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Transcript

Tucker? I Hardly Knew Her · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Joe Biden is officially running for re-election.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: The Republican primary is still Trump's to lose. The Supreme
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Court protects access to abortion medication for now. Fox News
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: fires Tucker Carlson. And Bud Light succumbs to cancel culture.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Then the Atlantic's Mark Leibovich stops by to chat about
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: his weird breakfast with Chris Christie and the Republican primary.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: And later, we get back into the prediction business just
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: in time for Joe Biden's announcement video.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: Hmm.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: But first, be sure to check out the Crooked store
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: for all the latest merch inspired by your favorite pods
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and progressive causes. There's some cool stuff in there right now,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and every purchase helps benefit Vote Save America's No Off
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Years Fund to support the work of organizers across the country.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Head to crooked.com slash store to check it out. Also,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media is hiring.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: We're hiring people.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: We have a ton of great job openings right now
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: across content, marketing, digital, and more, including... Right here on
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the Pod Save America team, you can replace Lovett.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Just taking resumes.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: If that's possible. Right on.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Check out all the openings and apply now at crooked.com
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: slash careers. All right, let's get to the news. We
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: are recording this late afternoon on Monday. By the time
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: you all hear it, Joe Biden will have almost certainly
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: released a video announcing that he's officially running for re-election
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: in 2024. There are multiple reports that White House senior
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: official Julie Chavez Rodriguez will be his campaign manager, and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: he's set to meet with donors in D.C. this Friday
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: to start raising money for what's estimated to be a
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: $ 2 billion race.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Oof.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: So much money.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Too much money. Biden's approval is still stuck in the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: low 40s, and most voters don't want him to run again,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: including about half of all Democratic voters. But because of
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: his significant accomplishments and his party's history-defying midterm performance... Only
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Marianne Williamson and anti-vax conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy Jr. have
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: stepped up to challenge him, and the DNC has no
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: plans to hold any primary debates. Tommy, we were in
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the White House when Obama ran for re-election. What are
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the mechanics of how that works? Who's in charge? Where's
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the campaign? How does the president and the staff split
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: their time?
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Who's the big boss? So it seems like Joe Biden's
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: probably making.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: This announcement tomorrow via a video so he can create
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: a campaign fund and start raising money. Because as you
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: pointed out.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: He's got to raise $ 2 billion.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: A billion dollars? That's so much money.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I think they said $ 2 billion and that would count
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: outside super PAC spending. But this is just for the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Biden side.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but this allows you to start an organization, hire people,
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: start getting staff in place. You mentioned that they named
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Julie Chavez Rodriguez to be the campaign manager. She's currently
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: the director of White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. So
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: I assume she moves out of that position into the campaign.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: It's likely that decisions will be made by a broader
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: circle of people that includes White House staff like Anita Dunn,
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: Mike Donilon, Bruce Reed, Steve Reschetti, Jeff Zients, Chief of Staff,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: Jenna Malley-Dillon, his deputy. Some White House staffers can coordinate
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: with the campaign. Others cannot. So it'll be that kind
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: of group. And they will decide how Biden splits his
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: time between these official events at the White House proper
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: or campaign events out in the states. To some extent,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: I guess everything you do as a president is campaigning.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: It's helping your reelection. But campaign staff set up the
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: big rallies. Campaigns have to reimburse the government, for example,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: for the price of Air Force One rides to campaign events.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: So it gets a little complicated. But it seems like
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: that's what he's doing here.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the way they do it is the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: staff that is... most directly connected to like Biden's personal actions.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: So like his scheduler, speechwriter, people like that, like they
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: can be both campaign and White House because it would
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: be hard to split those people in half because he
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: needs them for both.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I think Ben Rhodes could coordinate with the campaign. So
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: there was like some policy person you get on certain areas,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: foreign policy. But it sounds like they might put the
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: campaign office in Delaware.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: For tax purposes.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: It's interesting to do that. I mean, I guess we
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: had our reelect in Chicago while we were all in D.C.,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: but yeah, Wilmington.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: The argument was that it was good to get a
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: campaign out of Washington because then everyone comes together as
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: a team and you can avoid the D.C. chattering class bullshit.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: I wonder if that's avoidable anymore with Twitter and social media.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I don't think it would have hurt the Hillary Clinton
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: campaign in 2008 for the headquarters to not be in Boston.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, before you're in the White House, I'd
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: say definitely don't have a campaign anywhere near D.C. The reelect,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I think it's a little different. I mean, but as
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: you said, Tommy, like for our campaign, it was Jim
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Messina was running the campaign in Chicago, but David Plouffe
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: was in the White House and... essentially running the campaign.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: David was really running the campaign.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: David was really running the campaign. Axelrod had left the
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: White House at that point but was still a very
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: important advisor on the campaign. So it's very sort of
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: amorphous where the lines are on this.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: It seems like making everybody drive two to three hours
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: to have an in-person meeting seems like a pain in
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: the ass for no good reason if you put it
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: in Wilmington.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: A lot of Zooms. A lot of Zooms.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: No offense, Dan.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Delaware's great.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Delaware's great. We love Delaware. Dan's going to run.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: No, so I think.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: As you said, the most important reason to announce now,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: or two reasons, really, the money thing is the big one.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: There were some fundraisers quoted in some of the stories
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: today saying, like, you just can't get the extra month
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: or weeks or whatever back at the end of the campaign, like,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: especially when it's going to be this much money that
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: you have to raise. You have to start now. And also,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: doing this puts to bed all of the stories about, like,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: will he or won't he, and why is he taking
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: so long, and all that kind of shit.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Can't Sam and Diane your reelect, you know?
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I assume. Yeah. I mean, it just seems as though
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: temperamentally Joe Biden would want to wait as long as possible.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: And this is as long as they could wait.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: He loves to chew on decisions.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: But I think he also likes the I think, you know,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: he likes the the imprimatur of being president without all
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: the pesky politics around with it. He can go and
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: do the infrastructure events under a purely, you know, official label.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: And now he's a candidate and all that entails.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: That is historically the incredibly silly distinction that I think
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: politicians think about when they wait to announce their reelection.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: And, you know, he hasn't been holding back on the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: trail when he's doing those events on talking about the,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: you know, mega, mega trickle down Republican people.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: You know, right. Mega, mega trickle down.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: He is not.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Sounds like a lottery. Sounds like you can win big
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: on this Sunday's mega, mega trickle down, trickle down, trickle down.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: I like the Powerball. New Jersey's going to steal that.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So we've talked a lot about Biden's challenges. And there's
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: obviously a lot of factors he can't do much about,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: most notably his age and the economy. What can he
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: do to improve his chances? Any advice on what kind
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of campaign he should run?
