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Trump Has James Comey Indicted · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: On today's show, why the vice president called me a dipshit,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: how the White House is using a shooting at an
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: ICE facility in Dallas as another pretext to crack down
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: on the left. We'll also talk about the return of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Kimmel, the government shutdown that's almost here, MAGA's war
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: against escalators, what gets Stephen Miller's wife going in the morning,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and Tommy's interview with Georgia Senator John Ossoff. Look, those
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: are her words, not mine.
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  Speaker 2: I know, I know.
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  Speaker 1: But first, the people demanding we stop calling them authoritarian
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  Speaker 1: are now ordering law enforcement to charge the president's political
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  Speaker 1: enemies with crimes they didn't commit. The new loyalist Trump
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  Speaker 1: installed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia
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  Speaker 1: is reportedly planning to seek an indictment against former FBI
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  Speaker 1: Director James Comey, even though the Trump appointee she replaced
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  Speaker 1: and the rest of the prosecutors in the office have
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  Speaker 1: told her that the investigation that they did didn't uncover
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  Speaker 1: sufficient evidence of any crimes what's stopping you though you
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  Speaker 1: know just because just because you can't find any crimes
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  Speaker 1: doesn't mean you can't try to bring an indictment Comey
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  Speaker 1: is far from the only target here the fabricated case
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  Speaker 1: against New York Attorney General Tish James appears to be
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  Speaker 1: coming back from the dead as well Ed Martin formerly
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  Speaker 1: the lawyer for the violent January 6th rioters is reportedly
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  Speaker 1: advancing that investigation which had also stalled due to a
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  Speaker 1: lack of evidence and Trump is pressuring the Department of
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  Speaker 1: Justice to indict ex-CIA Director John Brennan, though prosecutors are
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  Speaker 1: also struggling to find a crime that he committed. And
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  Speaker 1: on Thursday morning, the New York Times reported that an
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  Speaker 1: official at DOJ sent a memo to federal prosecutors around
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  Speaker 1: the country asking someone, anyone, to please start investigating George
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  Speaker 1: Soros and his Open Society Foundation. The story says that
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  Speaker 1: the memo, quote, goes as far as to list possible
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  Speaker 1: charges prosecutors could file, ranging from arson to material support
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  Speaker 1: of terrorism. The memo suggests department leaders are following orders
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  Speaker 1: from the president that specific people or groups be subject
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  Speaker 1: to criminal investigation. Just putting it all out there right
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  Speaker 1: in the memo. Here's Trump's response when asked about the
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  Speaker 1: potential Comey indictment on Thursday.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not making that determination. I think I'd be allowed
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  Speaker 3: to get involved if I want, but I don't really
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  Speaker 3: choose to do so. I can only say that Comey's
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  Speaker 3: a bad person. He's a sick person. I think he's
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  Speaker 3: a sick guy, actually. He did terrible things at the FBI.
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  Speaker 3: But I don't know. I have no idea what's going
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  Speaker 3: to happen.
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  Speaker 1: He's got no idea, Dan. He has no idea what's
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  Speaker 1: going to happen. He's following these stories just like we are.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he seems like a guy who really values the
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  Speaker 2: independence of the Department of Justice and the idea that
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  Speaker 2: the president should not get involved in investigations. He could
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  Speaker 2: get involved. He could.
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  Speaker 1: He could get involved.
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  Speaker 2: Don't dare suggest he might be impotent in any way,
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  Speaker 2: so he could get involved, but he's not. We are
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  Speaker 2: laughing here, but this is a five-alarm fire for democracy
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  Speaker 2: and the rule of law. Here you have the president
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  Speaker 2: who has removed prosecutors who are unwilling to charge crimes
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  Speaker 2: to people for which there was insufficient evidence. replace them
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  Speaker 2: with a political crony who has no prosecutorial experience and
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  Speaker 2: is now going to try to get indictment on Jim Comey,
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  Speaker 2: going to charge crimes against Letitia James, looking at John Brennan,
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  Speaker 2: looking at George Soros' foundation. We know just from reading
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  Speaker 2: Trump's truths, which apparently operate as rule of law these
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: days because they provide instructions to people across the government
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  Speaker 2: that Adam Schiff could be next. Who knows? Who comes
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: after that? It doesn't stop there. It could be Jimmy Kimmel.
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  Speaker 2: It could be people working with the January 6th Commission.
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  Speaker 2: It could be all kinds of people. Anyone who ever
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  Speaker 2: crossed Trump before or now who does not have blanketed
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  Speaker 2: immunity from Joe Biden is at risk here. And it
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  Speaker 2: is quite dangerous. And we have been through this cycle
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  Speaker 2: for so long now with Trump of outrage to normalcy,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: which is we're all outrageous.
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  Speaker 4: This is happening.
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  Speaker 2: And then it's the new normal. That was the way
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  Speaker 2: it was with Doge. That's the way it was with
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  Speaker 2: the free speech stuff. And so here we are. The
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  Speaker 2: new normal is, and everyone's going to treat it just
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: as normal, that the president of the United States gets
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: to pick who law enforcement goes after regardless of the evidence.
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  Speaker 2: You pick the opponent first, the crime second, and the
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  Speaker 2: evidence follows, which is the exact opposite of the way
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: it's supposed to go.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And as we've said before, there's a very good chance
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  Speaker 1: that if any of these indictments get to court, a
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  Speaker 1: judge throws them out before a trial even commences, there's
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  Speaker 1: even a chance, as we've seen, from some of these
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Jeanine Pirro grand juries in DC, that the grand jury
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  Speaker 1: doesn't even indict them, even if the prosecutors bring the charges.
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  Speaker 1: That does not mean that the rule of law has
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  Speaker 1: won the day and everything is safe because Jim Comey,
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  Speaker 1: John Brennan, all these people, they've had to lawyer up.
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  Speaker 1: They've probably had to talk to the FBI. There have
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  Speaker 1: been investigations. And What if it starts targeting, you know,
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  Speaker 1: he's going to start going after people who can't afford lawyers.
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  Speaker 1: He's going to have to start going after people who,
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  Speaker 1: you know, maybe you've committed some minor, you know, offense
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  Speaker 1: 30 years ago that they're going to find. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: this is just really, really dangerous stuff because once the
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  Speaker 1: rule of law starts coming apart, once you start just
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  Speaker 1: completely politicizing, not just having a lackey as attorney general
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  Speaker 1: like Pam Bondi, but now you're reaching into these These offices,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: these U.S. attorney offices, and you're only putting in prosecutors who,
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  Speaker 1: even if they don't find a crime and they don't
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  Speaker 1: find evidence, they're going to go try to bring an
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  Speaker 1: indictment and criminally charge someone, potentially go arrest someone, bring them.
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  Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's fucking crazy.
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  Speaker 2: Somebody just had to step back. If this was happening
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  Speaker 2: in any other country, we would call it for what
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  Speaker 2: it is, which is the end of democracy. And it's
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  Speaker 2: happening here and it's happening right now.
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  Speaker 1: On the Soros thing, the memo that the Times got
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  Speaker 1: accused the Open Society's foundations of, quote, pouring over $ 80
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  Speaker 1: million into groups tied to terrorism or extremist violence. Have
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  Speaker 1: you looked into this memo and what they're planning here
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  Speaker 1: for Soros, how to loop him into this?
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  Speaker 2: I have. So we should stipulate that there is, despite
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  Speaker 2: plenty of accusations from many on the far right, including
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  Speaker 2: the President of the United States, there is no evidence
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  Speaker 2: that George Soros' foundation has funded any groups that have
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  Speaker 2: done violent extremism. There are also... at least in the
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  Speaker 2: cases of the most recent incidents of violence, there's no
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  Speaker 2: evidence that groups were involved at all, right? As of
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  Speaker 2: what we know right now, these are the actions of
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  Speaker 2: individuals acting on their own. So this is a completely
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  Speaker 2: made up thing to begin with. They're trying to hang
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  Speaker 2: this on the thinnest reed possible, which is there is
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  Speaker 2: a group that is a Palestinian rights and aid organization
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  Speaker 2: that the government of Israel, to my knowledge, not the
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  Speaker 2: government of the United States, but the government of Israel
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  Speaker 2: has said is a front for terrorism. Now, I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to be pretty skeptical of how Bibi Netanyahu's government characterizes
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  Speaker 2: a group that provides aid to the Palestinian people at
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  Speaker 2: this exact moment in time. But that is what they're
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  Speaker 2: going for. That is the hook here. The arson stuff
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  Speaker 2: is a reference to this completely made up idea that
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  Speaker 2: lacks any evidence at all that the sabotage of Teslas
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  Speaker 2: was funded by Soros. That was a big talking point
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  Speaker 2: on the right. I think that's where the arson comes from.
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  Speaker 2: But there is no evidence there. They're instructing prosecutors to
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  Speaker 2: go investigate, but they're starting with the crime, not with
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  Speaker 2: the evidence, which is, as I said before, exactly the
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  Speaker 2: opposite of how it's supposed to go.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, basically what they're doing here is first they're trying
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  Speaker 1: to find protests that have happened in the United States
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  Speaker 1: any time in the last decade where at some point
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  Speaker 1: some maniacs infiltrated the protest and caused vandalism or violence
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  Speaker 1: or something like that. Or like Antifa showed up they
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  Speaker 1: were violent or they were destructive and some black box
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  Speaker 1: or any of these any of these fucking anarchists, right
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  Speaker 1: and Then they're gonna look and say okay Originally was
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  Speaker 1: that protest organized by some kind of a group and
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  Speaker 1: then can we tie the group that organized the protest
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  Speaker 1: to the Antifa? anarchists who joined the protest later and
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  Speaker 1: caused some damage and then who funded the groups and
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  Speaker 1: that set up the protest and could we tie the
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  Speaker 1: funding somehow to Soros or to the Ford Foundation or
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  Speaker 1: to any of these other you know left-leaning foundations and
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  Speaker 1: then do those foundations have foreign ties because since you
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  Speaker 1: there's no legal way to label NGOs you know non-profits
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: in this country as domestic terrorists that's like not a
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: not a legal thing we've talked about that you can
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  Speaker 1: only label foreign organizations, terrorist organizations. So is there any
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  Speaker 1: foreign funding involved for many of these groups, which of
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  Speaker 1: course the Soros Foundation funds nonprofits all over the world,
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  Speaker 1: that you can then tie to them and then do
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  Speaker 1: it that way?
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  Speaker 2: I'm not even sure the funding works in the reverse, right?
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: You need the funding to come from abroad, right? If
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: you send your American money abroad, that is America funding
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: things abroad. It is not foreign interest funding. It's all bullshit.
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  Speaker 2: It's all ridiculous bullshit. And it's once again, the president
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  Speaker 2: of the United States has a fever dream that is
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  Speaker 2: inspired by a right-wing outrage machine. And then the government
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  Speaker 2: then goes, tries to make that real.
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  Speaker 1: He just signed the, we're going to talk about the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: TikTok deal. And he was in the Oval and got
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: asked about this and asked about Soros particularly. And he said,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, you know, like every time I,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: he's involved in so many things. Every time I read
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the paper, it's Soros' name. So I assume that's, you know,
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  Speaker 1: like just reading his name connected to progressive liberal organizations.
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  Speaker 1: That's enough for– he's giving away the game. It's not
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  Speaker 1: like he was saying I've read the name in connection
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  Speaker 1: with violence. It's I've read the name in connection with
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  Speaker 1: Democratic Party politics.
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  Speaker 2: And we should just– I mean like let's be clear
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  Speaker 2: about what Trump and the right wants to do here
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  Speaker 2: is that George Soros' foundation is one of the most
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  Speaker 2: impactful and important funders of not just political causes but democracy,
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  Speaker 2: equity– civil society in this country and around the world,
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  Speaker 2: and they want to create some pretext to begin investigation,
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  Speaker 2: to go rooting through all of their stuff so that
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  Speaker 2: they can exact revenge and come up the works through
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  Speaker 2: law enforcement, through investigations, through the IRS, or whatever else
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  Speaker 2: it is to make it hard for them to do
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  Speaker 2: good in the world. That's what this is about.
