Latest / Pod Save America / "Grand Orgy Party."

Transcript

"Grand Orgy Party." · Pod Save America

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Republicans face new challenges from Donald Trump
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and cocaine orgies. Congresswoman Katie Porter joins to talk about
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's proposed budget and billionaire tax. And Tommy is
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: here to take us through our March badness fascist four.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: But first, as we mentioned on Tuesday's pod, Vote Save
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: America is launching its biggest volunteer effort yet and asking
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: you to be part of your region's midterm madness team. East, South, Midwest, West.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Pick a region. Sign up. Learn more at votesaveamerica.com slash midterms.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: We will send you actions you can take every week
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to get involved in the most important elections of 2022.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I like that that was written that way. We've now
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: exhausted saying most important election of your lifetime, so we're
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: just saying it's the most important election of that year.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Was there another option? What's the other one?
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: There's probably some special somewhere.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: A local student government election?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: There's probably a local, yeah. But this is it. The
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: midterms are the main event. Also, if you haven't already
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: picked up your tickets for our upcoming live shows in D.C.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and Boston, make sure to grab them soon. They're going fast.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: But we still have some left. We're very excited to
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: be joined in Boston by Jane Koston and Mayor Michelle Wu.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: And in D.C., we'll be joined by White House Press
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Secretary Jen Psaki. Our guest co-hosts, Simone Sanders and Mike Birbiglia.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So that'll be very fun. We're also excited to announce
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Akilah Hughes and Beto O'Rourke. They'll be live on stage
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: for Love It or Leave It Live or Else in
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Austin on April 7th. That's coming up. Akilah will also
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: be there for the Love It or Leave It Dallas
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: show along with Luke Warford on April 9th. Tickets on
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: sale now for these cities and more. Go get your tickets. Crooked.com
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: slash events. All right, let's get to the news. As
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin continues his murderous rampage through Ukraine, recently declassified U.S.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: intelligence has revealed new tensions and distrust between the Russian
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: dictator and his own military, while Putin's favorability ratings among
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Americans in this week's NBC News poll has hit 1%.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: That's Osama bin Laden territory, Dan. 1%. But, In the
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: midst of this horrific invasion, one of Putin's few remaining
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: fans here in the United States just asked him for
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: a favor.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: As long as Putin now is not exactly a fan
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: of our country, let him explain where did, because Chris
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Wallace wouldn't let me ask the question, why did the
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: mayor of Moscow's wife give the Bidens, both of them,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: three and a half million dollars? That's a lot of money.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: She gave him $ 3. 5 million. So now I would think
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Putin would know the answer to that. I think he
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: should release it. I think we should know that answer.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: The admiration, of course, is still mutual. On the very
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: same day, a Russian state television host said that it's
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: time for regime change in the U.S., quote, and to
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: again help our partner Trump to become president. So there's
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: a temptation to laugh this off if Trump wins. wasn't
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: currently the front runner for the 2024 Republican nomination. So sadly,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: we cannot. What do you think, Dan? What did you
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: make of all this that happened this week? People might
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: not have heard this or seen this because it did
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: not receive too much news coverage.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to deny myself the joy of laughing
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: about this.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: No, you shouldn't.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Look, if we can't laugh in this dark time, what
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: can we do?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: What are we doing?
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Because something can be deadly serious and funny at the
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: same time. And I think this is that. Look, I
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: get there's a lot happening in the world right now.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: There's a Russian invasion of Ukraine. We're still in a pandemic.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: We have inflation. We have a Supreme Court nomination. One
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: of the world's most famous people slapped one of the
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: world's also most famous people live on stage at the Oscars.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Like a lot of shit is happening, right?
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: A lot's happening, yeah.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: But this should be a giant fucking story. Because it
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: shows just how deranged and out of touch with what's
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: happening in the world Donald Trump is. And as you
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: point out, he's not just a frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: He is, in some cases, the frontrunner to be the
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: next president of the United States if you look at
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: the polls. In some polls, he is a hypothetical matchup.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: This is not to say that these polls are right
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: or any polls are right. But it's not a far-fetched
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: idea that Donald Trump will be president of the United
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: States again.
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: And here he is.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Taking the adage of the enemy of my enemy a
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: little too far. And the reason it's serious is Trump
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: did this once, as you may remember. And you know
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: what happened? Russia interfered in our election. So it's like
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: a big, giant fucking deal. And every republic should have
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: to answer for it. More Democrats should talk about it.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: The press should cover it more. It's a big fucking deal.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump publicly proposed entering a scheme with a murderous
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: dictator who hates the United States and has threatened us
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: in numerous ways and is currently murdering civilians in Ukraine.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: That's what Donald Trump just did. He said, and the
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: key line there too, as long as Putin is not
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: exactly a fan of our country. So there is this
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: acknowledgement that he understands that the reason that Putin would
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: want to help him is because Putin hates America. And
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: so if Putin hates America, then maybe Putin will want
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: to ally himself with Donald Trump. It is fucking gross.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: It is gross.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Now, do you think there are any Republican voters who
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: might reconsider their support for the candidate who the Russian
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: government is openly telling us they prefer in 2024? Meanwhile,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: we have that going on, that the Russian government's like,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: we gotta get Trump back in there. We gotta help
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: him get back in there again.
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: I mean, the.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: The statement from the Russian television host that you read
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: could easily have been a statement from Fox News. Like
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: that is the actual position of the majority of elected Republicans.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: A majority of House Republicans voted hours after a violent
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: destruction of the Capitol to refuse to seat the legitimately
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: elected president of the United States and Joe Biden and
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: put Donald Trump in. So I don't know. this is
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: going to cause a lot of people to take their
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: MAGA hats off, but it's sort of, it's a big deal.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And I think it is a reminder of sort of
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: the chaotic insanity that was Trump's era. And I do
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: think that that is some, that it's not going to
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: affect Trump's hardcore base, but it does have electoral impacts
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: around the margin with some people if, and only if
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: they hear about it now and remember it later.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: And again, Trump and Tucker Carlson are, and a few
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: of these Putin fanboys that we hear from so much
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: in right-wing media, they are a bit out of step
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: with the Republican base on this one. Again, that's why
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I read that NBC News poll. It's not like Putin
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: has the usual 30% of Americans, which is the Republican
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: base number that loves Trump, that loves all the bullshit
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: they talk about. He's a 1%. Like, so Trump and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Carlson and some of these idiots cozying up to Putin,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: like that is not what most, not even most Americans,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the vast, vast, vast majority of Americans want.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: Them to do.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: It will be interesting to see if Republicans use this
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: against Trump. Republicans other than Mike Pence, right, who I
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: don't really count as a real candidate. In North Carolina,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: I did an episode of Political Experts React. I always
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: forget that Elijah forced us to rename the show in
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: order to adhere to the vagaries of the YouTube algorithm.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: But with our friend Jason Kander looking at political ads
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: about Ukraine and Russia and gas prices. And in the
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Senate Republican primary in North Carolina, Pat McCrory, the former
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Republican governor who– was so right wing, he was one
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: of the only Republicans that lost in 2016 with Trump
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: on the ballot, is running an ad against the Trump
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: endorsed candidate using that candidate's praise of Putin against him.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: And so I think you could see more of this
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: in Republican primaries going forward. And I think that could
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: have some impact in the contours of a 2024 primary
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: if Trump is involved and some people decide to run
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: real campaigns against him.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: You could easily see a number of Republican candidates finding
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: a lane where they, you know, do their bullshit criticism
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of Joe Biden for being too, quote unquote, weak on Ukraine,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: but then also hit Trump, whether directly, indirectly, obliquely, whatever
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: it may be, for cozying up to Putin. And they're
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: going to be the hawks who are tough on Putin,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: but also handle the situation better than Joe Biden. So
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: they're not going to be as friendly to Putin as
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but they're going to somehow do better than
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Like that, I actually think that is, the
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: politically smart position for some of these Republican candidates. Let's
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: see if some of them may just be too afraid
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump to actually do it.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Or more likely too afraid of Tucker Carlson.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Or too afraid of Tucker Carlson. Or also too dumb.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: True, true.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: We have previously expressed some doubt on the show as
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: to whether Democrats can successfully brand Republicans as the party
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: of Putin. Does this... change that in your mind or
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: is just this is this just something that might stick
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: to only trump or trump like candidates or you know
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: those those kind of people.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: I mean i like sean patrick maloney he was a
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: great I think he's actually doing a very good job
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: in a very tough situation ahead of you. We'll see.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: His quote in a Politico story a few weeks ago
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: about how his message is that we're the party– they're
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: the Putin Republicans and we're Zelensky Democrats. I'm still cringing
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: from that.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: Like it.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Hurts my– like my intestines hurt from it. It's so bad.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: And I don't think you.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Can– He's really a quote machine these days. Yeah. It
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: was that. He's talking about doing Molly on Morning Joe
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: when he was in college.