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Love it. You live in L.A. You can do a
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: lot about your age.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: And I think he has. But I don't know if
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: this is advice. It's just like how I'm like. I
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: talked about this with Leibovich a bit because Mark wrote
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: a piece that was basically saying, why is no one
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: challenging Joe Biden? And the conversation I had with Mark,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: which you'll hear, is just about the fact that this
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: risk aversion to challenging Joe Biden is because I think
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: age really is the most salient and weakest part of
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: his candidacy. And that's a very tough thing to launch
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: a campaign based on, right? Because I think there is
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: a pretty wide consensus that Joe Biden is played his
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: hand as president as well as any person could. He
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: has done as well as a human being could in
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: this job, given the circumstances of a closely divided Senate,
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: of a post-COVID economy and all the challenges that he faced.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: And that means it's a generational argument without the heft
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: of what you had in 2007 when Barack Obama was
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: launching not just an age-based campaign, but a campaign about culture,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: about politics that was broader. And so in that context,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I think basically Joe Biden can't argue his way to
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: being younger But what he can do is assuage the
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: people that have that very real and legitimate concern by showing,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: not telling and just being a active cartwheels. Yeah, I
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: would say a back handspring into some triple Dutch.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Thinking about that Willy Wonka there.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Maybe we chill with the bike rides over there.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: But I do think one thing that was really smart
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: and is a small piece of advice. He looked so
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: young and lithe when he was talking to those Holocaust survivors.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I think the more that we can get him next
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: to just truly the oldest human beings on Earth, he
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: needs to help Dianne Feinstein across the street, back to
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: the Senate. He needs to look like a young, vital person.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: Looks like we're only booking AI Joe this year. So,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: you know, that's one idea. Just a pitch. No bad
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: ideas in a brainstorm. You probably can't go to a
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: hot war zone every week. But that Ukraine trip was
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: very good. I think he looked in command of not
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: just the country, but the world. The challenge is that every.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Send him to Kiev.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: It's a Rose Garden threat.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Forget about the Rose Garden threat, yeah.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Not a lot of electoral votes in Kiev these days.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: The problem is that every stutter or verbal slip is
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: going to get edited down into some attack video and
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: used against him. But I think the only way you
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: defeat that is with volume.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: You just got to be out there. I could not
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: agree more. Like, I would take the occasional... Maybe more
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: than occasional Biden gaffe over the stilted teleprompter reading where
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: then he sort of when he sounds older and mumbles,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: it's because he is, I think, reading from the prompter.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: but he also, as he's been through his entire career,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: wants to ad-lib, wants to say stuff. And I think
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: when he's, also when he's in like an interview, that's
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: kind of like when it's a tough reporter you're going
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: to question. I think when he's talking to people when
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: he's in town hall settings when he's connecting with people
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: one-on-one absolutely when he's doing non-traditional press he's really good
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and he should just go do that did.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: You guys see joe biden's speech to the canadian parliament no.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Really I thought this was a trick question. I thought
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you were about to play like an AI Joe Biden thing.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: It's a serious question that I thought you were going
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: to make fun of me, so I was leaving space
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: for it.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't even, I was like, wasn't he in Ireland?
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Was it in French?
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, you did both.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: You talked to the Irish parliament too.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: We're just a couple of low information voters.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Politics stops at the water's edge, Tommy.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: No, he had this great moment in Canada where he
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: was addressing the Canadian parliament and he said something about
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: how he and Trudeau had reached gender parity in both
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: of their cabinets. And all the liberals stand up and
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: they applauded that and all the conservative Canadians remain seated.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: And Joe Biden's like, hey, guys, whether or not you disagree,
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: you might want to stand up. This is just about
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: like equality. This is a great moment where he was
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: kind of like sharp and screwing with these kind of
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: MAGA right wing Canadians. And I don't know, I thought, yes.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: I like that.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Thanks for telling us about it.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Much like he did.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Can't wait to learn more.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Much like he did during the State of the Union.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Did he have any poutine?
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: The State of the Union that happened right here in America.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: No, no. And that I watched the fuck out of.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: That was wild though.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I remember that though.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: No, it reminds me of the State of the Union.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: He was very good that day.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Very good. So that's all styles have. I also think he, humor,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: like he should joke about his age and he's already
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: done that a few times. Like just lean into it.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Everyone's thinking about it. You know, don't, there's no, Reason
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: to avoid it at this point. And then more than
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: anything else. It's not like don't think of an elephant bullshit.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: It's there. Everyone knows.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: Don't think of an elephant. I forgot about that. Then
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: most of all, you're just going to have to make
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: a choice between Joe Biden himself and whatever extreme right
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: wing members of the Republican Party he runs against. Probably
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. But if it's DeSantis, it's about, you know, fighting.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: It's a candidate who wants to permanently ban abortion in
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: the entire country and is more focused on. preventing one
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: transgender kid from playing sports in Oklahoma than Jobs or
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: any of the.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Do you think that he should be compared against the
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: alternative and not the almighty?
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Yes. It's his saying.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: It really is. It's his saying and it's a great line.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: It's as true as it's ever been about him. He
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: used to say it about Barack Obama, but it's even
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: truer about him. And I do think, look, there's going
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: to be a lot of Democrats being like, he's just
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: got to let people know about all his accomplishments and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: we go through this all the time. I think he
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: needs to frame the accomplishments of as a choice, right?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Like within the context of the choice. So it's like,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: we can keep investing in clean energy or we can,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: you know, outsource those jobs to some other country. We
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: can keep fighting to protect abortion or get a national ban, right?
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Like you just, every accomplishment has to be framed as
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: a choice between moving forward and going backward. And I
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: think that's, you know, he did finish the job during
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the State of the Union. I think we'll probably hear
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: a lot.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: More of that.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: In Canada?
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Or here?
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: No, no, here, domestically.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Domestically. Do you guys think we're going to get a
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: good kind of let Biden be Biden news cycle?
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: We just started one.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was us.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: That's us. We did it.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Well, no, it usually comes after some sort of mistakes
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: are made and we blame some advisors. And then some
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: other advisors say, you got to let Biden be Biden.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: There needs to be a news cycle about how he's
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: in Washington. He hasn't been on the trail very much.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: His numbers are low. And now he has to be
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: unleashed to the world.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: There's also going to be like an off-the-cuff moment where
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: everyone likes it and he gets a lot of applause
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: for that. And then people are going to say, oh,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: why can't we see that Biden more? And then all
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the advisors are going to be in meetings and they're
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: going to say, remember when you did X, we just
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: need to let you do that more. They always had
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: to communicate that better. Barack Obama loved hearing that.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Something that Joe Biden will be saying on the campaign
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: trail every day for six months will break through. And
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: then everyone on Twitter will be like, where has this
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden been? That's the classic.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: That one also happens in concession speeches. Everyone's like, oh,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: that version of ex-politician was incredible.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Where was that, John Kerry? It's like a stump speech.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: It's usually the stump. Anyone nervous about RFK Jr. pulling
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: 14% in a recent poll?
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: I didn't like it. No, it's bad. Yeah.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Obviously, the Kennedy name, you know, there's something probably people
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: don't really get that he's an anti-vax conspiracy theorist, but yeah.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't love it.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: No.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is why I think for Biden, too,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that we're about to talk about.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, Kennedy's don't often, this RFK isn't one to
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: embrace a boost. You know what I mean?
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Okay. Okay. I get it.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: You get it?
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I get it.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: You get it?
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Took me like five count to get it.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: But yes.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I do think that the better Trump does, the better
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: it is for Biden and the case that Biden's making. And,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: you know, I remember in one of our interviews with
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Ron Klain, he was like, I know the Republican Party
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: thinks it's going to be someone other than Trump, like
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: they're delusional, basically. And as Biden can tell people, look,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: this is going to be a choice between me and
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, then the better it is to like, Push
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: the RFK stuff aside.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: It inoculates him.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Push the third party no labels bullshit aside. There are
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: no other options here. Obviously, voters are grumpy. A lot
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: of people don't want a Trump-Biden rematch. But if that's
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: what it is and you have to decide between both
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: of them, there you go. That's probably Biden's best case.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: And it was a good case in 2020. It helped
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: him win.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Uh-oh, Tommy's got his joke face on.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: No, I was waiting for you to have another one.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: I'm out.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Over in the Republican primary, it's still Donald Trump's nomination
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to lose the new NBC Wall Street Journal poll. Basically
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: says the same thing as all the other polls. Trump
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: holds a double-digit lead over Ron DeSantis, 46 to 31 percent.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Though there's some evidence his indictment bump is fading. That's right.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: That is a phrase, the indictment bump.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: What a society we've built.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Tiny deals.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Let's start over.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Tiny D also still has higher favorability ratings than Trump,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: which is interesting. Um, putting fingers was just asked about
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: his poll numbers. Here's what he said.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: I'm not a candidate, so we'll see if, uh, if
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: and when that changes.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: We have to show the video. Uh, you have to
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: see the video of this because, uh, he's basically like
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: rocking his head back and forth. Like he's a bobblehead
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: doll while in Japan. I don't even know.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: It's a wonderful, I'm not mad face where he just
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: is like twitching with rage. It's really worth.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: He looks super fucking weird is basically the point. Um,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: And here's the new Super Pack ad, the Super Pack
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: from Ron DeSantis.
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: Steel isn't forged overnight. But after all the mining, blasting,
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: and casting is done, it's strong.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: It lasts.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: As governor, DeSantis stood.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Up to Dr.
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: Fauci when others stood aside, banned CRT, and got the
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: smut out of schools. Refused to let woke Disney push
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: us around.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: And put media elites in their place.
