Latest / Pod Save America / Elon Gets DOGE'd

Transcript

Elon Gets DOGE'd · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. While you're refreshing
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: your home with a deep clean this spring, it's the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: perfect opportunity to do the same with your security. SimpliSafe
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: is the new standard in home security trusted by more
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: than 4 million Americans. And one of them is John Lovett,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: who set up a SimpliSafe himself years ago and hasn't
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: had to worry about a security system since. Not a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: care in the world. Not a care in the world.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: He and Pundit and Ari are all very protective. With SimpliSafe,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: millions of Americans enjoy the new standard in home security
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and greater peace of mind every time they are in
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: their system, when heading out in the morning or when
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: locking up each night. Traditional security systems only take action
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: after someone has already broken in. That's too late. SimpliSafe's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: active guard outdoor protection can help prevent break-ins before they happen.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: If someone's lurking around or acting suspiciously, those agents see
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and talk to them in real time, activate spotlights, and
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: even contact the police. all before they have the chance
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to get inside your home. No long-term contracts or cancellation fees.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Monitoring plans start affordably at around $ 1 a day, 60-day
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: satisfaction guarantee or your money back. Visit simplisafe.com slash crooked
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to claim 50% off a new system with a professional
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Here we are in DC.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Back home.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Dan's delivering the big speech at the Correspondence Center. And
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: you're the comedian, right?
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: And you're here for a bill signing in the Oval.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Office, right? I'm here for the EO. Yeah, it's really exciting. No,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: we're just in town for a couple days to catch
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: up with some people. And I don't know. What do
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: you think of D.C. since we haven't been here in
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a year? It seems more ominous, but maybe that's just
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: my own.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I think that's in your head.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: It is in my head.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: You could walk around and not know that democracy is
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: collapsing around you, like the Lincoln Memorial is still standing.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: For now.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: For now.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: We haven't left yet. All right. On today's show, we're
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: going to talk about... Elon Musk, who is leaving the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: White House to spend more time with his ailing car company.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about what it means for his quest to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: break all the government services Americans rely on. We'll also
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: talk about Donald Trump's quest to make America poorer with
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: his big dumb trade war and his quest to make
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: himself richer with a new crypto scheme to literally sell
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: dinners with Trump and White House tours to people who
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: buy his meme coin. Shocking. But not really. We've also
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: got our hands on some exclusive new polling that lines
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: up with a lot of other recent polls that show
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: just how unpopular Trump's illegal deportations are with the public.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: And then our good friend Amanda Lipman, the co-founder of
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Run for Something, comes by to talk about her new
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: book for Crooked Media Reads, When We're in Charge, which
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: is a fantastic guide for young people looking to get
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: into leadership positions. But first, let's talk about the art
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: of the deal, which hopefully all of you have read
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: by now.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: It's required reading in America.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: It's required reading. Here's how it works. You win an
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: election based largely on the perception that you'll lower prices
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and keep the economy growing. Upon taking office, you start
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a massive trade war with the entire world that panics
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the markets, sends investors fleeing from the United States, and
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: threatens to plunge the economy into recession. Then you pause
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: some of the tariffs, raise them on China, promise to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: make a bunch of deals, make no deals, and for
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: good measure, threaten to fire the Fed chair who you appointed.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: If any of that sounds confusing, Here's a sampling of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: what it was like to follow the Trump administration's statements
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: on the economy just this week.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: On Jerome Powell, you said that the termination of Jerome
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: Powell cannot come fast enough. He says he won't leave
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: even if you ask him to.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, he'll leave. If I ask him to, he'll be
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: out of there.
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: No, I have no intention to fire him.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: According to this source in the room, what the Treasury
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Secretary said was no one thinks the current status quo
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: is sustainable at 145 and 125 percent in terms of
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: the relationship with tariffs with China.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Let me be clear.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: There will be no unilateral reduction in tariffs against China.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: The president has made it clear China.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Needs to make a deal with the United States of America.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to say, oh, I'm going to play
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: hardball with China. I'm going to play hardball with you,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: President Xi.
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: No, no. We're going to be very nice.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: They're going to be very nice.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: You got all that, Dan? One last kicker from this morning.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: A top Chinese official said there had been no talks.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and that the U.S. must cancel all of its tariffs
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: if it wants a deal. He quoted a Chinese proverb,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the person who tied the bell must untie it. Nice.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Do you think Trump's going to untie the bell? And
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: what do you make of all the back and forth?
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I think Trump was asked again right before we were
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: recording about the Chinese official who made those comments, and
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: he was like, well, there was a meeting this morning,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: and maybe I'll reveal who it was at some point,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: but there's a meeting, so I think it's fake news.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: The story about the fake news is the fake news.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Got it. Got it.
• 4:57
  Speaker 6: Got it.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I have some questions about the Chinese proverb.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: How do you tie a bell?
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Well, you can't, well, I thought it was going to
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: be the person who rings the bell, but you can't
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: unring a bell, which is the whole point of the
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: original saying.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I think they got to work on that. I think
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: we should jack up the tariff a little more just
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: It's also possible things have gotten lost in translation here.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is insanity, but it's also should be
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: completely expected. Like this is what happens when you put
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: in the white house, a erratic older man, who hasn't
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: had a new idea since Cheers was on the air.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: And then he surrounds himself with a bunch of yahoos
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: who view their only job is to make the Mad
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: King happy. And so you end up with this pure chaos.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: And it is like, there is no coherent policy. There
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: is no coherent ideology behind the policy. There is no
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: consistency between on a minute to minute basis. Like we're
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: recording this on Thursday afternoon, East Coast time. By the
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: time people listen to this on Friday morning, it's very
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: possible and perhaps probable that there will be an entirely
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: new position on tariffs with China by the time you
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: listen to this.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It's a good bet. I mean, there's always been this
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: axiom that the only real constraint on Trump is that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: he won't do anything that tanks the markets. But from
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Liberation Day onward, at least, that hasn't been true. What
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: do we know, if anything, about why he may ultimately
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: back down?
• 6:22
  Speaker 6: Well, he.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: He is responding to the markets, right? And he has
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: been since the beginning here. When he put the first
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: tariffs on Canada and Mexico, market tanked, he took them off.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Then he put new tariffs on Canada and Mexico, market tanked,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: they announced a bunch of exceptions that basically made them
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: hollow shells themselves. Then he does the reciprocal tariffs on everyone,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: market tanks, takes those off, moves it down to 10%,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: but keeps them on China, market tanks, takes them off,
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: or at least talks about taking them off to make
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: the market go up. talks about firing Jerome Powell, market tanks,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: says he's not going to fire Jerome Powell, market gains again.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: And so he is responding to it. The problem is,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: is he is, does not, I mean, it's shocking, but
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: doesn't get it. He doesn't get that every time he
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: takes the market and then changes his position, he's making
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: the next time he changed his position less helpful. Like he,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: the stock market will come back. The stock market always
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: comes back, but every time he's inserting more uncertainty into
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: the economy, which is going to depress everything, right? We
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: got reports this morning that new home sales are at
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: their lowest level since 2022, coming right out of the pandemic.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: And this is all happening because no one, not a
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: major corporation, not a small business, not a family can
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: make any decisions. They have no idea what's happening. Are
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: things that we all need about to be exponentially more
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: expensive in a few.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Weeks or not?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: We don't know. Are we going to be in a recession?
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: or not, we don't know. Is Jerome Powell going to
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: be in charge of monetary policy, or will it be
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: someone from Fox Business? We don't know. And because of that,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: it is doing real damage to the economy that cannot
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: simply be undone by another truth contradicting what Caroline Levitt
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: said earlier that day.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the first reaction from the White House when this
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: started was like, oh, who cares about the markets? And
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that's just Wall Street, and we're focused on Main Street.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: And what they missed about that, aside from the fact that,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: you know, most Americans have at least some money in
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the stock market, most of their retirement, that the market
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: is just responding to how they believe the economy is
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: going to fare. And the economic damage has already begun,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and we haven't even seen the worst of it yet,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: even if the trade war stops tomorrow, by the way,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: some of this is priced in. But I do think
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: that he met with, this week, the CEOs of Target
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: and Walmart and Home Depot, and they reportedly told him,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: that we are a couple weeks away from empty shelves.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Not just higher prices, they said that too, but empty
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: shelves because there'll be such a supply chain issue, which
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: is what we dealt with during the pandemic for reasons
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: that weren't just some idiot's trade war. And IMF, they
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: had originally predicted the inflation rate in the US was
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: supposed to be 1.9% this year. They've upped that prediction
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to 3%. There are truck plants in Maryland and Pennsylvania
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: already laying off hundreds of workers because orders aren't coming in.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: due to a lack of certainty, manufacturers are already reducing headcount.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Remember this whole thing. One of the, one of the rationales,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: one of the many is that we're bringing manufacturing back
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: to the United States, but it's actually making things more
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: expensive and manufacturing is going to leave the United States
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: or at least lay off workers. Yes.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Cause they get the parts from other countries.