• 10:42
  Speaker 6: You know what?
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: That's a point of evidence for the next section of
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: this podcast. We'll get to that.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Just wait, everyone.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: We'll get to that.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: They're Koch Republicans. We're Molly Democrats.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: How did we get here?
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: How did we get here?
• 11:00
  Speaker 6: Okay. Anywho.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: I think– I think that there is value in reminding
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: voters about the chaotic stupidity of Trump, which is embodied
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: by courting Putin's electoral support in the middle of a war.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: But I think you have to be– that voters are
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: smart enough to not believe that every Republican or even
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: most Republicans are like Trump in that way, that they
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: agree with– even if they're silent on the matter– I
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: don't think the voters will not naturally assume that Republicans
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: are like Trump. The fact that Trump is sort of
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: over here, separate from the vast majority of established Republicans,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: is his political strength, but it also helps them in
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: the sense that it inoculates the party from some of
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: his stupidity.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think people, you can get people to believe
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: that Trump cozies up to Putin and Trump likes Putin
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: because he says it all the time. When you have
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: a bunch of other Republicans who are constantly criticizing Putin
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: and or speaking out, it's hard to be like, yeah,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: they may be speaking out, but they support the guy, Trump,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: who was also cozying up to Putin. Voters don't process
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: information that way. It's just hard. If there are a
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: bunch of Republicans who are afraid to talk about Putin
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: or condemn him or criticize him, yeah, then you have
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: an opening, but there doesn't seem to be too many
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is a little confusing, I think. I
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: don't think you can say that all Republicans are pro-Putin
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: because Trump is pro-Putin, but the fact that Trump is
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: pro-Putin makes pro-Trump Republicans more politically vulnerable.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's right. I think that's right. But again,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: the more dots you have to connect, the harder the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: case to make, is my point. We also got another
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: reminder this week that Trump doesn't actually need help from
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: foreign dictators to do crimes. He can clumsily commit them
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: all on his own. Here's a Washington Post lead from
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Robert Costa and none other than Bob Woodward himself. Quote,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: internal White House records from the day of the attack
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: on the U.S. Capitol that were turned over to the
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: House Select Committee show a gap in President Donald Trump's
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: phone logs of seven hours and 37 minutes, including the
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: period when the building was being violently assaulted. So in response,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the committee is investigating whether Trump used a burner phone
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: during that time, a term that Trump said he's never
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: heard of. even though former National Security Advisor John Bolton
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: told CBS the other day that he's heard the former
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: president use the term several times, because of course he has.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Before we get into the politics of this, how excited
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: was Bob Woodward that he broke this story 50 years
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: after he took down a president who used a gap
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: in his phone logs to help cover up his crimes?
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Do you think Bob Woodward is still capable of excitement?
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. He's just serving Ben
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Rhodes soup and getting all the good gossip.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: That's right. He spit his soup out right on Ben Rhodes.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Why are you asking me? Ask Ben Rhodes. He's Bob
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Woodward's soup friend.
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: I just can't.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: It's like too much. I'm like, oh, Trump had a
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: gap in the tapes? Just like Nixon? And we're finding
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: out from Bob Woodward? What the fuck?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: How pissed do you think Carl Bernstein is? It's like
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: he's just.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Been replaced with Robert Costa unceremoniously.
• 14:20
  Speaker 7: Brutal.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: It's too bad. What do you think the committee is
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: looking to learn about what Trump was doing during that
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: time that hasn't already been made public?
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I guess we should just say it's
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: possible that Donald Trump didn't use the phone in the
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: seven hours. Maybe he was in solemn prayer during that
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: period of time.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: It's not possible because we know we know he was
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: on the phone with Kevin McCarthy. We know that he
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: was on the phone with multiple other members of Congress.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Some of the call logs show that he was talking
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: to Holly, that he was talking to Jim Jordan. And
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: then they stop and then there's the seven hours and
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: then whatever. But in in reports, public reports since the insurrection.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: We know he was talking to a bunch of other people.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: So the question is just what phone was he talking
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: to them on?
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: So that– I mean this is part of the issue
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: to give it some sort of explanation. The call logs
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: will refer specifically to calls placed through the White House
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: operator from his landline as president or his official cell phone,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I assume, if he were to have one. It would
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: not include calls that he made on a personal cell phone.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: not include calls he made from a staff member's phone,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: which you're really not supposed to do as president. Cause
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: you're supposed to adhere to these presidential records. It would
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: not include any calls he made on a burner phone,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: which I think would be truly amazing. But he's just
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: got like Dan Scavino going to buy like boost mobile,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: prepaid phones.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Obama phones.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: They're just, they're going right to HHS. They're getting all
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: the Obama phones. They're using that. Then they're flushing them
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: down the toilet with the, with the other presidential records.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: I did some research on the Obama phone thing the
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: other day and people still believe it. And if you
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Google Obama phone, there are still companies who have bought
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: the search term to try to get people to buy
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: grifting cell plans.
• 16:07
  Speaker 6: Wow.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: That is something.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: It's a real conspiracy.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, no one cares about that. But anywho, back
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: to this point. What I think they want, they need
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: to know to be able to put together everything Trump did.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Who did he speak to? What did he say to
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: those people? And the call logs give you, the investigators
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: a roadmap of who to interview, right? And then there
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: is a question about Were there specific steps taken to
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: evade White House and Presidential Records Act? Were records destroyed?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: There is a report, which I can't say it's credible yet,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: but that a senator received a call from an official
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: White House number during that period. So why was that
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: not included in the call logs? Were those logs destroyed,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: which I would say Woodward and Costa say the investigators
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: have found no evidence of that as of yet? Was
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: there a specific decision in Because it was in the
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: middle of a historic crime to not keep the records.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: And we also need to know what Trump did or
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: did not do to either encourage the violence or take
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: steps as the commander in chief to stop the violence.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: And all of that, that roadmap comes from the calls
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: made and what he said to those people.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, the challenge here is that so much of
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: what Trump was doing that day is already public. And
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: what we know already through public accounts and through Trump's
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: own actions is that he incited the violence and did
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: nothing to stop it for a long, long time. Like
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: he we all saw the speech that he said, we're
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: all going to march to the Capitol. We're going to
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: try to, you know, and then he refused to act
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to protect Congress and He didn't send out the National
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Guard for hours. We heard the whole story about how
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: he talked to Kevin McCarthy. And he said, well, Kevin,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: those people that are storming the Capitol must be more
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: upset about the election results than you. Like we know
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: all this, just like everything else with Trump. Most of
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: it is out in the open. But I do think
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the key that I think the committee is looking for,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the key evidence they're looking for is like, did he
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: communicate in any way with Trump? the attackers, the rioters themselves,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: or the people planning some kind of attack or a
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: riot on the Capitol? Was there any communication there? And
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: like you said, any communication about, you know, whether it
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: was DOD, whether it was members of Congress, whoever saying, hey,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: we get to somehow stop this violence.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: We get to act.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: And he was like, no, no, no, I don't want to.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: So I think that's what we're looking for. So we'll see.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: We also found out last night, I think the Washington
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Post broke this that the criminal investigation into the January
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: 6th attack on the Capitol has expanded to examine the
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: preparations for the rally that preceded the riot as the
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Justice Department aims to determine the full extent of any
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: conspiracy to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election victory,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: according to people familiar with the matter. There's a federal
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: grand jury in Washington that has issued subpoenas to some
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: officials in former President Trump's orbit who assisted in planning, funding,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: and executing the January 6th rally. So it seems to
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: me that for all the shit Merrick Garland's been getting
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: about moving too slow or not widening the probe to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: include not just the riders themselves, but the people who
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: planned and helped them. It does look like the Justice
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Department is investigating a wider group of people here.