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  Speaker 1: So it feels like all we can do about this
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  Speaker 1: is call attention to it, raise awareness? Like, I don't
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: know what tools Democrats in Congress, what power Democrats in
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  Speaker 1: Congress have to fight this. You got any ideas?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't have the power to do it right now,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: but we can use this as an argument to get
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: the power to do something about it. And I think
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  Speaker 2: Democrats need to, we should not run away from this.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: We should not pretend like it's not happening. We should
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: not vomit up a bunch of poll-tested, focus-grouped pablum about
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: tariffs and affordability and Medicaid cuts. We should weave this
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: into a clear and compelling narrative about a president of
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  Speaker 2: the United States who is abusing his power to help
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  Speaker 2: his friends and seek vengeance on his enemies instead of
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: trying to help American families. And we know from previous
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: midterms that there was always a segment of voters who
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: want there to be a check on power, right? That
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: helped us in 2018. It helped the Republicans in 2010, 1994,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: et cetera, to get those votes from those voters who
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: want to check on power. You need to do two things.
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  Speaker 2: You need to show that there is an abuse of
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: power happening and that it's hurting people's lives and affecting
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: people in a negative way.
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  Speaker 4: That's one.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And two is you have to make yourself a worthy
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: vessel so that people think you can actually check that power.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: And so the way you begin this is by making
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: this an issue, talking about it. And I think actually
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: using some leverage is like, we think we're going to
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: have the House next year, and we are going to
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: root through every single email, every single piece of correspondence
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: in the Eastern District of Virginia to go over exactly
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: how these decisions were made. We're going to hold people
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: accountable if they're doing things politically. If you're a U.S.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: attorney somewhere or a prosecutor somewhere, and you want to
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: do the bidding of Trump against your best wishes— we
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: are going to hold hearings on it. We are going
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: to investigate. We are going to subpoena this stuff. We
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: are going to find out what's going on and we're
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: going to expose it to American people. I think the
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: people inside, the people who are executing the dictates from
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: the dictator should feel the risk of reputational damage when
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Democrats have the ability to start exposing this stuff in 2027.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: I also think it's important to point out that Donald
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Trump and his government are not just going after his
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: political enemies, because people will be like, well, that's James Comey.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not James Comey. I'm not John Brennan. I'm not
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: any of these people. But he's not just going after
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: his political enemies. He's working to criminalize dissent in this country.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: People who oppose him, people who criticize him, people who
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: speak out against him, people who try to fund an
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: opposition that can defeat his party electorally. That's what he's
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: going after. He's trying to criminalize dissent in this country.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: All right, Dan. Of course, after we just finished this episode,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: we've been informed that Jim Comey was indicted just moments ago.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: And so I will just read you the ABC News story,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: which has just come across my screen. Former FBI Director
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: James Comey has been indicted on charges of making a
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: false statement and obstruction related to his testimony before the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020. just days after President Donald
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Trump issued a public demand for his Justice Department to
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: act now to bring prosecutions against Comey and other political foes.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: There you have it, Dan. Pam Bondi, no one is
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: above the law. Today's indictment reflects this Department of Justice's
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: on this case. Doesn't seem like it.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: No, because the facts said that there was no evidence
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: to actually prosecute them because they do not indict people
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: with the purpose of indicting them. You indict people if
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: you think you can actually find them guilty in a
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: court of law, which the career prosecutors and the Trump-appointed
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: former prosecutor, former U.S. attorney, did not believe could be
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: done here. I mean, this is a giant, very concerning,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: very alarming situation because it is Jim Comey today. It's
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: going to be Letitia James tomorrow. It's going to go
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: on and on and on. And we are now a
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: country where the Department of Justice is is a political
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: arm of the president of the United States. Their top
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: responsibility is not necessarily to keep us safe, right? It
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: is not to follow the evidence. It is to exact
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: vengeance on the people the president of the United States
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: wants vengeance exacted upon.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And again, we already know that the prosecutors who looked
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: at this, including the one that Trump selected himself, said
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: that there just wasn't enough evidence even to bring an indictment.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And so that's all you really need to know. And,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: you know, we were just saying earlier that there is
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: maybe a possibility that the grand jury doesn't indict. But
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I'd be hard pressed to see a judge take this seriously.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: But we will find out.
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• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the White House going after people who criticize them,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I should say that the vice president did call me
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: a dipshit on Wednesday.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Can we talk about this for a second?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about it.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: So let's give you just a little window into my
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: life is that on Wednesdays at lunchtime, I play pickup basketball.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: Do it every Wednesday.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: So I'd only look at my phone for like an
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: hour on Wednesdays. Boy, did I miss a very eventful
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: hour in your life and that of American democracy where
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: I found out through many texts from many people. that
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: the vice president of the United States called you a dipshit.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And so that seems like a big deal. One, just
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: the fact that you were having a Twitter fight with
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: the vice president. And it's not your first. You've had several.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: But that's just notable. That's interesting.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: It is notable.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: But the fact that he called you a dipshit is
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: wild in a relationship performance. Imagine if Joe Biden called.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: A right-wing- I mean, I'm sure Joe Biden has called
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: us dipshits.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say- As vice president in
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: the year 2010.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Don't have a good record with vice presidents, right?
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, you are not popular with vice presidents.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: I also would say, well, I would say in the
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: early days of this podcast, I think we were, the
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: four of us were all in the same, we were
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: equally good tweeters. But you, I would say, have ascended
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: to really be a top-notch tweeter. Like you are– you're
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: good at Twitter. You're trolling Ted Cruz. You're fighting with
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk. You're fighting with Jada Vance. And you know
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: what that tells me? that Malcolm Gladwell was right about
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: the 10,000 hours. You put your 10,000 hours in and you,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: it has worked for you, I have to say.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: It was a very weird day because- Oh yeah, no shit. Well,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: but I didn't feel like it was a weird thing.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: It's like the- That's the weird thing about it.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: That's what's meta about this.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: But it's like the reaction of everyone else made it
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: feel like a bigger deal than it did to me originally,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: which maybe I have been, I don't know, maybe I'm
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: numb to all this now. But I see the story
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: break about this horrific shooting in Dallas outside an ICE facility.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: And I'm getting ready for work. And I look at
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the phone and I see that immediately Kristi Noem and
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: then J.D. Vance are like, this is an attack on
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: law enforcement.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: J.D.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Vance says it's an obsessive, the obsessive attacks on law
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: enforcement must stop. And Kristi Noem and I was like, oh, Jesus,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: you know, and I'm like reading the news, reading the news.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: And then I see NBC report that no ICE agents
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: were hurt and that detainees were actually killed. And then
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: I see a tweet that has a proposed community note
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: attached to J.D. Vance's post saying, actually, there were three
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: detainees who were shot. And at least at the time
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: it said two were killed. They later revised that to
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: one was killed, tragically. And I was like, I just
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: stopped and I'm like, this fucking guy and this administration,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: like this just happened, the shooting. We do not know.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: They don't have a suspect identified yet. They don't have
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: any evidence. This was before the bullets were found. That was,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: you know, anti-ice was written on one of the bullets
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: before anything. And I'm like, how many times has fucking
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: JD Vance done this? Cause he needs to make a
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: political point and he goes out and he just starts
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: saying shit. And so I tweeted, that the vice president
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: is not a reliable source of information. This is the
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: fifth or sixth time he has jumped out to have
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: a political take that is contradicted by law enforcement, at
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the very least did not have the context that the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: community cited. So I did that. And then, you know, right,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: then I didn't even, I didn't even think about it.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I got dressed. I went to work. I was about
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: to record something. And I got a text from one
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: of our friends that just said, oh boy, have a
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: good day, John. And I was like, what? And then
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I saw that that happened, that the dipshit thing happened. Which,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: first of all, dipshit's a great word. I love dipshit.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I use the word dipshit.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: You do use it a lot.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I know, that's why I use it quite a bit. Yeah,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: you use it to describe J.D. Vance. Hoisted by my
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: own petard.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it happens.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: And then, of course, as a lot of the evidence
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: came out, it clearly seems like from all the evidence
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: that it was that the person was targeting ICE. The
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: FBI said today, another lone wolf. The person said that
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: there's no evidence that they're tied to any other groups
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: or anything else. The person seems disturbed. Ken Klippenstein had
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: talked to some friends who said, oh, he's more libertarian,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: although he didn't really care about politics, but clearly he
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: wanted to hurt ICE agents. So that's horrible. So it's
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: not like, was J.D. Vance right or not right? It's
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: just like, how many times do we have to learn
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: That when a shooting happens like this, you wait to
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: let the facts come up before you draw political conclusions.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: And that goes for everyone. It fucking especially goes for
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the vice president of the United States, who now multiple
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: times has done this shit. And is like, did it
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: with Kilmar Brego Garcia when he fought with me on
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Twitter then. And said, oh, you obviously haven't read the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: court document that said he's a convicted MS-13 gang member.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, that's not what the court document said.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: And he's not a convicted MS-13 gang member. And he's
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: done this like time and time again. So fuck him.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I'm getting the.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Sense he's dishonest, Sean.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I was surprised to see that the New York Times
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: ran a whole piece on it that had like me
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: versus J.D. Vance. And then in a story that also
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: talked about how he got in a fight with Gavin Newsom.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, maybe you want to put Gavin Newsom
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: at the top there.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: No, but this is interesting because what it is, this
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: is where the traditional strictures of putatively objective journalism don't
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: really work in the Trumpian moment, which is the reason
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: why it's newsworthy is the vice president of the United
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: States called a random American citizen. A random podcaster. Yeah,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: a dipshit, right? That's a weird thing for a vice
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: president to do. Yes, and so that is notable. But
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: because the Times, I guess they think that's cheap and
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: they can't swear, they just have to write this whole
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: story and then just write that he called you profanity,
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: but they don't say what the profanity is. There's no
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: hint to it. There's no like, D, ampersand P.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: And so like, unless you were like, I imagine we
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: are like very nerdy readers of journalism, you understand exactly
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: by the way the story, otherwise it seems fucking bizarre
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: to the average person because they had to bury the
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: lead because the actual news nugget was something that they
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: thought was beneath them.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Anyway, the most important point here is that the White
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: House- It's not this. It's not this. Believe me, it's
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: not this. Is that the White House is once again
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: exploiting a horrific act of political violence to silence dissent
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and crush their opposition. Because right after J.D. Vance finished
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: his Twitter fight with me, he went on to speak
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: at a event in North Carolina where he blamed the
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: shooting on the left, on Democrats, on people who've criticized
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: ICE agents for wearing masks and on people who've called
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: his administration authoritarian. He singled out Gavin Newsom. Trump posted
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: something similar, and he also wrote, quote, the continuing violence
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: from radical left terrorists in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: assassination must be stopped. I will be signing an executive
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: order this week to dismantle these domestic terrorism networks. I
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: believe he signed that this afternoon when he signed the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: TikTok deal. Wonderful. And here's what Trump said about this
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: in the Oval Office on Thursday.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: The radical left is causing this problem. Not the right,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: the radical left. And it's going to get worse. And ultimately,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: it's going to go back on them. I mean, bad
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: things happen when they play these games. And I'll give
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: you a little clue. The right is a lot tougher
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: than the left. And they better not get them energized
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: because it won't be good.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: For the left.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I'll give you a little clue. The right is a
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: lot tougher than the left. What do you think he
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: means by that, Dan?
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: I think it's not something we should pay a lot
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: of attention to. It's just the President of the United
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: States threatening violence from allied militia groups.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, gee, wouldn't it be a shame if you
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: got these crazy right-wingers? I mean, I don't know them, right?
