2: Playfully smacking him. So I think it's just– It's always,
48:34
Speaker 2: it's always, he's always tailgating at a Texas A &
48:36
Speaker 2: M game at all times. Not what you want during
48:38
Speaker 2: a war after 9-11, but.
48:41
Speaker 1: So David and Austin, our producers, were both asking me before,
48:45
Speaker 1: what do I think genuinely that Obama and Trump are
48:47
Speaker 1: talking about? And like, no joke, I kind of think
48:51
Speaker 1: it has to be like president stuff. Maybe like president
48:55
Speaker 1: at a, like maybe they were talking about their own
48:56
Speaker 1: state funerals. You know, like it has to be the
48:59
Speaker 1: most surface level, What we have in common at a
49:04
Speaker 1: state funeral kind of comment. Like, I can't imagine that
49:07
Speaker 1: those two could go into any other discussion topic. But
49:10
Speaker 1: what do you think?
49:11
Speaker 2: Obama's demeanor during that conversation was my demeanor when I
49:16
Speaker 2: get on an airplane and I forget to put my
49:18
Speaker 2: AirPods in before I sit down. And you just sit
49:21
Speaker 2: next to that guy and he's talking to you and
49:23
Speaker 2: you're trying to be polite.
49:26
Speaker 8: I know.
49:27
Speaker 1: And I do give bigger laughs.
49:28
Speaker 2: But also give the signal that I would like to
49:31
Speaker 2: stop this conversation as soon as humanly possible. And Obama
49:33
Speaker 2: was doing everything he could to be polite and not
49:36
Speaker 2: encourage Trump to keep talking is my take.
49:39
Speaker 1: I can't, I'm going to, I'm going to find this out.
49:41
Speaker 1: I really want to know. I want to know what
49:45
Speaker 1: he said.
49:45
Speaker 2: There are those, those lip readers on TikTok who, there's
49:48
Speaker 2: been a bunch of them from the Golden Globes. So
49:50
Speaker 2: I would like to, I imagine we'll be seeing that
49:53
Speaker 2: from here if it was possible to, if there was
49:55
Speaker 2: a camera angle that allows you to see their lips.
49:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, though someone tried that with, when did they just
49:59
Speaker 1: do that recently?
50:00
Speaker 2: With Biden and Obama at- Oh yeah, yeah.
50:04
Speaker 1: And it was- Stupid. Like, whatever the lip reader said,
50:07
Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't possible. But they had a funeral? Yeah,
50:13
Speaker 1: they were in London for something, I think. Someone's funeral.
50:19
Speaker 2: We have this so wrong.
50:20
Speaker 1: We're news people, Dan.
50:21
Speaker 2: To our point, how will we ever get this information?
50:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a wild pairing. Just Barack Obama and Donald
50:29
Speaker 1: Trump just sitting together at Jimmy Carter's funeral. Well, President
50:32
Speaker 1: Biden gives the eulogy on his way out and Donald
50:34
Speaker 1: Trump on his way back in.
50:36
Speaker 2: Well, guess what?
50:36
Speaker 1: I would have had a stiff martini after that.
50:40
Speaker 2: They're going to be sitting next to each other at
50:41
Speaker 2: events like this for a long time.
50:44
Speaker 1: Until it's one of theirs. That's dark. That's dark. Anyways,
50:48
Speaker 1: it just had to be a funeral.
50:49
Speaker 2: It could be something else too.
50:50
Speaker 1: When we come back, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy talks to Lovett.
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Speaker 6: Welcome back to Pond Save America, Senator Chris Murphy. So
52:50
Speaker 6: in an interview with Greg Sargent just before the holidays,
52:53
Speaker 6: you made this point, and I'll summarize it, which is
52:55
Speaker 6: basically Trump is full of shit. He has no interest
52:58
Speaker 6: in governing. It was always infrastructure week. He's at it
53:00
Speaker 6: again with this Elon Vivek government efficiency department, which isn't
53:04
Speaker 6: even a department. And we shouldn't lend these efforts credibility,
53:09
Speaker 6: even when we as Democrats need to be the party
53:12
Speaker 6: of government reform. Can you just lay out what your
53:15
Speaker 6: argument is there?