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, it seems very clear there's investigation happening. It
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: seems very clear that everyone involved, including the president, is
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: in some measure of serious legal danger. The question will be,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: can Is there evidence to back up the specific criminality
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: that's– and this is always the problem with Trump is
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: he commits– like is Trump guilty of inciting a violent
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: insurrection against the United States?
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Yes, 100%.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: That is obvious. That is true. He does all of
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: his crimes, as you said, out in the open. Is
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: there evidence to get him on a specific violation of
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: a specific statute? That is a different question. And that
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: is why this is probably taking longer than everyone wishes
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: it would.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: So we just talked about The Russian government basically pleading
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: to get Trump back into office. We have Donald Trump
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: trying to enter into yet another scheme with Vladimir Putin
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: to destabilize the United States government. We got more evidence
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump was potentially covering up his incitement of
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: an insurrection to try to overthrow the last election. That's
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: in the headlines again. So this all just happened in
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: a week. Our good friends at Politico weighed in on
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: all of this with the headline, could Trump blow the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: midterms for the GOP? And they argued that, quote, the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: January 6th committee's major reports, when released this year, will
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: force every candidate to discuss Trump in 2020. And as
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the midterms approach, Trump himself will be a central player
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: in campaigns everywhere, whether either party likes it or not.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Obviously, elections are decided by a more complex set of
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: factors than one thing or one person, the state of
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: the economy, the state of the pandemic, just the map, right?
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Does the Senate map come up on a good year
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: or a bad year? All of that is going to
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: play into this. But I do think that Trump being
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: in the news is good news for Democrats, right? There
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: are some Democratic strategists, not many, but some who I
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: think are are under the view that we shouldn't talk
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: about Trump, we should ignore Trump, because if you talk
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: about Trump, you get Trump turnout. Well, I think it's
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: worth looking at Virginia for a second, because even though
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Terry McAuliffe awkwardly and terribly said Trump's name all the time,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump did not campaign in Virginia, he was not
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: in ads in Virginia, he had endorsed Youngkin, but was
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: really sort of distant from that race, and they saw
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: a huge surge in Republican turnout over 2017. And so,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: If Trump is in the news, it means a couple
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: of things. It means we're talking about Trump and his
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: crimes and his chaos and his stupidity and not just
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: the price of gas, fights among Democrats, Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: all this other stuff. And in Virginia, think about it
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: this way, which is there were about 2.4 million people
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: who voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Terry McAuliffe and
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden won by 10 points. Terry McAuliffe lost by
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit less than two points. And he got 700,000
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: votes less than Biden. So that 700,000 people is two groups.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: It is some people who voted for Joe Biden and
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: they voted for Glenn Youngkin. The other are people who
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: voted for Joe Biden and decided not to vote in 2021.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: And any chance we have at the midterms involves activating
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: people who voted for Biden and getting them to turn
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: out in the midterm and keeping people who voted for,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: who are, you know, Republican or Republican-leaning, who voted for
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Biden with us in 2022. And Donald Trump helps on
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: both those fronts. And so having him up there in
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: the news, it doesn't mean you have to do it deftly.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: You can't just say Trump's name all the time. You
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: can't call people Glenn Trumpkin. But having a, having, it races,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: takes the elections, reminds people the chaotic criminality that made
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: a lot of people get involved in politics, made a
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: lot of people leave the Republican Party. And so in
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: that sense, I think it could, whether it'll Donald Trump
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: on his own will vote or not, no, but it
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: will certainly help Democrats give us a fighting chance.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I firmly believe if you polled Republican strategists, they would
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: all tell you they want Trump turnout, but they don't
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: want Trump in the news or necessarily campaigning around their state,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: especially if they're in competitive districts. You know, like that's
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: just look at it from their perspective. They know that
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Trump in the news all the time is not great
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: for them. Again, this is a very complicated, nuanced thing
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: because just saying Trump's name, calling someone Glenn Trumpkin, calling
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: your opponent Trump, whatever, that's not going to do it.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: It can't be clumsy like that. But Trump in the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: news is not something Republicans in purple, in competitive districts,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: in competitive states really want that much. They do want
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the turnout. They want the Trump-level turnout. But they don't
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: want those swing voters who voted for Joe Biden, who
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: might have been independent or Republican... to be thinking about
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. So yeah, could he blow it? We don't know,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: but we'll see. Speaking of blowing things, we'd be remiss.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: I would go with speaking of blow, but however you
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: want to do your transition.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Speaking of blowing things, we'd be remiss if we didn't
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: mention this week's Madison Cawthorn drama. Knew we'd get there.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: The North Carolina congressman said the following during an interview
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: this week.
• 24:51
  Speaker 7: Being kind of a young guy in Washington with the
• 24:53
  Speaker 7: average age of probably 60 or 70, and I look
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: at all these people, a lot of them that I've
• 24:57
  Speaker 7: looked up to through my life, always paid attention to politics,
• 25:00
  Speaker 7: guys that, you know, then all of a sudden you
• 25:02
  Speaker 7: get invited to like, well, hey, we're going to have
• 25:04
  Speaker 7: kind of a sexual get together at one of our homes.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: You should come.
• 25:07
  Speaker 7: And I'm like, what did you just ask me to
• 25:10
  Speaker 7: come to?
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: And then you realize they're asking you to come to
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: an orgy.
• 25:13
  Speaker 7: Or the fact that, you know, there's some of the
• 25:14
  Speaker 7: people that are leading on the movement to try and
• 25:17
  Speaker 7: remove you know, addiction in our country. And then you
• 25:20
  Speaker 7: watch them do, you know, a key bump of cocaine
• 25:21
  Speaker 7: right in front of you.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: This is the best story in the last several months.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, I cannot get enough of this story.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: You and I have done hundreds of podcasts together. We've
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: talked about all kinds of things. And I've never known
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: you to be more excited for a segment than you
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: have been for this one over the last 24 hours.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And, and I will say I was a little late to, uh,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: this story. Like I saw, I, like Tommy said something
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: about it a couple of days ago. I was like
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: really busy with something else. And I'm like, what Madison
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Cawthorne is talking about orgies. This has got to be
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: like blown out of what is going on. This must
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: be blown out of proportion. And then, then I heard
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: that clip. First of all, it's like, he's just talking,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: he's like, oh yeah, Washington, you don't know what's coming.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And then he starts with sexual get-togethers, which is, you know,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: quite a way to term an orgy.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: Sexual get-togethers.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: And then suddenly he's just accusing– he's just accusing Republicans
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of having orgies and doing key bumps.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: I think that's– I mean we honestly could talk about
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: this for an hour. Maybe we will. But like he
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: talks about the orgy part of this as a real nafe,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: like a sexual get-together. I don't know. Then he very
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: specifically swerves into a very specific– way of doing cocaine.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: He's just like, an orgy? I've never heard of this thing.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: And then they're doing key bumps of cocaine.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: So, Madison Cawthorne says this. Keep in mind, Madison Cawthorne
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: has said a number of completely batshit crazy things. He
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: cheered on the insurrection. He's had a racist website that
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: he's been called out for. Like, the guy is bad news.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: He's like fringe, right, Marjorie Taylor Greene territory. But this, Dan,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: this statement about the Koch orgies, this got Republicans pretty upset.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy was very angry. All the other Republican members
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: of Congress were very angry. And so McCarthy and Steve
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Scalise demand that Cawthorn has a meeting with them on Wednesday.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: And McCarthy comes out of the meeting and he tells reporters...