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Nothing to do with me, but they're pretty tough. They're
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: pretty tough. You don't want to see what they can do.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: You mean people like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: people who, upon the president's order after the election, then
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: marched on the Capitol, many carrying weapons as they stormed
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: the Capitol of the United States to try to stop
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: the certification election, those people?
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Again, I just want to, this is all we have.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: There was a lone wolf shooter that assassinated Charlie Kirk,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and now we have another lone wolf shooter who shot
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: at an ICE facility. That is two people. There are
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: not riots all over the country. There are not things
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: on fire, vandalism, Antifa roaming around. The whole fucking left-wing
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: violence thing, the way that Trump and Vance and the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: White House are talking about it, is fucking fiction. That
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: is not to say that there is not like incidents
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: of violence with people who are radicalized with some, at
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: least some left-wing views, but individual cases now that we've
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: seen a couple in the last couple of weeks. But like,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: he sounds like it's this fucking epidemic. It's crazy. And
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: it's going to make people think that, you know?
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Which is how every authoritarian in world history has seized
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: power by creating a mostly fake internal or external threat
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: to get people to willingly hand over their freedoms in
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: exchange for security from this made up threat. Yeah, exactly.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: How do you think Democrats should, and activists and organizers
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: should talk about all this? Because, you know, basically what they're,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: they're trying to play this game now where if you
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: say authoritarian, right, if you call them authoritarian or fascist,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: then that's inciting violence. If you, now it's, if you
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: complain about ICE wearing masks and, or ICE is a
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: secret police or the fact that they're fucking throwing people
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: into vans and keeping them without due process and detaining
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: people in horrible conditions, that all this is inciting violence
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: against ICE. And so now criticism itself and rhetoric is
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: seen as inciting violence. And so they're just gonna keep
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: pushing the envelope here until any kind of comment or
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: criticism of the regime is seen as being left-wing inciting
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: of violence. How do Democrats handle that?
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: We can debate the efficacy of using the words Nazi
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: or Gestapo or those things to describe various people. But
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: the bigger and more important point here is that Democrats
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: should not shy away from calling it like it is.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: This is authoritarian. When they do fascist things like, oh,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know, have the chairman of the FCC threaten
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: companies in order to get them to take the comedian
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: the president liked off the air. When they do things
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: like that, we have to call it out. I have
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: seen no evidence that shows that the American people believe
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: that the things that Democrats or Trump critics have said
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: have contributed to this. They are trying to create this impression.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: We do not have to buy into it. I think
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: every politician should think about their words, and we should
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: try not to dehumanize people. We should obviously shy as
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: far away as we possibly can from anything that promotes
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: violence or anything like that. But there aren't Democrats aren't
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: doing that. That's not a thing that's happening. But Trump
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: is seizing power. He's abusing power. He's doing the things
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: that authoritarians do. There are fascistic tendencies in what his
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: government is doing. And we should call that out. And
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: doing so is not something that is out of bounds
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: in American politics. What's out of bounds are the things
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: that Trump is doing, not us talking about the things
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: he's doing. And so I just do not be cowed
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: by this, right? Do not let either the bad faith
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: folks on the right or the civility police in the
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: middle try to keep Democrats from actually using words to
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: describe what's happening here.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think merely describing... what the Trump administration is doing.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: That's enough. You don't have to put too much mustard
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: on the hot dog here.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Exactly. This is exactly right. And I think that both
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: prevents some of their bullshit criticism from landing with people
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: who are not paying close attention to this. And it
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: also has the virtue of just, you know, factual descriptions
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: are more persuasive than than using all kinds of adjectives
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: and names and trying to figure out whether something is
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: fascist or not fascist or whatever. You know, like you
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: just don't need it, right? It's not like you shouldn't
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: say it. It's just like, you have to think to yourself,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: is it useful? Is it useful to persuade the vast
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: majority of people in this country who are not political
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: junkies that something serious is amiss? Or could you just
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: describe what is happening, right? So I think that is
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: a really important point to keep in mind. I also
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: think it's not just like, you know, we don't support violence,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: but this is scary. We somehow have to make, and
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to press this point, but we have
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: to make nonviolent resistance like part of our brand. That
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: like as we oppose this administration that is acting authoritarian,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and we can point out all the ways they're acting authoritarian,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the most effective response to an authoritarian regime is nonviolent resistance.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: And that has been the case recently. throughout history and
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: it is certainly the case now. And so I think
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: those things can work. Like we can be as tough
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: as we want in describing the abuses of power in
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: this administration. And we should be, we should also lead
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: with the fact and not be defensive about it. That
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the way that we're going to do that is through
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: nonviolent resistance. And I think sometimes we get caught in the, like,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to say this, but, or
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't be cowed. You should also be proud that
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: our strategy is nonviolent resistance, because that's not a soft strategy.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: It's not a weak strategy. It's actually very strong and effective.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: And that is what history shows.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: And then you actually have to have nonviolent resistance, right?
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, like, and I say that, like, we're
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: coming up on another No King's Day, like, protest coming
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: up in a few weeks here. We saw tribunes run
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: out there, but it has to be something more than
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: just posting, right? It has to be actual, like, and
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: this is a part where I think Democrats at all
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: levels should think outside the box a little bit about
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: ways in which you can demonstrate opposition to Trump that
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: is not through the traditional, typical means of doing it,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: where we're just going to complain about it, we're going
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: to press conference about it. It can be sit-ins, it
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: can be protests, it could be a day general strike.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: We have to widen the aperture of the tools available
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: to us because we continue as a party, and I
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: struggle with this myself, we struggle as a party to
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: confront an absolutely extraordinary threat with the tools of ordinary politics.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: And that's a mistake.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: And, you know, sometimes nonviolent resistance is, it's responded to
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: with violence, right? You've seen people calmly film ICE agents,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you know, taking people away from their families, throwing them
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: into vans, and then the ICE agents rough them up.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And that's something that, like, if you're engaged in nonviolent resistance,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: you have to be prepared for that. And that's what they,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: that's what the civil rights activists did. Sometimes it entails
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: civil disobedience. I think about our old friend Adi Barkan
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and everyone in that healthcare fight protecting the ACA when
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: they did sit-ins in congressional offices in the halls of Congress,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: oftentimes they were arrested. And so nonviolent resistance doesn't mean
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: that you don't ever get arrested, right? Like that's part
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: of protest. The key is when violence is visited upon
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: you or police haul you away, you respond to that
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: with nonviolence. And you don't respond to it with violence
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: or with destruction or anything like that because you don't
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: want to maintain the higher ground just to make yourself
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: feel good. You want to maintain the higher ground so
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: that you can persuade most of the people who are
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: watching and who are paying attention that the nonviolent resistance
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: is is where they want to join, is the team
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: they want to join and not the state violence and
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the state repression that they're seeing on their TV screens
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: and on their phone screens.
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• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, so right after Vance spoke at that event in
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, he took a question from a reporter about
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: government censorship and Jimmy Kimmel. Here's his answer.
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: I'm pretty sure that Jimmy Kimmel was back on the
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: air last night. And to the extent that he's not
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: back on the air, it's because he's not funny and.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Has terrible ratings.
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: The FCC commissioner making a joke on social media. What
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: is the government action that the Trump administration has engaged
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: in to kick Jimmy Kimmel or anybody else off the air?
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: Zero.
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: What government pressure have we brought to bear to tell
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: people that they're not allowed to speak their mind?
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Zero. Yeah, I'm a dipshit.
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Like. It's so, it is so his style of dishonesty,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: which is like, I'm going to try to say something
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: that is in the most narrow, narrow sense, technically true. And,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: but it is completely dishonest. First of all, it was
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: not a joke on social media. Brandon Carr said, we
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: can do this the easy way. We can do this
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: the hard way. And if we do it the hard way,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: that means the FCC has more work to do. That
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: was directed towards ABC. That was directed towards the affiliates
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: that were, at least in one case, requiring a merger
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: approval from the FCC that then decided, after Brendan Carr
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: said that, to pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air. So yes,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: did Brendan Carr go to Nexstar and say, I'm ordering
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: you to not air Jimmy Kimmel's show? No, he technically
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: did not say that. But he certainly threatened it.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: It is just a... Like, his entire persona is so...
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: fucking grating because it is- Smug, smarmy. It is so smug.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: It is so arrogant. It is just this idea, like
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: he just exudes the idea that he is smarter than
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: everyone else. And he's like figured out the way to
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: sell this like right-wing fascistic bullshit that he theoretically did
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: not believe in. And I would say, speaking of people
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: using language, he did compare Trump to Hitler at one
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: point in his life.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Sure did.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: But you're exactly right. He just mows down, he builds
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: up straw man arguments and then mows them down every time.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: And because he doesn't, it's infuriating and we're going to
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: have to deal with this for a number of years
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: because he, like I do look forward to some Democrat,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know who that Democrat is right now, kicking
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: the shit out of him on the debate stage in 2028.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: It'd be so great. Also, we just talked about the
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: actions that Carr took and things that he said. JD
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Vance gave that answer a day after, maybe two days after.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Was it yesterday? It was yesterday.
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: Who knows?
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: He gave it after his boss, Donald Trump, whose posts
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I know that JD Vance reads because he posts them
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: on Twitter all the time. Donald Trump said, oh. Jimmy
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Kimmel's back on the air. They told us the show
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: was canceled. I'm going to have to take legal action
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: against him because he's giving an in-kind contribution to the
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Democratic Party. And I think that's some fucking campaign finance violation,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: whatever the fuck he said, bullshit. And Donald Trump in
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: a post threatened to take action legal action against jimmy
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: kimmel and then jd vance gets up there and he
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: says what action have we taken zero oh no your
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: boss just fucking threatened it to the whole country in
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: front of the whole country the night 24 hours before
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: yeah So that's bullshit. Let's talk about Kimmel's return on
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night, which averaged over 6 million viewers on traditional television,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: despite being blocked by Sinclair and Nexstar affiliates that reach
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: roughly a quarter of all households. That's the show's highest
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: rated planned episode in at least a decade. And that's
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: before you add the so far 20 million YouTube views
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: it's racked up so far. Jimmy's monologue I thought was funny, emotional,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: and most importantly pulled no punches whatsoever. Here's some of
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: it now.
• 40:21
  Speaker 6: The president of the United States made it very clear
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: he wants to see me and the hundreds of people.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Who work here fired from our jobs.
• 40:29
  Speaker 6: Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can't
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: take a joke. They want to pick and choose what
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: the news is. I know that's not as interesting as
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: muzzling a comedian, but it's so important to have a
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: free press, and it is nuts that we aren't paying
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: more attention to it.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: This show is not important. What is important is that we.
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: Get to live in a country that allows us to
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: have a show like this.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: What did you think?
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: He nailed it. I mean, Jimmy is such a smart
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: and thoughtful guy, and he spoke in this moment honestly, authentically.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: from the heart.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: You're right.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: He pulled no punches. He made it clear that he
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: was not back on the air because he agreed to
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: soft pedal his criticism of Trump or Brendan Carr or
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: anyone else. And honestly, I'm not one of those people
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: who's saying we got to put the future of our society,
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: our future of democracy depends on a comedian of some kind,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: but we do need more people in our politics who
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: can speak that authentically and that honestly.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I had that same thought a Emily and I watched
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: it the night that he did it.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Not live, obviously. You obviously watched it when someone posted
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: it from the East Coast. There's not a fucking chance
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: you're staying up till 1130. Fuck no.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Fuck no. As you know, our good friend Jen Psaki
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: was like, are you guys going to be up? Do
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: you want to come on? Does someone want to come
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: on the show and react? And we're like, poor Jen.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: She's up at midnight and we're like, 9pm?
