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Transcript

A Tale of Two Campaigns · Pod Save America

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: On today's show, Donald Trump goes after RFK Jr., Larry
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: David goes after Donald Trump, No Labels goes after anyone
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: left who will join their ticket, and Mago World goes
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: completely nuts with conspiracies about how the Baltimore Bridge collapsed
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: because of open borders and DEI programs. Then Congresswoman Jasmine
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Crockett of Texas stops by the studio to talk to
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Tommy about the secret to driving House Republicans crazy. I
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: feel like they're almost there, but.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, were you driving them too?
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: But she does do a particular good job of it.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: But first, a tale of two campaigns. Joe Biden just
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: capped off a very busy month of campaigning. He hit
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: eight swing states in just 18 days with a New
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: York fundraising event featuring Barack Obama and Bill Clinton that's
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: expected to bring in a record-breaking $ 25 million dollars. That
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: is more money than the Trump campaign raised in December
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: and January combined. And the Biden campaign also has more
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: than three times the amount of cash on hand as
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the Trump folks do. Over the last month, they've also
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: opened 100 new offices and hired more than 350 new
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: staffers in the swing states. Meanwhile, the other campaign, Trump
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: has held just one actual campaign event, one event since
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: clinching the nomination on March 12th. The campaign hasn't yet
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: made any significant investments or hires in the swing states,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: even though they've fired dozens of staffers since taking over
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the RNC and are reportedly quizzing potential new employees on
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: whether they believe the 2020 election was stolen. Instead of campaigning,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Trump has been splitting time between his golf club and
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: a Manhattan courtroom, where he will soon be tried for
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: the first of dozens of criminal charges. Trump's legal bills
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: are piling up. which is one reason he's short on
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: cash and reduced to making fundraising pitches like this one
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: on Truth Social.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: But the Soros PAC prosecutors and politicians, Democrats, all that
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: are after us, we have to go out, we have
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: to fight. They're communists, they're fascists, they're lunatics, and they
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: just don't stop. They don't know how to give up,
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: and you've got to hand it to them for that.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: But that's the only thing you've got to give them
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: credit for. They're bad people. They're against our country. They
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: don't want our country to make it. There's something wrong
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: with them. But we're fighting. We're winning. You see what's
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: going on. So whatever you can do to help financially
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: would be fantastic because we have to beat it. If
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: it's $ 5 or $ 10 or $ 100, whatever you can do.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: The communists and their fascists, just in case. Now, Dan,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: if you woke up to.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: That news today that I just mentioned about the two
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: campaigns and hadn't seen any polling over the last several months,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: you might be surprised to learn that the race is
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: basically tied. But one would think that the huge gap
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: between the Biden and Trump campaign operations will ultimately make
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: a difference in a close race, right? Tell me it will.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Do you need me to say yes to this?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Whatever. No, you can say whatever you believe.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Look, I think, you know, if you read all of that,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: if you had just said to me that he was
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: preparing to start a criminal trial for one of his
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: dozens of criminal charges, like that's it. That's the point
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: at which I am shocked that the race is tied.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I don't even need to know about his laziness or
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: lack of money or that bizarre pitch. Just one guy
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: is going to walk into a courtroom and may leave
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: in a prison jumpsuit. And the fact that that race
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: is tied, that's alarming and quite surprising. Look, This is
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: always so hard to talk about this in such a
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: close election because, of course, it could make a difference.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Everything can make a difference. It's why it's such an
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: exhausting election to talk about. 50,000 votes over three states,
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: a handful more organizers, a few better ads, a couple
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: more campaign visits. Any one of those things could be
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: the difference between democracy and authoritarianism. It's just that. It's
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: just that. It's how narrow the margins are. So it's
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: really– it's important. The thing that I think that this
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: has reminded us of is that there is an advantage
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: to incumbency. There had been this sense, I think, and
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: even I felt it some, that Trump had negated some
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: of Biden's incumbent advantage because he had glided through the primaries.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: He never really had to get on debate stage and
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: muck it up with a bunch of yahoos. He avoided
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: some of the more demeaning parts of the primary process
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: and just basically ran as a nominee the whole time.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: But he was spending money. in those states to win
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: those delegates. And the Biden campaign was clearly behind the
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: scenes while things were very quiet, building an operation and
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: putting in place a plan that they were going to
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: launch the moment he walked off the stage during the
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: State of the Union. And they are doing that and
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: they're executing it quite impressively, I think.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Now, it does seem like the Trump people could catch
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: up after all these stories ran about how far behind
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: they are. I guess the Trump campaign did a call
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: with reporters today where they said that the RNC will
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: be opening dozens of offices and hiring hundreds of staff
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: in the next month or so. I listened to you
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: and Sarah on yesterday's episode, and you made the point
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: that Biden has a lot more cash, but Trump will
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: probably have enough cash to run the campaign. And of course,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: we know that he was outspent by Hillary Clinton in 2016,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: still won that campaign. So what do you think? Is
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: this just sort of a temporary... you know, where the
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: general is just starting out and people need stories to write?
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Or do you think this is a real advantage that
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Biden will have through November?
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Look, yeah, he has the advantage now. And yes, Trump
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: can narrow the gap, but time is the only non-renewable
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: resource in a campaign. And so Biden is going to,
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: this is time that Trump is wasting. And I think
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: the Trump campaign may be misunderstanding their own success in 2016.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Some of the things he was able to do that
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: allowed him to negate the financial disadvantage with Hillary Clinton
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: and to avoid sort of the traditional campaigning are not
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: available to him this time. His ability to dominate the
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: political conversation does not exist like it used to, right?
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: The entire world was dialed in in 2016. Everything he
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: was saying and doing, every single tweet was not just
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: like on CNN and MSNBC and Fox and in the
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: New York Times. It was on local television. It was
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: on late night comedy shows. It was on social media.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: That world doesn't exist anymore. You can't reach people that way.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: You have to do it in a more systematic piecemeal approach.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: And they have not yet shown the ability to do that.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: The other advantage he had is he recognized the market
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: inefficiency around Facebook and how he could sort of gig
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: the Facebook algorithm, which benefits his sort of outrageous content
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: to drive the conversation and reach a shitload of voters
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: at a very low cost. That is not available to
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: him in the same way either. Democrats have narrowed the
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: gap there. We figured that out, but Facebook is also
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: deprioritizing that sort of political content. So the ways in
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: which he was able to ally the sort of political
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: gravity in 2016 are not available in the same way.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: So he's going to have to come up with new
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: ways to narrow the gap or get better at traditional politics,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: one of the two.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: So I know that he's not campaigning as much as
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Biden is because he is lazy. He has also had
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: some courtroom appearances that will continue to keep him busy.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: We've if there's anything intentional about it as well. Let's
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: see what you think about this. It's like Biden's job.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Is this a theory?
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: You're giving me a theory?
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: I'm giving you a theory. I'm giving you a theory.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Just something I've been wondering about. Biden's job is pretty clear, right?
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: He needs to make the race a choice between four
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: more years of Biden and four more years of Trump.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And a big part of that is reminding people, reminding
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: voters why they don't like Donald Trump. Trump's job is
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: to keep the focus on Biden and make sure that
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: voters don't remember how awful he is. One way of
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: executing that strategy is to simply not be in voters'
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: faces as much and to lay low a little bit.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: I think there is something to that theory, right? I
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: think you are right that the more Donald Trump is
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: in the news, the less well he does. And he
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: has been in the news a lot recently as the
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: campaign has kicked off, as he's become the nominee, as
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: his Court cases have been more intense focus in the
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court case on immunity. That's all been not great
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: for him, is my take. The one thing that I
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: think that they may also be missing is that his
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: goal was to keep the focus on Biden and keep
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: the focus on Biden in the way in which Trump
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: wants Biden to be viewed. And that was a much
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: easier task when Biden was being much quieter and he
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: wasn't campaigning and he wasn't on air. He was really
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: shadowboxing against a caricature of Biden being promoted by the
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: right-wing media, by clips on social media, by sort of
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: the Biden discourse about his age. And Biden is now
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: pushing back. There's a countervailing pro-Biden message happening, both from
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: his campaigning and from a serious amount of television advertising.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: So Just simply sitting back and letting sort of the
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: world beat up on Biden and sending some truths and
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: making some jokes about it, that I think will not
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: work in an engaged campaign. So yeah, it may be
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: that he's trying to keep the focus on Biden, but
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: he's going to have to do more than just, I think,
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: step back if Biden's going to be actually actively making
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: the case for himself, which he's now doing effectively and
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: with money behind it.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I will say also that the idea that Trump can
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: somehow muster the discipline to lay low and not make
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: himself– The center of attention.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Your new Trump theory that John has put on here.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: But I was wondering if the people in the campaign,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: it could have been a strategy that they're at least
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: aspiring to. I don't necessarily believe they'll be able to
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: execute on it.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: That is the advantage of truth social, right? Because before,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: if he wasn't campaigning, he was tweeting, and tweeting was
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: getting him a ton of attention. He is just truthing
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: like a maniac out there, and no one knows or cares, right?
