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Mile High Bribe Club · Pod Save America

• 0:00
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  Speaker 1: There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: On today's show, we'll talk about Trump's Middle Eastern cash grab,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the president's latest retreat in his trade war with China...
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The Republican plan to throw 9 million people off Medicaid
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and the administration's threat to suspend more constitutional rights and
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: arrest Democratic politicians. Then Tommy talks to his doppelganger, Rob Sand,
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  Speaker 1: who is also the Democratic candidate running to be Iowa's
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  Speaker 1: next governor.
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  Speaker 2: Come on, Rob.
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  Speaker 1: Exciting for Rob.
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  Speaker 2: You got to win, man. I've known Rob since 2004.
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  Speaker 2: He's a very good guy. I think he's got a shot.
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  Speaker 2: Off year, governor's race. He's won statewide.
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  Speaker 1: It's pretty good.
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  Speaker 2: We can do it.
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  Speaker 1: Fingers crossed.
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  Speaker 2: Come on, Iowa.
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  Speaker 1: All right, first we got to talk about His Majesty's
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  Speaker 1: New Palace in the Sky. It's the name for a
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  Speaker 1: $ 400 million luxury jet that Donald Trump will accept as
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  Speaker 1: a gift from his fellow royals in the Qatari government,
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  Speaker 1: who he'll be able to thank in person when he
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  Speaker 1: sees them this week during the first big foreign trip
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  Speaker 1: of his second term, a trip that will also include
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  Speaker 1: a visit to Saudi Arabia, where Trump's family business is
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  Speaker 1: working on six different deals with a Saudi real estate firm.
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  Speaker 1: Total coincidence. As well as a stop in the United
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  Speaker 1: Arab Emirates, where a government-backed firm is doing a $ 2
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  Speaker 1: billion business deal using the Trump family's crypto coin. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: and the Qataris are also backing a new Trump golf club.
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  Speaker 1: But the $ 400 million plan really stands apart. The palace
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  Speaker 1: in the sky will be upgraded to serve as Air
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  Speaker 1: Force One. But don't worry. When Trump leaves office, he
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  Speaker 1: gets to take the jet with him as a keepsake.
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  Speaker 1: The plane will be transferred to Trump's presidential foundation. Now,
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  Speaker 1: some of you may think this generous gift from a
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  Speaker 1: foreign government that also funds groups like Hamas and Hezbollah
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  Speaker 1: raises a series of ethical, legal, constitutional, national security questions.
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  Speaker 1: But according to Donald Trump, that makes you stupid. Let's listen.
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  Speaker 4: I would never be one to turn down that kind
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  Speaker 4: of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid
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  Speaker 4: person and say, no, we don't want a free, very
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  Speaker 4: expensive airplane.
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  Speaker 2: Mr.
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  Speaker 1: President, what do you say to people who view that
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  Speaker 1: luxury jet as a personal gift to you?
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  Speaker 3: Why not leave it behind?
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  Speaker 4: You're ABC fake news, right? Only ABC. Well, a few
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  Speaker 4: of you would. Let me tell you, there was an
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  Speaker 4: old golfer named Sam Snead. Did you ever hear of him?
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  Speaker 4: He won 82 tournaments. He was a great golfer. And
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  Speaker 4: he had a motto, when they give you a putt,
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  Speaker 4: You say, thank you very much. You pick up your
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  Speaker 4: ball and you walk to the next hole. A lot
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  Speaker 4: of people are stupid. They say, no, no, I insist
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  Speaker 4: on putting it. Then they put it and they miss it.
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  Speaker 4: Remember that Sam Snead. When they give you a putt,
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  Speaker 4: you pick it up and you walk to the next
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  Speaker 4: hole and you say, thank you very much.
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  Speaker 1: Same thing.
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  Speaker 3: I hadn't heard the putt thing.
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  Speaker 2: Really?
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  Speaker 3: That was news to me.
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  Speaker 2: It's a very topical reference to a golfer who died
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: in 2002 at 89.
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  Speaker 1: When they give you a $ 400 million putt.
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  Speaker 2: Snag that fucker.
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  Speaker 3: Leave only footprints. Take only airplanes.
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  Speaker 1: So is this the most openly corrupt action an American
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  Speaker 1: president has ever taken? Or is Mr. Trump just doing
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  Speaker 1: taxpayers a favor? Now we don't have to pay for
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  Speaker 1: a new plane.
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  Speaker 2: You want to go? No, you fire away.
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  Speaker 3: So when I saw this break over the weekend, I
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  Speaker 3: had questions. I just, I had questions. Like, hey, isn't
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  Speaker 3: it a, like, before I even got to the ethics,
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  Speaker 3: I was like, we can't, accept an airplane from a
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  Speaker 3: foreign autocracy to be air force one.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Security challenges there.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like I just, I think they'll do a once
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  Speaker 1: over before it's, it's a.
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  Speaker 3: Already finished plane. You'd have to take it apart. Like
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  Speaker 3: literally every single panel you'd have to, you couldn't, it's not,
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it's possible to secure a plane. The
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  Speaker 3: U S government would never leave air force one unattended
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  Speaker 3: for five minutes in France, let alone accept a plane
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  Speaker 3: from a foreign government. And then I, then I was like, okay,
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  Speaker 3: then they have to update it. The Air Force One
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  Speaker 3: isn't just a nice plane. It's one of the most
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  Speaker 3: sophisticated pieces of technology in the world. It would surely
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  Speaker 3: take years to update the communication system, the security systems,
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  Speaker 3: all the different military safeguards and redundancies that are required
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  Speaker 3: to make Air Force One the most secure and robust
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  Speaker 3: airplane ever built. That wouldn't take six months, nine. That
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  Speaker 3: would take literal years. It's part of why the two
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  Speaker 3: planes that Trump wants aren't ready. It takes years. years
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  Speaker 3: and he's only going to be president for a couple
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  Speaker 3: more years before it's given to him you don't know
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  Speaker 3: that well sure.
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  Speaker 1: Right yeah but yeah but does any plane have the
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  Speaker 1: the good bones of the qatari plane no.
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  Speaker 2: Look it's beautiful the bones are good the rest don't
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  Speaker 2: matter that's right yeah.
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  Speaker 1: No i and then i don't know why you're getting
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  Speaker 1: hung up on this and so then.
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  Speaker 3: I i see all this communication system.
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  Speaker 1: This is the problem.
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  Speaker 2: Air-to-air refueling.
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  Speaker 3: I just assume.
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  Speaker 1: What are you, a Democrat in Congress?
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  Speaker 3: But then you look into it and like, no, they
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  Speaker 3: haven't thought about any of it. None of that. It's
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  Speaker 3: just purely just a gift for him. It's not.
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  Speaker 1: They acknowledge that it would probably take a couple of
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  Speaker 1: years and it might not be ready until he's about
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  Speaker 1: to leave office.
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  Speaker 3: But this is where the point is. It's like they
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  Speaker 3: have not given Trump Air Force One. This will never
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  Speaker 3: be Air Force One. This is just a private jet
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  Speaker 3: for Donald Trump's personal use. That's all it will ever be.
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  Speaker 3: That's all it could ever be.
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  Speaker 1: He says he's not going to use it then. It's funny.
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  Speaker 2: I think ever since Trump got in the crypto business,
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  Speaker 2: we've all been like, what stuff's happening behind the scenes
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  Speaker 2: that we don't know about? And I'm sure there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of it, but turns out there's a whole lot
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  Speaker 2: happening right in front of our faces. I was talking
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  Speaker 2: to a guy named Casey Michelle who runs an anti-kleptocracy
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: program at the Human Rights Foundation. And he said, basically,
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  Speaker 2: you should think about this as a starter gun for
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  Speaker 2: a corruption arms race. And part of that is because
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  Speaker 2: the Qataris and the UAE and the Saudis don't get along.
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  Speaker 2: The Qataris, we can talk about later, but they play
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  Speaker 2: this role. They piss everybody off in the region, but
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  Speaker 2: they just love drama.
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  Speaker 3: Teachers pet these people.
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  Speaker 1: Also, are they Qataris or Qataris?
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  Speaker 2: You know what? Does it matter? People go back and forth. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I've gone back and forth. Qatar, Qatar, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know.
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  Speaker 2: We'll pick one for this. Sure. Let's say Qatar. Qatar.
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  Speaker 2: I just think that they are likely to, they put
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  Speaker 2: this giant deal on the table. They put this plane
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  Speaker 2: on the table for Trump. And now I imagine the
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  Speaker 2: Emiratis are going to feel like we're going to match this.
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  Speaker 2: Or Trump will sit down with Mohammed bin Salman when
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  Speaker 2: he gets to Saudi Arabia and be like, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the Emir just gave me a 747. What have you
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  Speaker 2: done for me lately?
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  Speaker 1: How do you top that gift?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, part of this, well, I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the $ 5 billion real estate development deal in Qatar is
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  Speaker 2: probably ultimately more lucrative.
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  Speaker 3: So do you remember when Trump, toured this airplane? I
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  Speaker 3: forgot about it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not like this gift just like came along
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  Speaker 1: as a surprise. No, he checked it out first. It
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  Speaker 1: landed near his beach club in Florida in February. He
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  Speaker 1: got a tour and he was like, oh, this is
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  Speaker 1: pretty cool.
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  Speaker 3: Well, at the time, so at the time, he went
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  Speaker 3: on this tour of this airplane and he used it
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  Speaker 3: as like a cudgel to say, where are the Boeings
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  Speaker 3: that we're supposed to be happy? He used it as
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  Speaker 3: a way to hit Boeing for being slow to deliver
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  Speaker 3: the new Air Force Ones. But now in hindsight, you say, well,
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  Speaker 3: what was it just wasn't on a layover in Palm Beach.
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  Speaker 3: They flew this fucking thing so that Donald Trump could
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  Speaker 3: go walk around it and see it. And yeah, he
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  Speaker 3: turned it into a Boeing thing. But now it was
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  Speaker 3: just this was a long con. This was a long
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  Speaker 3: con about a gift they were going to give to
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. And it really reminded me of that that
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  Speaker 3: scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when the
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  Speaker 3: Nazis are bribing some monarchs. and they give him the
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: Rolls Royce, and he's like, and it's even in my color.