53:17
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, listen, this whole thing is bullshit. I mean,
53:19
Speaker 8: this is this is Ramaswamy and Musk trying to capture
53:24
Speaker 8: government for their own interests. Maybe it's just a TV show,
53:29
Speaker 8: but it is definitely not an honest attempt to try
53:33
Speaker 8: to trim the fat off of government. It is either
53:35
Speaker 8: just PR or it's part of the kleptocracy in which
53:40
Speaker 8: government is just going to be turned into an instrument
53:42
Speaker 8: to enrich them. Maybe they cut some car subsidies, but
53:45
Speaker 8: it definitely won't be the ones that go to Elon Musk.
53:50
Speaker 8: But I do think it is true that our party
53:54
Speaker 8: decided over the course of the 2024 election to become
53:57
Speaker 8: the defenders of democracy. And that made it look like
53:59
Speaker 8: we're the defenders of the existing democracy, which nobody likes.
54:04
Speaker 8: So when I came into politics 20 years ago, federal politics,
54:08
Speaker 8: You know, campaign finance reform, ethics reform, cleaning up government
54:12
Speaker 8: like that was a top three issue for Democrats. We
54:14
Speaker 8: talked about it all the time. We were really vocal
54:16
Speaker 8: critics of the way the democracy worked. And, you know,
54:19
Speaker 8: by the time that Trump came around, that was kind
54:22
Speaker 8: of like six or seven or eight on our list.
54:24
Speaker 8: And so we definitely do have to start elevating our
54:29
Speaker 8: assault on the status quo in democracy and arguing for
54:34
Speaker 8: why we want to get billionaire dollars out, super PAC
54:36
Speaker 8: money out. the revolving door closed, whatever it is, we've
54:39
Speaker 8: got to become, we've got to sort of recapture our roots,
54:44
Speaker 8: which is the government and democracy reform party. I think
54:49
Speaker 8: we can do that and we attack their attempts at
54:52
Speaker 8: reform as bogus and we'll be in much better position.
54:57
Speaker 6: Right before the election, I talked to Bernie Sanders And
55:01
Speaker 6: I was like, well, what do you think we should
55:02
Speaker 6: be doing differently right now? And that was one of
55:04
Speaker 6: the things he talked about. Like, we're not talking enough
55:06
Speaker 6: about money in politics. We're not talking enough about corruption.
55:09
Speaker 6: You have, you know, Joe Biden with an op-ed this
55:12
Speaker 6: week about how we need to remember the insurrection. Democrats
55:16
Speaker 6: were desperately trying to make this case about democracy, but
55:20
Speaker 6: people didn't either care enough or believe it or make
55:24
Speaker 6: it salient enough in their vote. And part of that
55:27
Speaker 6: is about credibility. Democrats need to make an argument about
55:32
Speaker 6: these kinds of issues. But part of it is message.
55:35
Speaker 6: Part of it is messenger. Do you believe Democrats have
55:38
Speaker 6: the credibility right now to be the party of taking
55:43
Speaker 6: on corporate interests, taking on money in politics? How can
55:48
Speaker 6: we just do a rebrand?
55:50
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, I do not think we have the requisite
55:53
Speaker 8: credibility today. And, you know, Joe Biden, for all of
55:58
Speaker 8: his strengths... was not necessarily the right messenger to open
56:03
Speaker 8: up a new populist critique of the way that the
56:08
Speaker 8: neoliberal economy works. I think he was very sincere in
56:11
Speaker 8: his belief that we should start breaking up corporate power
56:16
Speaker 8: and breaking up monopolies, but he was not practiced in
56:20
Speaker 8: that rhetoric because that's not what he had spent his
56:22
Speaker 8: life working on. But I think there's a bunch of
56:25
Speaker 8: ways that we can solve for this. I mean, we
56:27
Speaker 8: can change the way we recruit candidates. I think I
56:30
Speaker 8: do a pretty good job as a United States senator,
56:32
Speaker 8: but maybe we should not have as many lawyers and
56:34
Speaker 8: maybe we should have more folks who come straight out
56:36
Speaker 8: of working class or union backgrounds running for office at
56:39
Speaker 8: the local and federal level. I think that would help
56:42
Speaker 8: us build credibility as a party. We can understand how
56:46
Speaker 8: our really good ideas that just sort of toy with
56:50
Speaker 8: the margins of the existing marketplace don't inspire people. I
56:55
Speaker 8: like the fact that we are bulk negotiating through Medicare
57:00
Speaker 8: prescription drug prices, but that really falls cold with a
57:05
Speaker 8: lot of folks. We should just cap prescription drug prices.
