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The Old Man and the Clemency · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Donald Trump says he's going to replace
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: FBI Director Chris Wray with Kash Patel. who said he
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: wants to prosecute journalists and Trump critics.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Fun.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth faces newly reported allegations about
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: what a shitty person he is, including from his mom.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: And Bernie Sanders finally finds common cause with a billionaire.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Even crazier, it's Elon Musk.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Here's the question I had after reading the news today
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: is who had a rougher Thanksgiving with the family? Joe
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Biden being buttonholed about pardoning his son or Pete Hegseth
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: dealing with his mother's letter in the New York Times?
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Well, the letter's from like 2018.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I know, but it sort of came up this weekend.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: And the pardon was after Thanksgiving.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, of course it was. You spent a weekend
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: being fucking hammered by your whole family for a pardon.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: You'd do it Sunday night too. Just get off my
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: goddamn back.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Anyway, so Bernie found common cause with billionaire Elon Musk.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about that. We'll get into all the do's
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and do's of collaborating with oligarchs to cut defense spending.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I want you guys to know that Reid told me
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: he wrote that line as a personal challenge to my dignity.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, really? Which is a challenge accepted.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Who won that?
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Challenge accepted. All right. That's for you, Reid. But first,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. Why are you laughing?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: It's funny.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: It's funny, the news.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump commemorated the holiday by sending wishes to all
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: of us radical left lunatics who worked so hard to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: destroy this country. Looks like we failed. He also posted
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: an homage to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which we had
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: mentioned is one of our favorite Christmas movies, certainly mine,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: where he pops out of a deep fake Joe Biden's
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: turkey and dances to YMCA. I think it's some of
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: his best work.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: It was very funny. I don't think he makes them.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: I think they steal them from the internet.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: No, you don't think?
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I don't think his campaign makes them either. I think
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: you just rip them off of Reddit.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's probably right. I found Trump's staff
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: announcements less compelling. He said he'll appoint the fathers of
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: two of his son-in-laws to big positions. Mossad Boulos, the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Lebanese-born father of Tiffany Trump's husband Michael, will be senior
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: advisor to the president on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: He got a lot of expertise there, Tommy?
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Not that I can tell.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I think he did run for parliament in Lebanon.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Businessman in Lebanon, yeah.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: He lost. And Charles Kushner, the former real estate developer
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and convicted felon who's Jared's father, will be ambassador to France. Yeah,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: a reminder that Charles Kushner is the guy who retaliated
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: against his own sister for cooperating with federal investigators looking
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: into his business practices by soliciting a prostitute to sleep
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: with her husband, filming it, and mailing her the tape.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Honestly, yes, terrible. But also, I don't know, something you
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: can kind of see Benjamin Franklin doing.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: Some straight up game.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Creative.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: If he had the technology. I think they didn't want
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: the brother-in-law to testify in a financial fraud case against him, too.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: So there's a lot of depth to this.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Trump pardoned him in 2020. And now he, if confirmed,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: is off to France. Not to be outdone in the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: special favors for family members category, Joe Biden made the
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: biggest nepotism news of the weekend when he announced a
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: pardon for his son Hunter, something he repeatedly said during
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the campaign he would not do. Earlier this year, Hunter
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: pled guilty to federal tax charges in Los Angeles and
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: was found guilty in a federal court in Delaware for
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: lying about his drug addiction on his application to buy
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a gun. The president released a long statement saying he'd
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: come to the conclusion that Hunter's prosecution had been political
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the whole time and that, quote, there has been an
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: effort to break Hunter, who has been five and a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they've tried
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to break me. and there's no reason to believe it
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: will stop here. Enough is enough. I hope Americans will
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: understand why a father and a president would come to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: this decision. All right, I got two Americans right here.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Do you guys understand? What do you think?
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: On a human level, obviously I get it. It's not
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: just a father pardoning his son. It's a dad who
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: lost a baby girl as an infant. Beau Biden passed
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: away recently. It's also probably true on the merits that
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Hunter got harsher treatment because of his last name.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: But.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: It's also the fact that President Biden lied and repeatedly
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: lied and said he wouldn't pardon Hunter or commute a sentence.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: He had his press secretary lie on his behalf. Biden's
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: supporters held up Joe Biden's refusal to pardon Hunter as
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: an example of his commitment to the rule of law
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: in contrast with Trump. But NBC News reported that when
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: they decided to put this out there and say that
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Biden wasn't going to pardon his son, actually, Biden and
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: his top aides knew that it was still an open question.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: And so.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Now everyone looks stupid. Everyone looks like they're full of shit.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: And Republicans are going to use this to argue that
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: it was politics as usual when Democrats warned about Trump's
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: corruption or threat to the rule of law or the
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: threat to democracy. And I think that's the piece of
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: this I am most frustrated with, which is Joe Biden
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: looking like a typical lying politician. And I think that
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: leads to a cynical feeling that all politicians are bad
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: and they're all the same and that this is just
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: par for the course. And so I'm not really worried
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: that this is going to make it easier for Trump
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: to be corrupt or to ignore the rule of law himself.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: He was already going to do it. He'd already named
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Matt Gaetz to lead the Department of Justice.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: He campaigned on it.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Already hinted at using the pardon power for January 6th.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: More than a hint.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Literally a campaign promise.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but also, I mean, Hunter's pardon is expansive here.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: It covers, goes back a decade. So the right wingers,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: I listened to Ben Shapiro this morning, like they're all
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: saying what this shows is that Joe Biden was in
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: on the take the whole time, that he was getting
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: money from Hunter's business dealings because he pardoned this decade's
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: worth of time. And now I think Joe Biden damaged
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: his own reputation in service of doing something understandable on
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: a human level for his son. And he also damaged
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: the Democratic Party's reputation. And the question I have is,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: is Hunter the only one getting saved here? What about
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: like Dr.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Fauci? What about Liz Cheney, who's getting told that she
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: should be tried for treason.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Can I make a point about that? Because this is
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the main thing that I've been thinking of, and I've
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: been thinking about it even before the Hunter pardon was announced.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: If Joe Biden had come out either over the weekend
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: or in several weeks, or maybe he'll do this before
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: he leaves and says like, look, I take it seriously
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump campaigned on prosecuting people he doesn't agree
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: with and throwing them in jail and Kash Patel and
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz and all these people show that he's going
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: to carry through. And so I am issuing a full
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: blanket pardon for all of these people who have been
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: targets and who have been on Trump's enemies list. Like,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: first of all, I think if he does do that,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: it makes the Hunter pardon seem more acceptable to me.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: And if he doesn't do that, then I think it's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: even more infuriating that he saved his son and not
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other people who were just government
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: servants doing their job, right?