• 9:35
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's even, it's like, it's affecting small businesses.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Like there is a small business that my wife uses
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: to buy name tags for like the small name tags
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: for like kids clothes and lunchboxes, stuff like that. They
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: went out of business because the tariffs, they sent an
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: email out to everyone saying that they couldn't afford it
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: because the tariffs, because I assume they get the products
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: from China.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: The other challenge I don't think they've really thought through is, that, is,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: you know, doing a full trade war with the Chinese,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Chinese government, they've been authoritarian government for a long time.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: And so they can basically force their people to accept
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: much more pain than maybe Americans are willing to accept.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And so they can, I don't know that China is
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: going to be, I mean, from that, from that wonderful
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: proverb we heard, I don't know that China is going
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: to be backing down anytime soon because Trump looks like
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: an idiot. Like it's, it's causing Trump political pain. And
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I think they can, like, obviously China doesn't want to
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: be in this trade war, but I think that they
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: can probably last longer than Trump thinks they can.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Of course they absolutely can. Like, like there's no political pressure.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Like she's not waiting, worrying about the YouGov daily tracking
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: poll and like, well, it's going to impact the generic ballot.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Like that's not a concern of his. So he doesn't
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: have that problem. But there's a world where a normal,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: competent president with a coherent economic and foreign policy would
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: be marshalling the world to unite against China in this
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: trade war. He would be working with the EU, but
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: also other Asian countries. But instead, Trump has pissed off
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: the entire world. And now these countries are going to
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: be in a position where they're going to be incentivized
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: to cut specific deals with China.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Well, and already there's reports that Japan is saying they
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: don't want to be part of any deal that screws
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: over China because that's a market for them. China has
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: reached out to the EU and has said, let's form
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: an alliance against the United States. Just as soon as
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: we put it on the whiteboard.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Un-fucking-real.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And again, this is like he could climb down from
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: this whole thing tomorrow and pretend it's a big victory
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and say, we have the, they're talking about how they're
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: weeks and weeks and maybe months away from actual deals,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: but maybe there's a memorandum of understanding they can have
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: with India about the contours of a deal. So they're
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: going to like, they could take something and say, oh,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: big victory, Trump wins. Already economic damage. And I think
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: it's going to be very hard to put this back
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: in the box, even if he stops tomorrow.
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: We're also, we're seeing a lot of new polling now
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: on how Americans are looking at all this. I think
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: you guys talked about that this week on Polar Coaster.
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I spoke with Molly Murphy, who is one of the
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: smartest Democratic pollsters. She polled for the Harris campaign, but
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: also for Alyssa Slotkin, Josh Stein, and a whole bunch
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: of other candidates. And we talked about the state of politics,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: public opinion, but also specifically about the polling. We have
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: a clip.
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: We just did a poll. We do polling with the
• 12:21
  Speaker 7: Wall Street Journal. And we looked at the tariff policies.
• 12:23
  Speaker 7: We looked at how people think it will affect the
• 12:25
  Speaker 7: economy and their costs. And a majority of Americans oppose
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: the tariffs. 75% think it will cause their own costs
• 12:33
  Speaker 7: to go up. And as you said, they voted for
• 12:36
  Speaker 7: him to bring costs down. The nuance here with Trump
• 12:39
  Speaker 7: is that when he messages this, he messages short-term gain.
• 12:43
  Speaker 7: It's odd that he gets away in some ways with
• 12:45
  Speaker 7: being honest with people by saying short-term pain, long-term gain.
• 12:49
  Speaker 7: We've got some big problems. And so there's about a
• 12:52
  Speaker 7: third of Americans who are sitting in this, maybe we're
• 12:55
  Speaker 7: going to take on some short-term pain. If we see
• 12:58
  Speaker 7: things get better, it will be worth it. But I
• 13:00
  Speaker 7: think we all know that this isn't going to result
• 13:02
  Speaker 7: in lower costs for people. It is not going to
• 13:04
  Speaker 7: turn out that way. And those will be the fissures.
• 13:07
  Speaker 7: And that's really the imperative for Democrats to really take
• 13:10
  Speaker 7: on and not let him get away with the messaging
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: that he's currently putting out there.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Let me expound upon what Molly said there, which is
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: they had three groups of voters. There's a groups who
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: are all pain, right? And that's mostly Democrats, people.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Who don't like Trump.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: There is a group of people who are no pain.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: It's not going to hurt us short term. It's not
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: going to hurt us long term, right?
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Enjoy.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Enjoy.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Tariffs are great. And that's Trump's base. And the middle
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: is some pain. but some long-term gain. A lot of
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: these folks are independents. Some of them are soft Republicans,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: but that's the group that Democrats are going to have
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: to focus on when the medium and long-term gain does
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: not happen.
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Short-term pain, long-term decline, long-term global economic collapse. And look,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: I think that people may say, let's give them some time, weeks, months.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: It's understandable. More than 100 days in if you're a
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Trump fan, right? But I'm I don't think people have
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the patience that they even tell pollsters they have because
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: none of us have patience anymore because of our screens
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and media and the way the world works. So I
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: don't think in like, a couple of weeks, if the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: shelves are empty at fucking Target, people are going to
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: be like, well, it's short-term pain. I know something better
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: is right around the corner.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Well, people are against the tariffs, and they're suffering almost
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: no consequences of them yet.
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: A lot of this is just from them.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: If you run a business, you're dealing with this. But
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: as a consumer, you're not yet paying higher prices in
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: most cases, and the shelves are not yet empty. We're
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: not facing a supply chain problem. So when that happens,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: it is truly stunning. It takes actual effort to- to
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: both crash the economy and raise prices. Normally you raise
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: prices because the economy is running too hot. That's when
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: inflation comes. And so he's put us in a position
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: where we're going to be potentially in a recession and
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: we're going to have inflation. That is like really impressive
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: stuff from the guy.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: And just completely 1000% self-inflicted. He could have just come
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: into office and not done any of this and the
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: economy would be just chugging along great right now.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: That is largely what he did in his first term.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: His major economic accomplishment was not fucking up Barack Obama's economy.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, that was it.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: They passed his tax cut. It didn't really do anything
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: other than enrich shareholders.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he did. One accomplishment was adding to the deficit.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, he definitely added to the deficit.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Making rich people richer.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: But in that period from 2017 to before COVID kicked in,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: basically just kind of chugged along. It was the same economy.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: He didn't try to mess with it. This time he
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: tried to mess with it, and we're all paying the price.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Literally. Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombas.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: What if I told you the most important part of
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: your spring cleaning routine is your sock drawer? You heard
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: that right. It's time to ditch any mismatched, tired pairs
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and refresh your collection with some fresh Bombas. Ready to
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: unlock your new running hobby? Bombas engineers blister-fighting, sweat-wicking athletic
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: socks that will help you go from that first mile
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: to a whole marathon. No thanks on the marathon. Looking
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: for a nice pair to wear to a wedding? Bombas
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: dress socks are made for loafers, heels, and all your
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: other fancy shoes because you've got to stay comfy on
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: that dance floor. And for all your other spring cleaning chores,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Bombas has the cushioned, arch-hugging pairs that'll keep you comfy
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: while you spruce up the house and walk the dog
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and do whatever else you do on a normal day.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: You know what else goes great with new spring socks?
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Fresh white t-shirts, waterproof slides, and a few pairs of
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: buttery soft underwear. Quite an adjective to talk about underwear. Butteries.