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: It really is like the like the Creed's blog from
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: the office where Ryan just opened a Word document and
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: told him he was posting on there. That's kind of
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: what Truth Social is.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: And so- Well, the Biden campaigns, they're doing a good job.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Their rapid response operation and their Twitter feed has been
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: like copy pasting his truths a lot more, which I
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: think is good because it's like getting them in the
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: mix a little bit more.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good. The stuff that Biden campaign has been
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: doing over the last several weeks since the campaign has
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: fully kicked off has been quite impressive, I think.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the money. The New York Times ran
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: the numbers. Trump has spent more than $ 100 million on
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: legal bills since leaving office, which, according to the Times,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: nets out to more than $ 90, 000 a day. And somehow
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: the guy who just loves telling us how rich he
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: is isn't paying for any of this with his own money.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: How is that possible?
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: Well, John, do you know people like Donald Trump get
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: really rich?
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: They spend more time- They scam other people?
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: Well, they're better at taking money from other people than
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: spending their own, right? That's how they got so rich.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: It is one of the reasons why Trump is at
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: a money deficit is the big money donors probably don't
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: want to give money to have that money spent on
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: legal bills. They would love to defeat Joe Biden. They
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: would love lower tax rates. They'd love to be able
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: to pollute with impunity. But the idea that they're going
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: to pay for his criminal defense, it gives them pause.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: And it's certainly, I think, affecting- donations to his super PACs,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: which were being massively outraised by the pro Biden super PACs.
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: So instead he's just, you know, asking people for five, 10, 15,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: $ 20 so that they can fund his legal defense.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: And many of them will do that, right?
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: The guys, his entire life is just a series of
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: scams designed to benefit one person, Donald Trump. That's it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: That's the whole campaign.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: That is, I think, where this– like one of the
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: reasons to talk about the legal bill stuff is to
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: make sure that every rich person knows that their money
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: is being misused that way. This guy who just made
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: $ 3 billion on paper for his scam website wants to
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: take your money and use it to pay his legal bills.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: Like that can depress donations among the rich folks. But
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: the other reason is you tie it– he's asking you
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: to pay his legal bills. He's selling Bibles. He's selling sneakers.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: He's selling NFTs. He's doing all these things. It's all
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: part of the narrative you just laid out, which is
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: he's in it for himself. He's not in it for
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: any of you guys.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: And by the way, if he becomes president again, what
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: a great way, what a great easy way for foreign
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: government to curry favor with Donald Trump. All they have
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: to do is buy some shares of Truth Social. Or
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: buy boxes.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Of the Lee Greenwood Bibles by the crate.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Ha ha ha. It's just, the grift never ends.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: We just see MBS wearing those Air Trump 1s or
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: whatever those sneakers are.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, huge minority stakeholder in truth social, MBS, with his
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: holding up his fucking Lee Greenwood Bible. One last thing
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: here on this new RNC big lie litmus test for
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: new hires. Obviously, it is Trump's Republican Party, has been
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: for a while. He is free to staff it with
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: as many election deniers as he'd like. It does seem
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: like it may limit the the talent pool that he
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: can choose from to run this race, and also maybe
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: the appeal that he can make to voters who don't
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: believe the election was stolen? I don't know. What do
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: you think?
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: I think I said this the other day off mic.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: I hope the DNC is asking their hires if they
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: think Biden was the legitimate winner, because if the answer
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: is no, we don't want those people on our team.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: It is an important litmus test. I do hope it's being, yeah.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: It is funny that people are so worked up about some...
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: junior MAGA kid being forced to pass his litmus test
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: when it is the actual litmus test for membership in
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: the party writ large. If you are a member of
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Congress and you are unwilling to say that the election
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: was done from Donald Trump, you basically get run out
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: of the party. So the RNC field organizer interview process
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: is low on the list of problems as it relates
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: to Donald Trump's MAGA extremism, big lie election denier bullshit stuff.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: It's what you have to be to be a Republican now.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: That is the price of admission to the party.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: I do think it's just yet another proof point that
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: this is what the second Trump administration will look like.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: It's like kooks, morons, grifters, right wing extremists out for revenge.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: You got your Mike Flynn's, your Stephen Miller's, Steve Bannon's,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Laura Loomer, Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is it. This is
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: going to be in charge of the government. And as
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: a campaign message, again, it's like what you were saying.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: You know, if you you got Joe Biden, who wants
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: to be a president for everyone, even the people who
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: don't vote for him. And then you get Donald Trump.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: who is a president only for people with undying loyalty
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: to him and all of his craziest conspiracy theories. You
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: got to sign up for all of it in order
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: that otherwise Trump doesn't want your vote, doesn't want you
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: to be part of anything and is not only going
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: to not help you, probably going to come after you.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: That's the difference.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: I'd like to say I picked up a paper, but
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: I haven't done that in years, but I was on
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: the internet today and I saw a story that said,
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: potential secretary of state, Rick Grinnell, meeting with foreign leaders.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: And I was like, Not just foreign leaders, like right-wing
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: autocrats all over the world, just finding all the authoritarians
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: and fascists he can in every country. And he's just,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: you know, just wait, wait until Trump's back.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: It just hadn't even occurred. I mean, this is my
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: own ignorance, but it hadn't even occurred to me that
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Rick Grinnell was going to be Secretary of State. Like,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: obviously that's the case, but it's just like, that is
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: the level that we are dealing with here. Yeah.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: And again- You don't need Senate appointments. First of all,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: you're probably going to get Senate appointments because you're going
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: to have like a pretty MAGA Senate at this point
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: if Trump wins again. And even if not, all you
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: have to do is just install someone as the number
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: two deputy, leave the top job open, and they'll get
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: to do whatever they want to do with no confirmation
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: from the Senate. So that's what we're going to get.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Trump's latest messaging has also been as sharp and disciplined
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: as ever. He spent most of the week on Truth
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Social attacking the judge who's about to preside over his
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: first criminal trial, the judge's daughter, Ronna McDaniel, MSDNC, Sleepy Eyes,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Chuck Todd, etc., etc. Of course, he had to weigh
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: in on the whole Ronna drama. But he also attacked
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: someone he doesn't mention often, independent candidate and self-proclaimed spoiler
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., calling him, quote, the most radical
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: left candidate in the race by far, and saying, quote,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: I guess this would mean he's going to be taking
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: votes from Crooked Joe Biden, which would be a great
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: service to America. I love that he is running. Trump
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: fanboy and future cabinet secretary Vivek Ramaswamy certainly agrees. Here
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: he is on Fox Wednesday night.
• 17:10
  Speaker 7: What we need this November is a decisive moral mandate,
• 17:14
  Speaker 7: a landslide of Reagan 1980, 1984 proportions. And I think
• 17:18
  Speaker 7: we have an opportunity to do it. And if RFK
• 17:20
  Speaker 7: being in this race helps that, you know what? I
• 17:23
  Speaker 7: think that could be a good thing for this country.
• 17:25
  Speaker 7: And I'm against any Democratic effort to try to remove
• 17:27
  Speaker 7: him or keep him off the ballot as they will
• 17:29
  Speaker 7: try to do.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: What do you think is going on here? Is Trump
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: actually afraid of losing votes to RFK Jr.? Is he
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: trying to define him as a lefty so that RFK
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: takes votes from Biden? Is it both?
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: It's always so hard to divine the plan here, but
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: I think to the extent there is one, it is
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: to try to basically do to RFK Jr. what Adam
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Schiff did to Steve Garvey, where the super PAC that
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: supported Adam Schiff in the California primary ran all these
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: ads attacking Garvey as being a MAGA Republican to raise
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: his name ID and get MAGA Republicans to vote for him.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: I think what he's essentially doing here is saying, look
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: at this radical lefty to try to get liberals and
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: more progressive Democrats who are– or more progressive voters, I'd say,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: who are not super happy with Biden to go to
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: RFK Jr. Now, is he executing this plan with subtlety? No.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Is it fully thought through?