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my... Because, look, we joked about it in
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: the past. And, look, whether or not Biden... actually in
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: his mind believed he was going to try to not
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: do this, or on some level he always knew he
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: would do it. I don't know. But I thought he
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: was going to do this. I felt like this was
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: something that was coming.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like a fucking fool. That's
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: what makes me mad about it.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: But, you know, there's sort of, to me, I was
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: just thinking about this specific pardon. And there have been like,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I don't know, the presidential pardon is power is expansive.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: And presidents have used it in different ways, some more
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: corrupt than others, some just outright corrupt, right? We've seen that.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: And sometimes presidents use it, like President Obama used it,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: like President Biden used it, right, for clemency and pardons
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: for people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, for people that
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: were kicked out of the military for being gay. Then
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: you have pardons that are kind of like, I don't know,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: they're not, they are in service of an abuse of power.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: You have Trump's pardons of a bunch of people that
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: were involved in crimes around him. You have George H.W.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Bush's pardons around Iran-Contra. Then you have these kind of
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: like corrupt hand of God pardons that are just like,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: I'm just doing a favor. I'm saying fuck it on
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: my way out the door.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: You ever read the Jimmy Carter ones?
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: What are the Jimmy?
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: They're incredible. Keep going. I'll tell you later.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: But like there's the Mark Rich pardon. There's the Roger
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Clinton pardon. And then I put this pardon in that list,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: just like it's a fuck it, last out the door pardon. Actually,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: the Charles Kushner one is like that.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Two, what's strange about this is, A, it comes now. B,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: there's no acknowledgement in the statement that part of the
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: rationale should be that Donald Trump is about to become president. Right.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: The statement is very kind of like, I don't know,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: like kind of.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Uh, uh, imperious sympathy inducing. And it's like, Oh, pity me.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Like he's been sober for a long time. There's a
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: lot of people on whom like the gears of justice
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: have like turned while they were trying desperately to maintain
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: their sobriety and no pardons for them.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Can I just point out too, on that point, when
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden decided to run in 2019, Hunter had already
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: gone through a lot of these challenges. And so the,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: the time you could make a decision, uh, that would
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: protect Hunter Biden from the kind of political glare and
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: from Republican attacks was then.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry to say that. I think that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden is a tragic figure. And I think that
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: there are many good parts of it. I mean, you
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: talked about this back in the whole post-debate, is he
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: going to drop out thing, the two Joe Bidens kind
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: of thing. But I do think he has shown incredible
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: decency at times. And I really feel for what he's
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: gone through and what his family has gone through. They've
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: gone through hell. Like none of us can imagine what
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: they've gone through. But like his ego again and again
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: has like gotten in the way. And when push comes
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: to shove, it's like, well, I'm going to do what's good.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I'm going to run for president again, even though it's
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: fucking crazy to do that. And like, I shouldn't do
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: it and blah, blah, blah. I'm just going to do it.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: you know, and now we're all here. And like this
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: to me is like in that category.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's also the timing. I do think the
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: timing matters. Like if this did come on Christmas Eve
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: or it did come, uh, in a couple of weeks
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: after he'd done some kind of, uh, uh, pardons or
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: something around being afraid of Donald Trump abusing his office,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: it might have been different.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Do you guys have a guess on the timing or
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: have you read anything?
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: I thought it was because of the sentencing. One of
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: the sentencings is December 12th for the gun charges. The
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: other is December 16th for tax evasion. So I figured
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: he just didn't want to go to jail. He just
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: wanted to sort it out now.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I know. I saw that too. But then I thought,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: this is what's confusing about this, the full and unconditional pardon,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: because you could have imagined a scenario where Hunter gets
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: sentenced and then Biden commutes the sentence or, you know,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: says that he's going to serve less or whatever else
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: and waits for it. But if you're going to do
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the full 10 years, full and unconditional pardon, we haven't
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: really seen in this country since, uh, Ford pardoned Nixon
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: that even I was reading that even Trump's pardons were
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: like pardoning all of his cronies and pals and family
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: members for like specific crimes. And this was everything. It
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: does make the argument that this was about Trump coming,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: returning to power and going after Hunter. like more salient,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: in which case you'd think, why don't a whole bunch
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of other people Trump's going to go after get the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: same thing?
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And by the way, it also, like Hunter pleaded
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: guilty and was convicted on crimes that are ancillary to
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: the kind of core conservative critique, the core sleaziness of
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Hunter Biden, which is the Burisma stuff and some of
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: the trading of influence, right? Which were not part of
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: these charges. And now that slate is wiped clean. So
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: of course, conservatives are going to say, see, Joe Biden
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: is just protecting himself. Yeah.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: I think they assume that it's just going to be lawfare.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I agree. I mean, it Joe Biden made
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: it worse for himself, for his own reputation. I don't,
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: I do not believe, I've never seen any evidence that
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: suggests that Joe Biden was getting money from Hunter Biden's
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: business dealings. Save some for the big guy email. None
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: of it makes any sense. None of it has been
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: squared with like financial records or other information that I
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: think would have made, would have proved this case.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: So that's why it's just like, so now he's done this. Okay.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: If in the next couple of weeks, Joe Biden uses
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: the pardon power again, it will always be in the
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: context of this Hunter Biden deal. pardon, the sort of
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: strange decision to put this out on a Sunday night.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: And we'll also, by the way, also comes at a
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: moment when we're about to have a debate about Kash
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Patel and about abuse of the Justice Department and abuse
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: of the FBI. Now, if anybody uses the Hunter Biden
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: pardon as a justification for approving these fucking bozos, they
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: always wanted that permission. And like, I don't care about that.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: They don't need it. They don't need it. So I'm
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: not like, They're like, oh, you've just given them ammunition.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: I don't care about that.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: I don't care.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I care about the internal credibility of the Democratic Party
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: and people who fought for Joe Biden to be president.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Can I ask you guys, because I it obviously bothers
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: all three of us. I've had like friends, family members
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: be like, who cares about this? Like if I was Biden,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I'd do it, too. And look, if like I would
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: pardon my sons, probably if I was in that position,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: it's still wrong. Like, I mean, I hope I wouldn't.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I hope I wouldn't be in that position. But like,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Do you think the political effect? I mean, Tommy,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: you raised the point that you're worried about the credibility
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. We just went through an election
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: where people decided, eh, don't really care much about norms
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: and institutions and democracy as much as I care about
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: inflation and other issues that affect their lives directly. Do
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: you think, conversely, that this would actually piss people off?