• 16:31
  Speaker 6: I know.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I don't like it. Bombas makes all that too. I
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: do love Bombas. I do too. Best part of all this,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: for every comfy pair you purchase, Bombas donates another comfy
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: pair to someone facing homelessness. I need some new socks.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I got holes in a bunch of socks. I do too.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. Yeah, you got to just
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: clean house every year or two. And I love Bombas
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: because A, you don't get holes in them that fast.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And B, there's like so many different colors and patterns
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: and the whole family can, our whole family has them.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: They're great. Bombas is going international now. Enjoy worldwide shipping
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: to over 200 countries. Head over to bombas.com slash crooked
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: and use code crooked for 20% off your first purchase.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com slash crooked. Code crooked for 20% off your
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: first purchase. Bombas.com slash crooked and use code crooked. One
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: person who's not concerned about the impact of Donald Trump's
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: trade war on their personal finances, Donald Trump. uh who's
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: very busy abusing his office to make himself richer that's
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: right dan it's time for another corrupt date you think
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: that's gonna stick i don't know.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I mean it really will be up to us to
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: make it stick like we would just have to do
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: it a lot then it would be there working we're
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: in charge sort of.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: If you have any questions or complaints just direct them
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: to john lovett um On Wednesday, a website hyping the
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Trump meme coin announced that Trump would host an exclusive
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: dinner for the 220 people who own the most tokens
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: to be held at a Trump club in Virginia, followed
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: by a private tour of the White House for the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: top 25 investors. This caused the coin's price to jump 60%,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: which is money in Trump's pocket because his family's company
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: owns a majority of the coins. The website announcing all this, gettrumpmemes.com,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: says it has a leaderboard going for the people who've
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: bought the most so far. You have to register to
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: see it, which I have not had the time to
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: do yet. But the copy says, the competition is fierce.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Own Trump or watch from the sidelines. Josh Dossi at
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal reported that even White House aides
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: were surprised by the promotion. And you've got some of
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the most corrupt goobers in the world in the White House.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: And they're like, I don't know about that. Are you
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: in or are you on the sidelines?
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: I could not be further on the sidelines.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess you're not going to own Trump.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Not in a financial sense, no.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: So I know that there's like a lot of people
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: aren't familiar with how meme coins work. I was one
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: of them until like, I don't know, a couple months
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: ago last year. It does seem like this is a
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: case though of like blatant corruption that's not too hard
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to explain and should make people, most voters, pretty pissed.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you do not need to understand what a meme
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: coin is to understand that this is Trump selling access
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: to the White House. Pure and simple.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: And to himself.
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: It's access to the president. So whoever spends the most
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: money to put money... It's quasi-legalized bribery. Whoever spends the
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: most money will get to get to the president to
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: bend his ear for whatever their chosen policy goal is
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: or more likely pardon that they would like. And it's just...
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: I want to just explain this a little bit, which
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: is Trump makes money here in two ways.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: One.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: He makes money, his company and his family make money
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: off the sale of every coin. So every one of
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: these people who is buying one of these coins to
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: meet Trump is paying him when they do it. And
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: then they were inflating the worth of each individual coin.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Trump's family owns a ton of them. So his net
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: worth goes up. And so whenever he does the rug
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: pull and sell some of his coins, he will make
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: a whole bunch more money because of this. You could not,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: this is just how gross this is, is if this
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: was a campaign fundraiser, it would be illegal. You could
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: not do this in the White House. You could not invite,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: ask people to give money for the specific purpose of
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: getting a White House tour or a meeting with the
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: president of the White House.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And that money doesn't even go to him.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: And you are not allowed to, and that would be
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: have transparency about who did it. Obviously there's transparency here
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: because there's a fucking leaderboard. Although it's not, I haven't
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: seen the leaderboard, but I don't think it's giving name, occupation,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: and state like the FEC does. So there's transparency if
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: it was campaign financing. And none of that money could
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: theoretically go to the president himself. He can't spend it
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: on himself. This is going directly into his bank account.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: We have people auctioning off time with the president in
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: the White House to make him richer. It is the
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: most corrupt thing that any president, Richard Nixon included, has
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: ever done. Hands down, it's not even close.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I was just thinking about this, and we should ask
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: one of our strict scrutiny pals, but the Supreme Court
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: decision about how the president is immune from criminal prosecution
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: for acts that could be construed as within his official
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: duties as president. It feels like this is outside of that.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you can make, because I think
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: that one of the examples people brought up was like, oh,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: could you just bribe the president for a pardon? And
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you could say, well, the pardon power is his power
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: as president. But this is like, how is any of
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: this Related to any official act of the president.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's obviously not. It's clearly not.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I think he could be prosecuted for this.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: I would love to see the legal brief making the
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: case that this is somehow adjacent to crypto policy, something
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: the president is in charge of.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, David Tax is going to get to
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: work on that one. Yeah, this is bad. This is
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: one that I think people should talk about.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: And everyone should know about this because it is.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Especially as you go to Target, the shelves are empty.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: You just lost your job at the manufacturing plant because
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: they had to lay people off because of all the uncertainty.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: And then you turn on the news and the Trump
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: meme coin just jumped 60% because he's walking around the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: White House with the top investors.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Just absolutely wild.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It seems like you could make something
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: out of that. All right. Speaking of rich assholes, the
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: richest and the biggest made some news this week. Elon Musk,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the shit-posting sperm super donor who Trump brought in to
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: wreck the federal government, will be stepping away from his
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: duties today. here in Washington, which is really why we're here,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: for the Illinois party. We were invited.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: That's right. I mean, you and he do have an
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: online relationship.
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: We do, yeah.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: So it's good just to see him in person. Just heartbreaking,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: heartbreaking that he's leaving. Such a loss. We learned this
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday after the news broke that Tesla's net income
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: for the first quarter fell 71%, and revenue dropped 9%
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: from the same period last year. Is that good?
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not a business guy, but it seems like no.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Elon made an appearance. on the company's earnings call to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: offer his best guess as to why that might be
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and what happens now. Let's listen.
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: As some people know, there's been some blowback for the
• 23:09
  Speaker 6: time that I've been spending in government with the Department
• 23:12
  Speaker 6: of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. But the large slug of
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: work necessary to get the DOGE team in place and
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: working in the government to get the financial house in
• 23:23
  Speaker 6: order is mostly done. Next month, May, My time allocation
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: to Doge will drop significantly. I'll have to continue doing
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: it for, I think, probably the remainder of the president's term,
• 23:42
  Speaker 6: just to make sure that the waste and fraud that
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: we stopped does not come roaring back.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Trump was then asked about this in the Oval Office
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday night. Here's what he said.
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: I can't speak more highly about any individual. He's an
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: incredible guy. He's a brilliant guy. He's a wonderful person.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: I've seen him with his family. I've seen him with
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: a lot of his children. He's got a lot of children.
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: And he was a tremendous help, both in the campaign
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: and in what he's done with Doge. I also know
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: that he was treated very unfairly by the, I guess.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: You'd call it the public, by some of the public,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: not by all of it. But I say he makes
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: an incredible car, makes everything he does is good. But
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: they took it out on Tesla. And I just thought
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: it was so unfair.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Poor Tesla.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Tesla. Tesla.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Note the past tense there. He was a tremendous help.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: We also learned that Elon and Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: apparently got into a shouting match recently outside the Oval
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: about who would run the IRS because Scott Besson wanted
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: a competent, experienced professional to run the IRS. And Elon
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: wanted the random, quote unquote, whistleblower that yelled something about
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Hunter Biden and some scandal that I can barely remember
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: at this point. who's just some mid-level flunky. He wanted
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: him to run the IRS, so they fought about that
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: outside the Oval. At one point, Elon called Besant a
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Soros agent. So welcome to the club, Scott. First of all,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: how much of Tesla's problems, sorry, Tesla's problems, are attributable
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: to the blowback that Trump was talking about? And what
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: other factors were in play? In other words, did we,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: the woke mob, just score a big win?