57:07
Speaker 8: We should just say that nobody should pay more than
57:11
Speaker 8: X for these 25 super important drugs. We should just
57:15
Speaker 8: say that your rent can't increase by more than X
57:17
Speaker 8: percentage a year, that credit card fees can't go higher
57:20
Speaker 8: than this number. I think we just need to be
57:23
Speaker 8: engaged in sort of more broadside frontal assaults on the
57:26
Speaker 8: existing marketplace, have bolder economic reform ideas, and maybe think
57:31
Speaker 8: about having a better diversity of candidate backgrounds.
57:35
Speaker 6: First of all, I don't think you should put yourself down.
57:38
Speaker 6: You know that both of us went to Williams College
57:41
Speaker 6: and we both did the same Oxford program.
57:44
Speaker 8: I didn't know that you did the Oxford program.
57:46
Speaker 6: I did. We both went to Oxford the same year.
57:48
Speaker 6: And I just think that puts us in the perfect
57:49
Speaker 6: position to talk about populism. I think that's exactly, we're
57:55
Speaker 6: exactly right for that.
57:55
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, listen, Oxford is known as breeding populist revolts, right?
58:00
Speaker 8: That's where it all starts.
58:03
Speaker 6: As we're doing this, you've made this point, everyone's made
58:05
Speaker 6: this point, we're out of power. We just don't have
58:07
Speaker 6: any power for the next two years. We are critics
58:10
Speaker 6: on the outside. As we're laying out our own positive agenda,
58:15
Speaker 6: we are going to have, it seems to me, these
58:18
Speaker 6: kind of two tracks. One that's a quote-unquote... normal Republican
58:23
Speaker 6: politics track where they're talking about budget reconciliation and trying
58:28
Speaker 6: to cut taxes for the wealthy and doing a border bill.
58:30
Speaker 6: And the other is the kind of even more abnormal,
58:33
Speaker 6: unhinged freaks going up for these big and important jobs,
58:38
Speaker 6: head of national intelligence, head of the FBI. How do
58:44
Speaker 6: you think about these two, the two sides of this
58:48
Speaker 6: coming fight, the policy battle in Congress versus fighting these
58:53
Speaker 6: terrible nominations and the threat Donald Trump poses through the
58:56
Speaker 6: Justice Department.
58:57
Speaker 8: You know, it's really funny. Just walking over to my
58:59
Speaker 8: office for this interview, I was having that exact conversation
59:01
Speaker 8: with Elizabeth Warren as we were talking about the fact
59:04
Speaker 8: that they are two different messages, right? There is a
59:07
Speaker 8: billionaire cabinet being assembled right now, right? Greater wealth in
59:14
Speaker 8: 169 countries. This is the kleptocracy being constructed right in
59:17
Speaker 8: front of our eyes, people who are going into these
59:20
Speaker 8: agencies to steal. to steal for their friends. But that's
59:24
Speaker 8: a little different argument than the argument against Kash Patel.
59:27
Speaker 8: Kash Patel is being put into the FBI in order
59:31
Speaker 8: to destroy our democracy, in order to make people bear
59:36
Speaker 8: a punishment for political dissent. Neither of those things is
59:42
Speaker 8: super popular. If I had to pick, I think it's
59:48
Speaker 8: more important to sort of make people understand that this
59:54
Speaker 8: oligarchy that is being constructed is real and that this
59:58
Speaker 8: fake populism that Trump ran on is indeed illusory. So
1:00:05
Speaker 8: I think it's probably more important to spend time talking
1:00:08
Speaker 8: about the billionaire takeover of government because that is real,
1:00:12
Speaker 8: that is happening. But I think you've got to be
1:00:16
Speaker 8: able to walk and chew gum. I also think that
1:00:19
Speaker 8: we should raise as loud as we can what is
1:00:23
Speaker 8: happening at DOJ and the FBI. And this is where
1:00:25
Speaker 8: I am a little worried about where our party is.