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, very much so. I think they care about people
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: being full of shit. They care about corruption. They care
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: about hypocrisy. My guess is that like if you pull
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: people right now, it would be the majority of people
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: would understand it on a human level. But that support
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: for this decision would kind of track Joe Biden's approval.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: But then you'd lose a bunch of Democrats.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: Because we, I think, believe in good government. And so
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I just do not think this is
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: going to wear well over time. I don't know that
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: this will be one of the top five things.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: That we talk about.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: But I do think it's a it's a tough way
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: to go out.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you're, it's hard, it's hard to, when you're
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: at the bottom there. Do you know his approval rating
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: right now? So Trump's approval rating when he left office
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: after inciting an insurrection and trying to overturn the election
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: was 38%. Joe Biden right now is sitting at 37%.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I guess for me, like, I do think that what
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: happens in the next couple of weeks matters for what
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: this pardon looks like in hindsight. If he doesn't, like,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: we have a short window for Joe Biden to use
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: presidential authority to do everything he can to protect the
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: country against abuses of power by Donald Trump and his cronies.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: And if he doesn't use the pardon power in the
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: next couple of weeks, and what we're left with is
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Hunter Biden doesn't get to be subjected to kind of
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: capricious right-wingers in the Department of Justice, but all these
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: other people do, as you said, Liz Cheney, Fauci, Mark Milley, journalists,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: whoever it may be, that will be, I think, quite
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: an indictment of this pardon. I am right now mostly
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: frustrated by the timing of it and the kind of,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know, the kind of the falseness of the statement,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: which doesn't acknowledge that this is like, I don't know
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: what Joe Biden would have done if Kamala Harris won.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Maybe he would have done this anyway, but I would
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: have liked some acknowledgement that this is because he's worried
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: about future abuses of power. And I would have wanted
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: this to be in the context of all these other
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: people that Donald Trump has threatened.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: You know what I was thinking? Should have done it
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: during the campaign. Boy, would it have given Kamala an
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: opportunity to finally break from Biden.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good call.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Kamala the cop could have come down hard on that one.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: I will walk this back.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: That's right. That's right. Turn a bug into a feature,
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: One more thing before we, like, the pardon power is crazy.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: By the way.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: And like, I think, first of all, I think.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Upheld recently by the Supreme Court.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Right. We have learned over the last eight years now,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: if something is a norm and it's important, maybe make
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: it a law. Right. Because the norms are. The norms
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: are gone. Trump doesn't go abide by norms. No one
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: seemed to care. He campaigned on not abiding by norms.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: No one seemed to care. No one seemed to care
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: that he promised to pardon people who assaulted police officers
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: on their way to overturn an election. That was fine.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: That didn't ruin Trump.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: This is what I mean by hinting. All right. He
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: he he never said he would like basically not. exactly
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: describe who would get the pardon. You say the worst
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: people wouldn't.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: One reporter at the National Association of Black Journalists said
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: even the ones who assaulted police officers are like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that's true.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: So, but anyway, I do think, Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: tweeted that he has had a constitutional amendment to reform
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: pardon power so that it bans pardons for the president's family, staff,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: crimes committed for their benefit. It's a constitutional amendment. We
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: can't barely keep the government open, so whatever. But It
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: did make me think I'm like, yeah, if he's like,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I've also had no Republican co-sponsors in eight years on
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: this proposal. He's like, if anyone wants to join. But
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I do think like I think the pardon power is
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: is like so ripe for abuse. And yeah, I'd be
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: for a constitutional amendment that would maybe rein it in
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: a bit.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: If you go back and look, I mean, it's not
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: just right.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: It's been abused.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: It's so often abused.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: If you go back in.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: So I was just reading about pardons and just for
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: the fun of it and just reading what Nixon was
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: saying about why he was pardoning Jimmy Hoffa. And by
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: the way, it sort of, you know, probably ultimately was
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: not to Jimmy Hoffa's benefit because where'd he go? But,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like, you know, careful what you wish for.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: But he's just basically saying, like, we got to do
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: this because it's basically helping us in the 72 election.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Wait, Tommy, before we move on, can you give us
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the Jimmy Carter ones? Well, I hope these are right
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: because I just got them off of Twitter.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: But G. Gordon Liddy, Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul and Mary,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: who did something I don't know the details of with
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: a 14-year-old. The Vietnam War draft resistors, all of them blanket.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Jefferson Davis. Of the Confederacy.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Jefferson Davis.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't have gotten my part.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: So a wild set there.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, yeah, big picture.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: I just, it's, look, we had this fight over norms, institutions,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: trust in government. We lost. But I do think this
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: erodes people's faith in the justice system. It erodes people's
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: faith in the, my belief that the prosecutions of Donald
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Trump were fair. Yeah. Joe Biden has been championing the
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: rules-based international order and norms and institutions. And then he
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: jettisons them. when his son needs a pardon, or when...
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Our party.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: That's a party. It's going to be quite a party
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: for him tonight.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Or when Bibi Netanyahu is the one getting prosecuted for
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: war crimes and not Vladimir Putin, right? I mean, it's
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: just like, it's very situational. Yeah.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah. He could have come out and pardoned
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Trump and Hunter at the same time on political prosecutions.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: That would have been actually hilarious.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: You could have, because.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: It's so mad. I'm so mad.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: This gets to your problem, Tommy, that like, if... you're
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: going to argue that the Justice Department, by the way,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Biden's Justice Department, unfairly targeted Hunter Biden and that Hunter
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Biden would never have been targeted were he not the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: president's son, then you can look at Alvin Bragg's case.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And think that like, yes, what Trump did was illegal
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: and it's good that he got convicted because he broke
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the law. But would someone like Trump have gotten targeted
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: if he was not President Trump?
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I'm not arguing it's you.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying like, it's why like you don't have to,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: You don't have to think like it has a political
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: effect or it gives the Republicans ammunition or anything else
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: to just think like sometimes things are just wrong. If
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: we believe in if we believe in laws and everything
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: else is just wrong.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: This is why this is why, again, like, as I said,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: like weeks ago, I think I think Joe Biden gets one.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Pardon your son. Fuck it. It's your fucking pardon. you've
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: went over you know you're you're everybody will understand but
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: the statement is what's.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Fucking killing me and just to knowingly lie about it
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: yeah and to string a bunch of people along and.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Make your staff lie about it like but like his
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: press secretary about it all.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: The time so just say like i i originally had
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: not planned to do this donald trump winning has made
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: me nervous that that they will try to use my
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: son to get at me and score political points it's
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: a dangerous time i'm going to pardon my son hunter
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: i'm also issuing pardons For anyone that Donald Trump or
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: those who he's planning to put in a position of
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: authority have been threatened with political prosecutions, we do not
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: do political prosecutions.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: In this country. With the major exception of Pod Save America. Yeah.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: All right. God, man.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: No one's going to save us. Let me actually say,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: I want to revise my opinion, which is to say
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I would like Joe Biden to issue some pardons in advance,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: but not so many that they go down the list
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: far enough to get to us. Leave some big targets
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: on there. Leave some big fish above us.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Speaking of people that I have a strange new admiration
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and respect for, let's talk about Kash Patel, the next
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: FBI director.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Handsome guy. I've always loved Kash Patel. Handsome guy.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: No, absolutely. Down with the deep state. This has long
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: been rumored that Kash Patel was going to get this.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Now it's apparently coming true, even though Chris Wray nominally
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: has three years left in his 10-year term. If you
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: haven't made it past the headlines, Patel is a former
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: prosecutor who became a staffer on the House Intel Committee
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: under Devin Nunes. Devin Nunes, that's talking about someone from
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: season one, where he became a critic of the Russia
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: investigation and became a Trump world rising star. Patel worked
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: at various jobs in the White House and the executive
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: branch and hung around with Trump after he left office.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: You may remember him getting wrapped up in the classified
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: documents investigation and But Patel's biggest claim to fame is
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: for being the purest and most outspoken warrior against the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: so-called deep state and its allies in the woke media.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Here he is in conversation with Steve Bannon a year ago.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: The deep state, the administrative state, the fourth branch of
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: government never mentioned in the Constitution. is going to be
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: taken apart brick by brick.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: And the people that did these evil deeds will be held.