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: We're in bed. Yeah, sorry.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: But anyway, I was in bed and we watched it
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: on YouTube right after it aired. And like, I was
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: moved in a way that surprised me and that I
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: hadn't realized how much I needed to hear something like that.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: And I've been thinking about the last couple of days.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: And I think it's because it's like what you just said,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: like since January, we just haven't had many moments or
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: leaders where someone stands up and speaks to a very
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: big audience in defense of our rights, our values, our
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: our ideals as a country in a way that is
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: like not partisan intended for a politically minded, but maybe
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: nonpolitical audience as well. Most of the country, right? That's what,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: that's who Jimmy's speaking to. And he didn't do it
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: in a partisan way. He didn't make it all about Trump.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: There weren't a lot of cheap shots. It was just
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: a sort of calm, forceful, powerful defense of free speech
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and American values. And I was like, God, I wish
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: that democratic politicians would just be like, all right, take
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: myself out of Washington, out of like all the language
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: that I hear all the time from all my colleagues
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: and strategists and staffers and everyone else. And it's like,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: what if I just had to speak to people who
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: didn't necessarily pay close attention to politics, but also not
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: speak to them like they're fucking idiots. And that's what
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Kimmel did, you know? And again, I'm not, I'm
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: not saying like, Jimmy Kimmel 2028, though, who knows? But
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I am saying that we just, our leaders need to
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: take a page out of Jimmy's playbook there in that monologue, particularly,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: not the jokes, not the jokes, don't try the jokes
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: if you're not funny, but particularly the serious parts of
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: that monologue, because I think it was pitch perfect. I
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: think from a messaging perspective, I would say he nailed it.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that would have tested well, if he did
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: it and he doesn't have pollsters to test it.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Not yet.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: But he didn't write it thinking like, okay, I need
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: to have this line and this test well and this
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: as well. But I bet it did because he was
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: speaking to an audience that he was trying to persuade
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: that he knew might not always be with him.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Well, he did something that is just very absent in
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: American politics. He spoke to everyone.
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 44:19
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: He was speaking to any person who could possibly see
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: his show, whether they voted for Trump, they voted for Harris,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: most likely don't vote at all, and was trying to
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: reach all of them, persuade all of them. And that's
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: just not how politics has worked in the last decade,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: where everyone is trying to speak to their group and
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: their group alone. We have sliced and diced the electorate
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: in so many ways. We have message tested us into
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: the ground where we know the exact words to reach
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: this group. And he gave a broad-based message to a
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: broad audience, and we could use more of that in politics.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: I kind of think that this whole attempt to silence
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: him backfired spectacularly on Carr and Trump because, well, first
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: of all, just the ratings alone. Second of all, he
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: has like it gave Jimmy the chance to deliver that monologue.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I believe his audience has it's not as big as
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: the night of the monologue, but it has remained elevated
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: last night. And, you know, by the time you hear this,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: there'll be another night and that he'll have done it
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: as well. And I also think it's gotten people's attention
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: in a way that probably a lot of other things haven't.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know. What do you think?
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: I read about this in my newsletter last week. I
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: think if the goal was to silence Jimmy Kimmel, it
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: is a massive epic failure because more people have thought
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: about Jimmy Kimmel, will listen to Jimmy Kimmel, watch Jimmy
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Kimmel in the last 48 hours than have done in
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: a very long time. That's because Trump and Brendan Carr
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: clumsily tried to silence one person and he may turn
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: into a national cause. And this, this is one of
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: those things that broke through, right? Like I always track
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: which stories are getting the most attention on social media.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: The Charlie Kirk story is one of the biggest stories
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: that we've had, probably the biggest story since Trump has
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: been elected. But Kimmel and it was right. Kimmel is
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: adjacent to that story. It's right behind that story. It
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: broke through to people and it caused all these problems
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: for Trump because it It led to intraparty conflicts, which
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: never happens with Trump. So that gets more attention. You
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: have Ted Cruz criticizing the Trump administration. You never get that.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: And then it led to people like Joe Rogan, Andrew Schultz,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: others with large platforms who are an important gateway to
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: an important audience of young men for Trump who have
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: just been shitting on him for the last few days
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: for it. And that hurts him in the moment. And
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: it hurts the ability for Republicans and J.D. Vance in
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: the future to have that relationship with those media personalities,
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: those influencers going forward. So the This was, in terms
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: of like political impact, both on Jimmy Kimmel and for
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party and Trump, I think just a complete
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: and total disaster.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Do you think that the administration will be smarter and
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: more surgical in how they go after free speech from
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: here on out? Because obviously the threat is not gone, clearly. But,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: you know, Nextar still isn't airing Jimmy Kimmel as of
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: this recording, nor is Sinclair. But Nextar is the one
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: that's got a merger. They've got to get approved. So
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: I kind of wonder where this goes from here.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I think the threat to free speech is as
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: great today as it has been since the Red Scare, right?
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: We are in a very serious moment because I think
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: they're going to be smarter. Brendan Carr is not going
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: to go on Right Wing Podcast and do his best
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: Goodfellas impersonation anymore, but they have a playbook now, right?
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: So now they want Jimmy Kimmel not on large parts
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: of the country. Next, it's The View. Maybe it's CBS
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: News or Meet the Press after that. Or they think
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: that WNBA is too woke. And so all of a sudden,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: you now have these either local television affiliates owned by
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: right-wing billionaires like Sinclair or people who have business before
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration who are going to take their orders,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: who are going to start censoring the program that comes
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: on the air to appeal to what the state wants.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: And that is very, very, very dangerous. And that is
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: where we are. And there is a playbook now. And
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: that was impossible to imagine.
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: 96 hours ago.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: And here we are right now.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: And I would say that, you know, and Kimmel at
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: one point in the monologue, you know, he talks about
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: sort of other threats to the press. And he talked
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: about Pete Hegseth's rule that like there, he was going
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: to pull press credentials from any reporter who published unauthorized information,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: not necessarily just classified information, just unauthorized information, which is
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: what reporters do. And so Kimmel, and I liked that
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: he did that because I think We've talked about this before.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: It is important to stand up for anyone they come
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: after because solidarity is important here. There is strength in numbers.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: And I do think another benefit of what Kimmel did
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: is he was unafraid. And I think that courage, you know,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: I think that kind of thing gives other people courage
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: to stand up. And I think that's the lesson that
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: everyone should take from Kimmel, which is they're going to
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: keep going after people. And we got to call it out.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: We got to stand with those people, however you feel
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: about them. and whatever you've thought about them before, because
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: they come for one of us, they come for all
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: of us.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: And the thing that's important about Kimmel's stand, Kimmel's been
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: talking about retiring for a long time now. He's been
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: doing this show for a long time. He could have
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: easily just walked off the air and said, fuck this.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Disney betrayed me. Bob Iger betrayed me. I'm not going
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: to do it. Walk away, not deal with this. He's
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: made plenty of money, I imagine, in his life. He
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: could still come back and host award shows or do
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: whatever he want. Or He could go to YouTube. He
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: could do lots of things. But he's one of the
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: few people who has power and money who decided to
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: fight back. And that's important for these reporters because it's
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: easy for these reporters. Individual reporters certainly don't have that.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: They are fighting for their jobs in a decaying media industry.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: A lot of these media outlets are barely hanging on anyway.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: And so this has been the problem is that the
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: most powerful elite people have been the least willing to
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: fight Trump over the last nine months. And so embodied
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: by Disney's decision to take Kimball off the air to
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: begin with, kudos to them for putting him back, but
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: we need more people who have money and power to
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: be willing to stand up to Trump because when they
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: do that, it makes it a little bit easier for
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: the other people like them and the other people much
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: further down the ladder to do so. Because some of
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: the people further down the ladder don't have the ability
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: to do it in the same way.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about a government shutdown that's no longer just looming.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: but something that Washington is barreling towards.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: We're barreling now?
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: We're barreling.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: What are we going to be doing on Monday?
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: On the brink? Are we on the precipice?
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, something like that. Here's where things stand. Hakeem Jeffries
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: and Chuck Schumer demanded a meeting with Trump. Trump agreed,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: and he backed out with a post where he said, quote,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: after reviewing the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: the minority radical left Democrats in return for their votes
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: to keep our thriving country open, have decided that no
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: meeting with their congressional leaders could possibly be productive. Democrats
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: are now demanding that any funding bill include an extension
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: of Obamacare subsidies and a reversal of Trump's Medicaid cuts.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: While the White House is making new threats, they sent
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: a memo ordering federal agencies to begin preparing for mass
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: firings in the event of a shutdown. Not furloughs, which
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: is temporarily layoffs while the government's closed, but firings. They're
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: also lying about what Democrats are asking for, quote J.D.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Vance's Twitter feed. again, quote, Democrats are about to shut
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: down the government because they demand we fund healthcare for
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: illegal aliens. Not true. Not true at all. Not true.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling about the shutdown and how Democrats
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: are approaching it?
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: I said this on this podcast a couple of weeks ago,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: but I believe strongly that Democrats cannot simply rubber stamp
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: funding for Trump's authoritarian government. Like you absolutely cannot do it.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: If you believe what you're saying about the threat that
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: Trump poses, the abuse of power, the politically motivated prosecutions,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: the threat to free speech. You can't just pretend like
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: it's regular order and just like, well, vote for the
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: continuing resolution and keep the government open. Like you cannot
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: do that. And so I agree with the approach they're taking.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I do want to try to approach my analysis of
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: this from not from like, it's very easy to have
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: the hot take that they're fucking this up or they're
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: not doing it the right way or they suck. And
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: I think it's important. And if this is not how
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: I would have done it, like I, if it had
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: been me, just Dan Pfeiffer in charge, I would have
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: made the whole thing about affordability. I would have made
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: it about the Obamacare premiums and the tariffs. And the
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: tariffs are very useful because they are an abuse of power, right?
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: This is Trump being a king, and it goes right
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: to what Trump's weakest spot politically is cost of living, inflation,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: high prices, and you could focus it around that. But
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: I do recognize, I've seen this from the other side.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: I worked in the White House during a shutdown. I
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: loomed and barreled a lot over my time in the
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: White House. And even sometimes in Congress, I loomed and barreled.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: And the one thing that is true is that the
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: most important thing the leadership can do, because it only
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: works if they do this, is to have unity in
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: their caucus. And so you have to have a message,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: a strategy, and a set of demands that in the
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: House goes from Jared Golden to AOC, And the Senate
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: goes from institutionalists like, I don't know, Patty Murray or
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: whoever to Bernie Sanders or Alyssa Slotkin to Bernie Sanders,
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: however you want to do your spectrum of people. And
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: so that does sometimes lead you to lowest common denominator asks,
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: which is what's the one thing that unites Democrats, right?
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: It's healthcare.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: And it's the Medicaid cuts and it's the Obamacare premiums.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: And I think they're picking the Obamacare premiums because It's
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: the one thing they have the best chance of getting.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Because there's a bunch of Republicans very uncomfortable about this.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: They think they don't want to just do a permanent extension.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: They maybe don't want to do it. But there were
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: discussions before this about some sort of agreement before this
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: expired at the end of the year. Because Republicans know
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: they're on the ballot next year. Donald Trump is not.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: And they don't want to have jacked up everyone's premiums.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: So that's how they got here. And so it's just like,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: it's hard. It's easy. It is easy. The thing that
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: I think is the value add that we bring to
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: this analysis is that we've actually worked in these spots before.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: We've sat through these things. And so just recognizing that
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: there is a lot of factors and a lot of
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: equities that the leadership has to work through that may
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: not be as obvious to people on the surface. Like,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: why aren't we making it about mass license agents? Well,
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: you can't. You're not going to get members to do that.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: Do I wish we could? Yeah, sure. But that's just
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: not the reality that we live in. And they do
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: have to operate in that reality.