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  Speaker 3: And it's as like brazen, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.
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  Speaker 1: It's also just incredible that it comes after several weeks
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  Speaker 1: where the message from the Trump administration was, you don't
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  Speaker 1: need so many dolls. You don't need so many pencils.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of pencils in that plane.
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  Speaker 1: So it's fewer dolls for you, bigger planes for Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 3: I was thinking about the dolls thing.
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  Speaker 2: He's like, you have too many dolls.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Too many dolls.
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  Speaker 1: It's not.
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  Speaker 3: He is angry that the two, so there's a plan
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  Speaker 3: to replace the Air Force Ones that have been serviced
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  Speaker 3: since 1990 with these two planes. There have been, as
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  Speaker 3: is the case with everything American makes these days, cost
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  Speaker 3: overruns and long-term delays. But he's not angry because he's
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: not able to do the job from the current Air
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  Speaker 3: Force One. Maybe we don't say this very often, but
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  Speaker 3: we've all.
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  Speaker 2: Been on it. It's cool. It's cool. It's a very
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  Speaker 2: nice plane.
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  Speaker 3: We're just a bunch of bumpkins.
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  Speaker 1: It's an incredible plane.
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  Speaker 3: We don't have the taste of a Dom.
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  Speaker 2: Trump.
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  Speaker 3: For us, it's amazing. For Donald Trump, the accommodations are
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  Speaker 3: left wanting. It's a Hampton into him. And so he
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  Speaker 3: doesn't want this because he's not able to do meetings.
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  Speaker 3: He doesn't want this because it's like the He's not
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  Speaker 3: able to get the secure communication system. He's not worried
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  Speaker 3: about what happens in a nuclear bomb. He just wants
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  Speaker 3: a brand new spanking airplane that he can drive off
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  Speaker 3: the lot.
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  Speaker 2: This is, he's ordering a giant entree and putting most
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  Speaker 2: of it into a go bag.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like going to the Sizzler and filling, it's
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: like you order the entree at the Sizzler. It comes
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: with a salad bar. You don't eat the entree. Take
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: that home.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: We're going to mothball this thing and leave it at
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  Speaker 2: the presidential library. That's what you're trying to tell us, Donald.
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  Speaker 2: Give me a break. This is going to be your
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  Speaker 2: plane for life. And also, we are well aware that
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: you're aware that the Supreme Court has said that you
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: have immunity for all official acts and that the DOJ
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: is no longer going after people for corruption, whether it's
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, where they've basically given up
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: on prosecuting people for illegal foreign lobbying. So he just
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: doesn't care.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: It's also such bullshit. He's trying to say, oh, well,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Reagan's at the Reagan library. There's an old Air Force One. Yeah,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: a little different, a little different to have like an
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: old Air Force One or other stuff from the White
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: House and various presidents libraries, which happens all the time.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And the ease with which he's lying and they're like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to use it. It's going to be decommissioned.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, is it?
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Because however many years from now, when suddenly Donald Trump's
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  Speaker 1: riding around on the fucking Qatari's plane after post-presidency. You
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: think he's going to succumb to a lot of pressure there?
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: You mean, no, no, no, I'm going to keep my word.
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  Speaker 1: I made a promise to the American people.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: It's actually like, it's the worst of all possible worlds, right?
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: It's a brazen bribe. It will cost as much as
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: the plane costs to retrofit it if they even do that.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: And then the other two planes will still have to
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: be completed because he says already explicitly he's taking it
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: with him.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's taking it with him. Taking it with him.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Don't you feel comforted, though, by the fact that Pam Bondi,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth, they signed off on this. Pam Bondi and
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: her sharp legal mind said, actually, even though the Constitution
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: specifically says you're not supposed to accept any emoluments or
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: gifts from foreign governments, this is just the Defense Department.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: That's accepting it. Having a pretend lawyer as our attorney
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: general is not great. I mean, so she was a
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: registered lobbyist for a D.C.-based firm called Ballard Partners. In
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: that capacity, she represented... more than 30 different clients, including Amazon, Uber,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: a private prison company, nice, and the government of Qatar.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: What?
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Which paid her $ 115, 000 per month. A lot of that
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: work was PR stuff ahead of the 2022 FIFA World
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Cup in Qatar. I'm going interchangeable now. But in particular,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: I think she was trying to deflect criticism of their
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: workers' rights and human rights violations. But also, for those
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: who are worried that there's no one watching the watchers,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: remember that FBI Director Kash Patel also provided consulting services
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: for the government of Qatar, which he did not disclose
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: to the Senate during his confirmation process, nor did he
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: register under Farah. They were a client of his until
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: November of 2024.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: You can't fly into Newark anymore.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: It's not safe. We don't have enough air traffic controllers.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: We're losing radar. But there's one plane... One plane that's
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: going to be okay. Maybe it can fit a lot
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: more people on it.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I never wanted to fly to Newark, so.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Silver lining.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: But in a rare win for the at Democrats Twitter handle,
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: they did put out, like they pointed out, this is how,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: like they said, this is how Trump flies and this
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: is how all of us fly. And it was Trump
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: in all of his lavish private jets versus delays and
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: security issues and near misses. And it is worth keeping
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: in mind that while Trump and his cronies fly on
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Air Force One or fly private, members of Congress fly
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: commercial all the time. So my hope is that these
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Republican members of Congress, forget the fucking plane for a second,
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: do start paying attention to the fact that the head
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: of the transportation sector is going on television saying the
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: system is blinking red. It's a nation of new works.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I think they assume they're just going to get
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a ride on a On the floating palace.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: What is it?
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: What do we call it again? Not the floating palace.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: It's the palace in the sky.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: The palace in the sky, yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: That's what he calls his toilet. The floating palace. The
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: last time I flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I was sitting next to Washington Post columnist George Will
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: and Travis Helwig, formerly of Crooked Media and Love It
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: or Leave It, was sitting in front of us. And
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: as we were coming in for a landing, Travis just
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: kept texting me things about what it might feel like
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: to run into a helicopter in And then things like
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: George Will, comma, 80 others die in a horrific plane
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: crash at DCA. I was like, thank you, Travis. I
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: needed this right now. I need to read this.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the reaction from Republicans and MAGA World,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: which has not been as uniformly obsequious as usual. Various
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: MAGA pundits have posted criticism of the deal, the most
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: notable coming from Trump's unofficial personnel director, Laura Loomer, who
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: tweeted the following. I love President Trump. I would take
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a bullet for him. but I have to call a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: spade a spade. We cannot accept a $ 400 million gift
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: from jihadists in suits. The Qataris fund the same Iranian
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah who have murdered U.S. service members.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: This is really going to be such a stain on
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the administration if this is true. I'm so disappointed. Just
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: one stain. That's this one. Otherwise, unblemished record.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Unless this stain happens to be where some of the
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: other stains already are.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Is Trump in danger of being loomered?
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: I don't even know. He's been loomer himself.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: What do you think Republican politicians say about this? Love it.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: You have hope. You have hope that maybe this will be,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: this is the red line.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: I don't, I don't know if this is, I don't
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: have hope that this is going to, I don't think
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: that there's no lines is we're not going to have
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: any lines. I just think the stupidity of all of
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: it and the fact that it's, I think once it
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: becomes clear that it will be years away for Trump
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: to use it as air force one and so far,
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: then it truly is only a gift to him. I
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: think it starts to be the kind of thing where
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: it gets pushed up. My hope, is that there's enough internal,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: the quiet pressure that we're not allowed to know about
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: because they don't do it publicly is enough to like
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: kind of push this off. You already have the Qataris saying, well,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: nothing's finalized, right? Even though it was sort of about
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: to happen.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: So I don't know.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think they just forget about it. Convenient. I mean,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: first of all, Laura Loomer kind of played an interesting
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: role in the administration thus far, right?
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, she clearly has- God damn it. What a
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: thing to say that to be true. I know.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: She had a personal relationship with Trump. She got like
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Five or six top national security staffers fired, including the
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: head of the NSA. Maybe Mike Waltz, too. We don't
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: know about that one. But she's also regularly criticizing them.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: It was this. She went after the– Pam Bondi particularly
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: about the fake Epstein files release. She's been going after
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: the surgeon general pic on Twitter all weekend. In this case,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: I think we're just seeing her Islamophobia shining through. Qatar
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: does play kind of a controversial and interesting place in
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: foreign policy.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: A broken Islamophobic clock is still right twice a day.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: They've provided support for Hamas at times because Bibi Netanyahu
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: wanted them to. They also hosted a Taliban office, which
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: sounds terrible, but was useful because it gave us a
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: place to negotiate during the Obama years. Their neighbors hate
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: them because of the role they played in the Arab
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Spring and Al Jazeera. But in Trump's first term, the Saudis, Emiratis, Egypt,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: and Bahrain imposed a economic blockade on Qatar that Trump
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: initially supported. And he went out to the Rose Garden
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: and said, the nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: a funder of terrorism at a very high level. And
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: now he's taking their plane and going there on his
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: first term.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: You're going to go back and delete those comments from
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the archive. You won't be hearing that again.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Get it off of YouTube.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Way to kick a gift horse in the mouth.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: You know, it's so, like, remember the first trip that
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: President Obama made, and I was in this trip, we
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: went to Saudi Arabia, and we are at, like, their
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: version of Camp David in Saudi Arabia, and we all
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: have our little, these little places we're staying in, and
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Rhodes and I, Ben Rhodes and I, are, like, sharing
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a room, and we.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: It's getting late.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: It was more of a villa. There's a couple bedrooms
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: in it. Oh, wow.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Romantic. Throw some pedals on the van. Giant bathtub.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: So we're sitting there. We're about to go to a meeting.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And a golf cart comes up. Guys knock on the door.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: And they hand us each a suitcase. And inside the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: suitcase is a bunch of gold and jewels and watches.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: And we're like, what the fuck is this? They apparently
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: just give gifts to government. And then right behind them.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: in a golf cart was the state department attache and
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the couples ever.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: The buzz, the buzzkill brigade.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: They were like, we are here to accept the gifts
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: because usually what happens when a foreign government gives you
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: a gift is it goes to the state department. The
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: government does something. They either like, you know, decorate something
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: with it or they give it back.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: You can buy it.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: And then you go to the State Department and you say,
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: you won't believe what the Qataris got me. A beautiful suitcase.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: And that was it. There's nothing in here. There's nothing
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: in here. And then I walk around as jingle.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Jingles in my pocket. No, this is just, it's wild.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: It's shocking. It's shocking corruption.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: They did ask, they asked, they caught up with some
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Republican members of Congress right before we recorded. John Thune said,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: there's not enough info about this for me to opine.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Okay, John.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And then, uh, you need the, uh, the.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: Exit, the exit manual.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: And then John Barrasso, uh, you know, next in line
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: in the, in the number three Republican said, uh, Oh,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: this is just rumors.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: It's just rumors.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: It's like Donald Trump confirmed it on fucking television today.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I, I, I look, I think there's an, it's
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: impossible to predict the future, but I do see, I
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: can see kind of like they offered me the thing.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: I said, yes, you want me to take the plane?