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: Accountable and prosecuted, criminal prosecutions. Do you believe that you
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: can deliver the goods on this in a pretty short
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: order the first couple of months so we can get
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: rolling on prosecutions?
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: We will go out and find the conspirators, not just
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: come after the people in the media. who lied about
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: going to come after you. Whether it's criminally or civilly,
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: we'll figure that out. But yeah, we're putting you all
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: on notice. And Steve, this is why they hate us.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: This is why we're tyrannical. This is why we're dictators.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Well, got that part right. Oh, boy.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: This is a very season one story. You dig an
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: inch into this and you're getting back to Nellie Orr
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: and Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: The lovers.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: It's tough.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: It's terrible.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: So there was some chatter in the cricket slack about
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: whether Kash Patel is the new worst nominee now that
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz withdrew. What do you guys think? How worried
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: should we be about Kash Patel?
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I think very worried. I think this is now the
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: worst one. I think if Matt Gaetz were still in contention,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: you might have a debate, but it's now intellectual exercise.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: So Patel gets to be the worst one. There was
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: a great profile on The Atlantic of Kash Patel that
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: people should read. Uh, but, uh, there was one line
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: that jumped out at me from a, uh, an advisor
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: to Trump who said that cash is the one you
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: say to, Hey, I'm not telling you to go break
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: into the DNC, but dot, dot, dot. And that to
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: me is what makes this so, uh, uh, nerve wracking.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: You look at like, he doesn't seem to have a
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: very strong ideology, but But then.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: You, nothing is more- And he was a DOJ under Obama.
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: And nothing is more, I think, disconcerting than anyone who
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: has become a rising star in Trump world. And why
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: is he a rising Trump in Trump world? Because he
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: is a lackey. He will say anything. You mentioned the
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: classified documents investigation. When he was interviewed by Breitbart and
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: he said, oh, actually, Trump declassified all that stuff. Why
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: is there no record of it? I don't know. He
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: just said it to me, though. He said it. He
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: declassified all that stuff with me. He is the guy-
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: that says what Trump needs him to say, who does
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: what Trump needs him to do, which is why he
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: wants him to be in charge of the FBI and
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: what makes him so dangerous.
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, me and Rhodes have been on the
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: on the Cash Patel watch for a very long time.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: This guy is not remotely qualified to lead the FBI.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: He's never worked for the FBI. He barely worked in
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: law enforcement. He's a limited experience. He was a public defender,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: which is a great job. Not one that qualifies you
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: to lead the FBI. He's a congressional aide. And then
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: he kind of bounced around the Trump administration. He says
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: he was chief of staff of the Pentagon, but he
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: was the chief of staff there for two months to
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: the acting secretary of defense. So his boss during the
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: Trump administration, a guy named Charles Cooperman said, quote, he's
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: absolutely unqualified for this job. He's untrustworthy. It's an absolute
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: disgrace to American citizens to even consider an individual of
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: this nature.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: A former Trump official, you say?
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: His boss.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: The Trump administration.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'd love to hear him at the confirmation hearing.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Me too. I hope they call him. So a lot
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: of the summary of him is correct, which is, He
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: tells Trump what he wants to hear. He feeds his
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: paranoia about the deep state. There's no evidence that this
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: guy's a reformer who has big ideas for how the
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: FBI could be better. What there is a lot of
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: evidence of is that Kash Patel is someone who keeps
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: an enemies list. In fact, he published it in his book.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: It includes people like Bill Barr and John Bolton, who
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: worked for Trump, to John Brennan and Loretta Lynch, who
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: were Obama aides, to Hillary Clinton. Tim Miller tweeted out
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: this full list. It includes Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: assistant to Mark Meadows. This is apparently like the leading
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: lights of the deep state, just like random people who
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: are mean to Donald Trump.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Or that he just didn't like personally and had bad
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: personal interactions.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Right, or was mean to Cash personally. But one of
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: the most sort of disturbing allegations about Cash Patel is
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: from his time working at the Pentagon. Long story short,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Navy SEALs were preparing a rescue operation in Western Africa
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: and Nigeria. They needed to get permission from the Nigerian
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: government to fly a U.S. military plane into their airspace.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: According to Mark Esper, the Secretary of Defense, Cash Patel
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: just told everybody that they'd gotten this permission. He said
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: he'd gotten the word from Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: and no one realized that he had just made it up.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: They were about to land, about to go into Nigerian
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: airspace and figured out, wait, Cash Patel just made up
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: that we had permission. So these guys circled and circled
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: and circled. They almost had to call off a rescue operation.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: And Uh, luckily they got permission. They landed, they rescued
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: this guy and everything was okay. But the worst case
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: scenario is you've got a plane full of Navy SEALs
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: getting shot at by the Nigerian military.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Or the hostage gets shot at because they had to
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: abandon the mission.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: Because so it, you know, you could have had a
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: bunch of people killed. So it's a very, it's a
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: bizarre selection. It's someone who's just a Trump ass kisser, acolyte, um, and, uh,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: not ready for this.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: But could I interest you in some cash wine? He
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: sells it for $ 233 and 99 cents for six bottles.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: He's, he's a real, it's good stuff. I didn't understand
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: until I got into the Atlantic piece. What a grifter
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: he is. I mean, I'm not surprised by that, but
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: he really goes after it a lot.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: There's some, so when you dig into this guy, there's
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: all the ways in which he is just sort of
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: a Trump crony who will abuse his power. But the
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: story Tommy is telling is really just strange because even Republicans, uh,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: that were like kind of baffled that like otherwise defenders
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: of Trump are like, why would you do this? Like, why? Like,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: it's not like.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: There wasn't an ideological partisan.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Well, the reason that some people speculate that he just
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: wanted it to happen, wanted the operation to happen because
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: it was almost the election.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: Right. And they wanted a win. Right.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: So that he was willing to not willing to lie,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: but like in such a kind of dangerous and unhinged way.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: In that, in that Atlantic piece, there is a anecdote
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: about basically this sort of shitty judge in Texas, sort
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: of upbraiding him for not wearing a tie. It's like
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: a very specific story, but he's so agitated by it.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: He keeps coming back to his bosses over and over again,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: looking for someone to kind of take his side. And
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: he's like, what do you want us to do, man? Like,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: we're not going to make a record. Like, like there's
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: just this sort of like.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: This is someone strange, someone you want in charge of, uh,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the surveillance state and law enforcement.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: He's also an author. And I just want this kids
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: book kids book. This is the description of the book.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Hillary Quinton and her shifty night. Adam Schiff have spread
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: lies that King Donald had cheated to become king. They
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: claimed he was working with the Russianians. But how could
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: that be joint cash to distinguish discoverer as he uncovers
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: the plot against the king and who was really behind
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: all the lies.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Weirdest thing about that is he just didn't. Why didn't
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: he just use Russians?