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Madison Cawthorn admitted that he exaggerated, that this wasn't true.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: He said, as a result, that the young congressman has, quote,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: lost my trust and is going to have to earn
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: it back. Which also is like, think about what Kevin
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: McCarthy said about Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar attending
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: a white nationalist event where the crowd was cheering on
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Putin as he was invading Ukraine. And he said, oh,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: she said she wouldn't be going to one of those again.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: But Madison Cawthorn talks about a Coke orgy, and he
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: is pissed. McCarthy is pissed. Why do you think that is?
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Well, everyone knows what the first rule of Republican Orgy
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Club is. Look, I don't know whether there really is
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: a secret Coke-fueled Republican orgy circuit, but if there were.
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: It's a circuit.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I like that you've expanded it to a circuit now.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: But if there were.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: It was at your house last week. It's at my
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: house this week.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: It's at.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: You know, Chuck Grassley's house the week after the tough one.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: It was like, Oh no, not the Grassley's. But I'm
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: just saying that if there were such a Coke fueled
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: orgy circuit, this is exactly how the organizers have said
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Coke fueled orgy circuit would respond to it.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: They doth protest too much.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: It's it's got it's it's they're they haven't been this
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: upset since a member of their own caucus tried to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: hold donald trump accountable for an insurrection they they last
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: were this angry at liz cheney for and mitt romney
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: for like voting to impeach donald trump for inciting an
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: insurrection And now they're this angry at Madison Cawthorn for
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: spilling the beans on the Coke orgies. Which, by the way,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: also wonderful. The next day, Roger Stone, speaking of Coke-fueled orgies,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Roger Stone is like, I have it on good authority
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: that Madison Cawthorn, when Kevin McCarthy said that Madison Cawthorn
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: recanted his story about the Coke-fueled orgies, He was just lying.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: It's true. He really believes it. So like Roger Stone's
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: trying to walk it back again, which is just fantastic.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I hope this story, I want to talk about this
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: story every day from now and from now until November.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: At one point in some of the reporting, it said
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: that Madison Cawthorn admitted that he exaggerated the story. So
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: what's the, so.
• 30:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Exaggerated how? What's the kernel of truth in there?
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe it wasn't, maybe it wasn't a key bump.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was, you know, maybe the orgy was smaller
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: than he let on.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: It's just the amount of jokes that I'm self-censoring right now.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know. Believe me, that's why
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not really, nothing's coming out here.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I think it is probably great for, it's in some ways,
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: it's a tragedy that this fell on a Thursday. Like
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: I'm very happy about it, but it seems like there's no,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: there's no question that Lovett is going to find a
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: way to get this into the Tuesday pod.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Forget about the Tuesday pod. I'm afraid for what he's
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: going to say on Love to Relieve It. Look, he's
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: already floated a few jokes to Tommy and me. He's
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: going to go right up to that line, no pun intended. Okay.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: We just had a little fun with this. That's all.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: No one thinks it's a big political thing, except for
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the fact that it is crazy that the Republican Party
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: is angrier about this than any of the white nationalist, racist,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: corrupt behavior of the rest of their caucus. So that,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I will say, is completely nuts. All right, when we
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: come back, I will talk to Congresswoman Katie Porter about
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Biden's budget proposal and billionaire tax. On Monday, President Biden
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: released his $ 5. 8 trillion budget proposal for 2023. a plan
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that would increase spending on economic and national security priorities,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: cut the deficit by a trillion dollars, and pay for
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: it all with $ 2. 5 trillion in higher taxes on corporations
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and the rich, including a new minimum tax on billionaires.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Here to break it all down for us is California's
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: own Katie Porter, congresswoman from the 45th District. Good to
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: see you.
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: Good to see you. Thank you for having me.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: It's great to have you here. You're in Congress right now.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Where are you coming from?
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting. It turns out that in the U.S.
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: Capitol, there actually are no workspaces for Congress people to
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: do their work. So, so far today, I have been
• 32:29
  Speaker 6: booted out of the Speaker's Lobby, the room off the cloakroom,
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: the cloakroom itself, the women's bathroom, which I finally resorted to,
• 32:39
  Speaker 6: which is definitely not an appropriate workspace. And now I'm
• 32:43
  Speaker 6: coming to you kneeling on the carpet of the Rayburn Room.
• 32:48
  Speaker 6: where I'm very certainly shortly going to learn that work
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: is not permitted here either.
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: Can we get.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Katie Porter a cubicle here? What's going on?
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: It's really interesting.
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: The workspaces we have, there are no actual table and
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: chairs because apparently we're not supposed.
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: To actually write or do real work. We're supposed to
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: be like Right.
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: And I'm like, I actually, that was a big hero
• 33:18
  Speaker 6: shot for those of you who are listening, but like,
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: I really, we really need to create spaces where we
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: can take meetings with constituents who come to the.
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: Capitol, where we can get on remote hearings, where we can,
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: we can do things.
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: And, you know, this is part of modernizing Congress that
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: we just don't seem to be moving toward.
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: So when I went into the workspace where they directed me,
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: there were just.
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: Huge computers and printers and landlines and courts. And I said, well,
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: there's no place to put my iPad on this area.
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: And I said, by the way, are those printers wireless?
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: And they said, oh no, you can't print to those.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Technology and government is tough.
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: You're really much better off at.
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: A Starbucks, I think is the message or, you know,
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: particularly a Starbucks that's unionizing. But we really need to
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: think about if we want to see our members hard
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: at work, creating workspaces where they can do exactly that.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: So you don't have to kneel for Pod Save America.
• 34:16
  Speaker 6: So I literally am kneeling here at the Pod Temple
• 34:21
  Speaker 6: in order to be in conversation with you about the budget.
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: Which is so important.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: That is outrageous. Well, let's talk about the budget. Biden's
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: budget proposal is just that. It's a proposal. A lot
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: of hopes and wishes. You guys in Congress are the
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: ones who actually have to write it and pass it.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: What do you like? What do you want to change?
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: So let's start with what I like.
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: I like that we're seeing deficit reduction. I like that
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: this is a president who is directly responding to concerns
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: about how the pandemic reshaped our spending.
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: And I think that's a really important thing for people
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: to take a look at.
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: This is a budget that was very carefully put together,
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: not one that's just there to score quick political points,
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: but one is to set our country up for economic
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: success for the decades to come. I like the funding
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: for pandemic preparedness. Congress should get this done, but we
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: clearly haven't. The President is pushing us and that's a
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: healthy relationship. Climate crisis, incredibly important. The longer we wait
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: to spend to address the climate crisis, the higher the
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: price tag gets. The President's budget allots $ 44. 9 billion to
• 35:25
  Speaker 6: address the climate crisis. If we don't spend that money today,
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: next year that price tag goes up and the tools
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: we have to address the climate crisis become more difficult,
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: become reduced. So I also like the money for medical research.