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: Ron DeSantis never backs down because his backbone wasn't forged overnight.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Ugh. It's just a truck ad. It's a truck ad
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: with a political script.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: It made me laugh to think about he had the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: courage to stand up to Dr. Fauci.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: It's like a senior citizen pediatrician.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Also, it's like, how fucking internet brain do you have
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to be? It's like CRT. It doesn't even say critical
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: race theory. Just CRT. This is just for the posters,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: just for the comment section.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: And all the music and all of it, it's like,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like they're trying to make you think
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: that you're at a Guy Fieri restaurant and that you
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: got a bucket of nachos. But then they lift the
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: bucket and there's not nachos under there. It's like a
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: little canopy. It's a little Ron.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Granted, this is his super pack, so it's not like
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis' campaign, but it still kind of sucks. What
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: do you do to turn this thing around if you're
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis? Anyone have advice for the DeSantis campaign?
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: We're now doing advice for DeSantis.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Say you were on the DeSantis campaign.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Here's what I'm still waiting for just as a fan
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: of Republicans ripping each other to shreds. And it's full-throated,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: well-made cases against each other. I want to see a
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: speech with a beginning and a middle and end that
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: walks through the case against Donald Trump. I think part
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: of the issue here, again, Leibovich wrote a piece in
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: November about how people aren't going to like Ron DeSantis
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: once they get to know him, so far bearing out.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: But I do think he's in this kind of liminal
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: space where he's hinted at an argument against Donald Trump,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: and talked about his strengths as a candidate, but it's
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: just a lot of kind of empty white space to
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: be filled in with all of this sort of machination
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: process stuff. And it's like, make a fucking case or don't,
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: or go back to Disney World, whatever, but just you
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: gotta do something. Yeah, this was a boxing match.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: We just watched the first round and Ron DeSantis has
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: kept his arms by his side the whole time and
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is pummeling him in the face and he's
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: not defending himself, he's not fighting back, he's not doing anything.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: It's early, now it's the second round, but he should
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: throw a punch. Stop looking like a wimp. He looks
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: like a wimp. He's not making argument against Trump where
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: he is at these oblique things on policy like guns
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: and abortion rights.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Call him a loser. He lost to Joe Biden. Call
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: him a loser.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Like the Fauci thing in that ad is an attempt
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: to say, oh, when when Florida when when Fauci tried
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: to lock down Florida, Ron wouldn't let him. But Joe
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: Biden listened to Dr.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: Fauci.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis should be the one out there saying that
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: if he wants to make that argument.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: But it's not getting heard.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Hard to throw a punch when your hand's stuck in
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the pudding.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: It's true.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: I hadn't thought about that.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: That's a really good point.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: It's hard to get a pudding with a glove on,
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: a boxing glove.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Another good point. Donald Trump is... We love Donald Trump's policies.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: He's an undisciplined, loose cannon who costs the Republican Party
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: control of the White House and Congress. That's it. He
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: can't win another general election. You want Joe Biden for
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: four more years? Enjoy Donald Trump.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Well, yes. You have Chris Christie kind of making... He's
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: starting to make some version of this argument. He's not
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: going that hard. He's hinting at it here and there.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Everybody's dancing around it. DeSantis and Chris Christie are the
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: closest actually making an argument.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: I think Christie's making it.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: He's like, well, I mean, I think he's calling him
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: a loser. He's calling him a loser, but he's not
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: like he, you know, he's dancing around it when he
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: talks to Mark Lee, which doesn't want to lean into
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: having the fight. He's sort of saying it a bit
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: here and there on the road.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: Just a pissy asshole. He's just doing the Acela corridor.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: That's the problem with Christie. He's just like doing a
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: little Chris Christie rehab.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Green room to green room.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Then you have like the Nikki Haley's and Tim Scott's
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: and none of them are going in.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: None of the other announced candidates are polling above single digits.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: You're Nikki Haley's, you're Tim Scott's. They're just sitting there,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: you know. Do you think there's room for any candidates
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: who haven't announced yet, like a Chris Christie, like a
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Glenn Youngkin? And I realize those two are not very alike.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: I don't think Christie is really running in his heart
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: of hearts because he thinks he can win. I think
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: he's desperate to be relevant. And this is his constant
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: way back into the conversation. Youngkin, maybe he's a great
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: general election candidate someday, but I have zero confidence that
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: primary voters will like him more than Trump. We can't
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: predict the future, right? Trump could He could go away.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: He could go to jail. Maybe Tucker Carlson will run.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Maybe Trump will take over for Tucker Carlson. That'll be
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: his new job. That'd be nice. But no one really
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: seems like they're trying. Nikki Haley, I saw that she
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: has not gotten off her corporate boards. Talk about hedging
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: your bets.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Nikki Haley, well, we can do it.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: She should. That's smart. That's a smart move from her.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: Run or don't.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: A classic, Nikki Haley announced that she's going to give
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: this big speech about abortion, but then has it set
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: on background, but there's not going to be any policy.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: She's going to talk about the way forward on abortion,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: but not to any policy. And it's just a symptom
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: of their kind of failure to go all in. Like, remember,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: I was talking to some, like, I was talking to
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: a New York real estate, like, rich person who'd been going, like,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: who'd been around Donald Trump as this sort of, like,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: ridiculous figure in New York real estate for 20, 30 years.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: And he was like, these people don't get it. Like,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump never quits. He never tires. He never wavers. Like,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: he is relentless. He will wear you down. And, like,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: if there's going to be any person can be the
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: person from this list. that could be the one to
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: put up a real fight, but they have to be
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: tireless and they have to be ready to really have
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: that fight. And none of them, even Chris Christie, the
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: closest is not, none of them want to have the fight.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: They don't want to own the fight.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I think Chris Christie will want to own the fight.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I think that in his heart of hearts, like you said, Tommy,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I don't think he thinks he can win. I do
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: think his hatred for Donald Trump is genuine because Donald
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Trump did almost kill him.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Tried to kill him for sure.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, sure, it's relevance too, but also he
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: tried to kill him.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: He tried to kill him. And then when he was
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: in the hospital, almost dying, Donald Trump called and said,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: you're not going to tell him it was me that
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: gave you COVID, are you?
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Mark and I talked about that too. Yeah, if
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: I say, you doing okay? Yeah, don't tell anybody, buddy.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the odds of Chris Christie heading down
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: to Mar-a-Lago to suck up to Trump to get back
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: in his good graces are much higher than Chris Christie
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: winning the nomination.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: But I do think that's part of it. Like, the
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: person that does it, they have to believe they can
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: beat him. They have to believe they can win. I
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: think DeSantis believes he can win.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Well, so I think the problem with both Chris Christie
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and Glenn Youngkin and all the rest of them is,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I think the only candidate who has anything close to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Trump's connection with the MAGA base is Ron DeSantis.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: And you cannot win this primary, a Republican primary, without
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: a real deep connection to the MAGA base.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Tucker has it.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Tucker.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Tucker has it. Yeah. And like, does DeSantis
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: have it as much as Trump? No, absolutely not. But
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: at least he's a possibility. None of the rest of
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: them have that connection.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: No.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: They have a connection with like, Some college-educated Republicans, D.C. Republicans,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: strategists who are all, like, wish-casting for someone to save
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: us from Donald Trump, right? Like, the people who've, you know.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: New York donors.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: The New York donors, the D.C. strategists, all these people. But, like,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: out in real America?
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: No.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Do you remember what the villains were in that movie
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: with Riddick? The, like, the Death Eaters who keep what
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: they kill? Do you remember this? Anybody?
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Mm-mm.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Huh, the Chronicles of Riddick?
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Who can forget?
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Who are the villains?
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Didn't catch it.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: That villain.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Anyway.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Anyway, there was big news on abortion Friday night. The
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruled that Mifepristone will remain available for now
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: while we wait for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: to decide the case. Both the Fifth Circuit and the
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: federal judge who heard the case wanted to restrict access immediately,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: but it turns out only Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: agreed with them. The New York Times said this was a, quote,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: powerful message from a chastened court. Uh, what do you
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: guys think of that, Tommy?