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Because it's a magical world filled with Russianians.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: You've got to have a dual meaning for the parents
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: and the kids.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: And why would you make it Hillary Quinton?
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I do. What's chilling, back to what's scary and not
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: what's absurd, the line that you mentioned, Lovett, from the
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Trump advisor, that he's the guy that says, you know,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Trump says, hey, I'm not telling you to go break
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: into the DNC. He's the kind of person that would
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: not necessarily just take orders from Trump to do things
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: that are horrible and illegal, but just do them thinking
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: that it would impress Trump. That's it, right? And also
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: not seemingly be that competent about doing it as the
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Africa story suggests.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: And also a guy who would run an organization that
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: has all the authorities it needs to surveil, otherwise harass,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: American citizens.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's going to be a trend today, too. These
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: are not people who have engendered esteem from even right-wingers
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: around them, which hopefully will damn their nominations, but would also,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: I think, ultimately damn them if they were to attain
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: these jobs.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Chris Hayes said on his show once that Kash Patel
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: at the FBI is what would happen if you crossed J.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Edgar Hoover with Alex Jones. Okay. I like that. Yeah.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: That's chilling.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's right. One thing's for sure. Pete Hegseth is
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: trying to give Kash Patel a run for his money.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Trump's nominee to oversee the Defense Department's nearly 3 million
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: employees and $ 840 billion budget is the subject of a
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: new Jane Mayer investigation over at The New Yorker about
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Hegseth's tenure at two veterans organizations that he ran. He
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: apparently was forced out of Concerned Veterans for America for
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: being drunk in the office, and even drunker at official events,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: preying on female staffers, and allegedly chanting, kill all Muslims
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: at a bar while on work travel. Before that, he
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: ran a group called Vets for Freedom, where he reportedly
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: racked up huge debt and once again instilled a culture
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: permissive of sexual misconduct. Apparently, he's such a shitbag that
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the New York Times got a hold of an email
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: from his own mother, In 2018, where she took the
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: side of his estranged wife during a legal battle, she
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: wrote to her son, You are an abuser of women.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: That is the ugly truth and I have no respect
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: uses women for his own power and ego. You are
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: that man and have been for years and as your mother.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: It pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: it is the sad, sad truth.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Tough.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: The Times reporter says that Hegseth told her that she
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: immediately sent her son a follow-up email apologizing and taking
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: it back. It's a tough one to take back. She
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: said the things she wrote are not true and have
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: never been true. We've all gone through that with our moms.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: You meant the first one. You know what I mean?
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: The walk back is what it is. You probably felt
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: bad about the first one, but you meant the first one.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It was not true what I wrote.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: In excruciating detail.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: So the Times posted the email in full and then
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: an article about the email. And the article says that
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: basically she regretted it, wrote another email after, which I
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: did not see. When I read the email first, all
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: I had seen, I was like, holy fucking shit. Like
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: my mom and I got in a little argument because
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: my fridge broke and the question was whether or not
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: we could cook the turkey. You know, and it got heated.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: But not like this. I didn't see her reaction, Fran's
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: reaction in the New York Times.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: How did the fridge prevent the cooking of the turkey?
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: The fridge broke. And so the turkey had been at
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: about 50 degrees overnight.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: Too warm.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: And it had, well, we didn't know when it became
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: 50 degrees. I was a bit stubborn.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Was this after it had been spatchcocked?
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: It had, and I had to go run out and
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: spatchcock a second fucking turkey. I spatchcocked two turkeys.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, lucky you.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What a weekend.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah. RFK over there.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Anyway, Pete Hegseth. I don't know, does this change what
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: we know about Hegseth in any meaningful ways? Certainly on
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the sexual abuser misconduct category, I think it just strengthens
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the case there. But the mismanagement of an organization, or
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: two organizations, it feels like that's notable.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: The U.S.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Military has a huge problem with sexual assault, both preventing
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: it and holding those accountable. Part of that problem was
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: that the decisions being made about who to prosecute, whether
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: or not to prosecute these guys, was being made within
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: the chain of command and not by independent prosecutors, Pete
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: Hexeth would be at the top of that chain of command, right?
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: So I think that this is actually a uniquely serious
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: problem in the U.S. military if he were to be
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: the leader of it. Joni Ernst, Republican senator from Iowa,
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: did a lot of work trying to reform the system.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: I would love to hear what she thinks about Pete
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Hexeth leading this organization.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Who, by the way, was also rumored to be on
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the short list for defense secretary.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: And then was spotted last week at Mar-a-Lago with Trump.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: So maybe he's already having second thoughts.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: Let's say that other allegation, let's say it's not true. Okay.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: What is not disputed is that Pete Hexeth is a
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: serial adulterer, which in the U.S. military can get you
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: a year in prison or dishonorable discharge.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: I'm not like, I'm not here to scold people for
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: personal failings or whatever, but I'm just saying, if you
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: go by the UCMJ, These are big deals. Also true
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: for public intoxication and drunkenness. Clearly, reading all these articles,
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: Pete Hegseth has a pretty serious drinking problem, or at
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: least did pretty recently. And so the last part that
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: you were getting at, John, was the New Yorker story
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: talks about his mismanagement of an organization that has between
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: five and 10 people and a five and $ 10 million budget.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: So now we're going to take this dude who can't
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: run that organization, put him in charge of the Department
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: of Defense, which employs nearly 3 million people, and has
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: a yearly budget of over $ 800 billion.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: And also, again, similar to the people that have been
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: behind the scenes saying they're worried about Kash Patel. Concerned
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Veterans for America is not like the VFW.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: They got pretty concerned.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: These are some concerned, concerned veterans. But this is an
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Americans for Prosperity group. This is a Koch Brothers group.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: These are conservatives inside of this organization. And one person said,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: I've seen him dragged away not a few times, but
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: When those of us who worked at CVA heard he
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: was being considered for SecDef, it wasn't no, it was
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: hell no. Like the people that have worked with him
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: are like, are you out of your fucking minds?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: You guys remember when Trump's former defense secretary, Jim Mattis,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: said that he used to sleep in his clothes because
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: he was so worried that in the middle of the
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: night he'd get a call that Trump might start a
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: nuclear war with North Korea?