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: No.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: But I do– like that is part– like RFK Jr.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: right now and if you– everyone here obviously has already
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: listened to the Wednesday pod where I talked to Liz
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Smith who's working with the DNC on it, on dealing–
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: on responding to third-party candidates. he takes from both maybe
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: a little bit more for Biden is what we're saying.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: You know, that could tip one way or the other
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: as more of these double haters, uh, come home, which
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: often happens with their party candidates. So he's trying to
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: be what I see what he's doing. He's did, which
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: is what he always does, which is like trying to
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: do the card trick with the cards sticking out of
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: his sleeves. Um, but I, I kind of get what
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: the trick is.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you and Liz talked about RFK's VP pick, uh,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Nicole Shanahan on the Wednesday pod. Um, Any more thoughts
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: on this choice now that we've had a few days
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: to learn more about her? I noticed a Politico headline
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: from this morning that caught my eye. RFK Jr. 's
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: vice presidential pick calls IVF one of the biggest lies
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: being told about women's health. She also wanted to fund
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: a study to see if two hours of morning sunlight
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: will help with fertility troubles, I noticed.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: You're a busy man. You're running a media company. You're
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: basically podcasting 18 hours a day. You probably did not
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: watch the announcement, did you?
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I did not watch the announcement.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: It was wild. It was scheduled for like, I don't know,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: maybe sort of like 10 in the morning. And Liz
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: was supposed to come on the podcast at 1.30. Obviously,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: three and a half hours would be a time to
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: get a VP announced. No such luck. There was a pre-program.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: RFK Jr. spoke for so long that I left to
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: go pick up my kid from school, came back, and
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: I thought YouTube had frozen. But he was still talking.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: And so the main point here is the whole thing
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: was chaos. It's not well thought out, right? I just
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: think that there is no– maybe all of the ideas were.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: With the possible exception of Jesse Ventura, which is just
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: like– that's crazy, but it's like RFK crazy. The other ones,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Aaron Rodgers, Mike Rowe, all nuts. This just seems like
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: the last– the only person willing to say yes, I think,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: who also happens to have the ability to self-fund a
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: ballot access effort.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems like the real– yeah. And she's got
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: a little sort of like woo-woo– Oh, wow.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: So very woo-woo. Very woo-woo.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Northern California vibes.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: No offense.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Just the salt of the earth down there
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: in Southern California.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: We're real America down here. So it's interesting. Some of
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Kennedy's supporters, or at least people claiming to be his supporters,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: don't seem too happy about the pick. A few appear
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: to be planning an event called the Save RFK Jr. Rally,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: intended to recall Shanahan and his campaign manager. who's Kennedy's
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: own daughter-in-law and also a former CIA officer. The organizers,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: they have this event on his website because on RFK Jr.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: 's website, supporters can go on and organize their own
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: campaign events. So the organizers of this event say that
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: she's using her divorce settlement money from Sergey Brin to, quote,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: manipulate the Kennedy campaign. And they're asking, quote, what will
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: come of the Kennedy family after Roberts' presidential campaign is
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: derailed by a poor vice president running mate or, quote,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: He is assassinated by the CIA to install Nicole Shanahan
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: as president. Let's not wait around to find out. I
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: guess this is what happens when you let anyone who
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: visits your campaign website organize their own events.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Or, more likely, your entire rise to political fame is
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: based on spreading dangerous conspiracy theories.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, eventually they're going to come bite you in the ass.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, these are the kind of people you're bringing
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: to your campaign, right?
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Another one on the docket, if you can't go to
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: that event... You can also go to the dramatic reading
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: of RFK's sex diary. That event is listed as taking
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: place at 69 Scumbag Drive, Intercourse, Pennsylvania.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's real.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: You don't think that's a real one?
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: No.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Who knows? We're just asking questions.
• 22:16
  Speaker 6: Maybe.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: You never know.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: We're going to do our own research.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Maybe they want you to think it's fake. Think about that.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: That's what Pharma wants.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: So most of the RFK news isn't that funny. The
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: folks at Split Ticket just ran a poll with only
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: 18 to 29-year-old voters that finds Biden at 35%, Trump
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: at 25%, and RFK Jr.
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: At 23%.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: There's also a new Quinnipiac poll that also has RFK Jr.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: taking about a quarter of the youth vote. Thoughts on
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: those numbers and, in general, what the Biden campaign should
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: be doing about Kennedy?
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Well, those numbers aren't good, John. I'll tell you that.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: No, they're not. No, they're not. Joe Biden won the
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: youth vote by 20 points, I believe.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: 23 points for under 29 voters in the Pew Validated
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Voter Study, just to pick a random one. I talked
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: to Liz about this for a while, but you're going
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: to have to eventually have trusted– I think it's going
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: to be less about what Biden does or even like
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: advertising the campaign, but you're going to need some sort
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: of trusted messengers making the case for who RFK Jr.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Really is.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: So he is not– well, he has these environmental credentials
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: and all this woo-woo stuff, as you described it, as
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: you looked down your nose on us from Real America
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: in L.A.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: She met her last husband at a Wanderlust yoga festival.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, come on.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not defending Nicole Shanahan here. I'm making fun
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: of you. But he has very right-wing positions on immigration,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: right-wing positions on abortion. the IVF stuff, I think very powerful.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: Right now, he's just a name with some Democratic patina
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: that is not Joe Biden or Donald Trump. And we're
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: gonna have to fill in the blanks of that. And
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: if we do that, I think a lot of those
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: voters can come home. And the good news is there's
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: time to do it.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I found it somewhat hopeful when Liz said that
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: a third of the people who say they're going to
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: support RFK Jr., have no idea what he stands for.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Any of his positions are just literally just based on
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: his name.
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: And it's just, it's another, it's one person who's not
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
• 24:21
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: A few of the interesting things I found in that
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: split ticket poll, Biden and Trump are both quite unpopular
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: with younger voters, but more, a lot more of them
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: hold a strongly unfavorable view of Trump than they do Biden.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: And among those who are certain to vote, young people
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: who are certain to say they're certain to vote, it's
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Biden 41, Trump 28, Kennedy 18. And then the double haters,
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Trump is not getting the double haters. He's only getting
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: 6% of people who don't like Biden or Trump. And
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Biden's getting 29 and actually RFK Jr. is winning that group,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: which is not totally surprising. And his strongest demo is
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: independent young voters, which is a group that he is
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: actually winning. It's the one demo he's winning in that
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: youth voter. I think it's an interesting poll just because
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of these When we were talking about the
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: youth vote, it's usually like a subsample of a larger poll.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: And in some of these polls, it shows like Trump
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: winning the youth vote. And this does not show this.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: This poll says Biden has problems with young voters, but
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: it's not that they like Trump. It's just that they
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: don't like Biden. And right now they're parking themselves with
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: RFK Jr. or saying that they're not going to vote.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: And the good news of that is they're not going
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: to Trump. The more challenging news is you have to
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: win almost all of them back because you can't afford
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: not to. Because even if they vote for RFK or
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: they don't vote, that is a minus one from the
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Biden column. Presumably most of them voted for Biden in 2020. Yep.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: And then you've got to make that vote up somewhere else.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: And I don't know where that's coming from.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. Meanwhile, our friends at No Labels are
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: having some real trouble finding anyone to be their spoiler candidate.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Friend of the pod Chris Christie officially declined to be
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: on the No Labels ticket on Wednesday. saying he concluded
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: that doing so would only help Donald Trump. Good for
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Chris Christie. We always knew he'd be a hero in
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: the end. As Playbook put it this morning, quote, Christie
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: joined Senators Joe Manchin, Bill Cassidy, Mitt Romney, Representative Dean Phillips,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: former Governors Nikki Haley, Larry Hogan, and John Huntsman, and
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: former Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan, among others, in passing on
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: a chance to be no-labels candidate. On top of that,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: the group's chairman, former Senator and former Democrat Joe Lieberman,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: died on Wednesday at age 82. Complications from a fall, apparently.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Very sad. Lieberman himself pointed out in one of his
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: final interviews that no labels might ultimately fail to find
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: and field a bipartisan unity ticket and said, quote, if
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: it's Trump and Biden, for me, it's an easy choice.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: What do you think? Is this thing falling apart? Is
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: there anyone else left to run on the no labels ticket?
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: It seems like it's falling apart. Like, could they find
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: a random person to a random Republican state legislator in
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: a random independent or Democrat somewhere to be the vice president?
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: But the idea that they're going to recruit someone of
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: name value, a former senator or a governor or a
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: former presidential candidate, that seems to have fallen apart before
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: their eyes. And that is positive news for the Biden campaign.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And again, they keep saying like, oh, we're not
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: going to field a ticket if it's not a ticket
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: they can win. And I do think that, I mean,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: that argument we thought was bullshit the whole time. But
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: it just makes it harder to argue that if it
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: is like two no-name candidates that no one's ever heard
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: of before and not two candidates with like a real background.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: And I think that they're definitely running out of those.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: I don't care if they ran two former presidents, right?