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: The court does not seem to be remotely chastened. Um,
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: strict scrutiny did a great breakdown of this ruling, uh,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: of the Alito dissent, but they, that's worth listening to
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: for just that. But they also talked about how they
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: listened to your arguments and there was zero sign of
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: embarrassment or contrition from Clarence Thomas in anything he said
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: or did. Uh, it, and since the Harlan Crow disclosures
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: came out that he was taking all these private jet flights.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: So it's worth checking out that episode.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: As, uh, the hosts of Strict have said on this show,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: the fact that it was even a question as to
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: whether or not this ridiculous ruling would be stayed is
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: a testament to how illegitimate and not chastened this court is.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: The fact that it's not 9-0 is a sign that
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: the court is not chastened at all. And like, God,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Alito is such a fucking, just like pissy, sniveling, creepy fuck.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: He is the worst one.
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: It is disgusting.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: I saw an interview with where Javier Becerra said he
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: might not uphold everything, and therefore I'm not issuing a stay.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: I fucking hate him. Alito sucks. I guess, yeah. Can
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: I say that on this podcast?
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Sure. Oh, wow. Going out on a ledge. Nothing Alito
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: and Thomas do or say surprises me at all. They're
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the most extreme members of the court. I don't even think...
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: They just write trollish dissents. They're awful people. I'm interested
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: in Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Gorsuch on this one, because... You
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: had the three liberals plus Roberts on the right side
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of the Dobbs case. But Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Gorsuch didn't
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: join Thomas and Alito on this one. And I'm wondering
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: if it's just because in the original Dobbs decision, they
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: made such a point of saying that, like, this should
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: be left to the states and blocking access to Mifepirstone
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: would certainly not be leaving it to the states. Yeah.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think also, like, this is a truly, like,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: the fact that Alito and Thomas didn't join them Is
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: it just a sign of like, they are obviously beyond
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: the pit. Like, I don't care how far right you are. Any, any,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: like any judge that puts any faith or stock in
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: any of the words that they've ever said in any
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: hearing ever should not be participating in this Mifepristone thing. Like,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I don't think you have to go so far as
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: say like, oh, they believe it should be left up
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: to the states. Like these guys don't have standing. It's
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: a ridiculous thing. Of course it should be stayed. It
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: will create chaos if it's not.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: That's it. So what happens from here? Uh, basically May 17th,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: I believe, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Here's oral arguments.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Then the Fifth Circuit will rule. And inevitably, this will
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: end up back at the Supreme Court because either side
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: that loses from the Fifth Circuit will probably appeal to
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. We don't know what the Supreme Court
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: will do, but it's obviously a good omen based on
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: what they just did on Friday, what will happen. So
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the timing of this all but guarantees that a final
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: ruling will come this summer as the Republican primary heats up.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Trump's latest position is that per Dobbs, abortion should be
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: left to the states, though there was a Times story
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: over the weekend that some Republican state legislatures don't agree.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: They are in states like Ohio trying to change laws
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: to prevent ballot measures that would protect abortion access. Do
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: you guys think Trump's position here will fly in the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: primary and or general that, you know what, Dobbs happened
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and now abortion should be left to the states and
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: that's the compromise and that's it?
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: I think in the primary that will work for him
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: because Trump can signal to these right-wing anti-abortion groups, I'm
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: going to say what I need to say to win.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: You know I'm with you. Look at all these wacko
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: judges I gave you. Like, wink, nod, don't worry about it.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: These right-wing evangelicals, people are always like, oh, how can
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: they vote for him? He's an adulterer. He's this, he's that.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: He's venal.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: He's a liar.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: They don't care. He's their scumbag. He does their bidding
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: for them. They're psyched about it.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: In the general election.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: I think that all of these positions are incredibly toxic
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: and will be damaging to the Republican nominee, whoever it is.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: But a long way until there. Yeah.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, other than that, you have Pence basically staking
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: out a very anti-abortion position. And then you have a
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: lot of these Republicans who don't want to piss off
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: the evangelical base while also trying to avoid saying anything
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: concrete on this issue. Nikki Haley was asked about this.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Haley signed a bill in 2016 banning abortions at 20
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: weeks old. When she was asked about this, she said,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: what we have to do is we have to be
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: very loving in the way we do this, but we
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: also have to figure out that we've got to figure
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: this out. So let's do it.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: And so I think that tells you a bit something
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: about where the politics of this are, as does Tim
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Scott's word salad. And so, you know, even Nikki Haley
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: giving this big speech that's about staking out the fact
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: that because she is a woman, because she has given birth,
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: she is the best person to lead the party on abortion.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: She's afraid to take a position. She wants to leave
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: it to others and avoid taking it. So I think
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Trump will be safe in part because no one is
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: going to make any kind of argument either way against him.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: But I do think in the general, it's going to
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: be a real fucking problem for him. And I think
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Democrats can very fairly tag Trump and the entire Republican
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Party as abortion extremists who will not stop until they
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: get a national ban. There is plenty of evidence for that.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I would constantly put them on the defensive net over
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and over and over.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I would say these are your judges.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: They made these rulings. You own this. Right.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: And they are continuing to make rulings that try to
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: do things like block abortion medication access. And look what's
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: happening in these states when people try to put ballot
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: measures on where they're trying to vote to protect abortion access.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Republican legislatures are just saying no. Do you think Donald
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Trump's going to disagree with those Republican legislatures?
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Probably.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Not.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Every statewide race in the midterms and in Wisconsin was
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: a referendum on a anti-abortion candidate versus a pro-choice candidate.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Every single one.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: And every Republican that tried to, you know, take some
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: kind of a compromise position or, you know, emphasize that
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: there are exceptions to some ban, that didn't work for
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: any of them. Didn't work. So the best and most
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: shocking news of the week is that Tucker Carlson has
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: been fired from Fox News effective immediately. The decision came
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: directly from Rupert Murdoch himself, reportedly. Tucker found out Monday
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: morning and will not have a chance to say goodbye
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: in a final episode. So sad.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: No green day for him.
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: No.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: What do we know about why this happened, guys?
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Well, so the Washington Post said that he was fired
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: because of some of Tucker's comments about management that came
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: out in the Dominion lawsuit. I don't really buy that.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: The LA Times said it was because a former senior
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: producer for Tucker's show named Abby Grossberg has filed a
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: federal lawsuit against the network that names Tucker. And also
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: she says Fox's legal team coerced her into giving misleading testimony.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: So there's two suits. One of them claims that while
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: working on Carlson's show, she endured an environment that, quote,
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: subjugates women based on vile sexist stereotypes, typecast religious minorities,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: and belittles their traditions and demonstrates little to no regard
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: for those suffering from mental illness. So it seems like Tucker,
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: as the leader of the show, had a horrible culture.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Shocker. Another shocker.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, we know what he says on the air.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: God knows what he does off the air.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Well, that same LA Times report also said that another
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: big concern that Rupert Murdoch had was, um, about Tucker's
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: January 6th reporting that, uh, not just all the, all
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the footage that he's been showing and all that kind
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: of stuff, but that, um, he, he basically thinks it
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: was a false flag operation that, um, the man, a
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: tech man from Texas named Ray Epps, who showed up
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: at January 6th, but did not enter the Capitol. Uh,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Tucker suggested that he's an FBI plant. Epps just told
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: 60 minutes that he's had death threats as a result.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: So apparently Murdoch was concerned about that. I will say
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: it's a little odd. Like, He's concerned about that for
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: how many years has Tucker been.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Doing this now?
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that came out a year ago. He let him
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: run a documentary.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: I'm drawing the line today.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: But it was the same sourcing from the Abby Grossberg.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Stuff as well. And there's other lawsuits still coming down
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: the pike. There's Smartmatic. There's other legal threats related to the...
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: The ongoing defamation suits are not over. And there's a
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: chance that Tucker is talking about running.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: I just don't know that we have... I'm interested to
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: see what else comes out. Because we also know that
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: he had multiple... Tucker had multiple producers... who he had
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: to fire because it came out that they were prolific
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: posters on like super racist, far, far, far, far, far
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: right message boards. I mean, there's been like a churn
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: of stuff like this for years.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm really interested in some kind of a TikTok
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: about what actually, what was the final straw here? Because
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: you're right, a lot of this stuff has been building
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: up at the network for a long time.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Now, before we move off of this topic, I will
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: tell you what my first reaction was because my brain
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: is broken, which is, And Logan's body's not even cold. So, Andy,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: would you mind bringing the documents? So, now, here's the deal.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh. Look at how much typing love it did.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: I have in my hands a conversation between Kendall, Roman,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: and Shiv about replacing Tucker Carlson. There's a part for
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: each of us.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Great.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Would you like to be, who would you like to be?
