Latest / Pod Save America / Trump Threatens to Steal the Midterms

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Trump Threatens to Steal the Midterms · Pod Save America

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Speaker 1: That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
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Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
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Speaker 1: On today's show, Trump already seems deadly serious about his
1:45
Speaker 1: intention to interfere with the midterm elections. So we're going
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Speaker 1: to talk about why the rest of us should take
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Speaker 1: the threat just as seriously. We've also got more on
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Speaker 1: Minnesota and immigration, where Trump has choice words about Alex
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Speaker 1: Preddy and Renee Good. And a Trump DOJ prosecutor goes
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Speaker 1: viral for telling a judge that her job sucks and
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Speaker 1: the system is broken. We'll also talk about Trump and J.D.
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Speaker 1: Vance berating CNN's Caitlin Collins for not smiling while she
2:11
Speaker 1: asks a question about underage rape victims. And we'll also
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Speaker 1: get into the massive layoffs that may mean the end
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Speaker 1: of the Washington Post, at least as we know it. Then,
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Speaker 1: Maine Governor and Senate candidate Janet Mills talks to Dan
2:26
Speaker 1: about her race against Graham Plattner, election security, getting ICE
2:29
Speaker 1: out of Maine, and whether Democrats have an age problem.
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Speaker 1: Lots of news to talk about. One reason you should
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Speaker 1: will go alongside our subscriber only show called Polar Coaster
3:01
Speaker 1: with Dan Pfeiffer.
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Speaker 4: Who?
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Speaker 1: I hear you have a new episode out of that too.
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Speaker 3: We do. A new episode just came out this week
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Speaker 3: where we looked at in great detail how what's happening
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Speaker 3: in Minnesota has affected Trump's approval ratings on immigration and
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Speaker 3: public's perception of ICE and what that might mean for
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Speaker 3: Democrats in this upcoming battle over ICE funding in Congress
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Speaker 3: and in the midterms.
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Speaker 1: Let's start with this week's five alarm fire, Dan. In
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Speaker 1: the clearest sign yet that Trump and his goons are
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Speaker 1: worried that they're going to lose the midterms, they are
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Speaker 1: already openly plotting to steal the election. We talked last
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Speaker 1: week about Trump sending the FBI and Tulsi Gabbard to
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Speaker 1: raid the Fulton County elections office and take all the
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Speaker 1: ballots from 2020. Earlier this week, Steve Bannon decided to
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Speaker 1: up the ante on the crazy by saying this.
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Speaker 5: We're going to have ICE surround the polls come November.
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Speaker 5: We're not going to sit here and allow you to
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Speaker 5: steal the country again. And you can whine and cry
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Speaker 5: and throw your toys out of the pram all you want,
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Speaker 5: but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.
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Speaker 1: Pretty crazy, right? But, you know, per usual, the insanity
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Speaker 1: traveled from the swamps of MAGA media right to the
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Speaker 1: Oval Office. And we heard this from Trump. during his
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Speaker 1: interview with Tom Yamas of NBC News.
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Speaker 3: You've recently suggested nationalizing elections. What do you mean by that?
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Speaker 6: And I didn't say national. I said there are some
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Speaker 6: areas in our country that are extremely corrupt. They have
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Speaker 6: very corrupt elections. Take a look at Detroit. Take a
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Speaker 6: look at Philadelphia. Take a look at Atlanta. There are
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Speaker 6: some areas that are unbelievably corrupt. I could give you
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Speaker 6: plenty more, too. If they don't want voter ID, that
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Speaker 6: means they want to cheat. We can't allow cheating in elections. Now,
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Speaker 6: if we need to put in federal controls as opposed
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Speaker 6: to state controls, if they can't do it honestly and
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Speaker 6: it can't be done properly and timely, then something else
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Speaker 6: has to happen.
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Speaker 7: Will you trust the results of the midterms if Republicans
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Speaker 7: lose control of Congress?
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Speaker 6: I will if the elections are honest. Look, I want
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Speaker 6: the last one that wants to complain.
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Speaker 2: Speaking of counties, what is happening in Fulton County?