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: I don't take the plane.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: We move on.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: That's, that's, that's, that sort of feels like the direction.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: And then the last administration, he takes the plane.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: Well, that, that, that, that, that depends on us. That
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: depends on democracy.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Democrats are all over this. Unsurprisingly in the house, uh,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Richie Torres has called for an ethics review in the Senate.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Brian Schatz, Chris Murphy, Cory Booker will try to force
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: a vote to put every member on record as to
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: whether they support or oppose presidents getting $ 400 million gifts
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: from foreign governments. Schatz said, you don't need a law
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: degree to know that this is, quote, wildly corrupt. And
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: then there was Chuck Schumer's statement on the plane, quote,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: it's not just bribery. It's premium foreign influence with extra
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: leg room. You guys have any puns or airplane double
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: entendres to offer up Democrats who might not have put
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: out statements yet? You guys got anything?
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Sounds like Trump's flying to Doha. Comfort plus corruption.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I just hope a second statement doesn't hit the Twitter feed.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Is that what you were looking for?
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Too much?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I think this is just live, flat-out constitutional.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Wow. That's pretty good. Oh, look at that. Look at that.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: That's the second time we've made a second-something hit.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the mood we're in.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: It's the mood we're in. It's warranted, I think. Anything
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: else Democrats can do to help keep this story alive
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: in the news?
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: One of the reasons, though, I do think that Trump
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: will want to just move on from this is, to
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Tommy's point, given the scale of corruption we're seeing, this
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: is chump change to him. Like he is making money
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: on the presidency right now to buy and sell a
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: half a dozen of these fucking planes. And so he's
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: not gonna, like, I don't understand why he'd get bogged
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: down in this, a plane he's gonna use now and
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: again after he graduates, whatever. Like he can buy a
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: plane when this is all said and done, just as
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: nice as this one. He could buy this one if
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: he wants. So I do think it's a way of
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: talking about the unprecedented corruption that will be unfolding in
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: the next couple of days. And- I do have a
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: little worry that we'll all of a sudden get a
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: story of like Trump says no to the plane. It'll
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: be seen as like, oh, look, this was stopped. We
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: stopped this corruption. But like what's happening with crypto, what's
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: happening with these fucking golf deals, what's happening with what
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: his idiot sons are doing is as brazen and large
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: a corruption scheme. Any country on earth is short of Putin.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the idiot sons are just either a couple days
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: ahead of him on these trips or a couple weeks
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: behind just mopping up cash. I do think it's so
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: hard to keep a handle on all the different facets
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: of the corruption. I know, I know.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: I was reading that this morning.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Like a lot of it's happening in these Gulf countries
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: where he happens to be going on his first trip.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: What a surprise. But I do think it would be
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: smart for Democrats to like, they're setting up like shadow
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: ministers and shadow hearings, like have a full-time operation just
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: focused on corruption. Make this digestible, make it understandable, crank
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: out content on it. I think it would matter. Like
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: people don't want to corrupt the president of the United States.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: The challenge is, There is this very stupid thing people,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: I think, genuinely believe that billionaires don't want more money
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: because they don't need it when the reality is like
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: billionaires are billionaires because they're selfish and venal and want
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: it all, which is what Donald Trump is, but I
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: think we can sell this one.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: You know like the debt limit clock, it always like
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: keeps changing with the debt. Can we have one of
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: those with how much money the Trump family has estimated?
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: That's a great idea. Why don't we do that?
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Having made and like where it's coming from. I don't know.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Something simple. Let's make that. And we can have like
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the price of gas and eggs underneath it.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: Elijah, let's make one of those after this.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Give me a ticker.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: It seems crazy. Let's talk about the rest of the trip.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I mentioned all the deals at the top that the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: family's involved in. New York Times has a great breakdown.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Just to trigger Tommy, the three countries that Trump is
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: visiting have together pledged more than $ 3. 5 billion to Jared
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Kushner's private equity firm.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: They bribed the wrong guy.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Don't forget the son-in-law. What do you think about the
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: trip and specific stops from like a foreign policy perspective?
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Is this the kind of Middle East visit a less
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: corrupt president would plan?
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: No.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, remember that Trump blew this up the first time,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: but like historically speaking, the first official trip by a
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: president was Canada or Mexico, literal neighbors, literal allies. In 2017,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Trump changed that because he went to Saudi Arabia first,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: famously gripped the orb there. But then he went to Israel,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Vatican City, Belgium for NATO, and Italy for the G7.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: So it was kind of like the weird Saudi thing
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: tacked onto a normal trip. This time he's just skipping
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: all the democracies. He's just doing all the hereditary monarchies.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: You call them democracies. We call them enemies now.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: That's right. That's right.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: I was having kind of a moment of just sadness
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: that the president is far more welcome in Saudi Arabia
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: and Qatar than he is in France, certainly Canada. you know,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: that he has made himself and made us a pariah nation.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: And like, I can't imagine the amount of security and
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: protest and disruption there would be if Donald Trump right
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: now tried to go to like Belgium.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Wealthy autocrats who just want to throw a bunch of
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: money at you to try to influence policy. That's like
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: his jam, you know?
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he loves it.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Some good news. On Monday, Hamas released Eden Alexander, an
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Israeli-American soldier captured on October 7th as a gesture of
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: goodwill as Trump arrives in the region. Alexander was the
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: last surviving American hostage. Trump won't be visiting Israel or
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: meeting with Netanyahu, though. What do you make of that, Tommy?
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: It is interesting. He's blowing off BB on this trip.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: You're seeing a lot of background quotes with people being like,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: what's the point of visiting Israel? Netanyahu has been to D.C.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: 700 times. I think that was in the Washington Post
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: on background. Trump has also cut Netanyahu out of the
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Iran talks that Steve Witkoff, his golf slash real estate buddy,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: is conducting. Trump cut Israel out of the deal that
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: the administration cut with the Houthi rebels that gets the
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Houthi rebels to stop firing missiles and drones at US ships,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: but not at Israel. So maybe you're still pissed at
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Bibi over the whole acknowledging Joe Biden won the election thing.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: That seems to be where the problem stems from. But yeah,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: it's a weird trip.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: One thing about it too, though, is just this trip
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: is about his personal interests. He has a bunch of
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: personal interest right now in these countries.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Bibi doesn't have a plane farm.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: And it's a ways off from his attempt to, you know,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: build a fucking boardwalk in Gaza. So once we get
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: closer to that, maybe he'll make his trip to Tel Aviv. Yeah, no, it's,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: by the way, it's just, it's great news that Adon
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Alexander is out of Gaza. I think there's 23 more
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: live hostages in the Gaza Strip. I think this probably
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: creates political challenges for Netanyahu that, you know, the U.S.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: unilaterally seems to have gotten out the one American hostage
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: and a bunch of Israelis are left behind, which is,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: controversial to begin with. The majority of Israelis want to
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: cut a deal to end the war, to get the
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: hostages out. They don't support Netanyahu's plan for endless war.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, I think it's fascinating to watch.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by Fatty15. Have
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  Speaker 1: crooked and using code crooked at checkout. The other big
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: news Monday was that the administration announced a 90-day pause
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: in the trade war against China after talks between the
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: two countries in Switzerland over the weekend. I should say
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: it's more of a semi-pause. American tariffs on Chinese goods
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: will drop from 145% to 30%, still higher than they
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: were before Liberation Day. And China will drop its tariffs
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: on our exports to 10%. The markets rallied in response,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: no surprise there. But beyond that, we don't have many
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: details as to whether it's possible for the two sides
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: to actually reach a deal in the next three months
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: or even... what the outstanding issues are. Why do you
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: guys think Trump's already backing down without getting anything in return?
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: And is a 30% tax on everything we buy from
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: China really a win for anyone?
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: It just seems like he blinked that he was hearing,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: first of all, it's a ton of bad press. He
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: knows saying kids should have fewer dolls and the CEO
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: of Mattel going out there saying like, you're going to
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: fuck with Barbie for Christmas is not good politics. There's
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: a ton of businesses that are based around importing and
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: exporting that were at risk of going under or have
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: already gone under. There was no end in sight. He
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: wasn't getting anything from these tariffs. China put on their
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: reciprocal tariffs. We were kind of at a stalemate.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: And so now what happens?