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Would you like to be Kendall, Roman, or Shiv?
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: I think you should assign us. You're the casting director.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like I have some, I feel like I
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: have Kendall energy.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, you want, okay, I'm going to give, Tommy's going
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: to be Shiv.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: Sweet.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be Roman, and John can be Kendall.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I think we're ready.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: So what's the move here? What's the play? We do
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the Roman Coliseum thing? Thumbs down?
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Keep your dick in your pants, little Caesar.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: Maybe.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying maybe. We take the gloves off?
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Make it easier to warm our hands on all the
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: burning books.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: We still have Hannity and Ingram. You think they need uniforms?
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Very funny. I'm saying we go full red meat. Lions
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: eating AOC. Bonin Black Lives Matter.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Kendall won't be happy until every CPAP machine in Florida
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: is clogged with jizz.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: Jesus, Roman.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: No, I love it. We send Jesse Waters to wait
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: outside public bathrooms with a big net next to a
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: paddy wagon labeled trans people.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Shiva wants to do fucking 60 minutes but make it
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: feel longer.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Is one hour of news in primetime a terrible idea?
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: This is a news channel.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: You've got four million people who want to feast on
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: the blood of their enemies and you're like, did someone
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: say salad?
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Have you seen how low those golf carts are riding?
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: Those people could use a couple salads.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: Is it crazy to bring O'Reilly back? Has that whole
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: thing had enough time to cool off? Cool off? It's
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: six sexual harassment settlements, not a cartoon pie out of
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: a windowsill, you freak.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, rubber meets the road. What are our actual real-world options?
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Waters, Gutfield, Bartiromo.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, I think she's in a dumpster out back.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Chivon sees Bret Baier, one of the other human reputational
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: condoms we keep in the nightstand because our brand makes
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: her uncomfortable.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: Our brand is scaring old races between ads for life
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: insurance and Applebee's.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: You said that like it's a bad thing.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Does it even matter? Before Tucker, there was O'Reilly, Beck, Kelly.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: They're all replaceable. People don't come to the circus to
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: see the ringmaster. They come to see the fucking elephants.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: Wait, wait, wait, guys.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: I got it. Look at what just broke. You have
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: to show us something on your phone.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's audio.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: I know, but yeah, there we go. You know, I
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: don't hate it.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Prodigal son angle shifts the narrative.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Don Lemon. I think we did great.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Just want everyone to know that was... First time Tommy
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: and I ever read that.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: But no practice there.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: I thought it was good.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: That was great. Love it. Thanks for doing that. Thanks
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: so much. I was going to ask how big of
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: a deal do you think this is? But I think,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I think we answered that.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: I think we, I don't, I, my honest feed on
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: the whole thing is that the musical chairs at Fox
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: news are hyped by media reporters, but ultimately the issue
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: is the audience. They've created this audience. The audience needs
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: to be fed and watered. And they've slowly radicalized these
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: people after over 20 years, Sean Hannity has been in
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: the same chair. since 1996. O'Reilly was a behemoth that
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: was irreplaceable until Carlson came along. Glenn Beck, we went
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: through a news cycle about how monstrous Glenn Beck was.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: The problem is the overall network and what it does
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: to the people that watch it every day. And those
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: people now are radicalized. And if they don't get what
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: they want from Fox News, they will go to Newsmax
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: or they will go to Daily Wire or they will
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: go somewhere.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: I agree about the network and I agree about the audience.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: I do think that not all right-wing propagandists are created equal.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: And I think that Tucker was especially skilled at what
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: he did in a way that like I don't think
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Hannity is. I think Hannity is just sort of a goof.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I kind of think that like and I think that
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Tucker not being there. Do I think it's like a
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: big win for democracy and everything's going to be great now?
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: No.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Like you're right. Someone's going to be horrible in that
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: seat and that's going to be that. But like Tucker
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: is a pretty dangerous guy and I don't know that
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: he will find a platform as big. as Fox News.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: If you look at the history of other people who
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: left that network, other hosts, Megyn Kelly, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: they haven't found that kind of success anywhere.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: I think that Tucker's a big audience.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: He's influential, but I do not think he's some sort
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: of generationally talented broadcaster.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Even all that talented.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: And the reason I think that is because he was
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: on CNN, MSNBC, and PBS before Fox, and he sucked
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: ass on all of those networks and got fired. And
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: so I saw someone compare him leaving Fox to leaving
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: ESPN and thinking you're better than the network, and they never,
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: ever are. Lots of people decide, oh, I outgrew ESPN,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: and then they leave, and then they do fine, but
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: they don't do better. So I'm sure Tucker will do
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: other things. He'll have other jobs. My guess is that
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: Fox slots in Jesse Waters or some other just-as-fine-at-the-job guy
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: who will read a script. in the same way they
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: replaced Bill O'Reilly, and no one really gives a shit
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: in a month.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I think the Tucker that showed up on Fox, especially
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: in recent years in the Trump era, is very different
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: from Tucker on CNN or MSNBC. He's worse.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: He's more racist. But is that a function of the
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: network or the individual? I just don't know.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's a top-rated show.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: I think Tucker's great skill throughout his career is that
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: he had the ability to kind of understand where a
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: big chunk of the right was going and kind of
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: either follow them or lead them there. And he was very,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: he had a, he had an approach and a philosophy
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: that was deeper than any approach that Sean Hannity or
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Jesse Waters or Greg Gutfeld or any of those people have.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: And that did make him creative. It made him innovative
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: and it made him dangerous. I don't know that that
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: work wasn't already done. I don't think like, I don't
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: know that there's more to add to the end of
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: that playbook that Jesse Waters can't pick up and run
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: with now. Like, I think the damage has been done.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: He's shown people He like showed people new ways to
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: kind of access the fucking fever swamp of the right.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: We'll see.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: I think they're all such goofs. I think like Laura
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Ingraham is like if you want to pick someone is
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: like a little closer to Tucker in that in that category.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: But I think the rest of them are like fucking goofs.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: Waters is more comedy first. Tucker got into real right
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: wing racist agitprop. Like I'll never forget the segment he
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: did where he claimed that like white farmers in South
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Africa were being killed. But again, that's like dark shit.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: It's dark shit, but it's not about him. It's an
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: editorial choice to like go to those places. And I
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: think the next person will go to those places too.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: And the audience will be happy.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying that other Fox hosts haven't been as
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: successful and go into those places or haven't even tried
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: as hard to go to those places as much as,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: as much as the Sean Hannity show is just a,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: isn't Mr. Trump wonderful. And we love Mr. Trump and
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: all this kind of bullshit. And Tucker is doing his
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: own thing and his own philosophy, which is some more independent.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: And I, and I do think that like right-wing propaganda
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: is a lot like therapy and that like, it just
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: has to be good enough. And then you get a
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: lot out of it. You get the voters you need.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: You get them angry. You get them turned off to Republicans,
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: inoculated against Democrats, all those things. Tucker was doing that.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: But then I do think something much more dangerous on
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: top of it. He did have this philosophy around elitism
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: that I think really resonated and kind of connected him more.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Like Tucker Carlson was more connected to the Joe Rogan.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: ecosystem than Sean Hannity has ever been.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: This is where the J.D. Vance's and Josh Hawley's get
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: their inspiration from Tucker and they're all tweeting about how
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: sad it is and all that bullshit.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: But I do think that's because Tucker, he didn't invent
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: this movement. He is part of it and he understood
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: it and saw an opening and kind of helped pry
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: that opening open. But your J.D. Vance's, the Peter Thiel
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: kind of universe, they're investing in these kinds of I
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: forget the skeleton from Arizona. What was his name? Blake
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Masters is another candidate that kind of is trying to
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: access this kind of thing.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: You can see the crowder slotting into the slot pretty easily,
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: and there's a lot of.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: People out there. Yeah, I think there's a lot of
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: outsiders that could probably do something like this. All right, finally,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: a culture war update. Bud Light has decided to put
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: two executives on leave because they sent a personalized Bud
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Light can to transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney as part of
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: a marketing promotion that caused a bunch of right-wing weirdos
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: to lose their shit and call for a boycott of
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Bud Light. including a video where Kid Rock shot cases
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: of Bud Light with a rifle. So should we now
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: call for a counter-boycott of Bud Light because they cowered
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: to the mob?