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: It's a tough reality.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: So I hosted one of these debates that we've been
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: trying out here. Tommy did one on Gaza and Lovett
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: did one on housing. Lovett did a couple, I think.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: And so I did one on government shutdown with Matt Glassman,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: who thinks that it is a very bad idea. for
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: Democrats to do a shutdown. He's in the New York
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Times and on a sub stack about that. And then
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: Faz Shakir, our friend who is Bernie Sanders' campaign manager
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: and had worked with Harry Reid.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: And Nancy Pelosi at one time.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: And Nancy Pelosi. So he's been through a couple shutdowns
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: and he took the pro shutdown side of the case.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: So you can all check that out on the Pod
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Save America breaking news feed if you want to listen
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: to the pod or you can go right on our
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel and it's right there. Pod Save America YouTube channel.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Go subscribe. It was a great debate and I will
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: say I left thinking, both Faz and Matt made some
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: very good points. Like it is not an easy one.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: And I say that only not because like, should we
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: stick it to the Republicans? Of course. But because of
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: what you just mentioned, it's like, okay, why are Democrats
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: shutting down the government now? Well, first of all, Schumer
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: and Jeffries are saying, we're not shutting down the government.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's shutting down the government by not having the meeting.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: So you're not really shutting down the government. But then
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: it's also like, well, Donald Trump is engaged in an
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: unprecedented abuse of power and he's acting like a king. Okay,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: so then what are you asking for? Healthcare subsidies. And
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: so it's like, before we even begin, the messaging is complicated.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: And I don't know, I don't know how long you
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: can sort of hold on once the government shuts down
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: under these, with the different complications the Democrats are facing
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: in terms of messaging, in terms of asks. and in
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: terms of just the power that they have.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: And it's hard because the House is not... It's a
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: free vote for the House, right? Yeah. They all vote against.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Republicans got it through. In the Senate, you got to hold...
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: You can't allow seven Democrats to vote. You've already lost
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: John Fetterman.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: So now you got to hold six. And so I
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: listened to the debate. I also read Matt's sub-stack. Here's
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: my take on it is... Matt makes a very compelling case,
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: but I think he, and Fazz made this point in
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: your debate, which I think that compelling case is based
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: on a pre-Trumpian old view of politics. And like, yeah,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: it's true. Like here's, I guess this is the simplest
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: way to put it, is Democrats can either choose not
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: to fight, which I think comes with a severe set
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: of political consequences, severe, and opportunity cost. Or we could
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: fight and very possibly lose. And I think fighting and
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: possibly losing, or even likely losing, is better than simply
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: not fighting at all. I've tried to make this point
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: multiple times here in many forums, privately and publicly, is
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: that we are a long shot right now across the board.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Our approval rating is shit. Trump has all the power.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: The American people do not like us. They do not
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: like our brand. And we can't play it safe. Playing
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: it safe is a guaranteed loss. We are a huge underdog, right?
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: Maybe we are not an underdog for the immediate midterms,
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: but over the medium term in American politics, we've got
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: a lot of work to do. And so you have
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: to take on high variance strategies. You have to say, yes,
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: we could lose this. Like if you don't fight, you're
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: going to, you're going to, you know, the amount of
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: pain you'll take. And I think it's significant, but it's,
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: you know what it is. If you fight, You could win,
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: but the loss could be even worse. And I think
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: you have to be open to strategies that have higher
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: ceilings but lower floors. And to me, it feels like
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: the right thing to do. If you think things are
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: really this bad and this is your one moment, you
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: have to fight. And your approval ratings could go to shit.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: We could absolutely lose this. Do I think we're trotting
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: out our best messengers? Absolutely not. Do I think we
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: have a great message?
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: No.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: Are we at a massive media disadvantage?
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: But it is a moment. It is a moment to
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: possibly maybe grab the nation's attention. Grab people by the
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: lapels and tell them what is happening in this country.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: And if you can do that, that's worth a shot.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: And it comes with great risk. It absolutely comes with
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: great risk. Politically, it comes with great risk substantively because
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Trump may fire these people. And federal workers are getting
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: fucked everywhere by this administration. And will a court probably
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: reinstate them at some point three weeks down the line? Probably.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: Maybe.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: But so there is risk here. And I understand that.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: And I understand that it's not an obvious, clear case.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: But I just think fighting and possibly losing is better
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: than not fighting at all.
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: I come down on like, let's do it. But I
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: really think making the message bigger and the fight bigger
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: is going to be key here. And by that, I
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: don't mean throw everything in that Trump has done badly
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: as part of the message. But I mean, to your
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: point about, and Faz makes this point as well, like
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: make it about something bigger, like affordability costs, right? And
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: then like tell a whole story about how since January,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Trump has been getting as rich as fuck and making
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: sure all of his friends and family and allies are
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: getting rich as fuck while everyone else is getting screwed.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: And he's doing the screwing. He's slapped a fucking tariff
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: on all of us, on everything we purchase and everything's
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: prices are up and we're losing jobs. And now premiums
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: are going to go up because he's not helping with
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: the ACA stuff. And now people are going to lose
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: their healthcare coverage and set up what the world would
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: look like if Democrats were in charge, which I thought
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: was a very compelling point from Faz is that it's
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: not just Trump is bad, but if we're going to
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: draw attention to this, and if we're going to take
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: this risk, make sure that when people hear Democrats talking,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: they know what a Democratic run Washington would look like.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: And then it sets up the midterm fight.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: And I think the important point you're making here is,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: don't confuse the tactics with the message. Here are the
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: things we're asking for is not the message. The message
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: is what Donald Trump is doing wrong and what we
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: would do differently. And then you have a set of
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: things that you're going to bring up in the meeting
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: that might possibly be points of agreement at one point
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: to get the government open again. Those are two separate
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: things and don't confuse them.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: Two things before we get to Tommy's conversation with John Ossoff.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: First up, escalator gate. As you may have heard, Trump's
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: appearance at the UN General Assembly this week led to
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: an international incident that could mean the end of the
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: United Nations. It all started when the president and first
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: lady attempted a routine ascent of an escalator that inexplicably
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: froze as they were about to step onto the bottom stair.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: This catastrophe forced the first couple to improvise, or in
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: Trump's case, stand still for a few seconds looking confused
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: before putting one foot in front of the other to
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: climb the stairs to the top. Trump later complained about
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: the escalator's temporary malfunction during his speech And the U.N.,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: after launching an internal investigation, said that the escalator likely
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: froze because Trump's own videographer accidentally hit the stop button.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: Likely fucking story, U.N. We are not buying that. Unfortunately
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: for you, MAGA Media is on the case and they
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: know exactly what you did.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 8: Well, there better be accountability for those people.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: And I will personally see to it, Jesse. And, you know,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: the president being frozen there in one place makes him vulnerable.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 6: And thankfully, the first lady and the president had their
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 6: hands on the rails.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: Why are we paying for a building that's just trying
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: to injure the first lady? What we need to do
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: is either leave the U.N.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Or we need to bomb it. There's a few more
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: great tweets. Mike Flynn, it's time to turn the current
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: UN into a hotel. Representative Tim Burchett. Burchett?
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: Who cares? We're not even going to try to care
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: that we know what his house name is.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Defund the UN. Will Chamberlain, who's, you know, he's one
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: of these Article 3 Project right-wingers.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: His name is Wilt Chamberlain?
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: Will. No, Wilt. Just Will.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: I was like, I was like, Will Chamberlain's tweeting about
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: the escalator from the grave?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Believe me, very different. Remarkably dangerous. Trump should demolish the
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: UN building and put fragments of the rubble on the
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Resolute desk, seize the property, turn it into a new
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Trump hotel. And then Trump himself has said that the
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: Secret Service are investigating and has called this triple sabotage
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: because of the teleprompter. And I guess there was a
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: third thing that happened.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: The audio. I think there's something about the audio.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: The audio. Triple sabotage.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: I know this because I watched the Caroline Leavitt interview
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: on Jesse Waters where she cited Katie Pavlich of Town
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Hall who told her about the audio.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: There's so many things wrong with this. Do you want
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: to take a cut? Yeah.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: I just have a lot of thoughts that are not
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: really coherent. One, it's a flight of stairs. It's just
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: one flight of stairs. And if one flight of stairs
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: is such a threat to our elderly, out-of-shape president, maybe
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: we should have some more discussions about the gerontocracy one. Two,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: Caroline Leavitt says on Justly Waters that she will personally
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: hold those responsible accountable.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 7: Ooh.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Like, press secretary is a cool job. Like,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: CJ Craig made it look cool. Like, you're very famous.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: You can end up, many of them end up on
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: TV afterwards. But you don't have the authority to hold
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: anyone accountable.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, talk about petty dictator shit. It's like, oh no,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: his majesty had to stand still for a couple seconds.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: And in his fragile physical and mental state, we must
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: not ever let him be inconvenienced for just a few seconds. Also,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: it's so dangerous. He was just, he was like a
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: sitting duck. He was just, this is what they're all saying.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: I'm like, so he can't stand still in public anymore?
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: He's got to keep moving?
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: Inside a fully secure, look.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, are we going to put him in a fucking
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: hermetically sealed bubble? Should he be in a fucking Popemobile
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: from now on?
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like obviously he's had two assassination attempts against him,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: but there are probably few places safer on the planet
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: than the United Nations during the United Nations General Assembly
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: with almost every world leader on the planet there.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: But again, safety or not, standing at the bottom of
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: a stairwell is not more dangerous than not standing at
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: the stairwell.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's not like you're moving so fast
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: up the escalator. I mean, it's just... There's something.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: You could really write a paper about the incentives of
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: MAGA media in this moment, where Donald Trump obviously was
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: embarrassed and very upset to walk this flight of stairs,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: so he complained. So then everyone has to one-up each
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: other about what has to happen. So first it's like,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: are they sabotaging? We will hold the individual person accountable.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: And like seven minutes later, we're to– We're bombing the UN.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: We're bombing the UN. We're seizing the UN. We're going
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: to put the rubble on Donald Trump's desk. It's just
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: like– I'm sure someone right now is tweeting about nuking
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: the UN.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: It's just– Well, it's also, and everything is pretextual, right?
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Which is like, none of them like the UN. They've
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: all hated the UN for a long time.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: Because of the faulty escalators. That's always been the main critique.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: Like if it happened at a fucking wrestling match, you know,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: or ultimate fight, a UFC match, you don't think anyone's
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: going to be complaining about that. No one's going to
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, Dana White, we're going to fucking bomb
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: the UFC. You know, like that's not happening.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, you and I lived in DC. We
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: took the Metro home. sometimes early in our career. And
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: wait till you get to the bottom of the DuPont
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: Circle Metro. And that escalator was broken 90% of the time.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: And that is like a, that's a mile up. I
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: would hold someone accountable for that. For sure.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: For sure. I'd pull a Caroline Levitt. Also, we're never
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: going to hear about this again because they need an
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: excuse to be aggrieved every single day, every hour of
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: every day, right? They just need it. And then now
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: that they got the Dallas ice thing and then tomorrow
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: it'll be something else and they can go back after
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Antifa and the Democrats, whatever else, the escalator thing will
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: just fade into memory. They just needed something to get
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: them through the rest of the day to feel like
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: they are victims and aggrieved.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: Wait till Jim Jordan opens the September 23rd commission report
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: in Congress to investigate what happened here.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: Lastly, In a right-wing media crossover episode for the ages,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: podcaster and White House spouse Katie Miller appeared on Jesse
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Waters' Fox News show, and the result was pure magic.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: You are married to Stephen Miller.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 7: I am.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: So you are the envy of all women. What is
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: that like? The sexual matador, right? What is it like
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: being married to such a sexual matador?