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Speaker 6: I'm not doing anything, but the FBI went in.
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Speaker 3: Why is Tulsi Gabbard there? I don't know.
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Speaker 6: But, you know, a lot of the cheating comes from
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Speaker 6: it's it's international cheating.
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Speaker 3: We know that foreign governments try to influence a lot
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Speaker 3: of things.
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Speaker 6: Well, she's she's foreign government. There should be nothing wrong
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Speaker 6: with the fact that they went in, got ballots from
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Speaker 6: a while ago and they're going to look at it.
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Speaker 6: And now they're going to find out the true winner
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Speaker 6: of that state.
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Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with that. At least at least we know
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Speaker 1: that the Republican with the power to decide contested election results.
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Speaker 1: that could determine control of the House, would never go
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Speaker 1: along with Trump's scheme, right?
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Speaker 8: We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on
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Speaker 8: election day, in the last election cycle. And every time
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Speaker 8: a new tranche of ballots came in, they just magically
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Speaker 8: whittled away until their leads were lost. It just, it
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Speaker 8: looks on its face to be fraudulent.
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Speaker 1: Can I prove that?
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Speaker 4: No.
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Speaker 8: Now, the red states have done a lot of good
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Speaker 8: work in that front, but it's the blue states that
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Speaker 8: I'm frankly concerned about.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure you are. So, Dan, because... We are
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Speaker 1: a real news organization. Crooked Media's own Matt Berg asked
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Speaker 1: the White House specifically what Trump meant when he called
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Speaker 1: for nationalizing our elections in that NBC News interview and
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Speaker 1: previous interviews. Here's what the White House told us. Quote,
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Speaker 1: President Trump cares deeply about the safety and security of
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Speaker 1: our elections. That's why he's urged Congress to pass the
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Speaker 1: SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a
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Speaker 1: uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no excuse
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Speaker 1: mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting. You
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Speaker 1: feel better now?
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Speaker 3: I don't, Sean. I don't feel better. That is an
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Speaker 3: absurd answer that bears no connection to what Trump actually said.
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Speaker 3: When Trump was very explicit, he talks in there about
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Speaker 3: the federal, with the states being agents of the federal governments,
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Speaker 3: the federal government taking over in certain places. He certainly
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Speaker 3: was not referring to the passage of a national voter
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Speaker 3: ID law that has no chance of passing. He's being
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Speaker 3: very explicit. And I have a question for you. Because
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Speaker 3: I think generally, When there is sort of alarmist discussion
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Speaker 3: from Trump or maybe it like bubbles up through liberal
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Speaker 3: media or online, of us, you're the least likely one
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Speaker 3: to be alarmed typically.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Like you dig in deep to the details. You come
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Speaker 3: back and say, actually, it's not as bad as you
8:00
Speaker 3: think it is. Yet you seem quite concerned about this
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Speaker 3: or more concerned than I am. And I will go
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Speaker 3: to the parts that do concern me. But where's your
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Speaker 3: head on this?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so having read all this and watched all this
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Speaker 1: last night, I have now become quite concerned. And it's
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Speaker 1: specific concerns, right? This idea that they're going to put
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Speaker 1: in place federal controls, that doesn't mean anything. The federal
8:25
Speaker 1: government cannot put in place federal controls. It is against
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Speaker 1: the law. The federal government has no role in elections.
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Speaker 1: The states run the elections. We know that. That is
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Speaker 1: in the Constitution. It is the law. So him talking
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Speaker 1: about putting in federal controls, whatever else. But what Bannon
8:41
Speaker 1: was saying, the ICE agents by the polls, which Caroline
8:46
Speaker 1: Leavitt was asked about it today at the White House briefing,
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Speaker 1: and she said, no, no, I don't think so. She's like, well,
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Speaker 1: I can't promise you there's not going to be any
8:52
Speaker 1: agents anywhere near any polls. That's for sure. So I
8:56
Speaker 1: worry about that. I worry about the intimidation, especially because
8:58
Speaker 1: of everything we've seen in Minnesota and elsewhere over the
9:01
Speaker 1: last year. I think what I'm most worried about is.