1:00:27
Speaker 8: I think we are still giving them more credit than
1:00:30
Speaker 8: they deserve. I think Democrats don't really believe that some
1:00:36
Speaker 8: of our colleagues are going to be in jail six
1:00:38
Speaker 8: months from now. I don't think they understand how the
1:00:40
Speaker 8: media is, as we speak, starting to fold under Trump's pressure.
1:00:46
Speaker 8: And so I would love us to kind of raise
1:00:48
Speaker 8: the temperature on the threats to democracy. I don't think
1:00:51
Speaker 8: we're overstating the case, but I think if we're kind
1:00:56
Speaker 8: of mild and milquetoast in the way that we talk
1:00:58
Speaker 8: about why Kash Patel is nominated or why Pam Bondi
1:01:02
Speaker 8: is nominated, then that argument falls pretty flat.
1:01:06
Speaker 6: Yeah, here's what I was struggling with as I was
1:01:09
Speaker 6: thinking about this today, which is we need to make
1:01:13
Speaker 6: an argument about what we stand for whether or not
1:01:16
Speaker 6: Republicans are able to confirm these people, right? We need
1:01:18
Speaker 6: to make an argument of what we stand for, whether
1:01:20
Speaker 6: or not we're able to stop RFK Jr. or Kash
1:01:22
Speaker 6: Patel or Pam Bondi or whoever it may be, Pete Hexeth.
1:01:27
Speaker 6: But the argument you might make to your Republican colleagues
1:01:30
Speaker 6: is probably a little bit different, right? Than the argument
1:01:32
Speaker 6: you would want to be making to the American people.
1:01:35
Speaker 6: Can you talk about that? Like right now, like if
1:01:38
Speaker 6: you're trying to stop Kash Patel, from getting the votes
1:01:42
Speaker 6: to be at FBI, you're not talking about reaching 200
1:01:44
Speaker 6: million Americans, you're talking about reaching three human beings. How
1:01:47
Speaker 6: do you do that?
1:01:49
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, part of what you're telling Republicans is
1:01:53
Speaker 8: that this is a jumping off point. If the FBI
1:01:58
Speaker 8: becomes captured by the White House, if it just becomes
1:02:03
Speaker 8: an arm, a political arm of the White House, there
1:02:07
Speaker 8: may be no putting that genie back in the bottle, right?
1:02:10
Speaker 8: There may be a Democrat who comes along and uses
1:02:13
Speaker 8: it for their own purposes as well. But I think
1:02:18
Speaker 8: the trouble here is that you have to assume if
1:02:22
Speaker 8: you beat one of these nominees that somebody better will
1:02:25
Speaker 8: come along. And what Republicans have been pretty good at
1:02:28
Speaker 8: over the years is once in a while opposing a nominee,
1:02:32
Speaker 8: patting themselves on the back, and then somebody even worse
1:02:36
Speaker 8: gets nominated and they wave them through. I think Trump's
1:02:40
Speaker 8: made the decision that he wants the DOJ and the
1:02:46
Speaker 8: FBI to be his political persecution agency. And I don't
1:02:52
Speaker 8: know that Republicans actually have the strength to oppose multiple
1:02:56
Speaker 8: rounds of nominees. So I'm gonna try to convince my
1:02:59
Speaker 8: Republican colleagues, but I am much more focused on making
1:03:04
Speaker 8: the case to the American public because I have little
1:03:07
Speaker 8: confidence that the requisite number of Republicans are going to
1:03:10
Speaker 8: actually stand up multiple times, which is what they would
1:03:14
Speaker 8: have to do, even if they beat Patel or Bondi
1:03:17
Speaker 8: on the first vote.