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, the big win for the woke mob. Tesla- Probably
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: has four problems. The first is the guy who runs
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: the company has been doing everything but run the company
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: for a while now. Usually a problem. Two, it's hard
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: to know how much the political blowback impacted sales, but
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: just common sense is the customer base for Tesla is.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Generally well-to-do climate conscious liberals, people who probably aren't super
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: into buying cars from a company run by a guy
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: tweeting about replacement theory at three in the morning.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: These are the people who crawled across glass to vote
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: for Susan Crawford in Wisconsin.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
• 26:11
  Speaker 7: Exactly.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Three is the tariffs. They mentioned this in the call.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: It's hard to know exactly how much. That is going
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: to affect them over the near term here, but they
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: get a lot of their parts from overseas. And the
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: last thing is there's more competition in the EV market.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: There are just more companies making better cars. And so
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: if you have a choice between two pretty good EVs
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: of similar price, are you really going to pick the
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: one from Elon Musk? Maybe not.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think especially orders for Tesla from Europe
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: were way down.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is true both at home and abroad.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Europeans, you think we're We're mad at Elon. They're pretty
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: mad because he goes over there and he's like, hey,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: what about the Nazis? Did not really say that, but
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: that was a shorthand for one of his many speeches
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: over there in Europe. What do you make of Elon's departure?
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: On the one hand, it was kind of expected. He
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: was designated a special government employee, which you can only
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: be for a certain amount of time. But if you're
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: longer than that, then it triggers disclosure, ethics stuff, all
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: the stuff that Elon would want to avoid. So we
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: knew he was going to leave at some point. But
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, Trump's cabinet and most Americans have
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: really come to dislike Elon. So what do you think?
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: It's weird that the American people and Pete Hegseth can
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: agree on something. I think it's a pretty big deal. First,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: I think it's worth saying, is he really leaving? When
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: companies have a very bad quarter, they tend to want
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: to announce something on the earnings call that suggests- they
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: have a plan to fix the problem. And so Elon
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: saying he's returning, he's getting out of government, coming back,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: solves the political backlash problem and the problem of the
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: absentee landlord at Tesla. And so that is a reason
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: to give, to minimize the market fallout right after the
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: earnings call. And it actually, I think in this case,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: did a little bit solve some of those problems. So
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: is he really leaving? It's not a super honest guy,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know. But if he is leaving- I do
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: think this is the functional end of Doge. He, I mean,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: who else is going to have the power to actually
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: do the things he's doing, right? To bully cabinet secretary.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: And so poorly.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do it absolutely poorly. Like everything he's doing is,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: it's incompetent, but it is severe. And it's very hard
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: to get severe cuts in Washington. And he's able to
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: do those in the worst way possible. Don't get me wrong.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Because he is more powerful, both within, more powerful politically,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: globally and more influential with Trump than anyone who serves
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: in his cabinet. But if there's someone else running Doge,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: like what flunky is going to be able to end
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: run Scott Besson to Donald Trump? No one.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: We should also take a, take a look at a
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Doge report card here. Elon, he originally set out to,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: he said he could get, he could find $ 2 trillion
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: in savings, 2 trillion. Then he, he cut that down
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: to 1 trillion. Now, you know what they've saved? About
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: 95 billion.
• 29:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: So much less than what he wanted.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: And that's not even counting the savings that are being
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: held up in court.
• 29:14
  Speaker 7: Correct.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: And so what did you get for $ 95 billion in savings?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Is that going to the taxpayers saving a lot of money,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: getting a lot of rebates? No, that means about over 200,000
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: people lost their jobs from federal government. including cancer researchers,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: veterans jobs, food inspectors, tax collectors, which is probably going
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: to undo the savings from Doge because now a bunch
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of rich people are going to get to cheat on
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: their taxes and not pay them to the federal government.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: So chaos around the Social Security Administration, which then they
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: had to pull back. A bunch of people died all
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: around the world thanks to him putting USAID in the
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: wood chipper, which he bragged about. Nick Kristof was tweeting
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: about how he tweeted at Elon this week about how
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: there's a boy in Africa was born with HIV, was
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: kept alive by medicine that cost 12 cents a day.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: He's dead now. And you can look at reports of
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: this all over the world. People have already died because
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: of this. More people will die because of medicine that
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: we took away and food that we took away that
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: cost pennies a day, pennies a day. So this is
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk's Doge legacy. Pretty good, huh?
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not great.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Did you see Steve Bannon was out with a statement
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: on this?
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: Oh, no.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: What did he say?
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk should be required to submit a certified inventory
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: of all the fraud and waste he found while in government,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: and there should be full disclosure of any non-governmental entities
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: to have obtained sensitive federal data through Doge. Sounds like
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a Democratic member of Congress.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Steve Bannon. Interesting. I agree. I agree with Steve Bannon.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: All right, clip that, Elijah. Let's get a certified inventory
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: of all the fraud and waste because it's also supposed
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: to be the most transparent administration in history. Yes, of course.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: And they put everything on the Doge website only except
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: when they don't. So good job at Doge, Elon.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: We really need an Elon in Memoriam.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: That's a good idea.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: God damn it.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: That would be good.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Does anyone do content around here?
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Elijah's just posting over here.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: in one website platform designed to elevate your online presence
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: need to promote and get paid for your services in
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: one platform. Create a professional website to showcase your offerings
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: and attract clients. Whether you offer consultations, events or other experiences,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Squarespace can help you grow your business. Squarespace offers a
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: complete library of professionally designed and award winning website templates
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: with options for every use and category. make smarter business
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: decisions with Squarespace's intuitive, built-in analytics tools, review website traffic,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: learn where to focus engagement, and track revenue from bookings, invoices,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: or product sales all from one place. Squarespace Domains makes
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: it easy to find the best name for your business
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: at one fair, all-inclusive price, no hidden fees or add-ons required.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Every Squarespace domain comes with advanced privacy and security tools
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: included to ensure your domain remains online and protected. Head
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to launch... Go to squarespace.com slash crooked to save 10%
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: slash crooked. Let's talk about deportations. There's been more churn
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: in the courts on this. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Judge Paula Zinnis slammed the DOJ over what she called a, quote,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: willful and intentional refusal to comply with her order to
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: return Kilmar Abrego-Garcia and accuse the government of dishonesty and obstruction.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Then on Wednesday... In a totally separate case, a Trump-appointed judge,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Stephanie Gallagher, ordered the return of another wrongly deported man.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: This time, it was a Venezuelan asylum seeker whose removal
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: violated a court settlement. Another unlawful deportation. Gallagher cited the
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Abrego-Garcia case in her ruling and called the government's actions, quote,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: a breach of a contract. But Trump's not just losing
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: in the courts, he's also losing in the court of
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: public opinion. Multiple polls now have Trump underwater on immigration,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: which was his best issue, including the latest Fox News
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: poll that Trump was bitching about on Truth Social this morning.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: A YouGov poll found American support bringing Abrego Garcia back
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: by nearly two to one margin and only 27 percent
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: buy into Trump's claim that he's MS-13, a claim that
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: the administration still hasn't even tried to prove in court.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: And we were just given right here at Pod Save America, Dan,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: We were just given an exclusive new poll from the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: democratic research firm, Tavern Research, which surveyed a huge sample
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: of nearly 13,000 voters over the last few days. A
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: couple of things that they found, the Abrego Garcia case
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: has certainly broke through to most voters. Voters disapprove of
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: how Trump is handling it by a 14 point margin.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Only 25% of voters believe Trump is following the law.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Only 25% believe that it's okay for him to defy
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the court's orders. Getting down to 25%. Usually he's got
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: like 35, 40 with almost anything he does. So he's
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: down to 25%. And the most effective messages when talking
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: about the case have to do with Trump defying the
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: courts and in doing so putting the due process rights
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of all Americans at risk. Those were the most effective message.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: What do you make of those numbers?
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Encouraging as an American?
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Just that there are like Democrats, we talked about this
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: last week, but Democrats are taught to be afraid of immigration,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: and that here we have not just the moral high ground,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: but the political high ground, and that Democrats should make
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: the arguments against these illegal deportations with confidence. You should
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: need a poll to talk about these things, but if
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: you do, you now have the polling to stiffen your
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: spine a bit.
• 34:57
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: I also think it's a good lesson in how polling
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: should be used, because usually there's this argument like, should
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: we follow the polls? Should we not follow the polls?
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: And as you know, like polling is just another useful
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: tool to use depending on how you use it, right?