9:07
Speaker 1: Trump and all of his goons reviving the let's seize
9:12
Speaker 1: the election machines. Let's seize the ballots. Because now that
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Speaker 1: they've gotten a taste for it in Fulton County, and
9:17
Speaker 1: if you remember in 2020, they had an executive order
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Speaker 1: drafted that supposedly would have given Trump the authority to
9:26
Speaker 1: send in the military, the National Guard, federal agents, whoever,
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Speaker 1: and seize the voting machines. And that is the one
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Speaker 1: that really worries me because I think a lot of
9:39
Speaker 1: the stuff you can litigate in court. And I think
9:41
Speaker 1: even though the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court on
9:44
Speaker 1: issues where sort of the sanctity of our elections, and
9:47
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about like, you know, voting rights act,
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Speaker 1: voter suppression, they're horrible on all that. They're horrible on
9:53
Speaker 1: all that. But when I'm talking about like, throwing out ballots,
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Speaker 1: you know, the craziest election stuff that Trump has tried
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Speaker 1: to do, the Supreme Court has been good on it.
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Speaker 6: Okay.
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Speaker 1: But when you talk about the federal government going into
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Speaker 1: just seizing an election, like it doesn't matter what the
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Speaker 1: court rules at that point. They have the ballots. That's it.
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Speaker 1: That's like the end.
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Speaker 3: I mean, it's an interesting... So I am concerned about this.
10:17
Speaker 3: I've been concerned for a long time about the National
10:21
Speaker 3: Guard originally, and now ICE being at polling places. And
10:25
Speaker 3: even just Bannon and the right-wing media saying ICE is
10:28
Speaker 3: going to be at polling places will dissuade people who
10:32
Speaker 3: are American citizens who can vote, but are of color
10:34
Speaker 3: and worried about getting picked up and detained by ICE
10:37
Speaker 3: from going out to the polls. And that's going to
10:39
Speaker 3: be particularly prevalent in states that don't have readily available
10:43
Speaker 3: early voting or mail-in voting.
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Speaker 1: And by the way, another way this could work. So
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Speaker 1: Trump and the White House decide not to be so
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Speaker 1: obvious as to say, we're going to deploy a bunch
10:54
Speaker 1: of ICE agents to the polls on election day.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, they just put them in the cities.
10:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, they say, okay, the next operation, next on our
10:59
Speaker 1: list after Minneapolis is all the cities where there are
11:02
Speaker 1: close races in all the states where there are close
11:05
Speaker 1: races in the Senate and the House. And those operations
11:07
Speaker 1: are happening, I don't know, maybe three weeks before election day.
11:12
Speaker 1: And so just enough time so that people, like they
11:16
Speaker 1: are in Minneapolis right now, so people who are worried
11:19
Speaker 1: that they're going to get picked up by ICE are
11:21
Speaker 1: hiding in their homes and don't want to go for
11:23
Speaker 1: even groceries, let alone to go vote.
11:25
Speaker 3: The test of this will be Texas, right? Where there's
11:29
Speaker 3: been a huge swing in the Latino vote based on
11:30
Speaker 3: the special election this past weekend and some polling we've seen.
11:33
Speaker 3: And ICE has stayed out of Texas in this sort
11:35
Speaker 3: of way because Trump really just deploys them in blue
11:39
Speaker 3: states to try to spark a reaction of some kind.
11:43
Speaker 3: But if all of a sudden they start showing up
11:44
Speaker 3: in Houston or Dallas or San Antonio at a time
11:48
Speaker 3: in which control of the Senate may come down to
11:51
Speaker 3: a race between Jasmine Crockett or James Salarico and a Republican,
11:54
Speaker 3: that would be the real test there. I mean, there
11:55
Speaker 3: are some other things I'm worried about here. One, just
12:00
Speaker 3: using all of this to suggest you need federal monitors
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Speaker 3: at elections, that you're going to put people there to
12:07
Speaker 3: make sure that nothing is happening, right? It's pure– I mean,
12:13
Speaker 3: this is pre-voting rights era voter intimidation, right, is what
12:18
Speaker 3: you see here. And then the big one, and I
12:20
Speaker 3: think the absolute biggest one is whether– is creating this
12:25
Speaker 3: climate of fraud and corruption that allows– Mike Johnson, the
12:33
Speaker 3: pretext to not seat Democrats in closely contested races.