1:03:19
Speaker 6: There's one part of this that I feel like hasn't
1:03:21
Speaker 6: been getting enough attention, which is you're talking about how
1:03:26
Speaker 6: your Democratic colleagues maybe aren't totally... honest with themselves or
1:03:33
Speaker 6: with the situation to understand the threat it may pose
1:03:35
Speaker 6: to the media, to them.
1:03:37
Speaker 2: But neither are Republicans, right?
1:03:39
Speaker 6: Like if you're talking about a House Republican majority that
1:03:43
Speaker 6: is razor thin, a Senate majority that's pretty thin with
1:03:47
Speaker 6: a few people that they can lose, it is not
1:03:50
Speaker 6: outside the realm of possibility that a weaponized Department of
1:03:54
Speaker 6: Justice would go beyond Democrats to try to intimidate Republicans too, right?
1:04:00
Speaker 4: Right.
1:04:01
Speaker 8: And listen, this is how democracies fall. There are very
1:04:05
Speaker 8: few instances where a healthy democracy collapses, where there is
1:04:10
Speaker 8: a before and after moment, right, that the parliament building
1:04:13
Speaker 8: doesn't burn down in every dissent. What's going to happen
1:04:19
Speaker 8: here is that just enough of the political opposition either
1:04:25
Speaker 8: goes to jail or gets threatened with imprisonment. that a
1:04:29
Speaker 8: lot of regular ordinary Americans just decide to not show
1:04:33
Speaker 8: up to the protests, to just stay home, to put
1:04:35
Speaker 8: their energies somewhere else. That the press feels sort of
1:04:39
Speaker 8: just fragile enough, feels the threat of having their license
1:04:42
Speaker 8: pulled just serious enough that they shave the edges off
1:04:46
Speaker 8: the way that they cover the president. And if that's
1:04:51
Speaker 8: the case, then you won't really notice the moment in
1:04:55
Speaker 8: which the opposition has become so weak that they can't
1:04:58
Speaker 8: win another election. That's what happened in Hungary. That's what's
1:05:02
Speaker 8: happened in Turkey. That's what's happened in Serbia. They still
1:05:05
Speaker 8: have elections. There's still an opposition that sort of has
1:05:08
Speaker 8: the trappings of being real, but the regime always keeps
1:05:13
Speaker 8: them weak enough that they can never win. And so
1:05:17
Speaker 8: Republicans will be able to say, well, no, I still
1:05:20
Speaker 8: see a Democratic Party. I still see op-eds criticizing Donald Trump.
1:05:24
Speaker 8: This is a healthy democracy, but it's just unhealthy enough
1:05:28
Speaker 8: that the Trump family never, ever loses power. And I
1:05:31
Speaker 8: think that's really hard for Americans to believe because that just,
1:05:36
Speaker 8: you know, that we've gone 240 years with two healthy parties.
1:05:40
Speaker 8: But the playbook is out there for Trump to follow.
1:05:44
Speaker 8: It's been used a dozen times in other countries and
1:05:48
Speaker 8: other democracies that are no longer healthy democracies. And that's
1:05:50
Speaker 8: what I worry about, that Republicans will just be able
1:05:53
Speaker 8: to look themselves in the mirror and say, you know,
1:05:56
Speaker 8: the Democratic Party's still there, everything's okay, but that the
1:05:59
Speaker 8: thing is permanently rigged in their favor.
1:06:02
Speaker 6: So I want to talk about the rigging and then
1:06:04
Speaker 6: I want to talk about how to unrig it. So
1:06:06
Speaker 6: Puck reported this week that Amazon will be paying $ 40
1:06:10
Speaker 6: million for the privilege of airing a documentary about Melania
1:06:15
Speaker 6: Trump executive produced by Melania Trump. Disney and Paramount, apparently
1:06:20
Speaker 6: also bidders. Mark Zuckerberg announced this week that Facebook will
1:06:25
Speaker 6: no longer be doing any fact-checking, which is just a
1:06:28
Speaker 6: capitulation to Donald Trump. Tim Cook of Apple donated a
1:06:31
Speaker 6: million dollars personally to Trump's inauguration.
1:06:34
Speaker 2: Are you at all surprised?