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: No, I know.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: There's a constitutional barrier to them winning. The whole thing
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: is based on a lie. And the lie is that
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: there is a world in which they could possibly win.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: All they can do is spoil one way or the other.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: All the polling shows they would spoil things to help Trump,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: so don't do it. Which is why a lot of
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: these people have decided not to do it. They don't
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: want to run a presidential campaign. They're certainly going to
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: lose and hand the election to Trump and forever be
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: a persona non grata and polite society for ending democracy
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: out of some fanciful ego trip.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: And I do think that's why Liz mentioned the strongest
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: argument against Kennedy is a vote for Kennedy is a
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: vote for Trump.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: You're not.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: You can like Kennedy, you can not like Trump and Biden,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: but he's not going to win the presidency. And if
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: he doesn't get on the ballot everywhere, then it's an
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: even more powerful argument, right? Like, sure, he's on in
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: some swing states, but you're throwing away your vote because
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: it's mathematically impossible for him to win. All right, before
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: we get to the interview, we haven't yet talked about
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: the deadly collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: mainly because when a tragedy like that occurs, you wait
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: for an investigation to figure out what happened. and then
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: you hope that the government fixes the bridge as soon
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: as possible. Alas, that is not the world we live
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: in anymore, Dan. Wired Magazine ran a non-exhaustive list of
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: things that have been blamed for the bridge collapse on
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: social media. The list includes President Biden, Hamas, ISIS, P. Diddy, Nickelodeon, India,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama, Islam, aliens, Sri Lanka, the World Economic Forum,
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: the United Nations, Wokeness, Ukraine, foreign aid, the CIA, Jewish people, Israel, Russia, China, Iran,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: COVID vaccines, DEI, immigrants, black people, and lockdowns. And lest
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: you think that these are just random social media accounts
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: generating these conspiracy theories, think again. On Twitter, Marjorie Taylor
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Greene asked ominously, is this an intentional attack or an accident?
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Utah State Representative Phil Lyman, a candidate for governor, tweeted,
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: DEI equals DIE. And various Republicans beclowned themselves on right-wing
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: television as they are prone to do. Let's listen.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: This is a horrifying event. Is this terrorism? How the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: hell did this happen? Is this incompetence? Who's allowing this?
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: How did this happen?
• 30:10
  Speaker 8: The White House has issued a statement on this saying
• 30:13
  Speaker 8: that there's no indication of a nefarious intent in the
• 30:17
  Speaker 8: collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. But of course,
• 30:19
  Speaker 8: you've been talking a lot about the potential for wrongdoing
• 30:23
  Speaker 8: or potential for foul play given the wide open border.
• 30:26
  Speaker 9: You look at our critical infrastructure and the I'm one
• 30:29
  Speaker 9: of these people that believes we've never fully come out
• 30:31
  Speaker 9: of all the lockdowns and the COVID issues. If you
• 30:35
  Speaker 9: talk to employers in America, they'll tell you that Filling
• 30:39
  Speaker 9: slots with employees who aren't drug-addled is a very huge problem.
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: The question here is maybe for the Department of Transportation,
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: whether it is with the airlines and what's going on
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: with Boeing and all the problems they're having, or in
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: this case. You know what? Don't worry about tree equity, Buttigieg.
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: Don't worry about all the other issues that go along
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: with using the proper pronouns. Let's worry about keeping people safe.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: What the fuck is tree equity?
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Can we, I have to admit, I did not read
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: the entire Word magazine article. Can we double click on
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: the Nickelodeon as the cause?
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: There's a scandal with a documentary about Nickelodeon and a
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: couple of the producers in Nickelodeon, like just like with
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: some awful sexual stuff with some of this.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: You don't want to go down that rabbit hole, Dan.
• 31:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: But that's a new.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing that's why Nickelodeon popped up.
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: All right. All right. Host of Offline. Way to go
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: down the rabbit hole.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Hey, look, I just have to do my own research.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: What the hell is wrong with these people, Dan?
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, they're just the worst people imaginable. I mean,
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: this is all a grift. It's a grift for money.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: It's a grift for attention. And the opportunities to do
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: this come when there are these events that spark intense
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: online conversation. Those that happen so far less than they
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: used to, right? We're now in so many different We're
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: prisoners to the individual algorithms. We are on all these
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: different platforms. In the old days, something like this happened.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: There would be a piece of video footage, a tragedy,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: a crash. Someone would die, and then the entire world
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: would gather and talk about it. And now when these
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: things do break through, the people who are searching for clout,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: searching for money, searching for attention, try to get there
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: as fast as humanly possible to drive some sort of
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: conversation down some sort of insane rabbit hole. And there's
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: two kinds of things, right? A lot of these conspiracy
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: theories are about getting attention and followers for some real grifters.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: The political stuff is all about very relentlessly and cynically
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: and deviously using any opportunity you possibly can to push
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: your worldview, right? To say that this is– like the
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: idea this is something to do with pronouns or DEI
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: or all these things is dangerous. But then what you're
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: doing is you get the outrage backlash to virality, right?
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: You say this horrible thing, right? Like the person who
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: called the mayor of Baltimore the DEI mayor. And then
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: everyone responds to it. The algorithm sees all that engagement
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: as positive and shows it to more people. And that
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: person gets more attention and builds more followers and can
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: then monetize those followers either financially or politically. And this
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: is the world we live in. This is the social
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: media world that continues to exist. And it gets worse
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: as some of the guardrails come down with people like
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Elon in charge of Twitter slash X.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: And it is a social media story. And when it
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: happened and we saw some of these conspiracies... Max and
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: I decided we're going to be talking about it on
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: offline this week. But it also is it has bled
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: into politics and is going to have like potentially real
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: world effects here. Republicans in Congress are already hinting that
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: they may not pass the emergency funding necessary to fix
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: the bridge, or at least not without extracting some concessions
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: from Joe Biden. And it's just like to me, it's
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: just another example of how like you have you have
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: two parties, right? So you have this bridge that you
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: drive across every day to get to work. An accident
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: destroys the bridge. One party says, hey, we're going to
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: move heaven and earth to fix this bridge as fast
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: as we can, which is basically what Joe Biden said,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: what Pete Buttigieg said, what the mayors, the governor, everyone
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: else said. We're going to get this done. The other
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: party says, we're not giving you any money to fix
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: the bridge that we think collapsed because of corporate diversity initiatives,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: drug addicts, COVID lockdowns, and a cyber-attacked That's the beginning
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: of World War III. That's what Alex Jones said. Who
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: do you want in charge? You want the party that's
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: going to fix the bridge so you can get your
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: ass to work or the party that says all that
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: kind of shit. It's just, it's a very clear choice.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: And it's like the same, it fits in the same
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: bucket as, you know, Taylor Swift is a deep state
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: PSYOP and she and Travis Kelsey rigged the Super Bowl and,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: You know, the ghost of Hugo Chavez and Mark Zuckerberg
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: rigged the last election and stole it from Donald Trump.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, these people are fucking weirdos. They are weirdos.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: If you ran into one of them at a coffee shop,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: you would not let them watch your laptop if you
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: went to the bathroom. Why are you going to elect
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: them to run the fucking country?
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: Put that in there.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: It's just.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: If you do let them watch your laptop, clear your
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Internet history immediately when you get back.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're probably going to jail because they probably just, yeah,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: probably committed some kind of cyber attack. Anyway.
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Before we go to break, we're less than 100 days
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: away from the release of our book, Democracy or Else,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps. And Cricket
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: is giving back by donating the profits from the book
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: to support Vote Save America and 2024 campaigns. If that's
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: not incentive enough for you, we're also going to be
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: giving away some limited edition Democracy or Else water bottles
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: to keep you hydrated while following our guide to saving democracy.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Love when I learn about things from the housekeeping. Didn't
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: know about that. Didn't know about the water bottles.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: I love, I always read the housekeeping so I can
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: just watch the look on your face as you discover democracy.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: The things, the company you started is doing. It's so good.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: Oh man, that was worth it.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: All you have to do, I forgot the end of
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: the pitch because it's the next page. All you have
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: to do is pre-order the book, upload a copy of
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: your receipt, and you will be entered for a chance.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: You guys, just a chance to win the water bottle? Anyway,
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: head to crooked.com slash books for the details. I'm sorry, everyone.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: When we come back, Tommy talks to Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett.
• 36:56
  Speaker 10: I am thrilled to welcome to the show today a
• 36:58
  Speaker 10: representative from the great state of Texas, Congressman Jasmine Crockett.
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: Welcome to L.A.
• 37:02
  Speaker 11: Thank you so much. It's interesting when you use great
• 37:05
  Speaker 11: in Texas in the same sentence nowadays. But yes.
• 37:08
  Speaker 10: How did you guys like incept all of us to
• 37:10
  Speaker 10: say great state of Texas?
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: It's just like a thing you said.