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Speaker 1: That's the other big one, yeah.
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Speaker 3: Even though they've been certified by the recount, the hand recount,
12:44
Speaker 3: the process in those states to claim that there was
12:47
Speaker 3: enough there not to seat them to hold on to
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Speaker 3: the majority if this comes down. I don't think he
12:51
Speaker 3: can't pull that off if we gain 30 seats and
12:54
Speaker 3: we have these. But if this comes down to essentially
12:57
Speaker 3: the majority of the Republicans had after 2022, where you're
12:59
Speaker 3: down to two seats- Could you see that happening? That
13:02
Speaker 3: seems very, very possible. And remember, Mike Johnson is someone
13:05
Speaker 3: who was intimately involved in the Stop the Steal effort
13:08
Speaker 3: and pushing the big lie in 2020. So this is
13:11
Speaker 3: not Mitch McConnell or maybe even a Paul Ryan who's
13:14
Speaker 3: just like a long for the ride. This is a
13:15
Speaker 3: true believer in those conspiracy theories.
13:18
Speaker 10: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And so just to give everyone an example of how
13:20
Speaker 1: this might work. So Georgia, say control the Senate. It's
13:26
Speaker 1: a really close race in Georgia. That probably won't be
13:29
Speaker 1: the state that it comes down to because John Ossoff's
13:30
Speaker 1: doing quite well right now. But anyway, let's imagine that
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Speaker 1: it's really close in Georgia. And he's already made this
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Speaker 1: big deal of Fulton County and the FBI raided them.
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Speaker 1: And he comes back and says, oh, 2020 was rigged
13:41
Speaker 1: and we're going to have extra DOJ monitors around Fulton County,
13:45
Speaker 1: which they can do. And it's really close. And Now
13:51
Speaker 1: Trump says, oh, there's fraud and we're not going to
13:53
Speaker 1: certify it. Now the Fulton County Board of Elections is
13:56
Speaker 1: run by, is majority Republican, specifically like election denying Republicans,
14:01
Speaker 1: and they won't certify. Now the court could make them certify,
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Speaker 1: but maybe before that happens and it's contested, you know,
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Speaker 1: Trump sends in federal agents to grab the voting machines.
14:10
Speaker 1: And now control of the Senate hinges on Georgia, the
14:16
Speaker 1: same thing could happen in the House. I guess it's
14:18
Speaker 1: probably more likely that it's a Mike Johnson House thing, right?
14:21
Speaker 3: Because what happens is- It's harder to seat in the House.
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Speaker 1: It's harder.
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Speaker 10: Yeah.
14:26
Speaker 1: But what happens is in a contested election where there
14:28
Speaker 1: is no certification of the final result yet, and January
14:32
Speaker 1: 3rd rolls around, you're right that if it's obvious that
14:36
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to control the House at that point,
14:37
Speaker 1: the House automatically just switches over to the Democrats, and
14:41
Speaker 1: then they figure out the contested House race- under a
14:45
Speaker 1: Democratic majority. But if that contested House race or several
14:49
Speaker 1: contested House race is what the control of the House
14:53
Speaker 1: hinges on, then Mike Johnson and the current Republican House,
14:57
Speaker 1: they're still there on January 3rd until they figure it out.
15:00
Speaker 1: And the House, according to the Constitution, gets to be
15:03
Speaker 1: ultimate arbiter of seating their own members and the results
15:07
Speaker 1: of an election. So that's when you'd really worry.
15:10
Speaker 3: If I remember correctly, there are some limits in some
15:12
Speaker 3: previous court cases on this, but there's real room for
15:16
Speaker 3: monkey business that could delay a Democratic majority or prevent
15:19
Speaker 3: one if it's close enough.
15:20
Speaker 2: Yes.