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Trump lowers them to 30%, which is still very high
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: and will still be very disruptive. China removes most of
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: the reciprocal tariffs they put on, but has addressed none
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: of the underlying issues that led him to put on
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: the 140-whatever percent tariff in 2020. the first place. And
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: by the way, there's still a 90-day window to renegotiate tariffs,
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: which really means 90 days to renegotiate the kind of
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: trade deals that take months, if not years, to negotiate.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: So it just kicks the can further down the road.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: There's no way for anybody to behave with any kind
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: of certainty. If you were a business that was waiting
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: to make purchases or investment decisions, you can't make those
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: decisions now. You have absolutely no idea what's going to happen.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: The markets seem to have reacted positively But that seems
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: to be a classic case of stop hitting yourself in
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: the head because it feels good when you stop. And
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: we're basically just in a weakened position from where we were, whatever,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: 40 days ago.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, Trump and Besson both had the same line,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: which was like, they kept saying tariffs at 100 or
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: whatever would lead to a decoupling of the two economies.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: We don't want that. And it's like, well, okay, then
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: why did you put them in place? This was entirely
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: your choice. So I'm with you on it. Time will tell,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: but this seems like full capitulation. I mean, he's basically
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: blinked on every tariff he's put in place since liberation day,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: except for the 10% universal tariff. My guess is Trump
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: thought he'd come out swinging, do his like madman theory bit,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: get China to blink or make some concessions and then
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: pocket that as a win. And instead, the Chinese fought
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: back hard. Trump slowly figured out that this fight was
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: going to be politically untenable for him. And then he
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: used these talks to climb down. And now we see
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: arsonists who wants credit for putting out the fire he started.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: But yeah, and it's like, I mean, it's so early.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: And so now for the next 90 days, keep in mind,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the original 90-day pause on all the other countries ends
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: in early July, I believe. It's all based on the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: whims of whatever Donald Trump feels like when he wakes
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: up in the morning. And if someone pisses him off
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: in one of these negotiations, if China does something that
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: makes him mad, maybe he slaps the tariffs back on,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: then he takes them back off. It's madness.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Well, it's also, it's not about what is, it's about
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: what Donald Trump can say it is, He goes and says, oh,
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: we have a deal with the UK. So what a win.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: And then you look like there's no deal. There's there's nothing.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: There's cheaper Rolls Royces and the promise to framework to
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: start a negotiation for what a deal could look like.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: And all of these countries know that Donald Trump just
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: wants wins, which gives makes us even weaker.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Like Donald Trump has been saying to people he's going
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: for this to this Middle East trip because he wants
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: to do a trillion dollars worth of deals. What a signal.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: to send to all these countries that they have this
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: one moment where they know they can get something out
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: of Trump because he wants to do a press conference
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: where he declares some fucking deal. And so all of
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: these countries know that Donald Trump just wants to go
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: in front of the cameras and say he won. And
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: they can find a million ways to help themselves and
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: hurt us and give him that win.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: And if you're like MBS, if you're the Saudis, you'd
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: be like, oh yes, sir, we're going to spend a
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: hundred billion trillion dollars in the U.S. Do you know
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: it's not going to happen?
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: One gazillion dollars? Put us down. Put us down for it.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: We're good for it. Also, like, this doesn't undo the
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: long-term political damage for him, right? First of all, there's
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: damage that's already been done that people will start feeling,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: supply shocks in the coming months that has already been done, right?
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: And second of all, like maybe, you know, Goldman lowered
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: their estimate for a recession from 45% to 35% based
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: on this. Oh, that's, you know, I felt that this morning.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Did you feel that?
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I felt that.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: I felt a little spring in my step.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: But it's like, even if we avoid a recession at
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: this point, you have 10% tariffs on every country in
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: the world, 30% on China, people in this country are
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: still going to be paying more than they would have
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: otherwise at a time when there were persistently high prices
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: from inflation. So the damage that people are feeling or
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the frustration people feel with the economy, whether or not
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Trump announces a deal, doesn't announce a deal, pause, not
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: a pause, it's still going to be there. He's not
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: going to be able to bullshit his way out of
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: this one.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: No, and then we'll get to it, but then on
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: top of that, they're about to throw a whole bunch
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: of healthcare cuts into the mix, which will have impact
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: on a lot of the places where he claims to
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: have been the kind of tribune or the working man.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: And the biggest fight is still with China, and there's
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: still a 30% tariff in place, which will have a
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: monster impact.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: And on the other side of this, the tariffs aren't
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: high enough, or they didn't make enough deals to actually change,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: to do what he set out to do, which is
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: either bring in more revenue, or bring in enough revenue, or...
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: bring jobs back and manufacturing jobs. Like, it's just, it's
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the worst of all worlds.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a terrible president.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Well, his China retreat wasn't the only big announcement on Monday.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: The president told us he'd be signing, quote, one of
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: the most consequential executive orders in our country's history, which
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: then turned out to be a more aggressive version of
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: a policy he already tried and failed to get done
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: in his first term, instituting what's known as most favored
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: nation pricing for prescription drugs. which means that the amount
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: our government pays for any given medication would be pegged
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to the lowest price paid for that medication by other countries.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: So if a prescription costs $ 50 here, but $ 10 in
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the UK, the U.S. government would tell the drug companies
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: we're only paying the $ 10. You can imagine this plan
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: may run into some legal issues, as it did in
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Trump's first term when the courts blocked a similar proposal
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: that only involved Medicare. This did not stop Trump from
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: claiming that drug costs would fall by 30 to 80 percent, quote,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: almost immediately. And by the time he announced the policy
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: at the White House on Monday, it was up to
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: 90 percent. What do you think? Has Trump found the
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: one weird trick to finally make prescription drugs affordable?
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: He has not. You know, it is confounding that other
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: countries pay far less for drugs that in the U.S.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: our companies develop them and then charge us far more
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: for them. but as Trump knows, as many have pointed out,
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: this policy won't solve that problem. It's a way for
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: him to claim he's doing something before the courts can
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: shut him down and gives him a rare opportunity to
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: be on the right side of, I'm not going to
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: say the right side of a policy, but the right
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: side of the thrust of an issue and say, I'm
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: fighting for the working people of this country, but the
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: courts are stopping me. They won't let me solve immigration.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: They won't let me bring down healthcare costs. So I
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: don't really like that. But meanwhile, what's going to happen
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: is this thing will get stuck and the problem of
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: extremely high prescription drug costs will remain. And Trump has
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: been an obstacle to rules like allowing Medicare to negotiate
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: for more drugs. He's obviously does not appreciate the fact
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: that many of the drugs that will start coming down
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: in cost the next couple of years will be coming
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: down in cost because of the Biden administration. He will
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: either deny that or take credit for that while without
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: helping the policy. So that's where I'm at.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, sir, compliment sandwich. You're good at identifying problems. Yeah.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: You just got to work on the solution part. And
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: as far as I can tell, Congress is working on
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: a pretty big bill. There's a bunch of healthcare stuff
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: in there. You could talk to them about putting into
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: law things that bring down drug prices if you want
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: to actually do it.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Probably help the legal case, though. John Thune said it
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: would be very controversial to do this, so he's not sure.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: They don't want to do it.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: No, they don't care.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: No, they don't want to. No, they don't.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: They don't want to do this.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: No, they do not want to do price controls for drugs.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: They don't even want to do negotiating for lower prices
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: for drugs. That is why we don't have it, except
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: for a small number of drugs. It's because Republicans have
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: stood in the way of allowing the government to negotiate
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: for better drug prices for fucking ever.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Now, you think that the president of the United States,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: especially this one, has some sway over what Congress does
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: or doesn't do because he has forced them, encouraged them,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: pressured them to do other things that he really cares about.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: But We'll see. We'll see if this is one of them.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: Well, it is worth saying that he is, after 100 days,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: he has signed five bills into law. He's the least
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: effective legislative opening to an administration ever. So he has
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: just kind of ignored Congress where he can, and now
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: Congress is stuck on this, we'll get to it, this
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: budget bill. But he hasn't really been able to get
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Congress to do what he wants.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the budget bill. House Republicans finally released
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: details on their proposed Medicaid cut Sunday night. And the
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Congressional Budget Office estimates that their plan would cause nearly
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: 9 million people to lose their health insurance who rely
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: on Medicaid. Believe it or not, of all the different
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: proposals Republicans were considering, this was the one that the
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: more moderate House members supported, which means that, of course,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the hardliners aren't happy with it. They want deeper cuts
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: and more people to lose their health insurance. Chip Roy,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: one of those hardliners, tweeted, I sure hope House and
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Senate leadership are coming up with a backup plan. So
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the Republicans who support this plan are trying to sell
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: it as modest, common sense changes to Medicaid because who
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: could be against requiring people on Medicaid to work and
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: make sure that they're eligible? Lovett, what's the best response
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: to that? How should Democrats handle this fight over the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: next few months?
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: They want to take health care away from millions of
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: people to pay for tax cuts for the rich. They
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: are hiding behind the idea that they're just doing work requirements.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: The vast majority of people on Medicaid already work or
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: they have a disability or they're in very poor health.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: or they're caregivers, or they're at school. You're talking about
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: 8% of people on Medicaid that are adults are people
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: that might be subject to work requirements. What ends up
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: happening is they are so afraid of the politics of
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: just coming out and outright cutting Medicaid by tens of billions,
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: if not hundreds of billions of dollars. They're creating a
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: kind of workaround to do it using paperwork. What ends
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: up happening is a bunch of people that are taking
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: care of kids, working, going to and from their job,
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: maybe don't have great transportation, maybe don't have internet at home,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: gets stuck in fucking paperwork. This is a bill to
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: use paperwork to take away healthcare from millions of people
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: who are eligible to receive it so that Donald Trump
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: and his friends can get a tax cut. And on
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: top of that, they wanna add copays for the working
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: poor in this country. That's what we need to do.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: We need to make millions of people who are barely
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: getting by pay 35 to $ 100 more to go to
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: the doctor so that they can cut taxes for Elon Musk,
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: for Donald Trump, for all of their rich friends, And
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: the end result of this is not just that those
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: people get hurt. The rural hospitals will close. Nurses will
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: lose their jobs. Healthcare providers will lose their jobs. Millions
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: of people will be negatively impacted by this. Not for
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: any reason. And to Chip Roy's point correctly, not to
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: do any reforms to the program. Not to do any
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: changes in the long term. Just to create a kind
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: of bureaucratic system. fuck, like a bureaucratic cluster fuck.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: What's a bureaucratic fuck?
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: A bureaucratic fuck?
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: That doesn't sound too fun. Yeah, I don't know.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: You got to get in a different line.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Get the red tape, get out of there.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you, you're in the wrong line. You got
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: to go to the other line.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, I just got dozed.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: But it's awful. It's awful. Yeah, like, it's just such
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: a sneaky way. And they'll, of course, be like, well,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: it's fine. People should, if they're eligible, they should be fine.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, there's a reason that the CBO scored
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: it that that many people would lose their health insurance
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: and that you'd actually save $ 800 billion because it assumes
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: that a bunch of people wouldn't be able to do
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: the paperwork and would just be kicked off the program.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: And the co-pays would also push some people out of
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: the program too because– Or.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: Just won't get the healthcare they need.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Right, and they're thinking of co-pays for like, I think it's,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're between 100% of the poverty line
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: and like 135 or 150%, that's the band where they
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: want you to do co-pays. Because those are the people,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: those incomes where you're just above the poverty line and working,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: those are the people they want to really fuck. That's
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: who they want to create the bureaucratic fuck for.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: It's people that they're basically, to give hundreds of thousands
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: of dollars to the richest people in our society... They
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: want a family that's barely getting by to say, you
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: know what? We were going to have, we're like, we're
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: not going to go out to dinner this month because
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: we have to do a copay now. That's it. That's
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: where the money went. We don't get to go out
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: because Donald Trump and these group of fucking assholes decided
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: that the richest people on earth deserve just a little
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: bit more take home.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: And they tried, you know, work requirements in Arkansas and
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: almost immediately, like 18,000 people lost their Medicaid who were eligible,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: who were like, you know, many of them just couldn't work, right?