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, Pete Hegseth, just be drunk.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: The good news is he wouldn't wake up to get
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: the call. That's what I'm saying. So we wouldn't have
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: to worry about the work all morning. Mr. President, could
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: you just give me till morning, please?
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: We got Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un, autocrats around the world,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, and Pete Hegseth just hammered, just walking around
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: But again, I mean, you wouldn't be able to get
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: a security clearance or pass a background check with this
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: rap sheet. And now this guy is going to be
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: in the nuclear chain of command. Seems bad.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: There was another passage from the Jane Mayer piece that
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: I just thought was striking. It included the phrase, close
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: down the bar at the Sheraton Suites Hotel. I thought
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: that was a bad side. This is all around the
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: kill all Muslims part is what is all taking place
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: during this section. The staffer letter cited a second incident
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: in which Hegsett passed out in the back of a
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: party bus, then urinated in front of a hotel where
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: CVA's team was staying. I'll tell you this because it's
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: the truth. And I sincerely care about the mission of CVA. Now,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: just to give you a sense of like, these are conservatives.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: When that person, when Jane Mayer reached out for that person,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: that person said, if you print that, I will deny
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: I wrote it.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: I love this.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: When he was reminded by Jane Mayer that it had
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: been sent from the same personal email account that he
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: still used, he said, I don't care. I'll just say
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: it never happened. Like these are.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Stories from- Sounds like he might've peed at a Sheridan
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: a few times too.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Listen, we've all peed outside of Sheridan Suites. All right, listen.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Party bus, you know.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: This guy's a top-notch liar though. He'd be like, listen,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: on the record, If you print my thing, I'm going
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: to say it's a lie.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: That's just an incredible strategy.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: So good.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: So good.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: And you know what? His name wasn't printed. So win
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: for that guy.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break. One thing before
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: we do that. On the latest episode of our subscriber
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: exclusive show, Inside 2024, Alyssa Mastromonaco and former White House
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Social Secretary, Deesha Dyer, talk about White House holiday traditions.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: It's a fun look inside how the White House entertains
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: at holiday time and what happens when people puke eggnog
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: on priceless works of art.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Did that happen?
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Trying to think who did that. Didn't that happen at
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: our Cricket Hall?
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: And it worked.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: It was on Sarah Wick, though. That's true.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: To get access to this series and more, sign up
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• 37:00
  Speaker 1: now from this feed on Apple Podcasts. All right, so
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: we now have several all-time most awful nominees lined up
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: to run some of the most powerful agencies in government.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: We've got Hegseth at Defense, Patel at the FBI, Tulsi
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Gabbard in charge of the intelligence agencies, and don't forget
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. in charge of public health. Defeating any of
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: these nominations would require four Republican senators to oppose them.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: So far, a few Republicans have made mildly critical or
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: at least not fully supportive comments about Hegseth, Gabbard, and
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr., No real vocal opposition to Patel just yet.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Democrats are obviously playing defense against a lot of horrible nominees.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: How do you guys think they should be thinking about
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: the strategy here? Like, should Democrats be fighting back against
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: every unqualified, dangerous nominee? Do we need to pick and choose?
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: There's the need to be an overall strategy to deal
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: with all of them. What do you think?
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, we've already picked and choose because
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Linda McMahon is also on deck to be secretary of education.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: These are just the four worst ones. They'll also run
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: through four different committees if we still live in a
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: world where there are cabinet confirmation hearings. But they'd be
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: through judiciary, intelligence, armed services and the help committee. Right.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: Those are four groups of senators who all have the
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: ability to decide how they want to mount this argument
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: with their fellow senators. So to me, it's just like
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: we're sort of still waiting for. what a group of
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Republicans who have their own specific issues and concerns, where
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: they're going to have backbone, where they're going to be
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: trying to back channel to have these nominations withdrawn so
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: they don't have to go up against Trump, where they're
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: going to be willing to draw the line. We just
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: have no idea. And we were talking about this before time,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: but Democrats aren't even really shotgun in this fight. We're
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: just riding along. And so it's just like, none of
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: these people should be in positions of authority, and some
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: might get through. We don't know, but we should fight
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: as if they can all be defeated. I don't know
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: what else we would do.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: It's a question of emphasis, right? I mean, because we
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: don't have the power to block anybody. All we can
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: do is get information into the public domain and make
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: it politically damaging for Trump or the Republicans who vote
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: for these nominees. And so, I mean, I guess Republicans
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: could try to sort of collapse the timeframe of the hearings,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: do them all at once, do certain things that make
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: it harder to tell a story about all of these
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: nominees or anyone individually. But I do think It's more about...
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: the framing because we just can't be like the norms
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: and institutions party and the ones who are opposed to change.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Except on the pardon.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Whereas Trump's people are all like radical disruptors coming in
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: to change the government that everyone just voted against because
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: they hate it, right? I mean, that's where I'm concern
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: is just I worry about the Democrats in the U.S.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: Senate coming at like a bunch of traditionalists coming at
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: these arguments in the most traditional kind of institution defending
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: ways and not being remotely compelling.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's these are a bunch of grifting kooks
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: who will put our health and lives in danger and
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: our security.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Right. It's going to be about how it would affect people.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Or if Cash Mattel is spending all his time going
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: after Trump's enemies who is focused on combating ISIS or
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: foreign espionage or human trafficking or or all those fucking
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: LA rich kids that said they were on the rowing
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: team that got into great schools. That's what we need
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: the FBI doing.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Justice should be served.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Was it called Varsity Blues? That's the name of the operation.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: It was Varsity Blues. Also a fantastic film that probably
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: doesn't hold up if we saw it again from when
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: we saw it as kids.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: It did for a while. Now it's back.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Truck won. It's now good again. You didn't do the
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: whipped cream bikini?