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: And it is still true probably that most Americans want
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: a secure border and, you know, want people who are
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: criminals deported. And there's a limit to how many even
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: asylum seekers people want to take in because they saw
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: over the last couple of years that a lot of
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: asylum seekers were sort of stretching public services in cities
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: all across the country. And those views I don't think
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: haven't changed, but that is entirely separate from also believing
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: that we should send people to a gulag or we
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: should deport people without due process or any of the
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: stuff that he's doing. And there's a nuance there that
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes the intra-party fighting among Democrats doesn't really get,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: at least online, obviously, but that like two things can
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: be true at once. And just because immigration is a
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: good issue for Trump doesn't mean that no matter what
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: he does around immigration, it's going to be popular.
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: We all lost our mind on the politics of immigration
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: from like 2022 until now.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Really like 2016 on.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: No, I think during the Trump era, all we had
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: to do in the first Trump 1.0, all we had
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: to do was point out that what Trump was doing
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: was bad and cruel and stupid and counterproductive. And we
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: actually quite effective for that. Like I was looking at
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: the polling today, Trump was underwater on immigration for almost
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: every single day of his first term. Just this idea.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I guess I think, I'm sorry. I think the reaction,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: the reaction from Democrats in the 2020 primary to the
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: prior four years was an example of misreading what the
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: anger about Trump on immigration was all about.
• 36:52
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent. But for a long time, we had
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: a very good message on immigration, which was border security,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: keep people safe, have a path to citizenship for people
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: who have been here a long time, are a part
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: of the community, have them go to the back of
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: the line, pay back taxes, whatever. There was a method
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: that tested for that.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Are you saying we're a nation of immigrants and a
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: nation of laws? Just Barack Obama's message.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that position still to this day gets
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: majority support. And when we constrain the image only to
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: the way in which Trump wants to talk about it.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: I think what we did wrong, and I think it's
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: still keeping a lot of people from talking about this
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: in the right way, is we really accepted Trump's premise.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: This is something Trump and the right-wing media did very successfully,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: which is they created this image of... They took legitimate
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: issues around chaos at the border, of migrants coming here
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: seeking asylum, and turned it into an invasion by MS-13
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: in Trinidad and Tobago. They turned it into this idea
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: that there was this wave of crime from migrants and
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: undocumented immigrants, that you were unsafe for them because of this.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: And that wasn't actually the case, but we accepted that
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: premise in our messaging. Like we said last week, we're
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: trying to out-tough Trump on the borders. We were talking about, how.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Are you doing?
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: He is suffering this. And if I was in the
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: White House, and if I was in the White House
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: working for Trump, which is really a hard thing to imagine,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: but if I were, these numbers would scare the shit
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: out of me.
• 38:22
  Speaker 7: Right?
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Like you have a two pronged reason why you're president,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: the economy and immigration, and you're not underwater on both.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: And we haven't even hit the hundred day mark.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: I think it's also a lesson for Democrats that like,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: if you pick fights about issues where, first of all,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: you think it's wrong and it's, it's urgent to speak out,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: but also you sort of sense that what the politician
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: is doing, what Trump is doing is unpopular. Like, you
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: can have these issues break through. There could have been,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: when he sent Abrego Garcia to El Salvador to this prison,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: when he deported, we could have said, okay, you know what?
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Since he's so strong on immigration, we just shouldn't talk
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: about this. But if we didn't talk about it, if
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Democrats all decided not to talk about this and not
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: to make a big deal of it, then he probably
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: still would be very popular on immigration because most people
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: in the country wouldn't know that it happened.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, we have agency here.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: And the same thing happened we just talked about Doge, right?
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: At the beginning of Doge, it was like, well, we
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: got to be careful because a lot of Democrats and
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Republicans and independents, most Americans, they do want government to
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: be more efficient and that's what he's doing. So maybe
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: we should just be quiet. And it's like, okay, yeah,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that's true. If Elon Musk was actually going in there
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: and making government more efficient and actually saving money on
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: things that were wasteful, he wasn't doing that. So we
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: should talk about it. And I just think that like
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Trump is not as strong as people think he is.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: And He still has a lot of power, and he's
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: still very dangerous. But the country right now is not
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: particularly happy with him, and his approval rating continues to fall.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I think in the Pew poll this week, it was
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: at 40, and that's probably an outlier. It's probably around 44, 45.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: But it's still– his approval rating is at a lower
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: point right now than almost any president at this point
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: in their first term in recent memory other than him.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: And it's about to cross that line.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's about to cross the line. I think in
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: the average, he is– almost seven points underwater right now.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: And he's been dropping a point a week for a
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: while now.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: And this is not to say, okay, he's getting more unpopular.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Everyone can just be like, relax and just wait for
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the next election and where it's thermostatic public opinion and
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: everything's gonna be fine. It's to say that we don't
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: need to be afraid or we shouldn't be afraid because
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the more we fight, the more unpopular he gets. And
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: so courage is contagious here. You should go speak out.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: You should go keep fighting because when we do, Other
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: people in the country who aren't paying attention realize like, yeah,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: this is bad. I don't like this. Which brings us
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: to our last topic before we get to our conversation
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: with Amanda. On Tuesday, the longtime executive producer of 60 Minutes,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Bill Owens, announced that he's stepping down, saying he can't
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: run the show independently anymore. This comes, of course, after
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Trump called again for CBS to lose its broadcast license
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: over some recent segments on 60 Minutes. And after he
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: filed a $ 20 billion lawsuit against CBS for the way
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: the show edited its interview with Kamala Harris. And CBS
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: News' parent company, Paramount, which is trying to close a
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: major merger, is talking about settling. How big of a
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: deal do you think this is?
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: If I was writing a book, which I am not,
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: about the death— You can announce it here if you want.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, you do have a publishing arm, so maybe
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: we should talk.
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: No.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: If I was writing a book about the death of
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: the traditional objective media that dominated the 20th century and
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: the first part of the 21st century— The lead anecdote
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: would be what just happened with Bill Owens at 60 Minutes.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: 60 Minutes is the flagship news show in America. So
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: known for tough accountability journalism that if you worked at
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: a company or a government agency and a 60 Minutes
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: producer called you, you wet your pants. It meant you
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: were in big trouble. And the fact that now even
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: 60 Minutes is being brought to heel by its corporate
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: overlords means the entire model of big media owned by
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: big corporations cannot function. There is an inherent and irreconcilable
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: tension between companies with business before the federal government owning
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: media companies trying to hold that federal government accountable. This
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: is the end of an era where we are right now.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: And again, it's like, I mean, Sherry Redstone, who runs
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the Paramount, you know, trying to close a merger. So
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: maybe it's just all about money for her, right? Maybe
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: she just wants a deal. But I think it is
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: for other media companies that can, for other people in media,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: for these colleges, for the law firms, like people should
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: fight because I think that all of the people that
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: have capitulated so far are going to look, they're not
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: going to be like, oh, that was smart. They got
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: away early. It's going to look bad. And if you,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: and again, just we were talking about the polling, like
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Some of these media companies, if you ask people, oh,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: should the government be able to sue media companies into
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: oblivion or threaten them or pull their licenses because they
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: said things that our ruler, Donald Trump, doesn't care for,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: that's not fucking popular. No one's going to think that's
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: a good idea.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was very explicit polling on colleges and museums
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: that shows that what Donald Trump is using federal funding
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: as leverage is quite a public, even with Republicans. But
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: what is going on here is just, it's important- to
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: understand that there was a time in which CBS was
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: a huge part of the revenue at Paramount, CBS News
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: in particular. That is not true anymore. CNN, which is
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: owned by Warner Brothers Discovery, which is a company that
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: by all reporting very much wants to either merge with
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: another company or buy another company, in all cases would
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: need approval from the FCC. And so they are not
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: willing to take on water for something that is, even
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: if it still makes money now, they know is in
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: secular decline and is never coming back. And so the
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: thing about, like, I don't think you'll be able to
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: convince these major companies to fight back, like Sherry Redstone
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: or some of these other companies, like even Disney gave
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: in on the George Stephanopoulos defamation suit. Like the way
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: you fight back here is you support independent media.
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: And that is, that can be ideological partisan media, like
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: what we have here, pro-democracy media, like what we have
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: here at Crooked Media. It could be like ProPublica and
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: nonprofit independent media, but the future of media is going
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: to look very different than it did before. And it's
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: going to be much, it's going to be smaller, but
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: independent from these big companies.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right.