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: He is an incredibly inspiring man who gets me going
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: in the morning with his speeches being like, let's start
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: the day. I am going to defeat the left and
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: we are going to win. So I want to know
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: which part of the Miller's domestic life you relate to
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: the most.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: Well, John, it's always going to kill me for saying this,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: but a lot of times I'll just pull up a
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: recent message box and I'll read it to her. So
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: I get what's going on here.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: You know what Emily wants when she wakes up in
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: the morning on the weekday? She wants me to hand
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: her her venti latte from Starbucks.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: That you have woken up hours earlier to bring to her. Yes.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It's a London fog. It's a London fog.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: And sometimes I say, good morning. And she goes, could
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: you bring the coffee up? And I say, sure. And
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: she does not ask me to recite a speech or
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: to talk about how I'm going to defeat the right
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: that day. She does plead with me not to get
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: in Twitter fights with high-ranking Trump officials.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: My wife finds your fights with high-ranking Twitter officials to
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: be uncomfortable. Like as if I could be collateral damage
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: when they come out. Like I could just be in
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: the studio with you when they storm.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: But Katie Miller, Katie Miller, that kind of shit, that
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: gets her going. That gets her going.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to spend a lot of
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: time parsing this, but does she, I don't, let's not
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: even get into it, really. It's a lot. But their
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: mornings are different than ours. Like, we're really just trying
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: to get the kids, we're trying, like.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: We're waking up.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: They have kids, too. Do the kids have to listen
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: to the speech, too? I hope not.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: It depends on what she, yeah, I don't know.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: Anyway, whatever floats your boat, Miller.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't kink shame here.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: We don't kink shame. We should say sexual matador too.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: That was an inside joke because Jesse Waters had previously
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: called Stephen Miller a sexual matador as a joke to him.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: You've got to know all the Jesse Waters sayings and
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: inside jokes if you're an avid Fox viewer like I am.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: Like you.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did not know it, so it was out
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: of context for me.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that one did not get me as much
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: as this is what gets me going in the morning. Anyway,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's been a long week, Dan.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 7: Yeah. All right.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: When we come back, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Senator
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: John Ossoff, who's pushing back on Trump's corruption and gearing
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: up to defend his seat in the Senate. One quick
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: thing before we get to that. We've talked a lot
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: about freedom of speech in this episode and others and
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: the importance of independent media in a world where a
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: lot of corporate media, a lot of the people who
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: run corporate media are just bowing down to Trump or capitulating.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: And if you want to support independent media, may we suggest...
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Crooked Media. Because, you know, you're listening to us now.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: We have some great content. And if you want ad-free
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: episodes and you want all the great stuff that's behind
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: the paywall, like Dan's Polar Coaster Show and Terminally Online,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: which is very fun, all kinds of other great stuff.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: And again, ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: the World. Love it or leave it offline. Join us.
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• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: something fun over here.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 7: Walmart is investing $ 1 billion in training and development programs
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 7: to help associates build lasting careers with or without a degree.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 7: In fact, 75% of Walmart's management started in hourly roles.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 7: With benefits like healthcare, paid parental leave, and tuition support,
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• 1:11:45
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• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: I'm very excited to welcome Senator John Ossoff from Georgia
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: to LA to our studio here. Great to see you.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: Great to be here.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 8: Thank you for having me.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: Thank you. You know, slow news year. It's good to
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: have you in the studio. Okay, so let's just get
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: into it. So earlier this week, MSNBC reported that the
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: Justice Department is planning to indict former FBI Director Jim
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: Comey for allegedly lying to Congress. This announcement came a
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: couple days after Trump fired the U.S. attorney for the
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: Eastern District of Virginia and installed his own personal attorney,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: someone named Lindsey Halligan, who I believe ABC News reported
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: was presented with a memo recommending she declined to bring charges.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: but it sounds like she's going to pursue them anyway.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: She has no prosecutorial experience. It kind of tells you
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: everything you need to know, I think. What's your reaction
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: to these reports and what they tell us about rule
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: of law in this country?
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 8: Well, that the rule of law is hanging by a
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 8: thread in the United States right now. We have public
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 8: enemies lists, DOJ drawing up orders to US attorneys to
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 8: investigate political targets. Makes me think of there's a, an
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 8: expression I think attributed to like a Stalinist official and
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 8: the USSR, which was something like, bring me the man
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 8: and I'll find you the crime.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 8: Um, it is such a perversion of justice and it's,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 8: it's also just, uh, another piece of proof that the
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 8: thing about Trump is that every accusation that he makes
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 8: is actually like a deep confession of his true intent. And,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 8: He is weaponizing the Department of Justice and the entire
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 8: federal government as a political instrument. This effort to crush
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 8: the opposition, destroy the pillars of authority that might oppose
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 8: or criticize him, stifle dissent, make examples of his enemies
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 8: and adversaries using the force of law is so deeply un-American,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 8: and I think one of the most significant threats to
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 8: the basic fabric of our republic in well over a century.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: In other legal news, Trump accused United Nations employees of
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: sabotaging his UN visit because someone briefly turned off an escalator.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: His surrogates are suggesting this was a grave assault on
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: the president and first lady, and Trump himself tweeted, the
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: people that did it should be arrested, end quote. To
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: the best of your knowledge, is it a crime to
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: turn off an escalator?
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 8: It's like I'm sure that all the folks in Georgia
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 8: who are losing access to labor and delivery services or
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 8: maybe to an ICU because of these Medicaid cuts or
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 8: whose groceries have gone up 8% in a year will
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 8: be relieved that the president's investigating escalator failures in New
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 8: York City.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: Would you consider passing a law to make escalator sabotage
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: a felony?
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 8: I'll have to give that some consideration.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: We can double back on this one. So we appear
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: to be close to a government shutdown. On Thursday, Trump's
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: Office of Management and Budget sent a memo to agencies
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: telling them to identify programs and projects and activities that
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: can be permanently eliminated in the event of a shutdown,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: as opposed to just a temporary furlough. In other words,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: they're sort of signaling that they think the shutdown could
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 4: expedite the Doge efforts that we've all talked about so much.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: Do you think that we're going to shut down the government?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: And do you think that's the right thing to do?
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 8: As of our taping this, I think it's too soon
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 8: to tell, but it doesn't bode well that the president
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 8: is refusing even to meet with opposition leaders in Congress.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 8: I do think this is a big mistake from OMB
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 8: and the White House and Russ Vogt. The mass firings
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 8: and the Doge effort were hugely destructive and hugely unpopular.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 8: I mean, there's a reason that they kicked Elon to
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 8: the curb, at least publicly. Like in Georgia, a quarter
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 8: of CDC employees have been pushed out or they've tried
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 8: to push them out. The American public doesn't like mass firings,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 8: you know, and I know that it sparks joy in
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 8: Trump's West wing to fire hundreds of thousands of, of
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 8: public servants. Um, but if, if what they plan to
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 8: do is to refuse to talk in refusing to talk,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 8: force a shutdown and then sort of rampage, um, you know, I,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 8: the public's going to turn pretty quickly against that. So
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 8: I think it's seriously overplaying his hand for.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: The budget director. So, I mean, this shutdown talk kind
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 4: of brings me to bigger anxiety I hear from Democrats,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: which is they feel like Trump poses this existential threat
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: to the fabric of our country, but that the current
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: leaders of the Democratic Party are not necessarily meeting the moment.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: The criticism is like, They aren't using– the leadership isn't
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: using the little power they have to block enough stuff
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 4: that Trump is doing. They feel like leadership is terrible
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: at communicating and that Trump is running circles around us
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: in terms of messaging. What would you say to those
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: Democrats who are anxious and who frankly want to see
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: younger senators, the next generation of elected officials like yourself,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: in leadership roles?
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I would say I
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 8: get all that and– I completely understand the apprehension, the
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 8: fear that people feel right now, the frustration. Um, you know,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 8: I also think just to, to level with folks, you know, there,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 8: there is no magic button that senators aren't pushing, right? They,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 8: they would have pushed it on, on day one. And
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 8: we do have to wield the powers that we have
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 8: as the minority in the opposition to limit the damage
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 8: and try to contain this out of control executive. Um,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 8: but as I look ahead to the midterm elections and
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 8: think about the generational obligation that we have to win, right?
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 8: Like I think that we as citizens right now have
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 8: an obligation to deliver a landslide victory in these midterms
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 8: that is as profound as any moral obligation.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 4: Any group of.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 8: Citizens has had throughout our country's history. We have to
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 8: win these elections. And there are, there are two things
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 8: that worry me because like, We have the wind in
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 8: our sails. I'm holding rallies across Georgia that I barely
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 8: promote that thousands of people are coming to. You all remember,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 8: you know, I ran in the first big U.S. House
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 8: race after Trump was elected the first time. Then those
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 8: double header, double overtime Senate runoffs, four of a Senate
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 8: majority in 2021. So like I have run at the
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 8: most dramatic moments of the Trump era.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: No pressure in those races.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 8: I've never seen opposition energy and determination like I'm seeing
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 8: right now. Even all of the angst that's directed at
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 8: the Democratic Party is actually a good sign in that
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 8: it shows the passion that people feel. to oppose this
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 8: and to right the ship. What worries me is that
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 8: we're a little too in our own heads.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: In what sense?
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 8: In the sense that a loss of faith, a loss
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 8: of confidence in our ability as citizens to to use
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 8: the rights we have as citizens to shape this country's
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 8: future because we're doom scrolling in the fetal position, right?
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 8: Or waiting for some charismatic savior to ride in as
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 8: a national figure who will fix all this. Like we
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 8: have a president who is completely out of control, a
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 8: crook engaged in unprecedented brazen personal corruption. who's passing one
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 8: of the most unpopular agendas in American history. The public
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 8: is turning against him. The opposition is motivated. We can
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 8: win and we have to win, but we don't have
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 8: the luxury of despair or self-pity or kind of wallowing
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 8: in doubt. So I just want folks to focus on
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 8: what we can control. And yes, we in Congress have
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 8: obligations to rise to this moment, And all of us
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 8: have obligations to work like hell to win these midterm
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 8: elections and to restore some checks and balances to Washington.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: All right, I'll take that as a pump-up speech. I'll
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 4: stop doom-scrolling for that. That works for me.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 8: Just cut the doom-scrolling in half.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's honestly a good note. You mentioned the corruption
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 4: of this whole thing. I think it's the most undercovered
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: story of the administration is the corruption that's happening in
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 4: plain sight. I mean, some of it's not in plain sight.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: We heard about Tom Homan getting the border czar, getting
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 4: a kava bag with like 50 grand in it.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 8: Who among us?
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: You know, it's like, done one of these. Apparently he
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 4: was going to get 50 grand in exchange for government contracts.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 4: Then every time Trump goes on a foreign trip, Don Jr.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: or Eric follows behind, right? And they announce a billion
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 4: dollar real estate deal. We got a golf course in Vietnam.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 4: We got a tower in Dubai, whatever. And then for me,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: it's like the crypto is the main event. There was
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: this big New York Times story the other day that
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 4: alleged basically a quid pro quo between the Trump organization,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 4: the Trump family and the United Arab Emirates, in which
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: this Emirati linked investment company put $ 2 billion into Trump's
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: crypto company. And then shortly after the administration agreed to
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 4: sell the Emiratis very advanced AI chips, like a huge
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: national security consideration was at play. How do you think
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: we can get people to notice and care about this stuff?
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: Because I feel like when I try to tell people
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 4: in my life who are not, who are just kind
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: of like normie voters, they're like, ah, you know, all
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: politicians are corrupt. They all do this kind of thing.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 4: They throw some Hunter Biden line at me. And then
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 4: what can Congress do about it if we actually win
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 4: the midterms?