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: I think that's really important. And I want to make sure,
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: and I spoke with the White House staff yesterday about this,
• 35:44
  Speaker 6: about making sure that medical research dollars, our tax dollars
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: that we are allotting, that we are putting clauses in
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: those medical research contracts so that we are able to
• 35:54
  Speaker 6: actually afford the life-saving drugs and cures that come out
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: of it. The last thing I like is I like
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: the approach on taxation.
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: It is really, really important that every American.
• 36:05
  Speaker 6: Regardless of their income level, feel like they're paying their
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: fair share, feel like they're chipping into our collective wellbeing.
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: And so I think the effort to crack down on
• 36:13
  Speaker 6: loopholes globally is important. I think the minimum tax for
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: billionaires is important and raising the tax rate for corporations.
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: I wanna mention one thing about that.
• 36:23
  Speaker 6: You can set that tax rate for corporations at anything
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: you want, but if you don't fully fund the IRS,
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: and you don't close those loopholes, they won't pay that rate.
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: So I think people too often focus on the rate
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: of taxation and not on the effective collection of taxes
• 36:42
  Speaker 6: and what corporations are often paying.
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: So while I applaud President Biden trying to put the
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: tax rate back.
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: Where it has been, it'd be the lowest rate ever
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: in modern history, taking it back to 28%, still you
• 36:57
  Speaker 6: have to do the work of collecting those taxes.
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: So that's what I like.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: What don't you like? What do you want to change?
• 37:03
  Speaker 6: Well, so I think one of the concerns I have
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: is taking a hard look at the Pentagon and defense budget. Now,
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: so everybody knows that number in the defense budget is
• 37:12
  Speaker 6: bigger than the number in the non-domestic spending.
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: But this president.
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: Proposed a smaller increase for the Pentagon, 4% than he
• 37:22
  Speaker 6: did on the domestic spending side, which was like 5.5%.
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: But I think we have a duty with every tax
• 37:29
  Speaker 6: dollar to look at where is it going? What are
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: we getting for this money? And I don't think that there's.
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: Any pass for the DOD or for.
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: The Pentagon on that. We have to be doing that work.
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: And so I'm going to be digging into that defense
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: budget in more detail. I do see some signs of progress,
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: for example, being willing to kind of take a harder
• 37:49
  Speaker 6: look at the F-35 program, which is not taking flight,
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: shall we say, and being willing to crack down on that.
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: But I think there's two, I think one of the
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: things we saw last year was The Pentagon made their request.
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: The president fully met it. Then, right at the last minute,
• 38:08
  Speaker 6: the Armed Services Committees voted to add 10% to the
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: amount that even the Pentagon told us they needed. So
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: I just think there's often a gap between giving our
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: service members what they need, which I will always support,
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: and giving generals what they want, where it's my job
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: to really ask, is this serve the bottom line?
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: Does this keep our country safer?
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I got all excited about this billionaire minimum tax and
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: then Joe Manchin killed it like he has done to
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: so many of our hopes and dreams over the last
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: two years. What do you think can actually get done
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: on taxes between now and the midterms or in this
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: budget or in whatever reconciliation bill you guys end up?
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: I mean, look, I think people oppose this billionaire's tax
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: at their own political peril. The American people understand that
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: this is not fair. And fundamentally, they understand that this
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: is crippling our economy. Our economy is doing great. Families
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: are not. And the reason for that is that we
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: have a wealth inequality problem. We have an income inequality problem.
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: So I think this billionaire's tax, the polling on it
• 39:14
  Speaker 6: is off the hook. The reaction of the American people
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: to it is off the hook. And I think this
• 39:20
  Speaker 6: goes back to really you know, the American people want
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: us to, to understand their situations to, you know, this
• 39:27
  Speaker 6: is what people like but I drive a minivan.
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: I mean, yes. Like, I don't know how else to
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: get three kids around suburban Orange County. When the pandemic hit,
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: people were like, Oh, look at Katie's kitchen.
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: It's so comforting. It's like, She has this like shitty
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: white refrigerator. And I was like, yes, because that's all
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: I can afford.
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: Like, you know, right.
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: So, but the reality is we have a lot of
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: people in Congress for whom that billionaire tax might have
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: a bite.
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: And, you know, it'd have a bite for them. It'd
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: have a bite for their big donors.
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: And I think that kind of cycle of cynicism and skepticism,
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: because we don't advance policies that serve literally in this case, 99.9%.
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: 99% of Americans. The billionaire's tax would apply to the 0.01%.
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: People with over $ 100 million. So let me tell you,
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: if you're asking yourself, is that me? It's not.
• 40:21
  Speaker 6: If it were you, you would have already had 42,000
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: high paid lawyers and accountants calling you in a panic.
• 40:26
  Speaker 6: So if you're wondering, is this billionaire's tax going to
• 40:28
  Speaker 6: apply to me? I assure you it's not.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Do you think it has any legal issues at all?
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Because some people are saying, you know, If it's a
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: tax on unrealized gains, that's hard to do. Like, is
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: this all legally sound in your opinion?
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: Let me give you an example. Property tax, which, you know,
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: big issue in California. Trump made it a bigger issue
• 40:50
  Speaker 6: with his terrible cap on assault deduction. Property tax is
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: a tax on unrealized gains. My house may go up
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: in value and my taxation rate goes up. I'm not
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: selling my house or moving out of my house. I'm
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: just paying tax on the increase in the value. So
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: there is precedence for doing this within our taxation system.
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: And look, I want to keep this in mind.
• 41:11
  Speaker 6: Anybody who wants to say, oh, you know, I don't
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: want to do anything unconstitutional. Keep in mind, this tax,
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: this billionaire's tax only kicks in if you're not paying 20%.
• 41:24
  Speaker 6: So if you simply would just pony up your fair share,
• 41:27
  Speaker 6: like all of the rest of us who get in
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: our cars and go to work and get in trouble
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: if we get there at 9.35 instead of 9.30, you
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: won't have to worry about this. So if you're already
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: paying 20%, this is not going to be an issue
• 41:39
  Speaker 6: for you. So it's a minimum tax, which I think
• 41:41
  Speaker 6: is really important for people to understand. It's just trying
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: to set a floor. So I personally, I understand the
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: legal arguments, but I think when you look at what
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: happens to people with property tax, that is a great
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: example of an unrealized game where we all feel our
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: taxes go.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: Up on it.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: It's hard to figure out where the sweet spot is
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: here because I've heard Manchin say he's happy to raise
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: rates on the highest earners and then Sinema doesn't want
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: to raise the rates. Like, is there some kind of
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: tax increase on the wealthy and big corporations in general
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: that you see satisfying both the Sinema concerns and the
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Manchin concerns, who both seem like, in theory, they want
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the wealthy to pay more but continue to shit on
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: all these proposals?
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think the Venn diagram of.
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: what Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema support is actually like.
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: Two circles that don't touch. So, you know, there's no
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: overlap there. It's a very thin line that we have
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: to try to find. And it's like you see the
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: line and then it disappears on you.
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: So, you know, look, I think that there's two points
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: to make. One is anytime you hear someone say, oh,
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: I'm good with this or I'm.
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: Good with that, you should ask yourself why.
• 42:54
  Speaker 6: And one of the reasons that we often hear people
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: who are not really supportive of a fair taxation system
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: offer to raise the rates is that they know nobody
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: actually pays that rate at the top. So for regular
• 43:07
  Speaker 6: wage earners, if you move the rate up from say
• 43:10
  Speaker 6: 18 to 20, we pay that extra.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: But for the very top, when.
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: You move the rate from say 25 to 28 or
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: 30 to 35, they don't end up paying that because
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: they have all of these strategies to basically keep their
• 43:24
  Speaker 6: income year after year, generation after generation from being taxed.
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: So for me, if I earn an extra dollar, which I.