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: So as you heard, a new episode of Polar Coaster
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: just dropped. Don't miss out on this exclusive series available
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: only to friends of the pod. You can head to cricket.com
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: slash friends and sign up today or subscribe directly through
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: our Apple podcast feed. If you subscribe by the end
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: of April, you'll get a 30-day free trial. When we
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: come back, we will talk to the founder of Run
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: for Something and the author of the new book, When
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: We're in Charge, Amanda Lippman. Pod Save America is brought
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: to you by Aura Frames. The number one thing your
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: mom wants from you is to call her. This Mother's Day,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: you can give her a call and give her an
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Aura digital picture frame. Every frame comes packaged in a
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: premium gift box with no price tag. It only takes
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: about two minutes to set up a frame using the
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Aura app. Add unlimited photos and videos and invite as
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: many people as you want to a frame. There are
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: absolutely no hidden fees or subscriptions. Upload videos up to
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: 30 seconds long and your favorite live iPhone photos will
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: play right on the frame. The embedded speaker can play
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: audio on demand. You have complete control over who has
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: access to your frame and the Aura app lets you
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: share photos more securely than with email, which many other
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: digital frames require. If I had not already given my
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: mom an Aura frame for Christmas, I'd be doing it
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: for Mother's Day. I'm sort of annoyed that this idea
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: is off the table, but you should get one. They
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: are great. My parents love their Aura frame. We are
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: constantly uploading pictures of the kids to the frame at
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: any time of day. It's very easy. You have an
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: app on your phone, put the picture in, and boom,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: it's on their frame. It's a great, great gift. Aura
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Frames was named the best digital photo frame by Wirecutter
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: and featured in 495 gift guides last year. So the
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: next time you need to call your mom, you can
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: also send her a new pic of you from that
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: trip you're telling her all about right from your phone.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. For a
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: visiting AuraFrames.com to get $ 35 off plus free shipping on
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: their best-selling Carver mat frame. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com, promo code CROOKED.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: conditions apply. Amanda Lipman, good to see you in person.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: Nice to see you guys.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the pod. Congrats on the new book.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: It's called When We're in Charge, The Next Generation's Guide
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: to Leadership. We're also psyched you chose to do it
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: with Crooked Media Reads because we've all been big fans
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: of yours for a long time.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: I am so excited to talk about it and it
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: feels so right for this moment.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, it does. Well, so want to spend time in
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the book. Thought we could start by checking in on
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Run for Something, which is the organization you launched after
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the first Trump administration with the goal of recruiting, training,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: helping younger candidates run for down ballot races all over
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the country. I'll admit that I was worried that after
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: all the despair and fear that accompanied Trump's second win,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: you guys would have a tougher time finding candidates to run.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: That hasn't happened.
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: No.
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: And I will admit, I shared that concern. But since
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: Trump won in November, we have had 41,000 young people
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: all across the country raise their hands to say they
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: want to run. Our overall pipeline has exceeded 200,000. That
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: means 20% of the people who have ever signed up
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: with Run for Something to say they want to run
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: for office have come to us in the last five months.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: And how does that compare to the first?
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: So in the first two years of Trump's first term,
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: we had 30,000 people sign up.
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: So we've already exceeded that. It is more people than
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: I ever could have imagined. Like our goal for 2025
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: was 50,000. We're going to cross that in like a month.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Are you seeing a different kind of person stepping up,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: different kind of candidate or, and where are they running?
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: So we are getting people from all 50 states. It's
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: pretty commensurate with population, little more women than men, about
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: 70 to 75% under the age of 40. So it's
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: mostly young people. And we are seeing people step up
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: for a lot of the issues we've seen over the
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: last eight years. Housing, cost of housing, reproductive health, book bans,
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: especially in the last few years. Opioids continues to be
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: a big thing we hear from people. But especially in
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: the last five months, they are signing up and saying,
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: if my leaders aren't going to fight for me, I
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: am going to fight for me. And I think that
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: in particular is a really exciting attitude we're seeing new
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: folks bring.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: I saw that you were run for something that's hosting
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: an informational session for fired formal federal workers. That's what
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: I was going to say. Tell me a little bit
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: about what is going on there. Do you think those
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: folks make good candidates? And what is sparking their interest
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: to run?
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: So we've seen hundreds of people sign up coming specifically
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: from conversations around former laid off federal workers or people
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: who've had partners or friends or family, countless more beyond that.
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: And I think these are folks who are already inclined
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: towards public service. You know, they have been working in
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: the federal government, not a glamorous job, all across the country.
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: Because as you guys know, and as folks know, the
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: federal government is not just a DC thing. It is everywhere.
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: And I think for a lot of them, this is personal.
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: They understand intimately how government works and affects people's lives.
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: They're pissed at Trump and Elon Musk for firing them
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: or firing their friend or their family. And they've often
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: not been allowed to run for office before. Like in
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: most places, there's some nuance here, depending on the type
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: of office you run and what your job is. But
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: Generally speaking, federal government employees have not been allowed to
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: run for office before. There's been some ethics rules around that.
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: They're now free to. And they've got a lot of
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: time on their hands and they got a lot of
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: rage and they're channeling it into doing something really meaningful
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: with it. So I think they're going to be great candidates.
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: If even a couple of them end up getting on
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: the ballot in 2026, the stories that they'll be able
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: to tell both about why they're mad and how they've
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: committed to their community are going to be really powerful.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: Are these like former scientists, former all across the board?
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: Park rangers, former scientists, former fellows doing like weather research,
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: you know, former VA people, doctors and healthcare professionals who
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: are working in the government, all kinds of experts who've
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: really like done meaningful work and shown how government can
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: make people's lives better, which most people don't get to
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: hear their stories.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: You know, you, this, you touched on this, this, your
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: book is largely about this, but the debate about the
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: generational divide of the democratic party has been brewing for
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: a long time. Um, It's obviously picked up pace since
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: this election, since the end of Biden's presidency. How do
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: you think about that generational split? Is it really age
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: or is it style too? We obviously have folks like
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders, who is much older but is very popular
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: with young people and probably campaigns and talks about politics
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: in a way that makes young people excited. So talk
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: to me a little bit about that split and where
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: you think it's going.
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: Obviously, no generation is a monolith. We have seen older
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: leaders like Senator Sanders rise to the occasion and really
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: prove they can fight and communicate in this moment. That
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: being said, I don't think it's a coincidence that many
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: of the folks who have risen up, who have shown
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: their backbone, and who have proven they can communicate about
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: that fight in this moment are some of the younger leaders.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: And I would say it is both age, sort of,
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: you know, millennials and Gen Z folks. We'll give younger
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: Gen X a little bit of credit here.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: But it is also like people whose political awakening has
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: been since Trump, like people who first got into politics post-2015, 2016,
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: who have a very clear-eyed understanding of who the Republican
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: Party is. It is not Judge W. Bush's Republican Party.
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: It's not John McCain's. It's not Mitt Romney's. It is Trump's.
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: And they know who the opponent is and that these
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: are not good faith partners in governance. And because they're
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: comfortable online— Like, I like to joke, these are candidates
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: and electeds who run their own Instagram accounts, which is
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: pretty unusual. They understand how to express that in this moment.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: How do you think this next generation of leaders should
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: be responding to Trump 2.0? Like, how do we end
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: what you've called the bad boomer leadership that's taken over
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party?
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: You know, I think it's a couple things. I think, again,
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: being clear-eyed about who the Republican Party is and who
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: they are not.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: being willing to channel whatever it is they're really mad
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: about and communicate it. We have this moment in which
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: authenticity or this perceived authenticity is so important for candidates.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: And it is especially important for newer candidates who are
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: trying to prove themselves and build trust with voters. When
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: we talk about what messaging we should be on or
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: what fight should we take on, pick the fight that
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: makes you the maddest and talk about it. Because if
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: you're talking about the thing that you aren't actually that
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: riled up about, It's going to come through and it's
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: not going to connect with people. The other thing I
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: would say is that especially in this moment, like being
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: unafraid to have the conversation in as many places as possible.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: This is something I think people who haven't been relatively
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: new to public service and to politics can do a
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: little bit better, not exclusively. but can do a little
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: bit better because they are normal people who just happen
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: to have fallen into public service as opposed to people
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: who've been in office for 20 or 30 years and
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: don't know what normal people talk about anymore. So I
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: think that's one of the many distinctions.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: We haven't talked about this on the pod yet, but
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard about DNC Vice Chair David Hogg
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: pledging $ 20 million to primary older Democrats in safe seats.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: What do you think of the strategy? Any risks?