• 37:14
  Speaker 11: I mean, Texas is a cult in and of itself,
• 37:16
  Speaker 11: just so you know, right? Like everything's bigger in Texas
• 37:19
  Speaker 11: and we're still in like everybody that's been here in
• 37:22
  Speaker 11: California and we're bringing them to Texas. It's a cult mentality.
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: Also, your mom is here with you, I think.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: She is.
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: Just wanted to welcome her to the studio.
• 37:32
  Speaker 10: It's like every once in a while you have elected
• 37:35
  Speaker 10: officials come in with like 15 staffers.
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: It's fun to have someone rolling with their mom. That's
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: a much better way to go.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 37:41
  Speaker 11: She's referred to as the mama staffer.
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: I love that.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 37:45
  Speaker 10: She probably keeps you honest.
• 37:47
  Speaker 11: She does.
• 37:48
  Speaker 10: Well, listen, thank you so much for being here. You
• 37:51
  Speaker 10: have this fascinating role as a freshman lawmaker. You serve
• 37:55
  Speaker 10: on the House Oversight Committee, which has put you in
• 37:57
  Speaker 10: the middle of this like wild effort to impeach president
• 38:00
  Speaker 10: Biden to go after his children. So just wondering what
• 38:04
  Speaker 10: has that experience been like for you? Because like, I
• 38:07
  Speaker 10: don't know, calling it a, a circus is kind of
• 38:09
  Speaker 10: an insult to like Cirque du Soleil or people that.
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: Are organized, you know what I mean? But you just
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: kind of got thrown in there.
• 38:15
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 38:16
  Speaker 11: It's so interesting. And, and to add to the drama, um,
• 38:19
  Speaker 11: last week I was added to the weaponization committee as well. So, yeah,
• 38:24
  Speaker 11: so we'll see what happens with that. Um, But you
• 38:27
  Speaker 11: know what? There are days that I wake up and
• 38:30
  Speaker 11: I'm like, why did you decide to do this? What
• 38:33
  Speaker 11: are you doing? Is this really like the best use
• 38:36
  Speaker 11: of your time? And then when you think about the
• 38:39
  Speaker 11: fact that I could have never really contemplated being in Congress,
• 38:43
  Speaker 11: let alone being a freshman, having to defend the president
• 38:46
  Speaker 11: of the United States in a sham impeachment. I think
• 38:50
  Speaker 11: about the history that may or may not be allowed
• 38:53
  Speaker 11: to be taught in the future and how I'm literally
• 38:57
  Speaker 11: living history and the work that I'm doing is truly
• 39:02
  Speaker 11: of service to this country. And it's not so much
• 39:05
  Speaker 11: about President Biden himself, but it's about our institution. And
• 39:09
  Speaker 11: it's about whether or not our institution can survive kind
• 39:12
  Speaker 11: of the radical, maniacal idiocracy that we're dealing with. And
• 39:20
  Speaker 11: being able to push back on that and hopefully preserve
• 39:24
  Speaker 11: some semblance of respect for the institution makes me say,
• 39:28
  Speaker 11: all right, lace up your shoes. You got to get
• 39:30
  Speaker 11: ready to go.
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: Get ready to go.
• 39:31
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 39:32
  Speaker 10: I mean, you're a serious person. You're a public defender.
• 39:35
  Speaker 10: You were in the Texas Statehouse. How do you prepare
• 39:38
  Speaker 10: for a hearing where you have a Republican colleague that's
• 39:41
  Speaker 10: holding up explicit photos and like all these stunts? What
• 39:45
  Speaker 10: do you do to get ready for that?
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: Watch wrestling?
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:49
  Speaker 11: You don't ever get ready for that. I remember the
• 39:52
  Speaker 11: first time Marjorie decided that she was going to show nudes.
• 39:56
  Speaker 11: It threw us all off. We were like, wait a minute,
• 39:58
  Speaker 11: wait a minute, what just happened? Like it was just
• 40:00
  Speaker 11: like we had no warning whatsoever. And it's like just
• 40:05
  Speaker 11: when you think it can't get any lower or more ridiculous,
• 40:08
  Speaker 11: she finds a way. And so you don't prepare for that.
• 40:13
  Speaker 11: But you mentioned that I've been a public defender and
• 40:17
  Speaker 11: ultimately I've been a trial lawyer. And unlike civil attorneys
• 40:21
  Speaker 11: that have depositions and they know what people are going
• 40:24
  Speaker 11: to say, or if they don't say it, they can
• 40:26
  Speaker 11: correct them and really get them together. In a criminal case,
• 40:29
  Speaker 11: you never know what's going to happen. And so I
• 40:32
  Speaker 11: think that really it's my criminal defense experience in the
• 40:36
  Speaker 11: courtroom that's prepared me best for Congress, right? Like who
• 40:40
  Speaker 11: knew you needed to deal with like the criminal world
• 40:43
  Speaker 11: to figure out.
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: They might be sitting next to you.
• 40:46
  Speaker 11: Exactly. Yeah, no, seriously. In fact, in our last hearing,
• 40:50
  Speaker 11: listening to Parnas talk about, I mean, he called out
• 40:54
  Speaker 11: Congressman Sessions. He called him out. He's like, oh, yeah,
• 40:57
  Speaker 11: he was a part of that. He knew this was
• 40:59
  Speaker 11: all fake. And like Sessions is sitting there on this
• 41:03
  Speaker 11: impeachment committee where Parnas is like, oh, no, no, it
• 41:05
  Speaker 11: was me. It was Trump. It was Sessions. It was Giuliani.
• 41:10
  Speaker 11: And they all knew that this was a lie and
• 41:13
  Speaker 11: that this was propaganda being pushed by Russia and And
• 41:16
  Speaker 11: here it is. He's still pushing that propaganda. I mean,
• 41:18
  Speaker 11: it was a wild moment for me.
• 41:20
  Speaker 10: Lev Parnas, who is, you know, Giuliani's guy in the
• 41:24
  Speaker 10: impeachment Ukraine inquiry.
• 41:26
  Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Wild.
• 41:28
  Speaker 10: So the chairman of the committee, James Comer, he seems
• 41:30
  Speaker 10: to be suggesting that rather than holding a vote to
• 41:33
  Speaker 10: impeach President Biden and get a trial going in the Senate,
• 41:36
  Speaker 10: that he might instead make a criminal referral to the
• 41:37
  Speaker 10: Department of Justice in case Joe Biden wants to prosecute himself,
• 41:41
  Speaker 10: I guess, or if Donald Trump maybe prosecutes him if
• 41:45
  Speaker 10: he's reelected. Do you think that's a suggestion that they're
• 41:47
  Speaker 10: giving up on impeachment?
• 41:50
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 41:51
  Speaker 11: I mean, it was never really... It was never going anywhere, right?
• 41:56
  Speaker 11: And when you have members of the Freedom Caucus that
• 42:00
  Speaker 11: are resigning Congress because they think the impeachment is so ridiculous.
• 42:06
  Speaker 11: I mean, it is a bad day to be a Republican, right?
• 42:09
  Speaker 11: Like when you're losing the Freedom Caucus. And so... You know,
• 42:14
  Speaker 11: I think that Comer really doesn't know how to get
• 42:17
  Speaker 11: out of this tangled web that he's in. Most people
• 42:22
  Speaker 11: don't even realize that we have three committees of jurisdiction
• 42:24
  Speaker 11: as it relates to the impeachment. It's oversight, it's ways
• 42:28
  Speaker 11: and means, as well as judiciary. But the hearings that
• 42:31
  Speaker 11: everyone remembers that are seared into everyone's minds are the
• 42:35
  Speaker 11: failed hearings and oversight. And You know, there's been a
• 42:38
  Speaker 11: lot of internal turmoil as it relates to the Republican
• 42:42
  Speaker 11: Party overall about the prosecution of this impeachment inquiry. And
• 42:47
  Speaker 11: when you start to lose Newsmax and Fox News, you
• 42:50
  Speaker 11: know that like, all right, I'm just not going to
• 42:53
  Speaker 11: have the votes. And, you know, Moskowitz, Congressman Moskowitz out
• 42:59
  Speaker 11: of Florida, another freshman, he is an interesting guy. To
• 43:04
  Speaker 11: say the least. But I remember at our last hearing,
• 43:09
  Speaker 11: you know, usually we'll talk kind of in the interim
• 43:11
  Speaker 11: and we go around the same time. And he's like,
• 43:14
  Speaker 11: so what are you going to do? I was like,
• 43:15
  Speaker 11: I don't know, you know, this and maybe that and,
• 43:18
  Speaker 11: you know, whatever. And then I was like, what about you?
• 43:21
  Speaker 11: He's like. I've got an idea, but I need to
• 43:24
  Speaker 11: go last. And so I was like, all right, you know,
• 43:27
  Speaker 11: and now he's not last technically in order right now.