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Like you said, these are, These are people with disabilities.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: These are seniors, people who are way past retirement. It's
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: a terrible policy, but we need to be very careful.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: It can be sneaky popular.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: The work requirements were surprisingly popular in a challenge around
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: the child tax credit, which did not have work requirements.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: So it's just a thing I think Democrats would be
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: mindful of, which is just frame this as exactly what
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: you said, big picture. It's a cut, throwing people off
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Medicaid to pay for a tax cut for the richest
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: people in the world and not get into a fight
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: about work requirements, I don't think.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: No, I, that's why I think, I think talking about
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: it in terms of people with disabilities and seniors that they're,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: this is what they're talking about, but I know you're,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. That like, it just, it sounds like a,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: it sounds reasonable. It pulls well, it's just something to
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: be mindful of.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: I also just think one other, and one other part
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: of it too, is that you'll start to see like
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: rural hospitals, uh, nursing homes talking about some of these
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: rules and what it will do and rural hospitals. There
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: was a great, uh, kind of sort of screed in
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: the times by somebody that runs a small rural hospital
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: in Colorado. They are barely able to stay open. They
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: are the closest hospital within 100 miles in any direction.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: They are barely able to stay alive because this fixed
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: cost of the fixed cost, running a hospital costs a
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: certain amount of money. If a bunch of people that
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: were on Medicaid no longer have Medicaid, a bunch of
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: patients they no longer get to see, the hospitals like
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: that will just close down. Hundreds of them already have.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: And that will just leave whole swaths of the country that,
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: by the way, voted for Trump in huge numbers with
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: even bigger healthcare shortfalls, with even fewer local hospitals. They
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: have to go even further to get health care. I
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: think that's part of it.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: And by the way, this is if this proposal is
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the one that ends up in the final bill, because,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: you know, we heard Chip Roy already. There's some Senate Republicans, too,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: who are like, we want deeper Medicaid cuts. So it
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: could get worse. Also, we haven't included the push to
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: let the Affordable Care Act credits expire, which now, as
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: CBO said, OK, it's nine nine million lose their health
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: insurance under Medicaid with this proposal. If you include letting
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act subsidies expire. That's another 4 million
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: and ends up being 13 million people losing their health care,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: 13 and a half million.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: And there's another, there's a proposal in here that's also
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: just about making people that are eligible for Obamacare less
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: likely to get it through a more onerous paper. A
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: lot of this really is just about making life worse
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: for people who access these services because they know that
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: people just screw up. We all screw up. We all
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: screw up this kind of forms.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: And I know that people will be like, oh, I
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: don't know, the insurance companies screw me. So I just,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't get my health care that I
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: wanted and I'm mad and I don't know who to blame.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: That's what they're assuming. One more populist proposal that Trump
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: and some Republicans keep flirting with is raising taxes on
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the wealthy. We talked on the Friday show about how
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Trump floated to Mike Johnson the idea of a new
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: tax bracket for folks making over two and a half
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: million dollars a year. but he's now once again backed
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: away from that idea, posting on Truth Social that, quote,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Republicans should probably not raise taxes, but that he's, quote,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: okay if they do. This is like the second or
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: third time he has floated this, or it has been
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: floated and then walked back. What do you think keeps
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: happening here?
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: He wants the headline. He wants someone to report it.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Just like the drug pricing thing.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's never actually going to do it in
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: a million years, and he knows that. And he also
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: is smart enough to know politically that all of these
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Republicans have signed pledges to various interest groups to never
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: raise taxes. Yeah. And so it's dead on arrival, but
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: he looks like the reasonable guy. Right.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: The other, right.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: So he can propose this. There's also ways they could
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: just extend the Trump tax cuts just for people making
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: under $ 400, 000 a year, which might not violate that pledge.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Those groups will score it. Of course.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: But regardless, like this is a non-starter. To me, it's, it's,
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: I think it's, The more real a proposal like this becomes,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: the more clear it will be to Trump that no
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: bill can pass at all so that he can get
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: the win. Because as of right now, it's not clear
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: how these Venn diagrams overlap. Because you're right. There are
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: a bunch of people that want steeper cuts. There are
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: all the people that are not. You know, you have
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: Josh Hawley in The Times doing a fucking Tribune of
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: the Working Man thing, talking about how he's for no
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: Medicaid cuts at all. So, you know, this compromise proposal
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: isn't enough for Chip Roy. It also goes very far
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: for a bunch of vulnerable House Republicans already. Yeah.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then that's not, and we're not going to
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: talk about it now, don't worry, but the people are
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: very upset with the salt proposal.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: Well, can we talk about it for one second?
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: No, it's so boring.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Well, it's not baked yet, so we'll have a couple
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: more bites at that apple. Yes, we will.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: The only thing that's interesting about salt to me- Josh
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: Gottheimer over here. The only thing that's interesting about salt
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: is so people understand this is a giveaway to rich
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: people in high-tech states. If they do nothing, they go
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: back to the higher- salt limits, which are better for,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: which is what these, these Republicans in these blue states want.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: And so they have a lot of power.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: That's all. Yeah. It's real salt burn.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one
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• 46:55
  Speaker 1: One other topic that Trump touched on during his drug
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: pricing announcement on Monday, his plan to welcome a new
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: group of refugees to America, white South Africans. That's right,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: the same administration that stopped accepting most refugees and is
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: currently asking the Supreme Court to let them strip legal
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: status from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, Haitians, Afghans, and
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: others who fled dangerous places, just admitted the first group
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: of 49 Afrikaners this week. Here's what Trump said when
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: pushed on this by reporters on Monday.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Why are you creating an expediting path into the country
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: for Afrikaners but not others?
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: Because they're being killed and we don't want to see
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: people be killed. It's a genocide that's taking place that
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: you people don't want to write about. Farmers are being killed.
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: They happen to be white. But whether they're white or
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: black makes no difference to me. And the newspapers and
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: the media, television media, doesn't even talk about it.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: If it were the other way around, they'd talk about it.
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: That would be the only story they'd talk about.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Tommy, is there a genocide going on in South Africa
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: we don't know about?
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: The white genocide line used to be like stuff you'd
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: see on the Daily Stormer, like the most far-right, super-racist, agitprop,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: And now it's just coming out of the mouth of
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: the president of the United States, who seems to think
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: it's real. Oh, yeah. I mean, these white South Africans
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: we're talking about are primarily descendants of Dutch colonial era
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: settlers who then put in place the apartheid system in 1948.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: And Trump seems to think that these people are the
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: real victims. And now in January, he put forward an
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: executive order that halted pending and future refugee entries into
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: the United States. So the refugee program is just completely
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: stopped except for white South Africans who I think 50
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: of them just arrived at Dulles and were greeted by
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: the deputy secretary of state who will then, then they
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: will then get to go meet with Trump at the
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: white house. So like literally red carpet getting rolled out
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: for this group of people.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: For the YouTube, just let's just throw up the family guy.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Not okay.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Meme.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Anybody know what I'm talking about? That's what's going on here.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: It is unbelievable that we're at the, like, We're at
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: the letting in the villains from Lethal Weapon 2 phase
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: of Donald Trump's authoritarian rise.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: The same day that there's a headline that they are
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: repealing temporary protected status for Afghans, like people who were
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: our allies in Afghanistan against the Taliban.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's insane. I mean, white people make up 7%
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: of the population of South Africa and they own something
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: like two thirds to 75% of the land. And according
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: to the World Bank, white South Africans earn nearly three
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: times the average wage of black workers in South Africa.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: So I, I, the like proximate thing that seems to
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: have set off Trump is the South African government passed
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: a law that could allow the government to take a
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: land away from people, including without compensation. But most experts
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: you see say it's either never used or rarely used
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: and really just kind of clarifies powers the government already had.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: But it is quite obvious that Elon Musk is like
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: in his ear whispering about this stuff and has been
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: for a while, but also it's, This got on Trump's
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: radar in the first term. I remember Tucker Carlson did
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: a segment on it and then Trump tweeted something and
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: he like demanded that Mike Pompeo launch some investigation and it's.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Now coming back. And then we figured out, everyone was like, wait,
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: where'd this come from? And then people went and saw
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: that it had been on Tucker Carlson the night before.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: It's also just like, it's a small group of people. Fundamentally,
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: this is just a signal to like the worst elements
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: of our society that Donald Trump is on their side,
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: that he hears them, he sees them. that he has
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: their back and they should have his back.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: You storm the Capitol. If you're a white South African, absolutely.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: It's the whole, it's the same thing. Meanwhile, like I
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: think we talked about this last week. One of the
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: people they sent to Seacott was like a, someone whose
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: refugee status had already been certified by the United States.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: They were already a settled refugee.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, it's weird that Elon Musk has just kind
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: of gone away. Yeah. He was omnipresent for what? Two months.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: And I was just gone.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I think he said that I, I, I, I thought
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: about this the other day and I started scrolling through
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: his Twitter feed.
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: Is he still posting?