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, but it's, it's gotta be, it's gotta be
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: about how this would affect people. So that's just, that
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: to me is always the, the number one, like qual, and,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: and to the extent that people aren't qualified, it's that
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: their lack of qualifications is not something that's going to
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: help them like reform an agency to improve people's lives,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: but it's actually going to hurt you by having them there.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: I guess that's right. That's the broader argument we need
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: to be making, I suppose, to the country. Whether these
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: people get confirmed or not, what is the story we're
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: starting to tell about the Trump era? What is the
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: argument that's going to persuade four Republicans on each of
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: these people? I think that's separate. No, but it is.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: But that's important too, right? Because these are hearings for
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: the country, but they are also hearings for Murkowski, for Collins,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: for Curtis, the guy that replaced Mitt Romney, that seems
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: to have suddenly discovered.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Curtis, I don't even remember his name. Good for you.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Romney, has some Romney vibes to him. Cassidy, these kinds
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: of people.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what I do think making national security arguments
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: is one way to potentially do that. Cause you do
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: have some, you do have a couple of Republican senators
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: who are a little more old school Republican.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: Genuinely concerned about these institutions too. And like defending our country. Um,
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: also I think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could have a
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: unique set of problems in that he is pro-choice and
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: there's a bunch of pro-life Republicans who have expressed concern
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: about the pick. I wonder if, you know, that could
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: take them down. We'll see.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Democrats deciding whether to fight back, there have
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: been a couple of notable instances lately of Democrats expressing
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: modest support for some of Trump's nominees and initiatives. Colorado
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Governor Jared Polis tweeted a few weeks ago that he was, quote,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: excited by RFK Jr. 's appointment because of his stance
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: against big pharma and corporate agriculture, even though he said
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: he doesn't personally agree with his stance on vaccines. And
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: on Sunday, Bernie Sanders tweeted, quote, Elon Musk is right
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: when it comes to criticizing Pentagon spending and waste. prompting
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: favorable replies from Trump allies like Elon and Matt Gaetz
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: and less favorable replies from several angry liberals on Twitter.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Favorite kind. What do you guys think about how and
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: whether Democrats should collaborate with the Trump administration on initiatives
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: where they agree?
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Yo, RFK, let's collab.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Let's hook up.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: I think Jared Polo screwed up by just sounding too credulous.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: And I just, yes, healthier food sounds great. Do we
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: think that RFK is going to succeed at that? when
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: he's up against the broader Project 2025 deregulatory agenda where
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: they're gutting environmental protections? I don't think so. I also
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: think RFK Jr. cares mostly about keeping vaccines out of
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: our arms. So I think that's going to be the
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: issue there. I think the criticism of Bernie, in my opinion,
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: is very stupid. I think that Democrats have long wanted
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: to cut the Pentagon budget, as they should. I think
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: we all should want to cut waste and fraud and abuse,
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: and we should be in support of the goal and
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: then hold their feet to the fire based on whether
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: they're successful or not.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Can I just say, Bernie was doing something there that
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: is substantively and politically smart and good.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, per usual.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Right? I actually think the Democrats on this Doge thing
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: should beat Trump and Elon and all the rest of
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: them to the punch on a reform agenda, and we
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: should put forward a list of waste, fraud, and abuse
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: in government. It should include corporate subsidies, corporate tax breaks,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: no-bid contracts, any other kind of waste that we can
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: find in government, and then, you know, present it to
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: all them, see if they do it. And if they
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: don't do it, oh, I thought you were a reformer.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Why aren't you reforming the system? And then criticize Elon
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: and Trump's moves based on who they'd hurt and who
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: they'd rip off. Elon Musk said that we should delete
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has saved consumers lives.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Tens of millions of dollars over the last decade?
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: They're very mad at the CFPB because Marc Andreessen, a
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: crypto billionaire who's invested much, much more in crypto, has
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: decided it's bad because I think some of the people
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: he worked with were, quote unquote, debanked. I'm not sure
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: if that's even true because, I don't know, they were
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: selling fraudulent or risky assets. I'm not sure what's going
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: on there.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they've always hated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: reason it's called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and not
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: the Consumer Financial Protection Agency is because Republicans prevented it
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: from becoming an agency. It was originally supposed to be
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: led by Elizabeth Warren, whose idea it was, but Republicans
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: prevented her from leading the agency. She then ran for
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: the Senate, so jokes on them because she stuck around.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: But they've always hated it. They've always lied about what
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: it does. And what it does is protect consumers at
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: the expense of big banks, credit card companies, airlines.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: Etc.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: And so they've always hated it. But yes, we cannot
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: defend things just because Elon Musk or any of these
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: people say that they're bad. We just can't. That just
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: can't be what our politics are. Politics are not going
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: to be defined. We have to have our own politics.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: And sometimes the fucking Doge people are going to be right. Now,
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: the polis thing bothers me because this idea that you
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: should look past what RFK Jr. says on vaccines because
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: you have a problem with high fructose corn syrup or whatever,
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: is to, I think, misunderstand the job. And Polos walked
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: it back a bit. But even in his statement, he's like,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: I hope RFK Jr. doesn't withdraw vaccines. And it's like, well,
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: if you're already at the place where you're hoping he
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: doesn't do something that would be deadly and devastating, you've
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: given away the game.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: There's an easy edit to Polos' statement that would have
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: been fine if he said, I don't like vaccine mandates.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: But RFK Jr. 's views on vaccines are dangerous. And
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: I would not have picked him if he is confirmed.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I hope he'll follow through on his commitment to take
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: on big pharma and corporate agriculture, right? Like that would
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: have been, that would not have ruffled a bunch of feathers.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Like he was bad pick. He shouldn't have picked, start
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: with that bad pick. I don't like him. Vaccine views
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: are crazy. He does have some views on other things that,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: you know, if we can't stop him, then great. Right.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Well, he, and also back in, back in August, Polos
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: had said that, RFK Jr. 's views on vaccines are
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: dangerous and he would be dangerous if he was in
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: charge of health and human services. So it was just strange.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: I think he's dealing with some libertarian state politics and
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: was opposed to vaccine mandates at some point. So anyway,
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: but I think the challenge for the Doge folks is
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: just that the majority of federal spending is mandatory. It's
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: Social Security, it's Medicare, it's Medicaid. We pay about a
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: trillion dollars worth of interest on our own debt. then
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: there's a flashback to 2011.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: Then there's 850 billion in defense spending. So finding huge cuts,
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: like Elon Musk says, I think he wanted to cut.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: 2 trillion a year.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: That's going to be incredibly difficult. Now, good luck trying.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: But once you, when you're talking about those levels of cuts,
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: you're going to start really, really hurting people in service
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: of extending the Trump tax cuts for the richest people
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: in the country. And that's the story we have to tell.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: This is also like a very old game that Republicans
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: have played for a long time, which is you find
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: some ridiculous-sounding spending in the federal government, of which there
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: is a lot, and a line item somewhere that sounds
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: fucking nuts, or you point to employees who seem like
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: they shouldn't be there. Elon Musk is, like, putting federal
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: employees on blast, tweeting about them to try to fire them. But,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: you know, even if you eliminated every federal employee in
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: the entire government, that's, like, a tiny percentage of the
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: overall budget. It's not spent on staffers. It's spent on
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: payments to people.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: It's a tiny... A portion of discretionary spending, yes.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: There was the Republican study group, which is 170 members
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: of the House and all the Republican leadership. They put
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: out a budget earlier this year and it called for
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: raising the Social Security retirement age, which is just a
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: giant cut to Social Security because the age is really
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: just a means of deciding how much money you get.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: There was a story just the other day that if
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: they're going to want to pay for all of these
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Trump tax cuts, what are they going to do to
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: pay for it? Well, they want to means test food stamps.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden, who we're obviously in a bad mood with
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: this week, he personally increased this weekend for many months.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: But like he didn't get a lot of credit for this,
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: didn't get a lot of attention. But he basically there
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: was a bipartisan bill that gave the president the authority
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: to increase food stamps. And so he issued the largest
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: increase in food stamps that any president has ever done permanently.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: And he increased them by thirty six dollars per month
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: amounts of about four hundred dollars a year. Not a
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: lot of money. Republicans have already started talking about that
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: in order to pay for the extension of the Trump
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: tax cuts, they want to revoke the president's authority to
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: increase food stamps by a few hundred dollars so that
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: they can cut a person making $ 5 million a year,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: cut their taxes by 200 grand, right? That's what they
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: want to do. And you'll have Vivek, you'll have Elon
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: running around the country talking about expensive office chairs and
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: silly sounding science projects, but that's where the real cuts
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: are going to be. They're going to start by going
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: after food stamps and Medicaid because they start by going
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: after poor people in the working poor and slowly work
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: their way up to social security.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: So John McCain's whole shtick, the bridge to nowhere, pork
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: barrel spending. This isn't new.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then that guy died in a plane crash.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: Follow the money. Not John McCain.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: No, I know. I know. Ted Stevens. Ted Stevens.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: They just call him a doge because it's a crypto joke.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: Very funny.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: We're back at Simpson Bowles now. All right. Before we go,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: remember Cheryl Hines? Yes. The first lady of HHS.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: So over the weekend, the wife of RFK Jr. posted
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: this Instagram reel. Let's take a look.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: You can't take a shower.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: I'm doing a video.