1:06:37
Speaker 6: I'm surprised by how quickly and with such alacrity these
1:06:41
Speaker 6: people have bent the knee.
1:06:44
Speaker 8: I mean, I am surprised. Um, but I mean, listen,
1:06:48
Speaker 8: we're going on 30 years of, um, greed having become
1:06:56
Speaker 8: an American virtue in which there is really no shame
1:06:59
Speaker 8: involved in ordering your life in a way that just
1:07:04
Speaker 8: prioritizes getting wealthier and wealthier and wealthier. Um, and, and
1:07:08
Speaker 8: so these guys get away with it because people, you know,
1:07:11
Speaker 8: kind of understand that, um, as long as It's a
1:07:16
Speaker 8: means towards enrichment. You are fulfilling an American value. But
1:07:23
Speaker 8: it is extraordinary what everybody from Apple to Amazon to
1:07:28
Speaker 8: Facebook to Comcast to ABC News has done to signal
1:07:33
Speaker 8: to Trump that we are not going to give you trouble.
1:07:35
Speaker 8: And it's because these billionaires and these companies have become
1:07:40
Speaker 8: so massive and so diversified that government policy really matters
1:07:46
Speaker 8: to them in terms of what their returns are, in
1:07:48
Speaker 8: terms of how much money their shareholders make, and in
1:07:50
Speaker 8: terms of how much money the CEOs take home. And broadly,
1:07:56
Speaker 8: it sort of feels like the country is giving these
1:07:58
Speaker 8: billionaires a pass because we've just valued enrichment ahead of
1:08:03
Speaker 8: the common good or ahead of protecting Democracy and that's
1:08:07
Speaker 8: super that's super sad. That's a relatively new sort of
1:08:11
Speaker 8: value alignment in this country new to the last 40
1:08:14
Speaker 8: years But it's it's part of what will sort of
1:08:17
Speaker 8: sing this the song of democracies downfall Yeah.
1:08:21
Speaker 6: Well, it's it it's a value shift partly It's a
1:08:24
Speaker 6: kind of I don't know like an apathy and cynicism
1:08:27
Speaker 6: right which is well, that's just how the system works
1:08:30
Speaker 6: That's just how the system works and in a way
1:08:32
Speaker 6: Trump preys on people's beliefs about how corrupt the government
1:08:38
Speaker 6: is in order to institute that very version of a
1:08:42
Speaker 6: corrupt government. So let's start from the assumption that we
1:08:45
Speaker 6: are not potentially going to be sliding towards some kind.
1:08:48
Speaker 1: Of autocracy, but we're mid-slide.
1:08:50
Speaker 2: It's happening.
1:08:52
Speaker 6: Where are the places right now where we still have purchase, right?
1:08:56
Speaker 6: Where we, you know, there are still Republicans in closely
1:08:59
Speaker 6: divided districts that are afraid of losing their House seats.
1:09:03
Speaker 6: There are still independent media. We're one small, tiny little
1:09:09
Speaker 6: part of that constellation. Talk to me about how in this,
1:09:14
Speaker 6: we arrest this slide. And start to climb our way up.
1:09:17
Speaker 8: So I think the most important thing to do is
1:09:20
Speaker 8: to convince people that we are in the slide right
1:09:24
Speaker 8: because if people still think this is a potential dissent
1:09:31
Speaker 8: Then they they aren't going to hold anyone media companies
1:09:35
Speaker 8: or their elected officials to account for participation in that
1:09:40
Speaker 8: slide you know if they bring charges against Liz Cheney
1:09:45
Speaker 8: or against Adam Kensinger, right? That in and of itself
1:09:49
Speaker 8: could spell the end of American democracy because that will
1:09:52
Speaker 8: be a signal to people that there's just too much
1:09:55
Speaker 8: risk to get involved in politics. And so if that
1:09:58
Speaker 8: were to happen, we need people to understand that that
1:10:01
Speaker 8: is a potential death blow and your elected officials position
1:10:05
Speaker 8: on that one act, the bringing of charges against a
1:10:09
Speaker 8: member of the January 6th committee is a red alert moment.