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: His tweets aren't, he's still posting, but it's much more
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: about like Tesla, Starlink, rockets. And then he retweets like
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: MAGA stuff once in a while, but not a lot
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: of original MAGA-like politics posts from Elon.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: I'd love to know why.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: I think he's probably like, he saw the writing on
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: the wall in terms of like his popularity. I'm sure
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: that that call with Tesla where he's like, I'm going
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: to be, focusing more on Tesla, like that company.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's lied on every earnings call for like
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: a decade now. He'd be like, self-driving cars are coming tomorrow.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: Self-driving robot car, helicopter cars. He's just full of shit.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: But I wonder if Trump or somebody slapped him down
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: and told him to stop being so publicly out there
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: because his unfavorabilities had gone up so much.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's possible.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: He also was burning the candle at both ends.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: It can only go on for so long.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: That's very true. He needs a rest. One of the
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: other big storylines on immigration we haven't had a chance
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: to talk about yet The White House is considering suspending
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: habeas corpus, a person's right to challenge their own detention,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: which has been considered a basic human right since the
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: time of the Magna Carta. The Constitution says that habeas
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: can only be suspended when the country faces invasion or rebellion,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: though it still doesn't say who can do it. And
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: it's only happened a few times in our history, most
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: notably during the Civil War and during the internment of
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Japanese Americans during World War II. But Stephen Miller told
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: reporters on Friday that Trump is considering it based on, quote,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: whether the courts do the right thing. In other words,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: if the courts keep upholding people's challenges to their detention,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: the president might just stop letting them go to court
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: at all. I mean, this feels both constitutionally egregious and
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: just hard enough to understand that maybe it doesn't break through.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: And also, is it a threat? Is it real? How
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: does this work?
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think?
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it, you know, he did it on Friday. It
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: does sometimes feel like they do this sort of chum
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: in the water thing. I also, like, It's not a
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: comfort to think, oh, they're not actually planning to do this.
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: They are using this to threaten the courts to kind
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: of keep the courts more in line or to second
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: guess their decisions to push back in the Trump administration
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: by saying that if the courts go too far to
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: try to limit Trump, they will ignore the courts altogether,
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: which is, you know, like a very old dance. But
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: just the idea that one of the chief principal advisors
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: to the president of the United States is going out
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: to the cameras and saying, everyone will be a Kilmar
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: Bray O'Garcia if you're not careful. It's very dangerous. It's
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: very scary.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, on the merits, Trump keeps telling us that
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: border crossings are down 99%. So the invasion is not
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: going so good. This isn't D-Day. We're not landing on
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: the beaches here. Our intelligence community, Trump's intelligence community, said
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: that the Maduro government does not, in fact, direct or
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: control Trinidad and Aragua. So the entire pretext for the
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Alien Enemies Act has been shredded.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Um, which was, which was confirmed by a Trump appointed
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: judge in Texas already.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it was, you know, they declassified the assessment.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: So I, yeah, I can't tell if this is like
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Stephen Miller doing his fascist dirty talk, you know, he's
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: just kind of getting revved up for a big night
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: out on the town, but if they suspended habeas corpus,
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: it would be the end of our democracy as we
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: know it.
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: And I think they know that. And I think, I
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: think it is a threat to the courts and also
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: they have to know that in the original decision, the five,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: four decision on, um, Seacott and the alien enemies act,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: the Supreme court said, all nine of us, of course,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: know that everyone has habeas. And it's just a question
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: of where they can exercise their habeas rights. And is
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: it in the wrong jurisdiction? That was the only split
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: in the court, like should it be in Texas or DC?
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: But they all agreed that everyone has habeas. So by
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: suspending habeas corpus, now keep in mind the historical times
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: when they've done this that I mentioned, in every instance,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Congress came behind the president, and said, okay, we're going
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: to vote on this and say that it's okay for
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: you to suspend habeas corpus because there's a little gray area,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: whether the president can do it or whether Congress needs
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: to do it. So you would have, if this happened,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: you would have Trump do it. The court has already
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: said it's wrong. Congress would not rubber stamp it. So
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: it would be the end. It may be the end
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: of democracy. And at that point, you'd have to say
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: like law enforcement, military, like it would be up to them.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Do you want to actually abide by this unconstitutional order?
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's, that's just, it's the worst it can get.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: The internment of Japanese Americans, also a moral stain in
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: our country. And the civil war, I would consider extenuating circumstances.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: The courts are open. The courts can handle what is
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: going on in this country, right? The courts are functioning.
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: The courts can handle what is happening. There was a
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: bill in Congress to make the immigration courts work faster
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: and more smoothly by hiring more people and reforming the system,
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: which Trump personally stopped from passing. They have stood in
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: the way of having the courts work even more effectively
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: in to deal with this problem. I also, there's one
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: part of this that I don't think, I haven't seen
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: people talking about enough, which is how dangerous suspending habeas
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: corpus is for law enforcement. That if you send a
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: signal to the country, that if you are arrested, there's
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: not a guarantee that you will get to go before
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: a judge, that you will get to the benefits of
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: the American judicial system of our constitution that raises the
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: stakes for every single arrest. It makes it more dangerous
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: for police. It makes our whole country a more dangerous place.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: And They are playing with this shit because they have
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: no respect for it. They don't care. They've never lived
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: in a world without habeas corpus, but they are. Stephen
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: Miller is just a little.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: He's just read a lot of books.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: Maybe, but he's just, you know, he's like a little punk.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: All the wrong books.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right. We've all read books. He's read different books.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: He's read different books. He's an actual fascist. He is
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: a threat to democracy for sure in the existence of
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: this country. Last thing on executive branch power grabs. On Friday,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Newark Mayor Raz Baraka was arrested outside a new ICE
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: detention center run by a private prison conglomerate and expected
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: to house up to 1,000 migrants at a time. Three
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Democratic members of Congress from New Jersey went to the
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: facility as part of their oversight duties, while Bacara has
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: been raising concerns that the lockup is operating illegally because
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have a valid certificate of occupancy. Other New
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Jersey officials were raising the same concern. So the three representatives...
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: had scheduled a tour of the facility, which they can.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: It's part of their oversight power. And they were allowed
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: in after waiting for an hour and a half to
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: get into the facility, but they were allowed in. Baraka
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: was not allowed in. He was told to step outside.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: He did, like he was asked, to a public area
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: outside the facility. And at that point, he saw some
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: of the federal agents, some of whom were masked, on
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: the phone with someone. And then they came outside and
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: they arrested him. So newly minted U.S. attorney for New Jersey,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Alina Haba, formerly Trump's worst personal lawyer, it's quite a contest,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: confirmed and essentially celebrated the arrest in a post. Baraka
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: was taken to a separate ICE facility in Newark and
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: released a few hours later. Tricia McLaughlin, the spokesperson for
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: the Department of Homeland Security, then the next day on
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: Saturday said that members of Congress who were there could
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: face assault charges against for what she called attacks on
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: ICE agents, that the actual video footage, including the body
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: cam footage that was on the federal agents, doesn't show
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: the agents being assaulted by the members of Congress, one
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: of whom, Bonnie Watson Coleman, is 80 years old.
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: Antifa super soldier, Bonnie Watson Coleman.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: It seems to me like my take on this is
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: that the administration has been looking for any excuse to
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: arrest Democratic politicians. They decided to make their move here.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: We heard Tom Holman talk about this last week when
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: someone asked him, and he's like, Just wait. Just wait
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: to see what's coming. Because he was asked, are you
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: going to arrest Democratic officials? So that's what it seemed
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: like to me. What do you guys think? Yeah, they
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: want to fight with liberals. They want to fight with
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: sanctuary cities. They want to fight with Democrats. I do
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: feel like this was quite an overreach. I mean, Trump
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: might want this fight.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: It does seem like they're leaning into it, suggesting they're
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: going to arrest even more members of Congress. Reflects that fact.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: But the mayor, he was just on the sidewalk yesterday.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: It wasn't in the facility. The guy was just chilling out.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so when the mayor was interviewed about this, he
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: basically said, you know, he went there with these members
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: of Congress, or he was meeting them there. They go in.
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: He is not allowed to join them, but he is
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: invited inside the facility, like on the other side of
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: the fence. And he's just waiting there.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: And then at some point they did ask him to leave.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: And he said they asked him several times, which I respect.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: And then he walked out. He's not he wasn't inside
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: the facility when they decide to arrest him. And they
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: keep saying, and then all these right-wing kind of goons
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: are saying that, you know, they're doing it ironically, but
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: not ironically, that this was an attempt to storm the facility.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: But the members of Congress had already been inside, as
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: they are legally required to be, to do their oversight duties,
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: and then were leaving. I do think there's some, there's
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: just a, I do want to just, there is a
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: kind of, in the way that Fox News and others
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: have been putting out the body cam footage, they've been
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: really focusing on LaMonica McIver. And I do think what
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: they're counting on is There is a black woman who
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: is furious about what is happening. And they're like all
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: these headlines like, oh, she was like bullying her way
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: into the facility. And they're kind of basically counting on like, oh,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: there's a group of angry black people. And therefore they
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: must have been doing something wrong and that their audience
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: just won't like seeing it.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: And even then. You can hear her say, he just
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: assaulted me. He just assaulted me because the ICE agents
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: put hands on her as well, as well as Bonnie Coleman.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: But I think it's extremely dangerous because this is how
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: they want to escalate things. So it's peaceful. Then they
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: decide they're going to arrest the mayor of Newark. And
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of protesters anyway. And then the members
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: of Congress are like, why are you arresting the mayor?
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: And so then there's chaos. And then there's people pushing
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: because they've got the mayor. And so then there's the protestors.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: And so they're counting on the fact that when they
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: overreach like this, there's going to be a response. And
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: the response is going to be either yelling, screaming, moving,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: trying to protect the mayor like they did. And then
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: they're going to get footage. And whether people believe the
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: administration story or not, because they're just going to lie
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: about it, they're going to confuse enough people. So people
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: are going to be like, nah. And you saw this
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: in some of their initial headlines. It was like arrested
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: at a protest. And it makes you think that there
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: was like a protest inside the facility and they shouldn't
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: have been there and Maybe they were just having a
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: sit-in or something. And then you have to really unspool
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: the story to be like, it wasn't even a fucking protest.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: And you have to kind of dig into it. They
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: were already inside.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: They were leaving. They were fucking leaving.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: And the lies that Trisha McLaughlin, she is fucking terrible.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Everything she says is a lie. Like, it's relentless. It's constant.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: She is just, it's out of control. I mean, I
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: think ICE, this seems like it's going to result in
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: a lawsuit. I hope Baraka sues the hell out of
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: them for this. Hopefully, we'll get to the bottom of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: who made the phone call or the decision to arrest him, why,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: and what email or text traffic there might have been.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: But I agree with you that this is incredibly racialized,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: especially the way it's being aired in the kind of
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: Fox News media, the sort of mega media. But I
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: don't think anyone wants to set a precedent of arresting
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: members of Congress or elected officials for just doing like
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: lawful oversight. It seems like a real problem.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: And I just, you know, there's, there was also news
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: this weekend that Trump is trying to get another 20,000
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: ICE agents and he's just going to start pulling them
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: from other departments and other parts of the federal government. And,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: you know, you worry about a, an agency here that's
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: got a that Trump has pulled from different parts of
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: the government and they're wearing masks and taking students off
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: the street in tufts and now they're arresting members of Congress.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: It's not good.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: And now you don't support COVID protocols?