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Way to fight cancel culture, everybody.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: We did it. I mean, what was pathetic to watch
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: about this is Republicans, Dylan Mulvaney gets essentially a swag mag,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: a commemorative beer can. The entire right wing flips out
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: until someone gets a call from a lobbyist that's like, hey,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: Anheuser-Busch gives a ton of money to Republican causes in
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: the 2022 cycle alone. Anheuser-Busch gave and its employees gave
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: the NRCC four hundred and sixty four thousand dollars. Members
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: of the Bush family give huge amounts of money to Republicans, too.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: That's when you saw Donald Trump Jr. come out and
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: others say, actually, let's show with the boycott stuff. Right.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Because they heard about the money. But it was too late.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: And Bud Light decided to essentially fire these people.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Bud Light also put out a statement that never, it
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: said nothing. It just sort of, it tried to tamp
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: down the controversy, which actually, in a way that I
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: think other companies have done worse, but they tried to
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: tamp down the controversy without ever apologizing or suggesting they
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: shouldn't have done it. But to try to kind of
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: tilt towards recognizing the controversy, which got them nothing.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I just can't, like, imagine how you sleep at night
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: and you're just like, I had to make a decision
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: to put someone who works for me on leave because
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: they thought it would be nice to just send a
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: beer can to a transgender activist with their name on it.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: To make them feel included.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: To make them feel included.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: That's what they did.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: And that was so bad that I had to tell
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: those people, you're done with the company.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: It's ultimately a, we're a month past what was one
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: sponsored Instagram post. I think that's what it is. One
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: post from a month ago by one person. Megan McArdle,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: who is a conservative who writes a lot of stuff
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: that's quite terrible, wrote about the right and its approach
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: to persuasion versus bullying. And I thought this was an
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: interesting thing to come out of the right on this.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: And I'm not going to read the part where she
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: caveats the fact that Dylan is trans. So I will
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: skip the caveat. I'm skipping a caveat. But she writes,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: it's easy to understand why she's accumulated more than 10
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: million TikTok followers over the course of her online transition.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: She makes life and being trans seem like such fun.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: She traffics not in anger or cruelty, but in whimsy
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: and joy. Where Matt Walsh offers enemies, Dylan Mulvaney aspires
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: to exuberance. She suggests the possibility of making herself and
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: the world into something better, while Walsh promises at best
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: only the dour satisfaction of being right about how terrible
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: everything is. It isn't surprising that the kids are choosing
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Mulvaney over that. Which I think is a really, a very,
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: very good point, and why I think ultimately these politics... backfire.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: And to me, that captured for me the feeling of
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: what it's like to watch this unfold. Because even calling
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Dylan Mulvaney a transgender activist, sure, that is what she is.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: But really, her activism, for the most part, has just
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: been making videos describing her life and trying to say
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: what she's going through through this transition. And it has
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: enraged so many people, not just to see someone unapologetically
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: do that, but to build a following.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: While doing it.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Well, you think about how this hits the vast majority
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: of people who do not pay close attention to politics,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: culture wars, any of these issues who are like, you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: have certain feelings about different, most voters, right? And they're like, oh,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: there's a big, what's the big fuss over that they
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: sent a butt light can to someone who's transgender and
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: everyone's mad about that? That seems fucking crazy. That's how
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: most people would think of that.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: The whiplash of spending years crying about cancel culture is,
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: and then literally shooting your machine gun at a beer can.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: I know hypocrisy doesn't seem to matter in politics anymore,
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: but it's exhausting and headspinning.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: And now they're pretending to be populist, so the attack
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: on the corporations when they just basically got a corporation
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: to fire a bunch of people.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: But all of it, too, it's also just such an
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: admission of failure, right? Because all of this, their defense
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: of why they have to do all this now is like,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: if we don't do this now, basically what they're saying
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: is if we don't stop companies from saying it's okay
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: to be trans, eventually it won't be okay to have
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: our views, right? That's what they're trying to say. They're
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: saying if we don't shoot up the Bud Light cans
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: and fuck Disney over and make them pay for representing
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: a view we don't agree with, they're going to at
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: some point force their views down our throats. That's not
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: happening right at this moment, but that's what's coming. They're
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: coming for us. And of course, it's conspiratorial nonsense. And
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: so they just look out to lunch.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I still think that in the announcement video, Biden should
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: shoot a can of Bud Light himself.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: What about that?
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't love it.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: You don't think that's a good idea?
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: You mean like a, but like, but in defense of
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Dylan Mulvaney.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. Well, now we're doing counter boycott
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: because now Bud Light.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: But they haven't stopped shooting the things. Nobody can drink
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: Bud Light anymore.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: No, that's it. It's done.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: They really stepped in.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they did.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: They're still mad at Bud Light, unfortunately.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: All right. When we come back, Lovett talks to The
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Atlantic's Mark Leibovich about Chris Christie and I presume a
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of other shit.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Joining us now is the Republican primary heats up and
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: the nation has turned its gaze to Chris Christie. Uh,
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: he just, he just published a, a great profile of
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: Chris Christie here to talk about it. It's the Atlantic's
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Mark Leibovich. Mark, welcome back to the pod.
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: John, always good to be on the pod. Thanks for
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: having me.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: We dove right in just moments ago. And I am curious, you,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: your question to me was, do you think that, uh,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: post-Tucker Fox News is going to be worse. And doesn't
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: it feel like it has to be?
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like the media, the
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: kind of Trump era version of Moore's Law, which is
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: like that, you know, Intel founder Gordon Moore, you know,
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: that idea that like chips get faster, double in. Yeah.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: We can double the amount of racism in an hour.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, correct.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Every two to three years.
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: Like Roger Ailes, you know, gets forced out and Bill
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: O'Reilly gets forced out. I'm like, oh, ding dong, the
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: wicked witches are dead. And You know, then you get
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: a worse iteration and, you know, Trump begets dissent. I
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: don't know. I mean, there's just it's always a spiral
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: in these areas. So, yeah, I have no confidence that
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: Tucker Carlson. First of all, I don't think we've heard
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: the last of Tucker Carlson. Maybe we'll run for something. But, yeah, no,
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: it's just the deviancy will continue to be defined downward. And, yeah,
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: I'm not expecting that the improvement will be pivoted to today. Yeah.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: It's as if each host leaves the audience in worse
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: shape and they, they kind of, you know, pick it,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: pick up the baton from how, how, how well they've
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: trained them.
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. It's kind of a bizarro version of that
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: democratic messaging where this is the first generation that isn't
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: better off than the generation before, you know? Um, you know,
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: people are always saying that it's actually both parties who do, who,
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: who did that in the past, but yeah, no, I mean,
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: there is, there is always sort of a new level.
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it's, Tucker Carlson at least had
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: some skills. I mean, there are some versions of him
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: that are probably objectively stupider, maybe less, more racist. I
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: don't know. I mean, look, all the benchmarks can always
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: get lower or worse. So, yeah, I'm never optimistic when
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: it comes to that.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: So I want to set the stage. Chris Christie claims
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: to be the only person who can beat Trump in
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: the primary election. He agrees to meet you for breakfast
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: at the swanky Hay-Adams Hotel.
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: Genteel. Ornate.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Ornate. When you mention the name Donald Trump to Chris Christie,
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: he seems to get upset with you. What happened there?