1:10:14
Speaker 8: And here's where I don't think the party is and
1:10:17
Speaker 8: the movement is meeting the moment. I agree with you.
1:10:20
Speaker 8: We are in mid-slide, but we don't talk like it.
1:10:24
Speaker 8: And so the only way that we put pressure on
1:10:26
Speaker 8: Republicans at the state level, at the federal level, to
1:10:30
Speaker 8: raise their voices, to put pressure on Republicans to stop
1:10:33
Speaker 8: the slide, the only way that we get media companies
1:10:35
Speaker 8: to change their tune is to make people understand that
1:10:40
Speaker 8: the the unraveling is happening as we speak. And that's
1:10:44
Speaker 8: broadly not the way the Democrats are talking today. We're
1:10:46
Speaker 8: talking as if it's a potential development sometime in the
1:10:51
Speaker 8: future after January 20th.
1:10:53
Speaker 6: Part of it does also seem to be like the
1:10:55
Speaker 6: kind of rhetoric, and I don't want to just pick
1:10:58
Speaker 6: on Joe Biden, but he just had, he is, I think,
1:11:01
Speaker 6: the signal exemplar of it, which is this kind of,
1:11:06
Speaker 6: for lack of a better term, like kind of highfalutin
1:11:08
Speaker 6: language about democracy and institutions and preserving them. Now, you've
1:11:12
Speaker 6: talked about how we have to attack democracy as it
1:11:15
Speaker 6: currently exists, which is, I think, a provocative way to
1:11:20
Speaker 6: make the argument you've been making just during our conversation.
1:11:23
Speaker 6: But what does a full-throated version of this sound like?
1:11:27
Speaker 6: How does it sound different than how Kamala Harris sounded
1:11:30
Speaker 6: in 2024, how Hillary Clinton sounded in 2016?
1:11:35
Speaker 8: Well, I mean, I think it involves a broadside attack
1:11:39
Speaker 8: on the power of billionaires in our economy today. And
1:11:43
Speaker 8: have Democrats been a little reluctant to engage in that
1:11:46
Speaker 8: critique because some of those billionaires are on our side? Certainly.
1:11:51
Speaker 8: Is it maybe part of the reason why we have
1:11:54
Speaker 8: stopped elevating campaign finance reform, meaning getting private money out
1:12:00
Speaker 8: of politics in our issue? priority because, you know, we
1:12:05
Speaker 8: now more than ever rely on some of those really,
1:12:07
Speaker 8: really rich people to fund our campaigns and super PACs, sure. So,
1:12:12
Speaker 8: you know, this is, I think, part of what we
1:12:14
Speaker 8: have to get our arms wrapped around, that people want
1:12:18
Speaker 8: to vote for the party that is going to blow
1:12:20
Speaker 8: up the current rules of engagement between the economic elites
1:12:25
Speaker 8: and government. And right now they don't believe that's the
1:12:28
Speaker 8: Democratic Party. So I think we've got to be able
1:12:32
Speaker 8: to look at ourselves and decide whether we want to
1:12:35
Speaker 8: still have our own operations funded in part by that
1:12:41
Speaker 8: very same set of economic elites.
1:12:45
Speaker 6: So this is going to seem like a small issue
1:12:46
Speaker 6: compared to what we've just been discussing. But Senator, do
1:12:49
Speaker 6: you know what time the sun will set in New London,
1:12:52
Speaker 6: Connecticut today?
1:12:53
Speaker 7: 5.27.
1:12:53
Speaker 8: 4.36 p.m.
1:13:01
Speaker 6: Your constituents in New London, Connecticut will be shrouded in
1:13:05
Speaker 6: darkness by 5 p.m. Now, I went back and I
1:13:08
Speaker 6: looked at your record, sir.
1:13:10
Speaker 8: Yeah.
1:13:10
Speaker 6: And you've never been a sponsor of the Sunshine Protection Act.
1:13:13
Speaker 8: I have not.
1:13:15
Speaker 6: But I actually have a compromise that I want to
1:13:17
Speaker 6: propose to you. Can you just, what is your current position?
1:13:20
Speaker 8: Can we do like a half an hour?