• 43:31
  Speaker 11: And then when I saw that he basically called for
• 43:34
  Speaker 11: the impeachment vote, I was like, what are you doing?
• 43:37
  Speaker 11: But only Moskowitz would do that. And, you know, he
• 43:41
  Speaker 11: called Comer's bluff. He, he wouldn't, he was like, I'll
• 43:44
  Speaker 11: vote for impeachment right now. Let's go.
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: They were like, what do we do?
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: It's like froze.
• 43:48
  Speaker 11: Yeah, exactly. So I think it, It showed America exactly
• 43:53
  Speaker 11: where we are on this, which is nowhere. So we'll
• 43:57
  Speaker 11: see what happens next.
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: One issue you.
• 43:59
  Speaker 10: Focus on a lot is reproductive rights. You've been calling
• 44:03
  Speaker 10: out right-wing judges, talking about how they're trying to restrict
• 44:05
  Speaker 10: abortion access, and more recently IVF. We have this great
• 44:09
  Speaker 10: legal show here called Strict Scrutiny. They cover the Supreme Court.
• 44:12
  Speaker 10: They believe that the arguments you're hearing out of courts
• 44:15
  Speaker 10: in Alabama, for example, that essentially... They briefly forced the
• 44:19
  Speaker 10: state's IVF clinics to close. The argument is basically that
• 44:24
  Speaker 10: fertilized embryos should be recognized as people and thus have
• 44:27
  Speaker 10: the same legal rights as people. They think that's where
• 44:31
  Speaker 10: the Supreme Court is heading, right? So I was wondering
• 44:33
  Speaker 10: if you could help listeners understand what the impact of
• 44:35
  Speaker 10: that kind of fetal personhood argument would be on abortion access, IVF,
• 44:40
  Speaker 10: and all the things that folks care deeply about.
• 44:43
  Speaker 11: It is so psychotic. These people are a psycho. And
• 44:47
  Speaker 11: I'm saying that as a preacher's child, so don't say
• 44:50
  Speaker 11: I'm sacrilegious.
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: I will not.
• 44:52
  Speaker 11: They are psycho. You know, and it's so frustrating to
• 44:56
  Speaker 11: me as someone who practiced civil rights and felt like
• 45:00
  Speaker 11: I always had to prove a Black person's personhood after
• 45:04
  Speaker 11: they were killed. It seems like there was every excuse
• 45:07
  Speaker 11: in the book to kill a Black walking, living, and
• 45:11
  Speaker 11: breathing human being. And then you want to talk about
• 45:15
  Speaker 11: embryos and And say that they are people, something that
• 45:19
  Speaker 11: cannot breathe. It is absolutely insane. And honestly, if you
• 45:24
  Speaker 11: care about people, I just need you to care about
• 45:26
  Speaker 11: them all the way through.
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 45:27
  Speaker 11: Like from the cradle to the grave, as we would say,
• 45:31
  Speaker 11: you know, because you're forcing people to have children. Yet
• 45:35
  Speaker 11: I'm fighting with Republicans in the House when it comes
• 45:38
  Speaker 11: to things like SNAP benefits where people only get six
• 45:40
  Speaker 11: dollars a day. You don't want to feed them once
• 45:42
  Speaker 11: they're here. So do you really? Like, it's very frustrating.
• 45:46
  Speaker 11: So I'll get off of that and get on the
• 45:47
  Speaker 11: legal stuff. You know, it is beyond dangerous. But I
• 45:52
  Speaker 11: think that while Democrats have been accused of not being
• 45:57
  Speaker 11: the best messengers, I can tell you that the best
• 45:59
  Speaker 11: thing that we got going for us ever is the
• 46:03
  Speaker 11: Republicans opening their mouths and attempting to legislate and attempting to.
• 46:11
  Speaker 11: craft some sort of legal precedence. It is amazing. It
• 46:15
  Speaker 11: is so helpful. I just want to sit here and
• 46:17
  Speaker 11: be silent and say, watch them work. Because in Alabama,
• 46:22
  Speaker 11: we just saw that they flipped a seat in a
• 46:27
  Speaker 11: special election over a 20-point swing in that seat. I
• 46:33
  Speaker 11: promise you, before the IVF decision, there was probably no chance,
• 46:38
  Speaker 11: no money, No support whatsoever for that now newly elected lawmaker.
• 46:45
  Speaker 11: These radical folk are on the wrong side of history.
• 46:49
  Speaker 11: And what is frustrating, an additional point of frustration for me,
• 46:54
  Speaker 11: is when we talk about abortion access, it really is
• 46:59
  Speaker 11: only talking about a certain demographic of folk, to be
• 47:02
  Speaker 11: perfectly honest. We're talking about the lower socioeconomic people not
• 47:05
  Speaker 11: being able to access the health care that they need.
• 47:08
  Speaker 11: And it's one of the reasons that I applaud a Dr.
• 47:11
  Speaker 11: Gennard or a Kate Cox out of the state of Texas,
• 47:13
  Speaker 11: because these are women that say, I recognize my privilege.
• 47:19
  Speaker 11: I know I can leave the state. I know that
• 47:21
  Speaker 11: I have the money to be able to afford to
• 47:23
  Speaker 11: go somewhere else to get the health care access that
• 47:25
  Speaker 11: I need. But I care about those other women that
• 47:28
  Speaker 11: won't have that access. And they decided to put their
• 47:32
  Speaker 11: entire very personal fight front and center because they were
• 47:37
  Speaker 11: fighting for other women. Because ultimately, those women fled our
• 47:40
  Speaker 11: state and they went somewhere else. The interesting part about
• 47:44
  Speaker 11: this repro fight now is bringing in IVF that brings
• 47:48
  Speaker 11: in a different category of folk.
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: It's a very expensive procedure.
• 47:52
  Speaker 11: Very expensive. And so now, when we were talking about abortion,
• 47:56
  Speaker 11: it was more a lower socioeconomic that was really losing
• 48:00
  Speaker 11: their access unless and until we ended up with a
• 48:03
  Speaker 11: nationwide ban. But now this fight is a bigger coalition.
• 48:08
  Speaker 11: Because now we're talking about the more affluent folk not
• 48:12
  Speaker 11: having access to being able to make decisions about how
• 48:16
  Speaker 11: and when they create a family. And so, you know,
• 48:21
  Speaker 11: while in my opinion it shouldn't have taken a trigger
• 48:24
  Speaker 11: out of Alabama to build this coalition, people should have
• 48:28
  Speaker 11: seen that this was an attack on freedom as a
• 48:31
  Speaker 11: whole because that's what we're experiencing in this country. I
• 48:34
  Speaker 11: tell people all the time, I don't really care if
• 48:36
  Speaker 11: you agree with abortion or not. Not really my job
• 48:40
  Speaker 11: to make you agree. But if you believe that this
• 48:43
  Speaker 11: country is based upon freedom, if you believe in freedom,
• 48:47
  Speaker 11: then you should take issue with what's going on as
• 48:50
  Speaker 11: it relates to repro. Because it's not stopping at repro.
• 48:53
  Speaker 11: When you look at this radical Supreme Court and what
• 48:56
  Speaker 11: we've had since the three Trump appointees to the Supreme Court,
• 49:00
  Speaker 11: it's been diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's been the LGBTQIA community.
• 49:05
  Speaker 11: And after the Dobbs decision, now it's, well, let's go
• 49:08
  Speaker 11: after Mifepristone. Then it's going to be that they're going
• 49:12
  Speaker 11: to go after contraception in general. You know, the only
• 49:15
  Speaker 11: thing that we can assure you is that the Loving
• 49:17
  Speaker 11: case is going to be safe and sound. because Clarence
• 49:21
  Speaker 11: Thomas is married to.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: A white woman.
• 49:22
  Speaker 11: I mean, that is the only thing that seemingly is
• 49:25
  Speaker 11: safe right now. Everything else that we have considered to
• 49:30
  Speaker 11: be safe. And I think that this is the lesson
• 49:33
  Speaker 11: that we all need to have as a takeaway. You
• 49:36
  Speaker 11: can never get comfortable. You can never get comfortable. democracy
• 49:40
  Speaker 11: and freedom have to be fought for in every single generation.
• 49:44
  Speaker 11: And it's one reason that I do have so much
• 49:47
  Speaker 11: faith and hope in Gen Z, because I do believe
• 49:52
  Speaker 11: that they understand how serious this is, whether we're talking
• 49:55
  Speaker 11: about guns or whether we're talking about repo, whether we're
• 49:58
  Speaker 11: talking about the environment or whether we're talking about how
• 50:01
  Speaker 11: wars are prosecuted in the future. These are going to be,
• 50:05
  Speaker 11: in my opinion, um, I know that some people hate
• 50:10
  Speaker 11: to use the term, but the real woke folk, the
• 50:14
  Speaker 11: people that are paying attention to everything and really can
• 50:18
  Speaker 11: get our country back on track if there's a country
• 50:20
  Speaker 11: for them to get back on track.