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll do the mask thing. They just tried to
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: take away federal funding from Columbia, from Harvard. One of
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: their demands is to stop allowing masks because they view
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: it as such a security threat to have people in
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: masks at these protests. There is no justification for for
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: having masked police officers at this facility, masked federal officers
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: at this facility, other than to provide impunity for either
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: unlawful or deeply kind of troubling.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: Conduct at best.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, there is one, there is a moment where
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: this officer just gets in McIver's face and she's clearly
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: like shocked that a federal official would treat a member
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: of Congress this way. put out a statement, which I
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: thought was good. He said, if this is how they
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: treat members of Congress when the cameras are rolling, imagine
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: what they'll do. He goes on to say, imagine what
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: they'll do when it's just a normal person and the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: cameras aren't there.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: And it's happening all over the country.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: When we get back from the break, you're going to
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: hear Tommy's conversation with Rob Sand, the Democrat running for
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: governor in Iowa. Really important race. But before we do that,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: a reminder, our friend Amanda Lippman's great new book, When
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: We're In Charge, The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership is
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: out now from Crooked Media Reads. The book is a
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: manual for leadership on your own terms. No fluff, no gatekeeping,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: no losing yourself in the process, just real tools, honest lessons,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: and the kind of clarity that younger leaders actually need.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Get your copy of When We're In Charge at crooked.com
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: slash books now or wherever you get your books. Also,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: love it or leave it, just added new live show
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: dates in LA from June to October. So if you're
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: in LA, come say hi. Grab tickets at crooked.com slash events. Also,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: a tease for listeners in DC.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: World Pride's coming up. And if you'll be there, mark
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: your calendars for June 6th. We are working on a
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: great event that you will not want to miss.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Keep an eye out for event details and how to
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: get tickets. It's a tease, but it's a good one.
• 1:04:43
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  Speaker 2: My guest today is the only Democrat currently holding statewide
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: office in Iowa. He is also, as of today, officially
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: running for the governor of Iowa in 2026. Rob Sand,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: great to see you.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: Good to see you too, Tommy. Thanks for having me.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: It's a blast to have you. And we'll talk about
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: how long we've known each other and how exciting this is.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: But so... Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, she's decided to not
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: run for re-election. She had a long career in politics.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: She leaves office, though, with the highest disapproval rating of
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: any governor in the country. At the same time, Democrats
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: haven't won a governor's race in Iowa since 2006. We
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: haven't won a Senate race since 2008. Why are you
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: the guy who can change all that?
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 5: Bottom line, I think, is people get to know me.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: They like what they hear. They like what they see.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: They like what they say. So for folks who want
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: to learn more, it's robsan.com. But Look, I think most
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 5: people in the United States right now, if you're like, okay,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 5: there's a candidate for office who was born and raised
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 5: in a small town where he had to go a
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: long way to get anywhere bigger. They like to hunt
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: and fish. They own guns, including handguns. And they're in
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 5: church every Sunday. And it really means something to them.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: I mean, what percent of people would say, oh, that's
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: a Republican?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: That's me.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: Like I just described myself. And so I think that
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 5: that matters to a lot of people in the state
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: of Iowa. We have a good chunk of our population
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: that's in rural areas in small towns. They want to
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: know that their lives are understood by the person they're
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: voting for. But it's bigger than that too, because a
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: lot of people slice and dice. They're like, oh, you know,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: they're too judgmental of those voters. We are not going
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 5: to get them back as though, you know, we're all different.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: But a lot of the people in bigger cities in
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: the suburbs in Iowa came from those small towns. And they,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: some of them, were not excited to leave. They left
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: because of economic opportunities that were better somewhere else. But
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 5: they too want to know that somebody like understands that
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 5: part of small town Iowa. Tom Vilsack was the last
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: candidate for governor in Iowa who was a Democrat who
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 5: had real small town roots. He had been a mayor
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: in Mount Pleasant. And so I think that that is
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: an indicator that that does make a difference for people.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: And then I want to talk about your job currently.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: So you're the state auditor. That means you're the only
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: Democrat who's managed to win a statewide race in Iowa
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: in a while. I want to talk about how you
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: did that, how you won. But also just start with
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: give us a quick overview of what an auditor does. Like,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: is it are you doging your way through the statehouse?
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: What does this mean? Do you create as much chaos
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: as possible for a few months and then disappear? I
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: think that's what doging does.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 5: Good question. So in this, it's actually a really good
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 5: question because most states have a auditor, but it's not
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 5: necessarily the same job in every state. In the state
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 5: of Iowa, we are the taxpayer's watchdog. We audit state
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: government every year, financial statement audit, We also do public
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 5: corruption investigations, which is how I got interested in the
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 5: office because I had been doing most of Iowa's public
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 5: corruption prosecution. And then we also, as of 2019 in
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: my first term, we do government efficiency promotion. So we
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 5: have a government efficiency program that is so good at
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: actually saving money that it has been copied in two
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: other states.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: Pretty good.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: Pretty good.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 5: And it's really about, at the end of the day,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 5: actually helping the people who are there in cities, counties,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: and school districts find new and better ways to save money,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 5: which I think is an effective way to save it.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 5: You need a little planning. You need a little thoughtfulness,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: a little bit of working ahead to try to get
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: people into the place where they can have an impact
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: by giving them some ideas and trusting them to do
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: the right thing to some degree.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: So you don't just like storm into government buildings with
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: a bunch of like 19-year-old coders, take over everything, maybe
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: fire some people, kick them out. That's not how it goes?
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: Not yet.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: I haven't done that yet.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: Okay. Sorry, big balls. You're not moving to Des Moines.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: So Rob, the change in Iowa politics from when we
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: met in 2004 or even 2008 when Barack Obama won statewide,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: 2012 we won, we beat Mitt Romney in Iowa too,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: Obama did, to sort of the political landscape now, it's
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: kind of hard to wrap your head around. What do
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: you think changed that shifted Iowa from blue to red
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: and how have you managed to buck that trend and
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: how will you do it again in 2026? Sure.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: So I want to challenge the premise of your question,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: if I may, a little bit.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: Challenge away.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: And let's answer this question instead, because let's acknowledge Iowa
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: is one of the slowest changing states in the entire country, right?
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 5: So we have just a population base that is incredibly steady.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 5: It's getting a little bit older. We are not doing
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 5: a good job of bringing new people in. And at
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 5: the same time, we're losing some younger folks, but it's
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 5: all very slow. And so it's like, I wouldn't change overnight.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: It's the same people. And so the question that is
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 5: better asked to describe what happened in Iowa is how
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: were Barack Obama and Donald Trump the same? And the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: answer to that question is pretty straightforward. They were both
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: outsiders who challenged their party's establishment and said, I'm going
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 5: to do politics differently. And keep in mind that the
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: Democratic Party in 16 and 20 and in 24 nominated
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: the opposite of that. Whether or not you think that
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 5: was a good thing or a bad thing, the nominees
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: of the democratic party for the last three presidential elections
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 5: have been people who are insiders for lack of a
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 5: better word. There's a good chunk of Iowans. And this
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 5: is actually, this is the rural area that I come
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 5: from in Northeast Iowa. It's the driftless area of Northeast Iowa,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 5: Southeast Minnesota, Southwest Wisconsin. It is the biggest hub of
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 5: Obama Trump swim counties in the United States of America
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 5: by far. And Iowa had twice as many of those
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 5: counties as any other state. Second place was Wisconsin. We
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 5: had like, 30. They had, I think about 20, 15
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 5: or 20. So I just think that, and this is
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 5: the bottom line on so much of this and so
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 5: much of why I do this. There are a lot
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 5: of people out there and I cut myself in them
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 5: who don't want to be forced to be a Democrat
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: or a Republican. They look at this country, they look
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 5: at what we learned about in public school growing up,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 5: and they look at the contrast with our politics right now.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 5: And they're like, wait a minute, I thought this was
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 5: supposed to be about grand compromises and moving the people
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 5: forward and solving problems, not just tug of war. And
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 5: what it feels like so often to so many people
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 5: right now is it's just tug of war. That's the
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 5: heart of the idea. In my announcement video, I say,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 5: I don't want Iowa to be bluer or redder. I
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 5: want it to be truer and better. Like, what are
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: we doing here? Why does this have to be a
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 5: fight about what color hat you wear? It should be
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 5: about what's the right thing to do and can we
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: do the right thing?
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'll never forget waking up the morning
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: of the 2016 election and looking at a map of
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: Iowa and the counties that shifted. And you're right. The
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: counties you're describing, sort of the eastern edge of the state,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: the river counties that were pretty reliably Democratic completely switched
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: to being Republicans. And you're right. It's not like everybody
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: moved and they were replaced with more conservative, like alternative
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: versions of themselves. They were persuaded to vote a different direction.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: I think you're right. That's an opportunity there that we
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: can get them back. I do also agree that people
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: constantly talk about politics in terms of kind of like
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: an ideological left-right continuum. I agree with you that like
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama, even though we think of him now as
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: a two-term president, he is someone who ran against the
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: traditional politics of Washington, against Hillary Clinton, by the way.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: And Donald Trump, you're right, he was like the consummate outsider.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: He was someone who was seen as so outside the
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: system that people actually mocked it. And then voters said
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: to us, actually, we hate the system as much as
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: he does. So we're going to vote for him now.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, they were literally like, oh, all of you hate him?
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: That's all I need to know.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 5: You know, why would I spend more time paying attention
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 5: to politics?