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: I am intrigued by him only because he is interesting.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: He is nimble. He potentially could finally, after seven, eight years,
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: turn his bullying, brawling, you know, argumentative tone against Donald Trump,
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: which he had resisted to this point. And that would
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: make him interesting. So we go to breakfast and he
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: got very defensive very quickly because I was dubious. I
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: think skepticism is warranted in a case like this. I
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: think this is potentially opportunistic, but I also hope he'll
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: run because I think he'll be more interesting. than, um,
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: you know, Asa Hutchison or any of the others less
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: than 1% doing it. And he started like kind of
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: biting my head off and it was kind of a
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: weird scene and he didn't order breakfast. Um, but I
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: think he might've been acting too. It was kind of,
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: it felt a little sticky and I tried to write
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: up the whole, the whole spectacle.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: There's a quality, you know, you've, you've profiled Chris Christie
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: in the past. Uh, you're, you, you wrote a piece
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: for the times about Chris Christie in 2014, uh, with
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: a headline that I think in hindsight, uh, uh, isn't
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: exactly accurate because it was Chris Christie is back. It
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: turns out he wasn't. But you feel in both of
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: these pieces, he has this, he believes that his authenticity
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: should be a currency that you appreciate, right? That he's
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: cool enough and he can hang enough to get a
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: good profile out of you. And do you think that
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: he's right? Or do you think he's finally learned his lesson?
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: No, I mean, look, it is a form of authenticity
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: to be full of shit in a way that is
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: more transparent than other people are. I mean, I think
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: at base level, whenever a politician is performing for a
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: reporter or for anyone, there is a baseline full of
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: shitness about it. His thing is, you know, I'm a
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: wise guy. I'm a Jersey tough guy. You know, I
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: was really popular. I took on teachers unions and stuff.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: I don't know. It's not as if this is any
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: great mystery. I just think that his performance art is
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: far more transparent than he might think it is. Maybe
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: reporters are smarter than he thinks they are, or at
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: least some of them are. I don't know. It was
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: a fun story, at least for me. I don't think
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: he liked it, though.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: One thing about Chris Christie that's different than some of
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: his other non-Trump opponents is he's actually making an argument
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: against Trump about, about his failures, about his failures to
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: achieve the things he said he was going to achieve
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: building the wall, immigration, COVID, whatever it may be. Is he,
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: is he making any kind of electability argument on the
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: road at all? Or has it been focused on competence?
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: Um, well, first of all, he hasn't, he hasn't, I mean,
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: to correct you, he hasn't really gone into Donald Trump
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: was a disaster in office. I mean, none of the
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: Republican candidates have gone, have mocked him that much, except
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: for maybe the wall, but, you know, I mean, Biden
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: uses this on him in 2020 and any Republican should too,
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: which is that he lost more jobs. He's the first
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: president in history to lose more jobs leaving office than
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: he did coming in. Now, obviously COVID was not entirely,
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: you know, he screwed up COVID, but you know, there
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: were a lot of other factors, but that's it. That's
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: a pretty damning thing. And also if you're a Republican,
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: there's just the loser rap, which is, you know, it's
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: pretty hard to lose to Joe Biden and You know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: you're the first Republican in 100 years to lose the House,
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: the Senate, the White House, blah, blah, blah. So, I mean,
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: I think Christie would also be uniquely positioned to say, hey, look,
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: you know what? He was a disastrous president because he
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: could have overturned Obamacare if you really want that because
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: he wouldn't have needlessly alienated, you know, Mike Pence or whoever.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: Certainly me, Jeb Bush, would not have alienated John McCain,
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: would have probably done it much smarter, you know, would
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: have actually... drained this would have actually, you know, not
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: pardoned my friends would have not sowed an insurrection would
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: have not gotten impeached. So, you know, the other thing is,
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, I don't the idea that like, oh, you thought,
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: you know, you're going to get, you know, thanks for
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: the infrastructure bill. Oh, actually, wait, that was Joe Biden.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: So I mean, his his promises made promises kept thing.
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, you can sort of, you know, drill all
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: kinds of holes through that. But No, but Christie knows
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: where he's vulnerable. And right now he's focused mainly on
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: the loser thing, but also in that he's kind of nuts.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: And electability is obviously kind of right beneath the surface
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: of all that.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: So you wrote a piece in November about DeSantis when
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: he was white hot.
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: A lot of your sources at the time thought DeSantis
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: would fizzle. One of them said Trump will club DeSantis
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: like a baby seal, evocative. You also talked a fair
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: amount about the interpersonal challenges that might come for Ron DeSantis.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Does that seem to be bearing out now?
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, well, as usual, people should
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: have just listened to me six months ago. But no,
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, DeSantis, first of all, he's off to a
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: disastrous start, I think. I think every time he goes
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: out in public, including today, there was some clip that
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: went pretty viral of him in Japan saying, um, looking
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: extremely weird in the face of a question about, you know,
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: polls or something like that.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: Electability. Yes. And not running and if and when, et cetera.
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: If you haven't seen that, it's pretty viral, so you
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: can go, go find it, but it's weird as all hell. And, um, yeah, I,
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: I think he's going nowhere. I mean, I think people
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: compared him, you know, maybe to Scott Walker, to Rick Perry,
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: all these people who were sort of seen as like
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: the obvious sort of heir apparent, but I think he
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: might even be worse. Um, But we'll see I actually
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, I mean, I don't know how a guy
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: like him turns it around because he's so unappealing Objectively just.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: To watch yeah to me I the comparison for me
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: is he really reminds me of the villain from Ghostbusters
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: and He has real Walter Peck energy, like the going
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: after Disney, like I'm going to put a prison next
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: to this amusement park. Like that's like act three break
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: into electric boogaloo stuff. You know what I mean? Like
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: it's just villain TV stuff.
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: That is so true. Yeah, I know that is, that
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: is brilliant. No, that is, I totally agree.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: Any of the other Republicans doing anything that surprises you?
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson, the white hot, the, the,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: the electric charismatic, Asa Hutchinson, who I just thought the
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: best place to announce his presidential campaign was this week
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: with George Stephanopoulos. Anybody surprising you at all?
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: No, not at all. I mean, Pence is pathetic, which
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: is not new. I mean, you know, he kind of
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: had this feeble critique of Trump, you know, this off
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: the record, I guess it was either the gridiron or
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: the alfalfa. I always mix them up.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: Gridiron, yeah, yeah. No cameras.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, history will not, you know, treat him well. I mean, like,
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: shut up. And, you know, Nikki Haley, you know, great.
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't see that. You know, people are
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: saying like Glenn Youngkin. I think people asked, someone asked
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: Youngkin about what he thought of Trump, whether he would
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: consider running against him. And Youngkin said, I think we
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: need to all learn to agree without being disagreeable. And
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, yeah, that's probably not going to get
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: it done in the Republican primary. I don't know. I mean,
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: although it would be nice if there was someone who
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: was actually pretty relevant to Republican governance now, whether it's
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: Brian Kemp or someone like that, who had a pugilistic
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: and sort of savvy, I guess somewhat Christie-like side who
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: could take on Trump and be fearless and really put
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: a scare into him and make him uncomfortable on a
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: debate stage.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you called Chris Christie an imperfect kamikaze candidate,
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: which seems to be suggesting that it's going to take
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: two people, one person to One person to fly into
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Trump and the other person to win.
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: Right. I mean, ideally, that would be one person. I
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: don't think that person or I'm not sure if that
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: person exists. But anytime you have more than one, I mean,
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: the math gets really tricky because Trump's going to get
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: his 40, probably 35. And then, you know, when you
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: start splitting, it's, you know, it's never a clean one
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: on one. I mean, if it were Cruz or Rubio v.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: Trump early on, I mean, he probably wouldn't have won
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: in 16. But, you know, the math absolutely favors him,
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: you know, in larger fields like this. And it looks
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: like this is going to be one. So, but yeah, no,
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, Christie can soften him up, but it's not like,
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, Tim Scott is going to come in and
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: finish him off. I mean, I don't think Tim Scott,
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, is the guy to do that. He seems
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: to be running for vice president.
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, wouldn't that? An imperfect kamikaze candidate is one
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: that doesn't hit the candidate and explode. Presumably, if he
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: hits the kid, presumably a perfect kamikaze is somebody who
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: loses by taking out Trump.
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. Or wins.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: But then they're not a kamikaze.
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: Oh, I guess that that's true. Although ultimately the kamikaze
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: could happen in the general election after Trump's voters stay home.
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: I see. I see. So maybe it'd be a two-step company.
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of stuff going on, a lot of
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: metaphor going on here, but you get the idea.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: Over to the Democrats. A couple months ago, you wrote
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: a piece about why someone in the Democratic Party should
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: challenge Joe Biden. Are you excited by Robert F. Kennedy's candidacy?