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 8: So a few thoughts on the corruption. First of all,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 8: I think we have to absolutely hammer away at it
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 8: and make sure that the public sees it and understands
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 8: it because it is, it is like the most shocking,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 8: brazen and overt abuse of power in presidential history by
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 8: degrees of magnitude. We're talking about billions of dollars, a
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 8: lot of it through cryptocurrency vehicles directly to the first family.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 8: And he's got his personal envoy, right? Like his sort
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 8: of roving diplomat, Steve Wyckoff, who, by the way, the
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 8: wars that they promised to end are still raging. whose
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 8: son is doing business with the Trump boys in this
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 8: world Liberty financial vehicle that foreign sovereign wealth funds are
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 8: pouring billions of dollars into, you know, there is good
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 8: reason to believe that they are shaping American grand strategy
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 8: around the personal financial interests of the first family. And
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 8: the hypocrisy is stunning. Like one of the things I
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 8: said at, at, uh, a rally a few months ago,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 8: it was like, Hunter Biden should have been more ambitious.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 8: This is an insane level of corruption and self-enrichment. But
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 8: I think there's a deeper story here about corruption in
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 8: American politics, which is something the Democratic Party needs to
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 8: focus on, which is that Trump, in my view, is
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 8: a symptom of the deeper corruption in our politics. How
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 8: is it that we have a demagogue who promises to
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 8: tear it all down, elected twice to the presidency. It's
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 8: in part because much of the American public has lost
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 8: faith in our political system.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 4: Totally agree.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 8: And with just cause. Since Citizens United, this political system
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 8: has been corruption on steroids. And that is a big
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 8: part of why policy doesn't serve ordinary people. So as
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 8: Trump poses this sort of radical threat to the rule
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 8: of law and the constitution, things that we have to protect,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 8: we can't just become mere guardians of the status quo.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 8: We have to be about change and reform. And money
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 8: in politics is like the root of all of this.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 8: We have to focus on that. The vast sums of
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 8: corporate and billionaire money in our political system with or
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 8: without Trump are why ordinary people are so ill-served by
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 8: elected officials and by Congress. We need to take up
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 8: that mantle and run with it. And if we don't
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 8: solve this problem, even once we put Trump back in
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 8: the box in the midterms and once he's gone, the
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 8: country will still be in deep trouble.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 4: So look, I totally agree with you. I worked for
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: Barack Obama in the Senate in 2006, and there was
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 4: this big scandal for the old heads out there. You
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: might remember Jack Abramoff, who was this sketchy lobbyists who has,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 4: you know, given people boxes at, you know, football games
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: and stuff. It was a deep corrupt scandal. And so
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: Democrats ran hard on a reform agenda in the 2006
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 4: midterms and did incredibly well. And Barack Obama was kind
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 4: of out in front of that. And so I totally
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 4: agree with you. I've seen both the necessity of it, right?
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 4: I agree that money is kind of the original sin
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 4: for a lot of our political problems, but also the
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 4: political upside of it. I guess the question is, what
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: does that reform agenda look like? Is it no PAC money,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: no lobbyist money, Are we talking about stock trading from
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 4: members of Congress? How are you thinking about what that is?
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 8: Yeah, all of these things and more. I mean, I
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 8: have been championing legislation to ban members of Congress from
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 8: trading stock. My campaigns have not taken contributions from corporate
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 8: PACs or from federal lobbyists. I've introduced a bill to
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 8: ban corporate PACs. The American people understand that the system
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 8: really is rigged. But- Trump is not unrigging it. He's
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 8: re-rigging it for himself and his personal financial interest and
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 8: his family's financial interest. So, you know, we have to
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 8: be about change and recognize that the public's complaints are legit.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 8: This isn't working for people and we have better solutions.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 4: And it's so hard, right? Because some of this is
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 4: like a, it feels like a financial arms race. You know,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 4: like we need to make sure we're raising as much
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 4: as they are. Now, every candidate has a super PAC.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: We're spending billions in presidential elections. And I think there's
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: a concern with redistricting too, right? Like Trump's doing this
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 4: mid-year redistricting in Texas. So Democrats are fighting fire with
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: fire in California. I think that's the right thing to do.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 4: But I do worry it kind of muddies up our
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 4: efforts at being the reform party.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I hear that concern. I mean, I think that
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 8: what we have to acknowledge is that the corruption.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 8: Is bipartisan, right? The whole Congress is captured by big money.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 8: And people want to hear that we recognize that because
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 8: it's true.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 8: And so, and obvious and obvious. And, you know, like
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 8: you take something like, um, okay. Uh, taxes on the
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 8: ultra rich. It's like, it's almost like an 80, 20.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 4: Issue in public opinion.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 8: Um, but everyone knows that the reason that it never
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 8: happens is because of the financial power and therefore the
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 8: political power of super wealthy people, regardless of who's in charge.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 8: So, you know, we're, we're, we have to focus on
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 8: not exclusively, but we have to make sure people are
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 8: aware that Donald Trump, his administration is are engaged in
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 8: some of the most brazen and overt corruption. It's happening
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 8: like in the world right now, right? I mean, they're
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 8: operating like some of the most shameless foreign leaders who
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 8: mix state business with family wealth and personal business. But
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 8: we also have to get at the underlying corruption in
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 8: American politics.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like autocrats and their princelings and their oligarchs.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 4: It's all just a mess. Switching gears a little bit,
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 4: I just want to talk about freedom of speech in
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: this country at this moment. listeners have probably followed the
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 4: saga of Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel was pulled off the air
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 4: after he made a joke about Trump's reaction to the
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 4: assassination of Charlie Kirk. Then earlier this week, Kimmel was
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 4: put back on the air. That enraged Trump. Trump called
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: the show an illegal campaign contribution and suggested he'd once
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: again be suing ABC, noting, quote, last time I went
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: after them, they gave me $ 16 million. This one sounds
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: even more lucrative, end quote. How concerned are you, or
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 4: at all, about the FCC's actions in this case? And
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: then just sort of like the totality of the threats
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: to free speech we've seen since January of this year.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 8: Yeah, we should all be extremely concerned by this. I mean,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 8: you got the president standing on Air Force One threatening
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 8: to take news broadcasters off the air because he thinks
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 8: their coverage is too negative, right? This is this like
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 8: This is North Korea. I mean, it is so beyond
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 8: the pale and, you know, before I was, uh, a
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 8: candidate for any office, I ran a business that produced
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 8: investigative journalism for international news media. We held power to account.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 8: We exposed war crimes, human rights abuses, undercover investigations of
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 8: official corruption. Once you chill and stifle and destroy the
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 8: free press, You know, that is how authoritarianism really entrenches.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 8: And I think that their agenda is very clear and
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 8: extremely dangerous. And actually, you know, I got to give
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 8: at least like I know the bar is very low,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 8: but there were a couple of Republican elected officials who
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 8: spoke out on it.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 4: For sure.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 8: We have to reach out to folks on the other
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 8: side and try to make sure this does not become
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 8: a partisan issue. And again, the public is with us, right?
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 8: I mean, getting back to reasons for us to feel
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 8: optimistic about our prospects to win next year, just like
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 8: the country is against defunding hospitals and nursing homes to
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 8: cut taxes for the rich, the American people are against
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 8: official censorship. And this is a deep betrayal of some
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 8: of what they proclaim to their followers animated their campaign, right?
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 8: The sort of railing against the excesses of cancel culture.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 8: And you've seen among some of their supporters that they're
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 8: shaken by by this betrayal of those supposed principles.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. And also, look, I think people also
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 4: have to understand the context of that kind of a
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 4: threat to free speech or news gathering or investigative journalism
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 4: like you are working on. When that's coming from the U.S. government,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 4: that is terrifying because it's also, there's like spyware for
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 4: hire everywhere these days. There's groups like the NSO group
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 4: that are buying this, you know, hacking software like Pegasus.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I just opened a contract with them.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 4: Did they really with the NSO group? Yeah. Oh, that's great.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 8: I think it's the successor. It's like Paragon, I think
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 8: it's called.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 4: Oh, good.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, I'm just saying that these journalists are
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 4: under threat from every direction, financially, from rogue states, from
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 4: spyware for hire, and now from the FCC. It's like,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 4: it's pretty scary stuff.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 8: Well, I think the other piece of this that it's
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 8: like more complicated, but potentially equally dangerous is the use
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 8: of official power to bully tech companies- into how they
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 8: run the algorithm that delivers content to people, right? Like
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 8: threatening to take NBC off the air because you think
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 8: that their coverage is too negative is obviously like a brazen, unconstitutional,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 8: un-American attempt at a sort of classic form of censorship. But,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 8: you know, if they go to Meta or they go
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 8: to Musk or this group of allies who may now
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 8: be running Tik TOK and they say, turn the dial,
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 8: turn the dial. Um, you know, that is a more subtle,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 8: but in this world that we're living in potentially more
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 8: powerful way for them to control the information that gets
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 8: to the public.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's insidious. Um, you know, you mentioned some of
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 4: the Republicans saying the right thing about free speech, someone
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 4: like Ted Cruz, for example, came out and said the
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 4: FCC chairman was acting like a mob boss out of Goodfellas,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 4: and good for Ted Cruz for saying that. I think
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: if he were sitting at this table and we were
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 4: kind of pointing the finger at him and what the
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 4: FCC was doing, he would respond along the lines that
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 4: you just did. Well, during the Biden administration, the White
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 4: House was going to tech companies and telling them to
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 4: censor speech around COVID or social issues, et cetera. Do
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 4: you think that we, the Democrats, or the Biden administration
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 4: overreached at that point in ways that in hindsight were
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 4: maybe showed less of a commitment to free speech than
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 4: we should have been showing?
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 8: I think probably yes, in some cases. But I think
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 8: that the whataboutism is like pretty limited in its validity,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 8: because we're talking about things that are vastly different, right?
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 8: And I think federal courts rebuked the Biden administration for
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 8: some of the way that the tech companies were being
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 8: talked to about information about public health that was coming
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 8: out during the COVID pandemic.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 4: Right. And that was.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 8: Probably overreach, but it's nothing like the president saying I'm
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 8: going to take broadcasters off the air because their coverage
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 8: is too negative. So, you know, we should not, um, yeah, we,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 8: we obviously need to practice what we preach. and acknowledge
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 8: where there may have been mistakes. But let's not for
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 8: a moment indulge the lie that these are equivalent in
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 8: any way.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah. You mentioned ICE buying the Pegasus-like software, working with
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 4: the NSO groups, whatever their new corporate name is. I
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 4: know your office has been investigating ICE and human rights
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 4: abuses in U.S. immigration detention facilities. Can you just talk
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 4: to us about what you guys have found there?
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 8: Yeah, well, I've been investigating not just Homeland Security facilities,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 8: but federal prisons, state and local prisons and jails since
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 8: I was elected. I mean, and, you know, that has
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 8: been sort of the continuity of effort for me having
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 8: left investigative journalism and entering office. The oversight muscles in
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 8: Congress are so atrophied, right? Like most of the oversight
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 8: is partisan oversight and very little of it is just
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 8: pure public interest oversight.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 4: Can you tell the explain the distinction in your mind?
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 8: So, so most of the oversight in Congress is like
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 8: one party investigating the other party's efforts. And, you know,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 8: there's a role for that in ensuring that there's accountability, right?
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 8: Like you have to have that kind of hostile exchange
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 8: in order to ensure that things are brought into the
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 8: public light and debated no matter who's in power. But
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 8: what doesn't, what gets neglected is Oversight that's essential for
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 8: principled moral reasons human rights reasons, but for which there's
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 8: no obvious political reward You know like there's not there's
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 8: not a lot of political upside to investigating the abuse
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 8: of federal inmates, right? And so we have this federal
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 8: prison system where there's this ongoing multi-decade human rights crisis
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 8: that gets very little attention from Congress and So I've
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 8: led investigations of corruption and civil rights abuses in federal prisons,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 8: of uncounted deaths in state and local prisons and jails.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 8: One investigation from two or three years ago, it was
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 8: a bipartisan investigation where the ranking member on the Subcommittee
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 8: of LA was Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, not exactly
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 8: a fellow traveler ideologically, right?
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 4: Not even close.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 8: But I got him to work with me on an
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 8: investigation into an ICE detention facility in Georgia, where we found,
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 8: and it was a bipartisan finding, that multiple female immigration
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 8: detainees at this facility had been subjected to unnecessary, invasive,
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 8: and in some cases, non-consensual gynecological surgical procedures while in
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 8: US detention, surgical procedures.