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: Whether or not David, as a DNC leader, is the
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: right person to do this is sort of a separate question.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: That I think the DNC is trying to handle as
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: we speak.
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: That seems like a them problem. I do think it
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: is worth encouraging open primaries. Primaries are how we as
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: a party decide what we believe. Parties are where candidates
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: get a chance to prove their mettle in sort of
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: safe territory. especially in all these safe blue districts. That's
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: where we get our Democratic leaders from. It's not a
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: coincidence that much of the Democratic leadership is from New York, California,
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: and Illinois. Those are safe seats. So the people who
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: can rise there tend to be both the cream of
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: the crop, ideally, and can really ideally model what the
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: party is standing for in this moment. I think if
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: you're an incumbent who's doing a good job, you've got
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: a pretty high chance of winning a primary. Incumbents have
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: something like a 95% re-election rate. if you are doing
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: a good job of meeting your constituents where they are,
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: you should have nothing to worry about. I think it's
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: telling that some of these incumbents are a little spooked
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: because they know they're not quite where their voters want
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: them to be. Yeah.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: I'm, I'm very torn about this. Like I very much agree.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: Open primaries are good. We do like, we a hundred
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: percent need a new generation of leadership and in a
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: world in which most incumbents are going to win their election,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: then the only way you're, you're, they're just going to
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: be there until they leave. Like, if you went, like
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: Adam Schiff can be senator from California for the rest
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: of his life every once.
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: He could literally die in office as previous senators in
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: California have done.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, there might be some past precedent there.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Either leave on your own or in a coffin.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: Cool slogan for the United States Senate.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: Absent a primary, I guess, is the question. But I
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: guess one question I have is, and maybe things have
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: changed recently, but a lot of the conversations I've had with,
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: various groups and people trying to fund efforts since election
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: is it has been a tough environment to raise money.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: A lot of our donors are not necessarily the grassroots donors,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: but sort of the bigger folks who fund larger, the
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: larger progressive infrastructure are tapped out. They're frustrated. They're not
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: getting money. And so just in a world where we
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: need run for something, we need an invisible, we need
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: swing left. We need more progressive media, more content. Like
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: what do you think about $ 20 million to this effort?
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: I think it's a drop in the bucket compared to
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: what we spend in a lot of federal races. I
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: also think most of these primary candidates are going to
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: be funded by grassroots donors. They're not going to get
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: a lot of institutional money. And I will say Run
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: for Something's budget this year is only $ 7. 5 million, and
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: we're expecting to work with about 300 candidates in every
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: state there's an election. We've already won, I think, 20-some-odd
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: races this year. There's a lot of ways that we
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: could spend money in politics, and there will always be
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: more money, even when I wish there were different rules
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: around it. So If your goal is to get new
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: leaders in that particular space, that's certainly one way you
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: could do it. I think my way is also really exciting.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: Another option would be to donate to Run for Something. Yes,
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: I'll say it for you.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: Runforsomething.net slash donate. $ 5 goes a long way.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: I kind of think we should all be consistent on it.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: If you're for primaries and competitive primaries, that's true for
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: if you're worried about what the result may be. It's
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: true if you want the result to be a different way.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: And I think we're probably stronger as a party, especially
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: the democracy party if we're uh if we're allowing this
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: to happen.
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: And it's really scary to trust voters but like if
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: we're empowering candidates to run good campaigns then we should
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: and i think that's like the key here is we
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: should give candidates and this is what run for something
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: does is empower candidates to make the best possible argument
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: to their voters and then let voters decide even if
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: voters sometimes make decisions i wouldn't agree with that's voters
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: call which has.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Happened recently uh Let's talk about your wonderful book, which
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: isn't just advice for young people running for office. It's
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: for young people who are stepping into leadership roles or
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: planning to step into leadership roles across business, nonprofits. What
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: made you want to broaden the focus?
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: So I know politics. I've worked now with thousands of
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: candidates running for office. I knew I didn't know enough
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: about what leadership looked like outside of this space. So
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: when I was going in to write the book, I
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: put out a call to interview as many people from
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: as many different kinds of spaces as I could. And
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: I ended up having in-depth conversations with more than 135
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: different leaders from a variety of sectors. I talked to
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: faith leaders and doctors and teachers. I talked to tech CEOs.
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: I talked to the CEO of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel. I
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: also talked to the editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue. I also
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: talked to Maxwell Frost, a member of Congress. And I
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: heard so many themes echo across those conversations. The partner
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: in the law firm in Chicago said, had a slightly
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: different take on the 80-year-old partner who she had to
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: do notes in the dictaphone for, as opposed to the
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: rabbi who said the person she replaced in Wisconsin had
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: never taken a day off in 30 years behind the pulpit.
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: And she was like, I'm a mom of two kids.
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: I can't do that. But the themes were the same.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: And I think that, to me, was emblematic of the
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: fact that you know, across different sectors, across different spaces,
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: really across the country. And even I talked to a
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: few folks in Europe and in England. Details were a
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: little different there. They have better health care. The challenges
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: that next gen leaders, what I would collectively call next
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: gen leaders, millennials and Gen Z are facing are the
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: same and that we didn't have a playbook on how
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: to solve them. So that's what I tried to write
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: was the guide that honestly I wish I had had
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: when I started Run for Something eight and a half
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: years ago of like, how do you do this in
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: a way that is better than every boss I've ever
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: had before?
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, how did your own experience
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: with leadership roles at Run for Something and other places
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: inspire what you wrote?
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: You know, when I started Run for Something, I was
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: 26 about to turn 27. I was single. I was
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: having a good time. I had never run a company before.
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: I'd never written a budget before. I'd managed people. I'd
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: managed teams a few times. But I knew that if
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: this was going to last, if I was going to
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: build an organization that was sustainable and that would do
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: this work for a long time, because it was important
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: that I thought this work needed a long runway to succeed,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: that I built a team and ran my company in
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: a way that reflected that. So that was everything from
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: how we could provide the best possible health care to people,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: how we could pay people as well as possible, how
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: we could have work-life integration and work-rest integration. I didn't
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: want to work campaign hours for eight or 10 years. Now,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: eight and a half years later, I have two kids,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: like a two and a half year old and a
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: seven month old. I don't have the time to work
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: 100 hour weeks anymore. And I don't want to. But
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: the work is still really important. So I write a
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: ton in When We're In Charge about my experience creating
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: this organization that functions a little differently than I did.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: any other political organization, although some now have come our way,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: including things like a four-day work week, really good health care,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: really good benefits, things like a sabbatical policy, but also
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: transparency policies internally that allow us to really communicate with
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: people in a way that brings them in and helps
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: guide where we're going. And the challenges that I faced.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: When I went to take maternity leave with my first daughter,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: And I Googled, how do I take maternity leave as
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: the boss? All I could find was how to ask
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: your boss for maternity leave, which one, damning indictment of
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: the United States. But two, you know, really telling of
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: like what kind of resources there are for leaders who
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: want to model the values we put into practice.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: You and I have talked about this before since we've
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: both had similar experiences here. But can you get into
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: some of the challenges you faced being a millennial at
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: the top of an organization with a lot of Gen Zers?
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: It's so hard. And it wasn't just things that I faced.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: I heard this from all of the people I talked to,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: the similar kinds of demands for transparency that in the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: same way you can Google something or get a Yelp
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: review on something, we want that at work. We want
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: to be able to get every answer we want whenever
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: we want it. I heard this from folks about things
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: that they wanted work to provide something that work is
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: not the right space to hold. And I write about
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: this in the book of Work cannot be your only
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: source of identity, your only source of friendship, your only
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: source of your physical or mental health, your well-being. It
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: is first and foremost an economic relationship. And ideally, as
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: the leader, you are creating space where people have the
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: time and resources to be full people outside of it.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: One of the challenges that basically every millennial and Gen
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: Z leader I talked to named was that they're managing
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: millennials in Gen Z. And that is both a blessing
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: and a curse.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Yes. We could do a whole other episode on that.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: Love our Gen Z staffers.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: It's for me and my therapist.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Love you all. Great lesson in the book, We Don't
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: Dream of Labor. Can you unpack that a little bit
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: and how it applies to what we're all going through
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: right now?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: So the internet says this is a James Baldwin quote,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: but I cannot find any proof of that. So make
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: of that what you will. The full quote here is that,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: I do not have a dream job because I do
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: not dream of labor. I think that is so important.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: especially in this moment where we are looking to do
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: so much more than our work, that your job just
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: cannot be everything. And a nightmare is a kind of
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: dream too. Sometimes your dream job could actually be horrific.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: I think it is really on the shoulders of the
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: person in charge, of the leader. And I write on
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: how to do this to make it clear that you
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: should have a place at work where you can do
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: your job and know what success looks like. And That
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: you don't have to be miserable every day doing it,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: but it also doesn't need to be the only place
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: you find fulfillment.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 7: Yeah. It's hard.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: It's hard, especially in the business that we're all in.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 6: I know.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 7: In politics, right?