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: Can't because of house ethics rules, but if I ever
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: did earn an extra buck, then that extra buck goes
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: on my tax return and it gets taxed. But when
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: someone gets hundreds of millions of dollars of shares of
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: a corporation, nobody doubts that has value. Nobody doubts that's
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: being given to them because of their work. as a
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: CEO or as a board of director, to not tax
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: that doesn't really capture what they're really earning and.
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: What they're really living on.
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: So do I think that, I hear Manchin, I hear Sinema,
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: I think the reality is there's a lack of trust
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: in what they say. They need to put forth a proposal.
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: The burden should be on them to make their pitch
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: to the American people.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about inflation. I've seen a lot
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: of folks on Twitter say, people are worried about gas
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: prices and inflation in the economy because the media and
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the Republicans are focusing on that narrative. You're talking to
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: constituents all the time in Orange County. What do you think?
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: Oh, listen, John, people, I put back blueberries at the
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: grocery store. They were $ 5 and 99 cents and I
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: can't afford it.
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: I told my kids, they're like, mom, we never have
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: bacon anymore.
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: And I was like, right, because we're going to have
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: pancakes and you're not going to have the bacon and
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: you're going to be just fine because it's too expensive.
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: So I buy it when it's on sale. So I
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: do think people are feeling the pinch.
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: I will say, I think the overarching increase in things
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: like food actually hit most families harder than gas, but
• 44:59
  Speaker 6: that depends a lot on how much you drive and
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: how often you drive and your commute. So I don't
• 45:04
  Speaker 6: think it's just talking points, but here's what I think,
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: where I think the Republicans are being disingenuous.
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: And I think we have to call them out.
• 45:12
  Speaker 6: What they're really saying is inflation's a problem, so we
• 45:17
  Speaker 6: have to lower wages.
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: That is a corporate talking.
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: Point that directly benefits businesses.
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: What we need to do is lower costs.
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: So when we make healthcare more affordable, when we make
• 45:31
  Speaker 6: childcare more affordable, we crack down.
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: On profiteering, right?
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: You know, the oil and gas companies paid out $ 38
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: billion in stock buybacks, but they can't take down the
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: price of the pump by 38 cents a gallon. So
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: I do want to tackle inflation. I think it's incredibly important.
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: I do think it's having a bite. I see it
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: in my own family. But the way to tackle it
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: is to bring down costs, not to bring down wages.
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: And I think behind a lot of the.
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: Republican hype on inflation, when you ask them, well, what
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: are you going to do about it? The answer is
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: people shouldn't have so much money in their pockets. And
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: that is the wrong answer.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Well, so the other thing I see is a lot of,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: you know, well-meaning liberal economists saying like, oh, Democrats... shouldn't
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: be talking about how corporate consolidation and price gouging are
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: affecting inflation or causing inflation because that's not the cause.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: So Democrats should stop talking about it. What do you
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: think about that?
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah. No, listen, I mean, I think we should just
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: name names. Mary Summers.
• 46:31
  Speaker 6: Listen, the reality is corporate, let's go back to fundamentals.
• 46:36
  Speaker 6: Let's talk about what makes a market work. Let's talk
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: about the premises of capitalism.
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: Competition.
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: And markets are what makes supply and demand work. It's
• 46:45
  Speaker 6: what brings them into balance. So if you have consolidation,
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: which we have in the meatpacking industry, where guess what
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: we've seen?
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: Inflation. Where we have in the travel industry, guess what
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: we've seen with Carbonyl? Inflation. So when you don't have competition,
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: you don't have an actual market.
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: We don't have a market in healthcare because you can't
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: figure out what anything costs.
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: And you can't shop around because your insurance company limits
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: you and you can't get a price quote. I'm getting
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: a mole removed. If you think you have cancer, you
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: just pay what you pay. Where we don't have.
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: Competition, whether it's through market consolidation or market failure, then
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: we're going to see prices go up.
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: So the solution here is.
• 47:23
  Speaker 6: To simply any economist who is claiming to be a
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: capitalist and should be basically saying, I stand against market failures.
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: I believe in healthy markets. Here are the markers of
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: a healthy market. And everybody knows that a marker of
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: a healthy market is competition.
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: It's consumer choice.
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: It's price transparency. We don't have those things in most
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: of our biggest expenses.
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: We don't have it in health.
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: We have very few choices in child care. It's very
• 47:52
  Speaker 6: difficult to find right now. And so we need to
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: create more competition.
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: So I really applaud.
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: I think this is an area where the Biden administration
• 48:00
  Speaker 6: has done transformative work in putting people in place that
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: really believe in capitalism.
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: They don't believe in corporate cronyism. They believe in capitalism.
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: And they're trying to force these large companies to actually compete.
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: They're trying to make room for small businesses to innovate.
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: That's capitalism.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: I know the Congressional Progressive Caucus met with the president
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday. I know there was a lot of talk
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: about executive actions. We've talked a lot about how the
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: president could act on student debt relief. What are the
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: other sort of top executive actions you hope the president
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: will pursue between now and the midterms? And how did
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: you walk out of that meeting? Did you get a
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: sense that he was going to take some?
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: So I walked out of the meeting with three little
• 48:49
  Speaker 6: packages of M & Ms for my kids because I.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: Just wanted to take.
• 48:52
  Speaker 6: One little White House piece of swag. And I said,
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: I'm going to give this to the kid I like best.
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: And the president said, no, no, you can have one
• 48:59
  Speaker 6: for each of your children.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: That's very generous.
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I thought so.
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: I don't want to have to pick a favorite. But look,
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: what the president said is dead right. He said, I'm
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: focused on things that will help address the costs families
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: are facing. And this is exactly what the Progressive Caucus
• 49:15
  Speaker 6: was saying. So prescription drug pricing, education. right? Whether it's preschool,
• 49:21
  Speaker 6: whether it's community college, whether it's student loan debt, childcare, right?
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: Which remains unaffordable and is keeping people out of the
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: labor market.
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: And then climate, because.
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: We really do face a need to get ourselves out
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: of the cycle of energy exploitation that we're in. And
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: so those were the four big things that we talked about.
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: There are other urgent needs, including investment in housing and
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: other things. But I think prescription drugs, climate, education, child
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: care were kind of the four main talking points that
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: both we raised with the president and the president raised
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: that with us.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Did he seem amenable to taking action on some of
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: those priorities on his own if it doesn't end up
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: in reconciliation or reconciliation for some reason doesn't work out?
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think the thrust of
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: the kind of discussion was there's a lot of... There's
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: sort of a bottleneck in Congress where it's like, well,
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: we don't want to act on these things.
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: If we're going to do it through reconciliation, we don't
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: want to take individual action.
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: And we don't want to take individual action if we're
• 50:20
  Speaker 6: going to do it through executive action.
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: But we have to have a sort of order of operations.
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: What is the best way? What's going to go first?
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: What problems are we going to tackle in what order?
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: And I think it depends on the issue.
• 50:31
  Speaker 6: I think there are some things like raising funds. leasing
• 50:34
  Speaker 6: rates on oil and gas on public land that the
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: president can and.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: Should do by executive action.
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: I think there are other things like some of the
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: larger tax credits and things around electric vehicles that we.
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: Need to do through congressional action. So I think the
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: goal is to get unstuck.
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: I mean, as I often said, just because Joe Manchin
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: decided to refuse to build back better doesn't mean that
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: any of the problems that the American people face cease
• 51:01
  Speaker 6: to exist. Just because Washington ceases to act doesn't make
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: those problems go away in my.
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: Constituents' lives.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: So last question, Republicans are the party out of power.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: They're trying to make this election a referendum on the president.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Democrats are the party in power. You're trying to make
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: this election a choice. How are you framing that choice
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: when you're talking to folks in your district?