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: It's awful.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: I'd like to go hang out with my kids. All
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: of you who have never done anything for me hate
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 5: this guy.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: Perfect.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 5: I'm all set.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: Right. He's my guy. So let's talk about Trump for
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: a minute. So his entire economic policy in Trump 2.0
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: is tariffs. The size of the tariffs, the countries he's tariffing,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: that changes by the hour. But it is his primary
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: focus is to put in place trade barriers. What do
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: you think the impact of a protracted trade war with
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: China or, I don't know, name your country, would be
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: for Iowa in particular?
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: Brutal.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 5: I'm with Chuck Grassley. He is the only member of
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: Congress that has had the guts to say it from Iowa.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 5: Out of the two senators and the four that we have,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 5: he said, hey, if this works– I'll be saying amen, hallelujah.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 5: I don't think it's going to work. The United States
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 5: exports agriculture. That is a huge piece of it. You
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 5: really can't answer in a trade war without putting tariffs
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 5: on agriculture. And China understands this. We've had a special relationship,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 5: Iowa agriculture, we, has had a special relationship with them
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 5: for a long time. But in the first Trump administration,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 5: they realized the volatility here and they built what is
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 5: now the single largest new port in the world in
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: Peru to ship Brazilian agriculture products as a substitute for
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 5: American agriculture products. They literally build it from scratch. And
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 5: so in the first administration, they basically built this spigot.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 5: Now all they got to do is turn it on.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 5: And so the threat to Iowa agriculture here is a
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 5: much larger threat, I think, than it was in the
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 5: first Trump administration, where it was kind of like, well,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 5: What are you really going to do? Take the Brazilian
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: exports all the way down around Tierra del Fuego and
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 5: then up? Like, no, like we feel good about where
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 5: we are. It's a different question now. And that has
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: an impact too in Aberdeen, Washington has hundreds of jobs
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 5: in their port. That's where most of American agriculture, corn
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 5: and soybeans from Iowa flows through or pork as it's
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 5: on its way to China right now. And so that
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 5: ramification isn't just going to be confined to Iowa. It's
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 5: going to be nationwide.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: The other sort of broad economic challenge I hear a
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: lot about Iowa is that a lot of Iowa businesses
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: are really struggling to hire workers and then retain those workers.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: Why is that? And what do you think the governor's
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: role is in kind of fixing that problem?
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 5: There's a couple of things there. Number one, you know,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 5: Iowans are pretty welcoming people. They don't really care much about,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 5: at the end of the day, they're not particularly concerned
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 5: with who you are as long as you treat people,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: I think, decently and you're trying to be productive. um,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 5: try to try to give something to society. Um, but our,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 5: our state laws lately have not been welcoming to people.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 5: It's been the opposite of that. It's hard to grow
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 5: a state when you tell a good chunk of people
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 5: like you aren't welcome here. Cause it's not just those
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 5: people that you're making feel unwelcome. It's also people who,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 5: you know, like if, if you're, uh, concerned about how
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 5: the gay community is treated in the state of Iowa, well,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: if you're someone who wants to have kids someday, and
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 5: you don't care about who they love as long as
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 5: they treat people decently and they're trying to be a
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 5: productive member of society, you might think twice about being here.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 5: I think that's crazy. We need people in the state
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 5: of Iowa. I think most Iowans agree. We need people
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 5: in the state of Iowa. I don't think that they
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 5: like the way state government sort of picks and chooses there.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 5: I think that's a tremendous.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: Piece of it.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 5: I think the other piece is that we aren't doing
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 5: a good job of of really building the state. State
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 5: government is not doing a good job of making the
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 5: state attractive. We are 49th for public land. We are
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 5: 49th for the economy. It's hard to get excited about
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 5: a place where the economy is not doing great. And hey,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: to boot, if you're not doing great economically, it's also
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 5: hard to go out there and enjoy the outdoors.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. A couple more political questions and I'll let
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: you go. Forever, not forever, for several years, decades, the
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: Iowa caucuses kicked off the presidential primary process. Then the
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: Biden team made a bunch of changes. They switched things up.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: South Carolina went first last cycle. We don't know what
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: exactly the schedule is going to look like in 2028.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: Do you think there's any chance that on the Democratic side,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: Iowa might get back to its cherished first place in
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: the process, or is that something that people are uh,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: moving on from?
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 5: Um, you know, I don't know. I, I, I am
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: not well connected to the DNC. I've never been to
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 5: a convention before. I would sure hope that they would
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 5: do that. I think that would be smart. I think
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 5: by removing Iowa, they said to a great number of
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 5: people outside of the state of Iowa that were less
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 5: interested in your opinions.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 5: And they did, it was so weird. Because they were like, oh, well,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 5: we want states that are more competitive and more diverse.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 5: But South Carolina is less competitive and New Hampshire is
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 5: less diverse.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: So what is it really?
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 5: I don't know the answer to that question. But I
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 5: know that in Iowa, we're going to follow state law.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 5: And I think it would be smart for the DNC
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 5: to put Iowa back in charge on that.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I definitely think... I'm not sure. Maybe they'll
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: do some sort of rotation, you know, get a first four,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: maybe move stuff around. Yeah. But I agree. Like, you know,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: my experience in Iowa was people took it very seriously
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: and it was fun to go there and watch the
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: process happen. And I hope it's a part of that
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: process in some way. Rob, people have been confusing us,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: making jokes about us looking alike.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: I was wondering if we were going to go there.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to have to because people are going
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: to go there for us. I've been tagged in your
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: announcement video about six trillion times today alone. Sorry.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: Sorry for.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 5: You know, honestly, I should have told you that this
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 5: was it because then you would have known like I'm
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 5: just not going to open Twitter today, right?
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: It could have been helpful.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: Listen, this is– here's my question. Given that fact, if
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: you win, can I be governor for one full day?
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: We could announce it or we could do like the
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: movie Dave and you just get a day off.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 5: Let me give that some thought and get back to
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 5: you on that. I can't make any promises today.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 5: Uh, I'd want to think through the legal ramifications. I
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 5: also wouldn't want to promise you something that for some
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 5: reason the Iowa constitution says we can't do. I think
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 5: you'd have to be Lieutenant governor first.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: That, that works for me. Is that an offer? Am I,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: you're running me now? Are you going to move to Iowa? Sure.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 5: I love living in Des Moines. Then we can have
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 5: like two candidates at the same time out there and
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 5: just say, all of them are me. Like, Hey, this
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 5: is Rob Sand. Where's Tommy Veeder today? No, he's the,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 5: he's the other guy in the other place.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: Rob, now you're cooking with gas here, buddy. Uh, final
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: question for you. What's your plan to win this thing?
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: How can listeners help? Like what, what can we do?
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: We've got a bunch of people who care a lot
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: about politics, the state of the country. Um, some of
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: them might live in Iowa. A lot of them don't.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: What can they do to help out?
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 5: Look, robsand.com is the place to go.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: You can donate.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 5: Here's my plan to win. Uh, we're going to need
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 5: volunteers later, but right now we certainly want people pitching
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 5: in who care about the state of Iowa, who want
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 5: to see, uh, us break the trifecta here.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: Plan to win?
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 5: Letting people know who I am. My plan has always
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 5: been do what I was told to do when I
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 5: was growing up. Be yourself. I do a hundred town
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 5: halls every single year. They are advanced notice to the
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 5: public so that everyone can come. Everyone can ask me
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 5: questions and get answers from me. We're going to do
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 5: those again. I like to do a hundred because for
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 5: those who really know your Iowa geography, I do every
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 5: county seat and Lee County has two county seats. So
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 5: while most elected officials in Iowa do the 99 county tour,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: Because I'm competitive and I like bad jokes, I like
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 5: to say, well, I do 100 town halls and that
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 5: way I'm the hardest working elected official in the state
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 5: of Iowa, which is kind of fun. But I'm going
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 5: to be out there. I'm going to talk to people
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 5: because I thought that's what democracy was about. Sorry if
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 5: I misunderstood. I thought you're supposed to literally go meet
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 5: people and say, hey, how are you, and listen to
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 5: them and answer their questions. I think that that works
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 5: because I've been doing it so far and it's been
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 5: working for me.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: I think it'll work too. Just a final point of
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: personal privilege here. Not everything about getting older is cool,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: but it is very fun now that I've known you
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: literally since 2004. We've worked together. We've been friends. We've
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: hung out. It's great to know that there's people in
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: politics that are genuinely good and decent and in it
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: for the right reasons and care a lot about the job.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: And you just know that they would do an incredible job.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: So that's just my way of saying to people listening,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: if you want to get involved in a campaign and
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: you want to back someone who will make you proud,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: check out Rob's campaign. Thanks, Tommy.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 5: That's really nice of you. I appreciate that.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 5: I'll tell one little story about that. Because I think
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 5: that everybody, all of us, whether we're running for office
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 5: or not, we sometimes, we tell ourselves stories about ourselves.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 5: And sometimes they're accurate and sometimes they're not. But in 2022,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 5: I had a physical reaction to something that helped me
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 5: understand actually why I do this and it's not for me.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 5: on election night, my reelection was super close. So we
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 5: had an hour and a half where we were like, ooh,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 5: on pins and needles. And then we had a half
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 5: an hour where we were like, it's over.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: We lost.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 5: And for that half an hour, I felt great.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: I felt fantastic. I was like, I'm free. I'm free.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 5: And it made me realize like I had a physical,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 5: I felt three inches taller. I felt like lighter. All
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 5: the weight was off of my shoulders. And it, That
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 5: reaction literally helped me realize like, no, I think I
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 5: should be glad that I won because half an hour
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 5: later when the weight came back, I wasn't honestly happy
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 5: about it. But it did make me realize I should
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 5: be happy that I won and I should keep trying
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 5: because that reaction to me told me like, no, I
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 5: know I'm not doing this for me. I know I'm
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 5: doing it to try to make a difference. And you
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 5: can't fake that kind of feeling. So I appreciate you
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 5: feeling that way too.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Well, I'm hoping that crushing, crippling weight remains on
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: your shoulders for many, many years to come. And thank
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: you for coming on the show. Hope to do it
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: again soon. I appreciate that. Happy to.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks so much to Rob
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: Sand for coming on. Dan and I will be back
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: with a new show on Friday. If you want to
• 1:24:31
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• 1:24:37
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  Speaker 1: it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a
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  Speaker 1: Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our
• 1:25:05
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• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin
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  Speaker 1: and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news
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