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 5: When you care.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Because it is a mission and you do care, but
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: you've got to separate it at some point.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: I talked to a pastor who really spoke to this
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: Marshall Hatch in Chicago who told me, I feel like
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: my work is a calling, but also there could be
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: lots of calls. There could be lots of different ringtones
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: in this call.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: It can look different. And that doesn't mean that there's
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: a wrong way to love your job, but it can
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: also be really dangerous when you love your job so
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: much that it eats you up and spits you out.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: You talked about being a working mom now. What have
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: you learned about rest, not just for yourself, but as
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: something leaders need to model for their teams?
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: You know, so Run for Something has a four-day work week,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: which is the only way I was able to write
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: this book, run the organization. At the time, I had
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: a one-year-old and I was pregnant. I did that because
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: we had Fridays. So all through 2024, I would spend
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: Fridays not resting, but working on this in a way
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: that was also really creatively fulfilling and gave me like
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: a different kind of joy than my day job. I
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: think a lot about what it means as the boss
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: to model rest for my team. Like we really do
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: take Fridays off. We don't have emails, we don't have meetings.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: When we're done with the day at around 5.30, 6 o'clock,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: we log off. On weekends, yeah, like sometimes you might
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: have to work on a weekend, like any job. Sometimes
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: you have to go to the event or like, You know,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: there's the emergency, whatever. But generally speaking, you can count
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: on weekends to be your own. And I think about
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: the way that the four-day work week, the clear boundaries
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: about our time have made me a better boss, a
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: better leader, but also such a better parent and a
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: better partner. Like I am so much better at going
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: into a full 48 hours of parenting after I got
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: to spend Friday, yeah, maybe doing some book stuff or
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: some writing, but also going to yoga class, get my
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: nails done, see a friend. lounge on the couch and
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: watch Grey's Anatomy for three hours. Like whatever it is,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: I'm a better parent and a better partner because of that.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: Like in politics, right? The culture, it like, it is
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: the worst version of like, quote unquote, hustle culture, right?
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: Like you were supposed to be working all the time.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: And if you're not working all the time, like in
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: the way it's understood by so many people, if you're
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: not working all the time, then either you're doing something
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: wrong or you're not important enough to be working all
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: the time. So everyone's trying to work all the time.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: How have you been able to run a political organization
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: that not on that sort of 24-7 treadmill that so
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: much of politics and media seems to operate on?
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: You can be very discerning here. My mission is urgent
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: and important. Not every task and service of that mission
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: is urgent or important. And so being really thoughtful and
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: rigorous about prioritization, about how we're spending time in meetings
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: or together, knowing that like, yeah, a couple of weeks
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: before election day, you might have to work a little
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 4: bit more, but you cannot do this work year in,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: year out if you are burning the candle at both ends.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: Like you will hate yourself and you won't be as
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: good at it. Like I don't think anyone who's working
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: 100 hour weeks is doing that because those hours 60
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: to 100 are their best hours. Like you're not getting
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: your best stuff. I think it is so necessary for
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: leaders to model those boundaries and also to staff in
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: such a way that you don't have to ask that
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: for people. Like I reject the premise that that you
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: have to be working around the clock to be getting
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: the most possible things done. Like, efficacy and humane, compassionate
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: leadership are not mutually exclusive.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Last question. You talked to more than 100 young leaders
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: for the book. Was there a moment or a conversation
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: that surprised you or changed how you thought about leadership?
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's such a good question. I was surprised at
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: how many things I heard in common.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 7: Hmm.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: I was surprised and maybe not, in retrospect, it's not
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: surprising at all, how many people would tell me, I
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: want to be myself in my role. I want to
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: be authentic. I want to bring my real self, but
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: like not my full self, but my real self to
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: work because I actually, I don't think work is the
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: right place for my full self. I want to be this.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: And then I would ask them, great, do you think
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: like you can be yourself with your team? And I
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: memorably remember someone being like, oh, fuck no. Absolutely not.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: And I think that tension, like, That's the point of
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: the book is how do you navigate that tension? How
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: do you perform yourself authentically while still not performing yourself
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: at all? And like how do you post on social
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: media when your team follows you there? And how do
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: you be transparent? But also if you open the books
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: too much, people are going to see things they're actually
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: not prepared or able to see. And how do you
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: think about your career? Like when the ladders that we
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: have climbed no longer exist and the path that our
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: parents or grandparents took has just been like blown up,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: how do you do that? Like, those tensions, like, hearing
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: that from so many people. And in the last couple weeks,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: I've been going back to all the folks I talked
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: to for the book to be like, hey, so excited.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: This is coming out. Can't wait to send you a copy.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: And so many of them wrote back to me and
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: be like, that conversation stuck with me. Like, no one
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: had ever really asked, like, how does it feel to
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: do this hard thing? And I'll say the final thing
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: that really stuck with me and has been, like, sort
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: of my mantra for much of, honestly, the last eight
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: years is was how many people would tell me, I
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: feel like I am doing a hard thing and it
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: is hard not because I'm personally failing, but because like
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: it is fundamentally a hard thing. Like I am trying
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: to push a rock up a mountain and no matter
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: how strong you are or how high the mountain is,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: it's going to be hard. And I, you know, we
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: tell this to candidates when they're running for office, running
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: for office is hard no matter how good you are.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: Our job is to make it a Leading in this
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: moment in a way that treats people right but also
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: gets the job done is difficult. It is also, like
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: running for office, so worth it. It's so worth it,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: both for me and for you and for all of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: us as leaders, but also for the people you lead.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that's one of the reasons that people appreciated
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: the conversations with you and the questions so much, because
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: just being asked, how are you feeling? How are you
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: doing it? What does it mean to you? Like, you don't.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: ever get that question well.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: Especially when you're in charge of folks like it's not
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: their job to ask you that question and like your
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: partner or your therapist has probably heard it all more
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: than that um so i think it's really important to
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: take a step back and really really reflect like what
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: kind of leader am i am i living up to
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: the values i've laid out am i prepared to deal
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: with the criticism that i will inevitably get and am
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: i doing this in a way that i can feel good.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: About well um All the answers to all those questions
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: are right in the book. It comes out May 13th.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: The book is When We're in Charge, The Next Generation's
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: Guide to Leadership. It's a fantastic book. You can preorder
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: it now at crooked.com slash books or anywhere you like
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: to get books. Amanda Lipman, good seeing you.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, guys.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks for stopping by.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: Good to talk to you.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Before we go, there was
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: one quick breaking news development that we got that we
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: should just mention. Oh, no.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: What happened?
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: Well, we learned the full Chinese proverb, which we did
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: not apparently have.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: No.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: It is, whoever ties the bell on the tiger's neck
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: has to untie it. Okay.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: I rescind everything I said. That makes complete sense. There's
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: a reason that's a proverb. And it was dumb of
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: me to even question something that was, I assume, thousands
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: of years old.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, I could do a five-minute thing on who
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: the fuck is tying bells on Tigers next, but you
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: know what? We're not going to do it because it's
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: the end of the show.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: If we keep talking, someone's going to tell us why
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: that is and we're going to have to do another correction.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: So let's get out of here fast. All right.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Amanda Lippman for joining us. Everyone have a
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: great weekend. We'll have a new show in your feeds
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: you can help boost this episode by leaving us a
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Reid Cherlin is our executive editor, and Adrienne Hill is
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hethcote,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelleviv, and David Tolles. Our
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: America East.