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: So look, I think it's really important that we talk
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: about where the Republican party is today. And it's also
• 51:27
  Speaker 6: important to talk about what we've done as Democrats, but
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: we can't be afraid to paint the alternative for people.
• 51:32
  Speaker 6: This is a party that has refused to create a
• 51:36
  Speaker 6: fair taxation system.
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: This is a party that has opposed doing anything about climate.
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: I think it's really easy to talk about where Democrats
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: haven't been able to get things over the finish line.
• 51:46
  Speaker 6: But do you know why we haven't been able to
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: get things over the finish line? Because we have zero
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: Republican support. So the number of Republicans who were willing
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: to step up and act on climate, zero. The number
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: of Republicans who were willing to do something about child
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: care costs, zero. The number of Republicans who were willing
• 52:03
  Speaker 6: to help make college more affordable for your kids, zero.
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: If you have a Republican-controlled house, families can count on
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: getting zero help going forward.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: That's good. I like that. Katie Porter, thank you so
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: much for joining us. I hope they give you a
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: workspace somewhere to do some work for next time you
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: talk to us.
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: I hope I can walk when I get up from kneeling.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry you had to kneel during this interview.
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you for doing it. We always appreciate you
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: coming on Pod Save America.
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: And we're back and we have with us Tommy Vitor
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: to take us through the March Badness Final Four. The
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: moment is here.
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: Hello, John. Hello, Dan. It's great to see you.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: It's great to see you.
• 52:55
  Speaker 8: I've never needed you more in my life than I
• 52:58
  Speaker 8: did on Monday's show. Lovett stepped on or did not
• 53:00
  Speaker 8: understand all of my basketball jokes. It was devastating.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: I have to say that his failure to laugh at
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: and also interrupt you during your Donald Trump Coach K
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: joke is a crime against humanity.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: How do you, the Coach K reference, how do you
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: drop that?
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: You don't have to be a basketball fan, you just
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: have to be sort of alive.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: Anyway, all credit to Elijah for that joke, by the way.
• 53:21
  Speaker 8: Okay, welcome back to our second annual March Badness Tournament.
• 53:25
  Speaker 8: If you did not listen to the Monday Pod and
• 53:26
  Speaker 8: you're wondering, why is that guy Tommy here? It's because
• 53:30
  Speaker 8: March Badness is happening. It's when we rank the eight
• 53:32
  Speaker 8: worst Republicans in the country and then we make them compete.
• 53:36
  Speaker 8: On Monday, Lovett and Favreau voted to advance four of
• 53:39
  Speaker 8: the awful eight to the fascist four. Today, Dan and
• 53:43
  Speaker 8: John will choose the winner of our fascist four games
• 53:46
  Speaker 8: and the final contest to determine who is our national
• 53:50
  Speaker 8: champion shit.
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: Joke so works.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yes.
• 53:56
  Speaker 8: So Dan and listeners, here are the results from Monday.
• 53:58
  Speaker 8: In the West, Congressman Paul Gosar edged out the Arizona
• 54:02
  Speaker 8: Republican Party. In the East, Ginny and Clarence Thomas slapped
• 54:06
  Speaker 8: an injunction on Dr.
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: Oz. It's very hot right now.
• 54:09
  Speaker 8: In the South, we had arguably the biggest upset of
• 54:11
  Speaker 8: the tournament when one seed, Donald Trump, was defeated by
• 54:15
  Speaker 8: the rest of Florida. And in the Midwest, America's least
• 54:18
  Speaker 8: favorite blow-dried insurrectionist, Josh Hawley, beat a belligerent Buckeye named
• 54:23
  Speaker 8: Josh Mandel. So our final contest, our fascist four, is
• 54:27
  Speaker 8: a six seed, three seed, four and seven seed. Madison
• 54:31
  Speaker 8: Cothran would be disappointed that we didn't go all chalked in.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: You know, I was going to say there's two reasons
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Tommy's here today. One is, of course, for March badness.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: The second is this was a slack actually sent by
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Tommy Vitor yesterday. Why does Dan get all the orgies? Because,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: you know, we were talking about Madison Cawthorn today. So
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you got a Madison Cawthorn joke in there.
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: Very jealous.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 54:55
  Speaker 8: We also asked our audience to vote on the awful eight.
• 54:58
  Speaker 8: They did so on the Pod Save America Twitter account.
• 55:00
  Speaker 8: They were mostly in agreement with Lovett and John's choices,
• 55:03
  Speaker 8: except they had Donald Trump beating the rest of Florida
• 55:05
  Speaker 8: to advance. Dan, any thoughts on the results from Monday
• 55:10
  Speaker 8: or the audience input?
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's hard to fault the audience for
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: choosing Donald Trump. They don't like Donald Trump. That's probably
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: what brought us here. That's what brought them here. But
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: I think the status of Florida as a Cinderella is
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit overstated. Sometimes you have teams that They're
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: very talented, but they're under-seeded. So I think that Florida
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: is actually Butler 2010. So everyone thought they were a
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: great Cinderella story. There's no way they could possibly beat Duke,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: which has a lot of Trump-like qualities, as we said.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: But when you look back on it, they were a
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: very talented team. They had Gordon Hayward, NBA player. Shelvin Mack,
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: NBA player. And the only problem with the Florida-Butler analogy...
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: maybe it's not a problem for me, but is it
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: makes Brad Stevens, Ron DeSantis.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, and I just wanted to say that we, we
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: wanted to move on from Donald Trump and America disagreed,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: which is unfortunately tells you something.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: But we wanted to move on to Ron DeSantis. So
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: there you go.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, no.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: Well, that brings us to our fascist four. Uh, I
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: believe we have an all.
• 56:24
  Speaker 8: Insurrectionist tournament, although admittedly, I'm just, uh, I'm assuming that
• 56:27
  Speaker 8: the rest of Florida all was pro insurrection at Seems
• 56:30
  Speaker 8: like a safe bet.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: It's hard to avoid an all-insurrectionist final, you know?
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's probably right.
• 56:35
  Speaker 8: Okay, so first, our first matchup, our first game, is
• 56:37
  Speaker 8: Congressman Paul Gosar versus Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginny. Guys,
• 56:43
  Speaker 8: doing some research. Gosar once compared himself and his crew
• 56:46
  Speaker 8: of MAGA dead-enders to a Japanese soldier who hid on
• 56:50
  Speaker 8: an island for three decades and refused to recognize the
• 56:53
  Speaker 8: end of World War II.
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: I don't have a joke here. It's just like, yeah, man. Exactly.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: That's a level of self-awareness that I did not expect
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: from Dr. Paul Gosar.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: He tweeted this. Look, the guy is fucking nuts.
• 57:08
  Speaker 8: He's a Looney Tunes individual. Gosar is going head-to-head, as
• 57:13
  Speaker 8: I said earlier, with Clarence and Ginny Thomas. Guys, we
• 57:16
  Speaker 8: know that Ginny puts in the work in.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: The film room. She does her own research.
• 57:20
  Speaker 8: She texts YouTube links like, Trump sting with CIA director
• 57:24
  Speaker 8: Steve Piznick. The biggest election story in history, comma, QFS blockchain.
• 57:29
  Speaker 8: She sent that to the White House staff. So, who
• 57:33
  Speaker 8: do you guys got? The Thomas family or Paul Gosar? So,
• 57:38
  Speaker 8: here's my thoughts on this. Paul Gosar, fucking crazy as
• 57:43
  Speaker 8: they come. You have someone almost equally as crazy in
• 57:48
  Speaker 8: Ginny Thomas, also big insurrectionist, also sending nutty links to everyone, saying...