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: No, no.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: No, I'm doing.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: You've got to give me a second.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: I'm doing a video for Heinz & Young.
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: Honey, it's 60% off.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: For those of you who are just listening, go check
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: this out on the YouTube version. This is a video
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: of Cheryl Heinz in her bathroom. She's holding up some
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: of the lifestyle products she sells while Bobby showers behind her.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Fully naked, but thank God, mostly obstructed by Heinz's head.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Among the wares, she's selling a $ 20 clean, eco-conscious soy
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: wax maha candle.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: What is just... So she's getting in on the Make
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: America Healthy Again rift. Horny again. Well, I'm horny. I'm
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: horny watching that video, of course.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: She's getting her beak wet.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: That's it. It's like, wow, Cheryl Hines, all those, oh, wow,
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: I wonder what Cheryl Hines thinks about all this. Turns
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: out she's in. Everybody loves a winner.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: It's like the Melania stuff.
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: Oh, maybe.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I literally know verbatim this.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: Every time there is a horrible married guy in public life,
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: there's this weird coping conversation.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, maybe.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe Melania secretly hates it. Maybe it's a cry for help.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Maybe she was replaced with a body double. Like, no,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: she's a horrible person.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: She married to Donald Trump.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: America's, like, scammy capitalist id is just unleashed in the
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: second Trump administration here. It's like, they're selling this. Kash
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Patel's selling his wine. They're all making money. They're all
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: getting rich.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Well, the real piece of it— Look, Jared Kushner already
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: got his $ 2 billion kickback from the Saudis once he
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: left government after the first Trump term. Now we've got Tiffany's,
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: Trump's father-in-law being the like kind of envoy for Middle
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: Eastern affairs. There was a report in the Wall Street
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Journal that one of the ways that business like CEO
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: types are trying to figure out how to suck up
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: to Trump. One of the things they're doing is buying
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: the Trump cryptocurrency to try to like grease their way in.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: The avenues into this administration for corruption this time are
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: so unbelievable.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: We haven't even talked about one of the biggest, which
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: is tariffs, right? Because all these companies can apply to
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: get exceptions on the tariffs, which they did in the
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: first Trump administration. And how are they going to do that? Gee,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I wonder. What are they going.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: To do for that? Susie Wiles, chief of staff.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: And one of the arguments that was made during the
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: immunity debate in which Supreme Court decided that the presidents
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: have this incredible immunity was, How can you punish corruption
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: if what bribery is, is bribing someone to use their
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: official powers? If you can't be held accountable for your
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: use of official powers, how do you prove bribery?
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: I think that will become- This is why maybe we
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: can get our pardon from Joe Biden if we just-
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Come on.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Don't think he likes us.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: We're going to cut a check. That's what I'm saying.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever it takes. It's not the most important part
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: of that video, but just like, I really hate the- Ugh,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: RFK Jr., why are you showering behind me? You're in
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: full hair and makeup.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: When did he was, he had to get, did he
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: get into, did you, how did, how did he get
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: into the fucking shower? We can see the full shower
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: in the shower door. His whole body's wet too. His
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: whole body's wet.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: He's been in there.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: You're the problem. You started shooting the video after he
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: started fucking showering. What are you talking about?
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: Thank God there's not another season of Curb because I
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: don't know, like.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: Done. But I will watch back episodes.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: Because I have a locked in sort of, okay, it's okay.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: It's okay. Yeah, that's fine. We're not going to get
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: into a debate about that.
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: Do you think Kash Patel was selling a supplement that
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: promised to detoxify the COVID.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Vaccine in your body? Yeah, it was like de-vax and
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: relax or something and mRNA and you'll be better in
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: no time. It's so bad. You take a pill and
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: it'll suck the COVID vaccine right out of you.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know. How much worse could it be than
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: all the half the Charlotte Tilbury shit I put on
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: my face and all of its promises?
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: What's that? Nothing.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: The one thing, when you listen to enough.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: Right-wing media, you realize how symbiotic their content and their
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: products are. Like, it's a lot of stuff about how
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: the economy is about to collapse. Therefore, you should flip
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: your IRA and put it all in gold. It's absolutely
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: horrible advice constantly all the time.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: It's apocalyptic.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a lot more successful than our Jack Smith
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: bobblehead business.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And by the way, there's a Cyber Monday sale
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: in the Crooked store. You go to crooked.com slash store.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: We've got incredible offerings there. Not joking.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: Probably a fire sale on 2024 merch.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Do you think this is the pitch the marketing team
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: wanted us to do?
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: No, I think it's fine. There's a Christmas ornament that
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: says hope on it you might like. Those are marked down.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: Check those guys out.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: I dropped the Vote Saved America ornament for our tree
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: on the ground.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: No, that was a good one.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: I know, and I said to someone, and they said,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: that story sounds a little Ruth Conda.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: I don't think you really did that. I was like,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: I know it doesn't sound real, but it happened. It
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: was Julia Wick who made that joke. That's our show
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: for today.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Great job. We did it.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: We did it, guys.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: We got through.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: We'll be back with a new show on Wednesday. Bye, everyone.
• 54:59
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• 55:01
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• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by
• 55:39
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• 55:43
  Speaker 1: support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by
• 55:47
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• 55:51
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• 55:53
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