• 50:23
  Speaker 10: In Texas, I think Governor Abbott says he supports IVF.
• 50:26
  Speaker 10: I imagine that he's put forward a bunch of laws
• 50:28
  Speaker 10: to protect it and make sure it's safe and there's
• 50:30
  Speaker 10: access going forward.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Nothing.
• 50:33
  Speaker 11: We only meet once every two years.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 50:38
  Speaker 11: So they're not currently in session, that's for sure. They
• 50:41
  Speaker 11: just had elections. They'll go back into session in January.
• 50:44
  Speaker 11: But he loves to call special sessions for everything else
• 50:46
  Speaker 11: that's so important to him, such as school vouchers. He
• 50:52
  Speaker 11: once called special sessions for that. But, you know, this
• 50:55
  Speaker 11: IVF thing, it just sounds good. Infuriating.
• 50:59
  Speaker 10: I'm sorry to say her name twice in this interview,
• 51:01
  Speaker 10: but Marjorie Taylor Greene, she threatened to oust Speaker Johnson recently.
• 51:05
  Speaker 10: There's been some debate over whether Democrats should vote for
• 51:08
  Speaker 10: Speaker Johnson to save his job in return for some concessions.
• 51:12
  Speaker 10: What do you think of that idea? And is there
• 51:13
  Speaker 10: like a wish list that Democrats should fight for?
• 51:15
  Speaker 11: I think that you can count on me to be
• 51:18
  Speaker 11: a no for Maga Mike no matter what. So just
• 51:23
  Speaker 11: watch the board. You won't find Congresswoman Crockett saving Megan Mike. Now,
• 51:29
  Speaker 11: what leadership decides to do, maybe with some of our
• 51:34
  Speaker 11: frontline members and things like that, people in districts other
• 51:37
  Speaker 11: than mine, you know, I think that we leave those
• 51:41
  Speaker 11: negotiations up to leadership. I think that you don't get
• 51:45
  Speaker 11: something for nothing.
• 51:46
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 51:48
  Speaker 11: And I mean, we've been getting we've been getting kind
• 51:50
  Speaker 11: of scraps. I mean, you know, it's like, oh, you
• 51:52
  Speaker 11: can pass a budget finally six months later.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: Like, really?
• 51:55
  Speaker 11: Like, seriously? You know, it's like, oh, OK, well, we'll
• 51:59
  Speaker 11: we'll vote to keep the government open.
• 52:01
  Speaker 7: Really?
• 52:01
  Speaker 11: Like we should be doing like these are, you know,
• 52:03
  Speaker 11: it's bare minimum that we're getting for sure. But, you know,
• 52:08
  Speaker 11: we used to live in a time where you could
• 52:10
  Speaker 11: expect in a very bipartisan way that when it came
• 52:13
  Speaker 11: to matters of national security and foreign affairs, for the
• 52:18
  Speaker 11: most part, we'd pretty much be on a similar page.
• 52:22
  Speaker 11: I mean, the difference was, you know, Democrats have never
• 52:25
  Speaker 11: really cared for how bloated our defense budget has been
• 52:29
  Speaker 11: because we bloat defense and then non-defense, which is everything
• 52:33
  Speaker 11: that takes care of everyday people, is always like getting
• 52:36
  Speaker 11: the scraps, right? Like in trying to bring some parity
• 52:40
  Speaker 11: to that, especially since, you know, defense can't seem to
• 52:43
  Speaker 11: ever pass an audit. But, I will tell you, as
• 52:47
  Speaker 11: it relates to Ukraine, I am very concerned. And it's
• 52:52
  Speaker 11: not just for the Ukrainians. It is legitimately for the world.
• 52:58
  Speaker 11: We're talking about Russia potentially having access to a nuclear
• 53:02
  Speaker 11: plant that's in Ukraine, either being able to take that
• 53:06
  Speaker 11: over or potentially destroying it and causing harm environmentally in
• 53:12
  Speaker 11: that way. Not to mention... the idea of allowing Putin
• 53:16
  Speaker 11: to be emboldened further is problematic, not just for us,
• 53:21
  Speaker 11: but for the world. And so, you know, the idea
• 53:25
  Speaker 11: that we can't unite around going after or pushing back
• 53:30
  Speaker 11: on Putin is a problem, not to mention, I don't
• 53:33
  Speaker 11: know how many people really understand that if Putin decides
• 53:37
  Speaker 11: to okay, I've got Ukraine, now where do I move?
• 53:39
  Speaker 11: And he moves into a NATO country. And for people
• 53:41
  Speaker 11: that don't understand what a NATO country is, and I
• 53:43
  Speaker 11: know that Trump is talking about pulling us out of NATO,
• 53:45
  Speaker 11: but that is also a very dumb idea. That means
• 53:48
  Speaker 11: that your mothers, your brothers, your sisters, your uncles, your aunts,
• 53:53
  Speaker 11: your children, they then have to suit up and go
• 53:55
  Speaker 11: into war. So when people are talking about the cost,
• 53:58
  Speaker 11: we have a monetary cost of helping Ukraine, but we
• 54:03
  Speaker 11: may end up having monetary costs as well as American
• 54:07
  Speaker 11: lives that are lost if we don't nip this in
• 54:10
  Speaker 11: the bud right now. And so it's very crucial, and
• 54:14
  Speaker 11: this is going to hit home really hard. And, you know,
• 54:19
  Speaker 11: people see the big numbers, and they're like, oh, that's
• 54:21
  Speaker 11: a lot of money. They can do something else with
• 54:22
  Speaker 11: the money. It's not really how the budget works. You're
• 54:25
  Speaker 11: either on this side of the ledger or that side
• 54:26
  Speaker 11: of the ledger. If they don't spend it on this war,
• 54:28
  Speaker 11: they're going to spend it on something else, this defense.
• 54:30
  Speaker 11: It's not going to somehow come over to the other
• 54:33
  Speaker 11: side of the ledger and say, And I really am
• 54:37
  Speaker 11: just concerned about our national security. And I really want
• 54:40
  Speaker 11: them to take it seriously. So this is not a
• 54:43
  Speaker 11: win for Democrats. This is a win for Americans, Ukrainians,
• 54:46
  Speaker 11: and honestly, the rest of the world. So absolutely, we
• 54:50
  Speaker 11: should take up the supplemental. I don't know that we
• 54:52
  Speaker 11: would ever have too much of a fight as it's
• 54:55
  Speaker 11: not been talked about over funding for Taiwan. There seems
• 54:59
  Speaker 11: to be bipartisan support for Taiwan because there seems to
• 55:02
  Speaker 11: be bipartisan support issues with China. That's why they decided
• 55:06
  Speaker 11: TikTok had to be the one thing we could do. Yeah,
• 55:09
  Speaker 11: because they care so much about China. So, I mean,
• 55:11
  Speaker 11: you know, I think that we can always get the
• 55:14
  Speaker 11: funding for Taiwan if necessary. But also, the Republicans do
• 55:20
  Speaker 11: not want to support the people of Gaza at all.
• 55:23
  Speaker 11: They have passed two packages out of the House. The
• 55:25
  Speaker 11: first one was a package to give money to Israel
• 55:28
  Speaker 11: while defunding IRS. The second one was just to give
• 55:32
  Speaker 11: money to Israel. They have no intentions. They equate the
• 55:35
  Speaker 11: Palestinian people with being Hamas, which is not true. And
• 55:40
  Speaker 11: so I think that we need to make sure that
• 55:43
  Speaker 11: we push really hard for aid for the Palestinian people.
• 55:47
  Speaker 11: I think we also need to make sure that we're
• 55:49
  Speaker 11: pushing for aid for the Haitians. The Haitians have really
• 55:54
  Speaker 11: taken just a backseat. And I don't know if we'll
• 55:58
  Speaker 11: get the world to really wrap their arms around the
• 56:01
  Speaker 11: Haitians like they've wrapped their arms around other folk. But,
• 56:05
  Speaker 11: you know, I try to remind people that the Haitians
• 56:10
  Speaker 11: showed up at our door knocking. And when they showed
• 56:13
  Speaker 11: up at the border in Texas, we saw law enforcement
• 56:18
  Speaker 11: on horses, whipping Haitians.
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: Right, yeah, that's awful.
• 56:22
  Speaker 11: And then they sent them back and no one ever
• 56:24
  Speaker 11: asked the question, why are Haitians coming to the United States?