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 4: Jesus Christ.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 8: So I say all that to say that my efforts
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 8: to investigate human rights abuses in prisons, jails, and detention
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 8: facilities is not new. This year, I opened a new
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 8: inquiry anticipating that there would be an even higher level
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 8: of brutality by this administration in these facilities. And what
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 8: we had found through July was more than 500 credible
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 8: reports of human rights abuses in DHS detention facilities, including
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 8: of pregnant women, children, some of whom were US citizens,
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 8: And the last thing I'll just say about this, because
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 8: I think it just speaks to like the character of
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 8: this administration is I released that report within like 90 minutes,
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 8: the administration just issued a blanket denial and basically said,
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 8: everything is fine in all of our facilities.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 4: And this is all lies. I read their response. It
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 4: literally didn't seem to engage on the substance of any
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 4: of the specifics in your report.
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 8: No, I mean, it's, it's just deny, deny, deny. They
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 8: do not care. And I, you know, It really saddens
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 8: me to say it, but I think that there are
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 8: some folks in this administration and at this White House
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 8: who relish the brutality of the system they're creating.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, clearly they do. I'm going to jump around a
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 4: little bit because we're getting to the end. So, you know,
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 4: speaking of gross human rights violations, a few minutes ago,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 4: right before we started recording, Trump told reporters, quote, I
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 4: will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope,
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 4: I won't allow it. It's not going to happen. And
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 4: then speaking about the war, he said, there's been enough.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 4: It's time to stop now. Do you believe him? Do
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 4: you see any evidence that the administration is exerting pressure
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 4: on the Israeli government either to stop the war in
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 4: Gaza or prevent annexation in the West Bank?
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 8: No, there is to date zero pressure. And, you know,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 8: the reality is that the slow motion annexation of the
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 8: West Bank bank has been the Likud and Netanyahu policy
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 8: ongoing now for many, many years. I mean, it is
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 8: like a work in progress. Um, so, you know, I,
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 8: I suppose that is a, a welcome statement, but I am,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 8: I'm pretty skeptical that it'll be met with any kind
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 8: of policy. One thing I do want to say about
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 8: this while we're on the subject, and since we've been
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 8: talking about the role of the press, is international media
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 8: have been launching yet another push to call for access
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 8: for journalists to Gaza. And I just want to lend
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 8: my voice and support to that effort. I've seen... personally
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 8: through the work that I've helped lead and produce how
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 8: essential it is to have independent journalism in places where
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 8: there's armed conflict, to hold warring parties to account where
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 8: there are serious human rights abuses. And the continued exclusion
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 8: of journalists from Gaza is completely unacceptable. And I want
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 8: to state unequivocally my support for that call and once again,
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 8: call on the Israeli government to permit journalists to access
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 8: that area.
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 4: It really is amazing. It's been nearly two years, no
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 4: press access. I mean, there's some incredibly brave Palestinian journalists
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 4: on the ground providing vital reporting, video evidence, and doing
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 4: so at great risk to themselves. I mean, hundreds of
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 4: journalists in Gaza have been killed throughout the conflict by
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 4: Palestinian airstrikes or God knows what else. But yeah, I
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 4: think it's a really important and not widely understood fact, frankly,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 4: about the war. Former Vice President Kamala Harris, she got
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 4: a book out. You may have heard it's ruffling some
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 4: feathers in the Democratic Party. One piece in particular, she
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 4: wrote that Joe Biden's decision to run for reelection was reckless.
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 4: Do you agree with that characterization?
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 8: Well, I think that events have proven it to be
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 8: the wrong decision. I mean, I was not in the room,
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 8: but I think it's clear that he wasn't up for it.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 8: And by the time the decision was made to make
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 8: a change, it was very, very late in the game.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 4: Do you think that's like a one-off situational challenge? Look,
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 4: I think back to that time and I felt in
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 4: my heart that I knew Joe Biden was too old.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 4: But I kind of wondered like what value there was.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, after the debate, it was obvious, right? And
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 4: people were like, he's got to go. He's got to,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 4: you know, step down. But I think when he ran,
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 4: we all thought he was going to be a bridge,
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 4: maybe just a four-year, one-term president, and then hand the
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 4: reins over to somebody else for a contested primary. Do
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 4: you think that there was something preventing, I don't know,
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 4: a more honest conversation about his prospects within Democratic Party?
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 4: Because the data was there. Voters were telling us he
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 4: was too old. Focus groups are telling us he was
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 4: too old. We just didn't listen to the mounds and
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 4: mounds of data that was out there.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 8: I think that like the, the, the most brutally honest
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 8: answer to that question is, you know, when you're facing
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 8: the specter of Donald Trump potentially being reelected to the
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 8: presidency and you have in the sitting president, the presumptive nominee,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 8: it's understandable that you're not going to be inclined to
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 8: do or say things that might weaken that presumptive nominee
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 8: or Right. Against Trump.
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 8: Given the threat that he posed and poses. But, you know,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 8: I think that look, I think the other the other
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 8: piece of this and one of the reasons that I think,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 8: you know. Democrats across the country, you mentioned, you know,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 8: they have this and I hear this everywhere, like this
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 8: longing for for public leadership.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 8: And for folks to follow and for a clear voice
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 8: and a clear rallying cry. and I save us with
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 8: all due respect to the former president. And I think
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 8: he achieved some pretty extraordinary things while he was in office. Um,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 8: things that certainly helped Georgia on insulin prices and clean
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 8: energy manufacturing, but we did not have a powerful voice
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 8: communicating and leading for, uh, much of the latter half
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 8: of that term. And, um, that certainly contributed to the
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 8: defeat in the election. Um, but you know, what, what,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 8: what I think, What we need that we haven't had
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 8: in a long time is, you know, a deep and
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 8: compelling story and vision about where the country is and
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 8: where the country needs to go. And, you know, so
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 8: the lack of a strong presidential voice for an extended
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 8: period there.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 4: Took a toll, no doubt. Yeah, definitely did. You have
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 4: a big reelection coming up. I saw outside groups are
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 4: already announcing how many millions they're going to spend against you.
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 4: How are you guys feeling about the state of the race?
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 4: What do folks need to know and how can they,
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 4: how can they help you out?
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 8: Yeah, look, this will be the biggest Senate race of, uh,
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 8: of the midterms. And I, I, I, I just, I
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 8: keep happening to run in these, you know, huge consequential, uh, elections,
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 8: but I'm the only Democrat running for reelection in the
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 8: state that Donald Trump won. So I'm their number one target.
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 8: They want the seat. And what, you know, a couple
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 8: of Republican colleagues have told me privately is they also want,
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 8: The GOP wants me gone, right? For all the reasons
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 8: that we've just discussed, like they don't want fresh voices, young,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 8: you know, young blood in the opposition, right? That sometimes
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 8: I joke to people, no disrespect to anyone out there, but,
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 8: you know, it's like I work in the most powerful
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 8: and prestigious senior center in America. And so they have
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 8: a lot of motivation to defeat me. They spent $ 310
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 8: million or so to try to fend me off the
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 8: first time.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 4: So much money for a sentence.
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 8: I expect that they will spend like half a billion
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 8: dollars to try to beat me this time. And so
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 8: my message to folks, and I say it like just
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 8: to be very, very real is please help, right? Go
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 8: to electjohn.com, support the campaign, do what you can, $ 10, $ 15, just,
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 8: We don't have the luxury of despair right now. We
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 8: cannot spend the next 15 months wringing our hands and
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 8: in worry and depression. We have to win these elections.
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 8: We need to win in a landslide. We need to
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 8: be in a winning mindset. We need to recognize that
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 8: we're facing an unpopular president doing immense damage to the country.
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 8: We have the wind at our backs. And as long
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 8: as we don't defeat ourselves, we're going to win, but
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 8: it is going to take resources. So please support my campaign.
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 4: It's a great pitch. You don't think the villages is
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 4: a more distinguished retirement? Last question. So you have a
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 4: three-year-old and a four-month-old? Yeah. So between that- That's about
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 4: the same age as your kids, right? Yeah, I've got
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 4: a two-year-old and one-year-old. So I guess between that parenting
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 4: and the reelection, you sleep sometime in 2030. Is that
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 4: the goal?
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 8: God bless my wife.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 4: I love you, Alicia.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 8: It's- it is the, you know, the world's tiniest violin
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 8: and everything, but it is sort of the, the, the,
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 8: the toughest part obviously is the time away from kids.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 8: Cause you know, you've got, you've got kids this age,
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 8: like it's like physically painful. And, and like when they're
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 8: so young every week, it's like a whole new, you know,
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 8: so many new discoveries, new personalities. So, um, but it
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 8: also motivates me, you know, um, to understand the stakes
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 8: for the next generation. But, uh, yeah, I mean, my
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 8: wife's a practicing physician. She's an OB doctor in Georgia and,
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 8: we're blessed to have these, these beautiful children. And my God,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 8: you guys are a busy house, busy, but you know,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 8: people ask me how I'm doing. It's like, as long as,
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 8: as long as our children are healthy.
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 8: You know, that's the most important thing.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 4: Do you guys, um, do you have a, I don't
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 4: know if you do screen time. Do you have a
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 4: favorite show? Like miss Rachel house, bluey tiger.
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 8: So Eva, who's the three-year-old, she, she watches a lot
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 8: of ballet.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 8: She watches a lot of Winnie the Pooh, by the way,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 8: a lot, like We limit the screen time, but you know, when, when, um,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 8: she just got into this, I don't know if I
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 8: should be like plugging TV shows on the show, but
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 8: she just started watching, I think it's like an Irish
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 8: show called Puffin Rock, which is very cute about little
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 8: animals living on it. So if you're looking for safe
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 8: nurturing content, you know, I recommend it.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 4: My daughter is now doing ballet. Um, yeah, so is Eva.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 4: But did she do it in the, like the tap shoes,
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 4: the old school kind?
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 8: She's got little like, she's just in like pink socks.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 4: Lizzie's got little tap shoes and they're fun until she
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 4: jumps on her brother's foot. And then we got problems. Um,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 4: do you have a preferred duty? Are you like, uh, uh,
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 4: given bottles, diapers, general tidying? I do it all.
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 8: I mean, and I really relish it. Like my, my team,
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 8: if they had their way, you know, much love to
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 8: my team, but my team, if they had their way
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 8: would have me, you know, all day, every day, every weekend. Um,
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 8: when I, when I first got to the Senate, I
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 8: sat down with like a, I mentioned that, you know,
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 8: it is a body of very mature statespeople. I sat
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 8: down with a very, very, very senior member and sort
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 8: of asked for some advice. And what this senator told
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 8: me was, he was like, John, I don't remember a
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 8: single fish fry, chicken dinner, you know, county fair or
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 8: whatever that I felt like I had to go to,
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 8: but I missed. But I remember every ballet recital, soccer game,
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 8: birthday party that i miss like don't be like me
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 8: so i have just walled off time some.
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 4: Cat steven cats in the cradle shit right there.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 8: I have just like walled off time and I'm just,
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 8: I don't want to have the regret of having missed their,
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 8: their childhood.
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 4: No, that's tough. Well, listen, it sounds like it's a
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 4: good life balance there. Senator Ossoff, thank you so much
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 4: for doing the show. Everyone, what's that website again?
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 8: It's electjohn.com. Hey, just one more note. I know it
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 8: is really tough and it's bleak, but it's not Jim Crow.
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 8: Americans have been through a lot and gotten through a
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 8: lot and built a better, more beautiful, more just country.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 8: So this is our challenge.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 4: This is our moment.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 8: Let's just rise to it and win.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but 1963 was pretty scary. Yeah. You know, JFK
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 4: getting shot, Jim Crow. Wise words. Senator, thank you. Thank you.
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to John Ossoff for
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: coming by. Love it. Tommy and I will be back
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: with a new show on Tuesday.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 4: Bye, everyone.
• 1:49:23
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