1:13:22
Speaker 6: No, we're not doing a half hour.
1:13:24
Speaker 1: That'd be so confusing. No.
1:13:27
Speaker 6: So are you in favor of making daylight saving time
1:13:31
Speaker 6: permanent for Connecticut?
1:13:33
Speaker 8: Just for Connecticut?
1:13:34
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, everyone else can do it, but just
1:13:36
Speaker 6: would you like for your constituents to have Daylight saving time,
1:13:40
Speaker 6: run through the winter.
1:13:41
Speaker 1: I didn't.
1:13:41
Speaker 8: So we passed the Senate years ago, right? So any
1:13:43
Speaker 8: of us had the opportunity to block it. I did not.
1:13:46
Speaker 8: I did not block it because I think on balance,
1:13:48
Speaker 8: it's probably the right thing for the country. But there
1:13:51
Speaker 8: is this argument about, you know, kids having to sit
1:13:55
Speaker 8: out in the freezing cold super early in the morning,
1:13:57
Speaker 8: which is also not awesome. So I'm for it, but
1:14:02
Speaker 8: I'm not like enthusiastically for it. I'm not evangelizing on it.
1:14:07
Speaker 6: I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
1:14:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:14:09
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, when school starts too early, these kids
1:14:11
Speaker 6: should be sleeping later.
1:14:12
Speaker 8: Yeah.
1:14:13
Speaker 6: Right.
1:14:14
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:14:14
Speaker 6: I accept that. My compromise view.
1:14:16
Speaker 8: Is that- You were an evangelist on this?
1:14:19
Speaker 2: I actually was.
1:14:21
Speaker 6: And through learning and thinking, I have changed my view.
1:14:26
Speaker 6: And so my view is now that every state should
1:14:28
Speaker 6: not be forced into daylight saving time permanently. That actually
1:14:32
Speaker 6: what should happen is right now every state can choose
1:14:34
Speaker 6: between either staying on standard time year round, which is
1:14:37
Speaker 6: something Arizona and Hawaii does, or choosing to do the switch.
1:14:42
Speaker 6: I'm just saying add a third option, give every state
1:14:44
Speaker 6: the right to choose permanent daylight saving time if that
1:14:47
Speaker 6: state so chooses, so that if Massachusetts and Maine want
1:14:50
Speaker 6: it and Florida and California want it, every state can
1:14:53
Speaker 6: make a decision for themselves.
1:14:55
Speaker 8: Oh God, that sounds so confusing. It's not. Okay, here's
1:14:58
Speaker 8: my compromise. If you pair it together with the elimination
1:15:02
Speaker 8: of the penny.
1:15:04
Speaker 3: I'm in.
1:15:06
Speaker 6: I could take a look at that. Senator Chris Murphy,
1:15:10
Speaker 6: thank you for your time. You know, we once had
1:15:12
Speaker 6: a fight about Connecticut pizza, and I've apologized to you
1:15:15
Speaker 6: in the past about how great Connecticut pizza is. I
1:15:18
Speaker 6: was in a long-term relationship with someone from Connecticut, which
1:15:21
Speaker 6: is how I ate so much Connecticut pizza. That relationship
1:15:24
Speaker 6: has ended. And honestly, it's the worst part.
1:15:27
Speaker 8: But your relationship with Connecticut pizza has not ended.
1:15:30
Speaker 6: No, no, that has continued. That has continued.
1:15:32
Speaker 8: I know everybody's like, oh, I've been to Connecticut. I've
1:15:34
Speaker 8: driven through your state, right from Boston to New York.
1:15:37
Speaker 5: No, stop.
1:15:37
Speaker 8: Take a stop in New Haven. Go to Sally's or
1:15:40
Speaker 8: Modern or Pete's. There's plenty of options. And your opinion
1:15:43
Speaker 8: about our state and your willingness to spend a little
1:15:46
Speaker 8: bit of time on your way through will be transformed.
1:15:49
Speaker 6: And that's the beginning. That's how change happens. Senator Chris Murphy,
1:15:52
Speaker 6: thank you so much for your time.
1:15:53
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