• 56:29
  Speaker 11: There's this idea of, In America that everybody just wants to,
• 56:33
  Speaker 11: you know, walk and risk their lives and risk being
• 56:36
  Speaker 11: raped and robbed and all this other kind of stuff
• 56:37
  Speaker 11: just to get to America. I got news for you.
• 56:40
  Speaker 11: That ain't the case. And at that time, their president
• 56:44
  Speaker 11: had been assassinated. But no one was really talking about it.
• 56:48
  Speaker 11: And the national news wasn't really covering it. And gangs
• 56:52
  Speaker 11: have been emboldened ever since. I'm saying they. They never
• 56:57
  Speaker 11: said who officially killed the president. But it's a very
• 57:00
  Speaker 11: dangerous set of circumstances. And right now, the Dominican Republic
• 57:05
  Speaker 11: doesn't want to allow them in either. And so, you know,
• 57:10
  Speaker 11: it is important for America to do what America does best,
• 57:13
  Speaker 11: which is to be big brother. And I try to
• 57:16
  Speaker 11: stress to people that foreign aid and having good trade
• 57:20
  Speaker 11: policies and making sure that other countries are stable, that
• 57:24
  Speaker 11: is a benefit to the entire world. and it takes
• 57:28
  Speaker 11: the burden off of our immigration, our failed immigration system
• 57:32
  Speaker 11: as well. And so, you know, I would like to
• 57:35
  Speaker 11: see a push for some help for Haiti, some help
• 57:40
  Speaker 11: for the people of Gaza, as well as Ukrainians.
• 57:43
  Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, that last bill also cut off support
• 57:45
  Speaker 10: for UNRWA, which is the only UN agency on the
• 57:48
  Speaker 10: ground doing all.
• 57:48
  Speaker 11: This assistance in Gaza. Yes, and that's been drama, for sure.
• 57:52
  Speaker 11: That decision. And I know some people are like, oh
• 57:55
  Speaker 11: my God, we can't believe you voted to fund the government.
• 57:58
  Speaker 11: And I'm like, I had to fund the government. I
• 58:01
  Speaker 11: do understand, you know, being in the minority, we don't
• 58:03
  Speaker 11: get everything that we want. One of the things that
• 58:07
  Speaker 11: hasn't really been pushed out there is that it's our
• 58:11
  Speaker 11: understanding that UNRWA has enough funding for now. Again, this
• 58:17
  Speaker 11: was FY24 that we're six months behind on. So what
• 58:23
  Speaker 11: we're talking about is a funding bill that only goes
• 58:26
  Speaker 11: for six months in the first place.
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: Got it.
• 58:28
  Speaker 11: It's our understanding that UNRWA is going to be good
• 58:33
  Speaker 11: with funding until, I want to say, January. And so
• 58:36
  Speaker 11: we're supposed to be working on FY25. Theoretically, if FY25
• 58:41
  Speaker 11: comes about in a timely fashion, then UNRWA is good
• 58:46
  Speaker 11: to go. And or if we add it back, but
• 58:50
  Speaker 11: pulling it out In my understanding, was not going to
• 58:55
  Speaker 11: essentially defund UNRWA at this exact moment and put them
• 59:00
  Speaker 11: in a destitute situation.
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: That's good to know. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up Haiti.
• 59:04
  Speaker 10: I mean, the history of foreign countries meddling in Haiti,
• 59:06
  Speaker 10: you go back to the French, the U.S. sending troops
• 59:09
  Speaker 10: in a bunch of times. the failed earthquake response. But,
• 59:11
  Speaker 10: you know, the assassination in 2021 of the president has
• 59:15
  Speaker 10: led to the security situation devolving. And hopefully this Kenyan
• 59:18
  Speaker 10: security force goes in.
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: But you're right, the U.S.
• 59:21
  Speaker 10: Has pledged a bunch of money for that peacekeeping mission.
• 59:24
  Speaker 10: And if we don't step up, it's.
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: Not at all clear who will.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: Okay, now the hard questions. You ready?
• 59:31
  Speaker 10: So who's the best Beyonce? Destiny's Child Beyonce, Lemonade Beyonce,
• 59:37
  Speaker 10: Cowboy Carter Beyonce?
• 59:39
  Speaker 11: It's going to have to be Destiny's Child.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 59:42
  Speaker 11: Just because, I mean, they're my exact age. So that's
• 59:47
  Speaker 11: the original for me.
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: You grew up with that.
• 59:49
  Speaker 11: I grew up with it.
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: Dallas Cowboys or Houston Texans?
• 59:54
  Speaker 11: I represent Dallas.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Dallas Cowboys.
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: But you went to school in Houston, right?
• 59:58
  Speaker 11: I know, but Dallas Cowboys.
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: You like Dak?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 11: I'm a Dak fan.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 12: Okay.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: I'm the Dak train.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 11: I'm a Dak fan. Don't really care for the other
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 11: guy that owns the Cowboys. But I love Dak.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: You love Dak. I'm not a Jerry fan either.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 10: That's a whole other podcast talking about Jerry.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: I know you were born and raised in St.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: Louis.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 5: You live in Texas now. St. Louis style barbecue or
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: Texas barbecue? Ooh.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: Ooh.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 11: That is a hard one. I think I've been in
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 11: Texas too long, so I'm going to have to go
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 11: with Texas.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: Texas barbecue?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: Last question.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 10: Trump is now selling a Bible-Constitution combo for only $ 60.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 10: I just want to know if you're in the market.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 10: I'm thinking of picking a couple up.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 11: Absolutely not.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 6: No?
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 11: He doesn't know a Bible verse, so I don't know
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 11: what's in that Bible.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: What did he say when he was asked? He was like,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: Corinthians 4 or something like that?
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 9: Oh, did he?
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 11: He's been asked a million times, and he couldn't even
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 11: get Jesus' whip. He can't do nothing.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: Mm-mm.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: Mm-mm.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 11: I don't trust that Bible.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: Who?
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 6: I mean....
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: I feel like you can get a Bible for free somewhere.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: You probably don't have to buy a Trump one.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 11: Maybe on your phone.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: Maybe the internet.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 11: There's a whole app for that.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: The Constitution. I feel like you can find that.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 11: There's a whole app for that. And I trust my
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 11: Bible app a lot better.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 5: Congresswoman Crockett, thank you so much for coming to the studio.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: Great talking to you.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 10: Thanks for fighting the good fight in that wacky committee.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 10: God bless you for keeping your patience in that place.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 11: Thanks for having me.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: One last thing to leave you with. Larry David went
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: on Chris Wallace's show on CNN on Wednesday night. And Wallace,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: in what I would say was a shining example of
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: knowing your subject, let Larry tee off on Donald Trump.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: Let's listen.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 12: I mean, you can't go a day without thinking about
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 12: what he's done to this country because he's such a
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 12: little baby. that he's thrown 250 years of democracy out
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 12: the window by not accepting the results of it. I mean,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 12: it's so crazy. He's such a sociopath. He's so insane.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 12: He just couldn't admit to losing. And we know he lost.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 12: He knows he lost. And look how he's fooled everybody.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 12: He's convinced all these people that he didn't lose. He's
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 12: such a sick man.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: He's so sick.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 12: Anyway, no, it hasn't impacted me at all.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: It's great. This is great.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: I love that especially, and I was talking with, I
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: was texting a friend about it last night, and he
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: was like, here's the thing, there's a lot of discussions about, like,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: polling and the right message he's like you know that's
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: a pretty good one just like come on you all
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: know the guy's fucking nuts but you know obviously the
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: the trump base doesn't know that but a lot of
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: other people people that are still like they don't like
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: joe biden they don't like donald trump but like this
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: man is crazy his party has gone nuts they think
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: the dei caused bridge collapses taylor swiss rig in the
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: super bowl they got donald trump thinking the election stolen
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: they're fucking nuts what are we doing It's great.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: Also, they want to cut social security and ban abortion.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: There is that, too.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: There is that, too. Yeah. But they're also just like,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: you know, crises come and they happen like COVID did
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: in the pandemic. And look how Donald Trump handled it.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: There are serious things that happen in the world. And
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: the question is, who do you want in charge when
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: the serious crises happen? Because, you know, they will. And
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: you don't want that guy in charge. Anyway, Larry David
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: should come on. Come on, Pod Save America, Larry. It's great.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: Are you watching the season of Curb?
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: I am not. I'm going to. I will.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: It's fantastic. I'm going to miss the show when it's gone. Alright,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: that's it for us. Thanks to Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett for
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: coming by, and we will be back with a new
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: pod on Tuesday.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 7: Bye, everyone.
• 1:04:01
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• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com
• 1:04:07
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• 1:04:10
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• 1:04:13
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• 1:04:17
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• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: Wakim is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer.
• 1:04:33
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• 1:04:37
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• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
• 1:04:49
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• 1:04:53
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