• 57:56
  Speaker 8: But also on her team is someone with real power,
• 58:00
  Speaker 8: which Paul Gosar doesn't have. Clarence Thomas, one of the
• 58:03
  Speaker 8: nine justices, been just sort of handing down the worst
• 58:07
  Speaker 8: possible opinions for decades now.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: I think I got to go with the Thomases.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is very clear the Thomases. They
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: are incredibly dangerous, incredibly crazy, incredibly fascist, so it fits
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: in here. And additionally, Arizona always loses in the tournament.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: So the only reason Gosar's even here is he was
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: playing someone from Arizona. And so there you go.
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: There you go. Mike Baby would like a word, Dan.
• 58:34
  Speaker 8: Also, Justice Thomas is also routinely spotted in Washington with
• 58:38
  Speaker 8: eight other sexy seniors. And Madison Cawthorn keeps telling us.
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: About the value of teamwork among, you know. elite Republicans.
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: So the second game.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: The second game, no one's ever, ever referred to the Supreme.
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: That's next month.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: C block is ranking the eight sexy seniors.
• 58:57
  Speaker 8: I don't know, Dan, we got some big download targets,
• 59:00
  Speaker 8: sexual get together, sexual get together.
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: Like everybody talks whenever, someone's pitching.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: Would you say that's the highest court in the land?
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 59:12
  Speaker 7: Nice.
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 59:14
  Speaker 8: Second game in our fascist four. We have Senator Josh
• 59:16
  Speaker 8: Hawley versus the rest of Florida. Josh Hawley was recently
• 59:21
  Speaker 8: described as partially melted Ken doll Ted Cruz, which I
• 59:25
  Speaker 8: thought was harsh. But he's a decent shot blocker, guys,
• 59:29
  Speaker 8: because he gets his fist up. So that's Josh.
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: That's our guy, Josh. Thank you, Dan.
• 59:34
  Speaker 8: What can I say about the rest of Florida here?
• 59:35
  Speaker 8: I think Lovett once described them as America's cocaine straw.
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: I think that was at a show in Florida. Do
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: you guys remember this?
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: No, I actually have no memory of that. Maybe it
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: was during a text with Madison Cawthorn.
• 59:47
  Speaker 8: But Florida got a big endorsement recently, Dan, when Alex
• 59:51
  Speaker 8: Jones said Ron DeSantis is better than Trump But there
• 59:55
  Speaker 8: are also lingering questions about whether authorities will let Matt
• 59:59
  Speaker 8: Gaetz cross state lines for away games. So there's a
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 8: question about whether they can fully travel. So who do
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 8: you guys think it will be? Sound fundamentalist Josh Hawley.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: Going to the championship?
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 8: Or are these Florida Republicans just too good at getting
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 8: to the line?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: If you know what I'm saying.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Dan, you go first on this one.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: So in this basketball-related analogy– Matt Gates cannot travel to
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: attend the national championship match. Is that correct?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: Potentially.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: Yes. Much like Kyrie Irving cannot travel to Canada. Were
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: they to play the Toronto Raptors?
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Excellent. Okay.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: Just wanted to get that out there. I think it
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: has to be Florida. Look, I think Josh Hawley has
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: done a lot with what little he has, but in
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: the end he does not have the, he's a one
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: man team.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: Who does not have the talent to take on the,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: really the all-stars, the fascist five, I think maybe we
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: would call Florida, given all their opportunities there.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: That's good.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: There are few states in our union that have a
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: collection of Republican goobers as fucking awful as the state
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: of Florida. And we always feel bad picking on Florida, right?
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of great Democrats in Florida. I feel
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: for all them. A lot of just wonderful people in
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: the state in general. I guess, but I guess, you know,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. I'm just trying to say it. Uh,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: but the, look, my parents used to live there. I
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: get it. I spent a lot of time there, but the,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: the collection of assholes in that state from Ron DeSantis
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: to the legislature, to Matt Gates, to the other Congress,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: the members of Congress, they're.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: Marco Rubio, Marco Rubio.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: We haven't talked about Rick Scott.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: Oh my God.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: It is a, it's a collection of asshole talent. unmatched
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: by any team in modern fake basketball history it.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: Is awful in fact i think they're yeah i'm gonna
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: go florida i also think they're heavy favorites in the
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: in the in the national championship but oh wow okay
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: so i don't want to give anything away rick scott
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: good for a double double with this 10 point plan
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: so your national championship guys uh.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 8: Is it jenny and clarence thomas Or will there be
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 8: an orgy at the Villages when Florida takes it? What
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 8: have you got here? What would this segment have been
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 8: without Madison Cawthorn?
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: Zero jokes.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's all we talked about today is Madison Cawthorn.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: So wait, are we picking now or do we wait
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: until Monday? Yeah, I want you guys to pick now. Oh,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: you don't want to wait for Lovett to win on Monday.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: We can't extend this bit all the way to Monday?
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: We can try.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, we'll get Lovett's input on Monday anyway.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: Or Tuesday.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: Whenever we do that other podcast. I sort of gave
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: it away. I have to go with Florida. I just
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: think from the threat of DeSantis to become president to
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: their two fucking goofball senators to their terrible delegation to
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: their legislature and all the horrible laws that they've passed recently,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: Florida sucks.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: There you go.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: See, I think this could be an upset. I think
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: that we are staring down the barrel of another insurrection.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis, Matt Gaetz, they're one of many Republicans who
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: participated at equal levels in that insurrection. Maybe they'll storm
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: the Capitol. Maybe they'll send some fake electors. But Clarence Thomas,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: along with his partner, Ginny, are one of nine votes
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: to potentially overturn an election. Something I will note, Clarence
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: Thomas has done once before.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 6: Wow.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: So we got a hanging chat election in the championship game.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: So Lovett will pick the winner on Monday.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: Lovett will pick the winner.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 8: That's the kind of power he wants. Okay, so that
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 8: was dumb and fun. The serious ask here, John, look
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 8: at this turn I'm making. My voice is signaling seriousness.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 8: Get involved with Crooked Media's Midterm Madness campaign because we
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 8: can't vote out Clarence Thomas, but you can work to
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 8: defeat goobers like Adam Laxalt in Nevada, who led the
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 8: efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in his state.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 8: Josh Hawley is not on the Missouri ballot this year.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 8: but an unbelievably disgusting human being named Eric Greitens.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: Could be, right?
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 8: So that's why you got to go to votesaveamerica.com slash
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 8: midterm dash madness to pick a region, get involved in
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 8: the 2020 midterms with us.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: We will make it fun. We will do stupid crap
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: like this all the time, probably.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's fun. You pick your region, you get
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: a little competitive about it. Right now we're doing it
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: for March Madness, but there's plenty of ways for regions
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: to feel competitive from now until November.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: Dan, have you noodled on your region?
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know when I get to pick, right? Do
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: I have the first pick, the second pick?
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: Oh, we're going to do a draft.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: I feel like we should give Dan the first pick.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: I'm making that executive decision right now. You don't have
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: to do it right now, but we got to pick eventually.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: We haven't talked about this because we've been so busy
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: making Madison Cawthron jokes and doing Marsh Madness. But I
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: think we give Dan... He's our elder statesman. I think
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: he gets the first pick.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: Seems fair. Seems fair.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Number one overall pick, lottery pick, Dan Pfeiffer. And Lovett's
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: not here, so he gets the last pick.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 8: Hopefully Dan won't hit the transfer portal because that joke
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 8: was so harsh, much like a lot of his Georgetown
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 8: Hoyas are lately.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: You know what? That's okay. We can swap out some
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: members of the team that lost every single game in
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: the Big East for some other players. I'm okay with that.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: Okay, that's fine. Well, that's it for my time here.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: Great to see you guys.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Tommy, thanks for joining the Thursday Pod. Katie Porter, thanks
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: for joining. And Madison Cawthorn, thanks for letting us know
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: where the party at.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: Jagged edge over here.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: Have a good weekend, everyone.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerrard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.