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: Is he the person for whom you were waiting? Is
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: he the one we've been waiting for?
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: No.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: Or are we the ones we've been waiting for?
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was hoping for someone who was not RFK Jr.
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: Or Marilynne Williamson.
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: By the way, I still think that that's true. I mean,
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: it's getting late, but you know, if Gretchen Whitmer or
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: Gavin Newsom or whoever wanted to jump in, um, I,
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: you know, there would be hell to pay. They'd be,
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: they'd get a lot of abuse, but they also, I
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: think they would be welcomed by a lot of people
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: very quietly. Yeah.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, you wrote about, you know, Donald Trump's presidency paralyzed,
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Democrats into a kind of risk aversion, which, to be
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: honest with you, is something I feel as a Democrat
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: who has been paralyzed into a state of risk aversion
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: by Donald Trump. You know, we're speaking on the eve
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: of Biden's reelection announcement. And my honest feeling about it
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: is that if Joe Biden were five, 10 years younger,
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: there'd be no question his record of accomplishment would make
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: him unassailable. He Is he a perfect president? Of course not.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: But given the hand he was dealt, I find it
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: truly very difficult to imagine someone playing it better. And
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: to me, that says this person has absolutely earned the
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: right to seek a second term. So it really is
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: a question exclusively about age. And that is a tough
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: argument to make for another Democrat. And the worry is,
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: of course, someone jumps in, makes that argument, which is
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: the only salient one, really. Maybe the generation will change.
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a different way of saying age. Right.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: But and then, well, it would be if Joe Biden
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: had had governed like a conservative Democrat from the 90s,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: but he hasn't. It would be more it would be
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: a more it would be more than just age if
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: it had more to it. But it doesn't seem like
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: it really would. And so then you're asking somebody to
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: jump in to weaken him on the most vulnerable aspect
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: of his candidacy.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: So that's where the aversion comes from. And I don't
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: know how. I don't know how you square that. I
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: don't know how you deal with that. That challenge.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think it would be the Democrat who
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: weakens the candidate X who weakens Joe Biden. I think
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden is himself very he's weakened on on its own.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, it's it's twofold. One, I mean, his
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: poll numbers are terrible right now, both, you know, in general,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: but also, I mean, about like more than half of
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: Democrats don't want him to run. And then, you know, 82,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: that's how old he'll be when he's inaugurated, if he
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: wins again. I mean, that's really old. And that's, you know,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: it's these two things feed on themselves, obviously. But yeah,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: I honestly don't think it's the job of any challenger
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: to worry about weakening him. And by the way, if
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: Biden overcomes this challenger, that itself would be an argument
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: against him being weakened because he would have proven his mettle.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: And he would have won that. He would have won
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: the argument. You would have won the argument on the
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: biggest weakness he faces.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so. I think that would answer a
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: lot of critics right there.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: So are you hearing anything that tells you anyone serious
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: is considering jumping in?
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: Nope. Haven't heard a thing. That looks, I guess... I mean,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: I think people are... Again, it's sort of part of
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: the risk aversion. But again... I think there's a way
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: to do it in a way that could have great
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: benefits to whoever does it and can greatly enhance a
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: debate that I think Democrats not only deserve to have,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: but are overdue to have because they really haven't had
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: a debate about their future since Obama was elected in 2008.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: And that's, how many years ago is that? 15 years ago.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: So 15 years?
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: 15 years ago. So Yeah, I mean, it was like,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: you know, let's go. OK, Obama, now it's Hillary's turn.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: And oh, boy, we're really screwed. Let's let's do Biden.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: It's like, oh, now we're really screwed again. Let's stick
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: with Biden. And I don't know. I'm ready for the future.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: One last question before we let you go. Elijah, who
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: works on Pond Save America, he tweeted at you that
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: the only flaw in your piece was that there was
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: no question to Chris Christie about the fact that Trump
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: knew he had COVID and tried to kill him. But
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: you said that it was cut.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: It was.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: You asked him and it was cut. Can you tell
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: us can you tell us about the exchange?
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there wasn't an exchange about it. Well, so I
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: was sort of listing the indignities that Trump heaped upon him. So,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: you know, so at the end of his administration, you know,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: Christie shows up. Well, there's a lot of debate prep
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: with Trump and then he shows up at the. Amy
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: Coney Barron, super spreader party at the White House, gets COVID,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: lands in the ICU. And, you know, he's got some comorbidities. So,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, he was he was pretty nip and tuck
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: there for a while. And actually, yeah, this was in
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: my book. So I'm one of these guys who says
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: this was in my book. But Trump concurrently had COVID.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: So he was being treated at Walter Reed. And Trump
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: called Christie to, you know, theoretically wish him well. But
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: after about five seconds on the phone, he pivoted to, uh, Chris, you're,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: you're not going to say you got this from me,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: are you? And, um, Christie said, you know, yeah, it's
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: never going to change. Um, but yeah, no. So he, um, yeah,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: he gave him COVID. I mean, he, he, uh, I
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: think the line was that they cut, um, but thank
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: you for letting me do this. Um, was, you know,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: he caught all kinds of humiliations and indignities from Trump
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: and also caught COVID from him.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: And, uh, just for people, This wasn't just like, oh,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: you know, these things happen. Trump had had a positive test.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: He had.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: He knew he had COVID. That's the most amazing part of.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: All of it.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and completely unsurprising.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: Mark Leibovich, thank you so much for your time. Everybody
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: go read the article in The Atlantic. It's worth a read.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: Thank you, John. Always good to be here.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Mark. Good to see you.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: See you soon.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: All right, before we go, as of this recording, we
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: still don't know what's in Biden's announcement video, but since
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: we all consider ourselves to be close observers of the
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: 46th president, we're going to go ahead and guess which
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: Bidenisms made it into the final cut. Three phrases, sentences, whatever,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: each winner gets to join the campaign. Lovett, you start.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: First prize is joining the campaign for a month. Second
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: prize is joining for two days. My phrases... Mine phrases were,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: I believe in America. Our best days are ahead of us.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: Battle for the soul of this nation. A job is
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: about more than a paycheck.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: It's about dignity. I think it was four or five,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: but yeah.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: It's four. It's a lot of overlap. I had soul
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: of the nation.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: I just want to get credit for having folks in
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: there at least five times. I wanted an over-under on folks.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: That's all I have. Hold on, where's my other one?
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: What if he does a detour to talk about how
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: his dad told him it was cool when two guys kissed?
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: That seems like it's probably not going to be in there.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: That's a weird thing to include. My dad saw two
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: guys kiss, and I said it was fine.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: I was thinking we might get Not Your Father's Republican Party. Oh, yeah.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: But I didn't list that. I have finished the job.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Soul of the Nation, obviously. I think he's going to
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: do a whole riff that's, I ran for president to
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: restore the soul of the nation, to rebuild the backbone
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: of this country, the middle class. And then, here it comes.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: to grow the economy from the middle out and the
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: bottom up, not from the top down.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: Do you think you've seen the script? Yeah, did you
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: work on it?
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: The nethermost, the tippy top?
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: I swear to God, I swear to everything, I have
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: not seen the script. And I have not talked to
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: any about.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: It.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: I also think we're going to get light over darkness,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: hope over fear, unity over division. That's his other riff.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: That he's... Unity over division, yeah, that'll be in there.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: That's a good one.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm guessing. Anyway, we'll see what happens.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: We'll see what happens.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're listening to this, you know what happened.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: And you know. You know what he did. You know
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: what he said.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: It won't be so funny if there's no video tomorrow.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Because all of these reports have been just a little caveated.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: It's all but certain, but we never know. It could
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: pull it back last minute.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: And then there was a Politico story a month ago
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: about how there wasn't going to be an announcement until
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: the fall or next year.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: But it has been recorded, apparently. It has been filmed.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: Sounds like it.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: So it's in the can.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: It's somewhere, yeah.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: So it's in the can. It's in turnaround. Hope they
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: don't back-roll it.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Mark Leibovich. Thanks to the cast of Succession.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: And we'll talk to you soon. Bye, everyone. Pod Save
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: slash podsaveamerica.