15:21
Speaker 3: Because they went down this road with Adam Clayton Powell,
15:23
Speaker 3: I think, and a couple other times over the course
15:24
Speaker 3: of American history.
15:25
Speaker 1: But sometimes control of the House has hinged on some
15:29
Speaker 1: of these close, contested, uncertified elections, and the vote has
15:33
Speaker 1: gone to the House. And someone who has won or
15:36
Speaker 1: at least appeared to have won via the vote count
15:39
Speaker 1: isn't the one who gets seated. It's happened before.
15:42
Speaker 3: This is one of those things where just the– well,
15:44
Speaker 3: people are listening to this and they're panicking and saying,
15:46
Speaker 3: what do we do? What do we do? What do
15:47
Speaker 3: we do? I mean, not to steal something from Trump here,
15:49
Speaker 3: but it has to be too big to rig. You
15:51
Speaker 3: just have to win enough that you have to take
15:53
Speaker 3: the power out of their hands because there's really not
15:56
Speaker 3: a lot we can do right now other than raising
15:57
Speaker 3: awareness of this possibility to prevent Republicans from doing very,
16:01
Speaker 3: very bad things. We learned that in 2020 when the
16:03
Speaker 3: election was very close. And so therefore, it's like just
16:07
Speaker 3: we got to go out and win. We got to
16:08
Speaker 3: go out and win enough seats that it's too big
16:11
Speaker 3: to rig.
16:11
Speaker 1: Here's another, that's correct for all of us, I believe.
16:16
Speaker 1: I think there is a role for Democratic governors, state
16:20
Speaker 1: and local officials. And I don't know when it is,
16:22
Speaker 1: but at some point, I'm just throwing it out there.
16:24
Speaker 1: But right now you hear them say like, what Trump
16:27
Speaker 1: wants to do would be unconstitutional or, you know, Newsom's
16:31
Speaker 1: out there being like, I don't think, I'm worried that
16:32
Speaker 1: we're not going to have a free and fair election, right?
16:34
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of either Democrats expressing concern about
16:37
Speaker 1: what Trump might do, Democratic officials, or Democrats saying like,
16:41
Speaker 1: This is authoritarianism. This would be bad. I would like
16:45
Speaker 1: Democratic governors to go out there and say, like, it
16:48
Speaker 1: is illegal and unconstitutional for the federal government to deploy
16:53
Speaker 1: any kind of federal agents or troops around polling places.
16:58
Speaker 1: It is illegal and unconstitutional for the federal government to
17:02
Speaker 1: seize voting machines or to have the military seize voting machines.
17:07
Speaker 1: And I think that every one of them should go
17:09
Speaker 1: out there, every Democrat should go out there and say,
17:11
Speaker 1: If they see federal agents anywhere near a polling place
17:16
Speaker 1: intimidating voters, they will be immediately ordered to leave. If
17:21
Speaker 1: they see them try to seize voting machines, they will
17:23
Speaker 1: be immediately ordered to leave. And if they do not leave,
17:27
Speaker 1: they will be arrested. And they will have I mean,
17:32
Speaker 1: we've heard about this in Minnesota, right? Like in Jacob Fry,
17:34
Speaker 1: the mayor there was like, oh, could we technically have
17:36
Speaker 1: local police arrest ICE agents? Yes, legally, maybe, but obviously
17:41
Speaker 1: that gets really dicey to actually have that conflict. But
17:45
Speaker 1: if you get to the point where federal agents are
17:46
Speaker 1: intimidating people at polls or trying to seize fucking voting machines,
17:49
Speaker 1: which we know is flatly unconstitutional, I think that you
17:54
Speaker 1: let Trump know early. You know, you don't do the, like,
17:57
Speaker 1: look what fucking All the Europeans finally did around Greenland. Right.
18:01
Speaker 1: Instead of just like letting Trump keep doing this, they
18:03
Speaker 1: were like, no, it's not for sale. And you're when
18:04
Speaker 1: we're going to put troops in Greenland to make sure
18:07
Speaker 1: you don't do it. And he fucking back down like
18:09
Speaker 1: maybe not. Maybe now is not the time. And what
18:12
Speaker 1: month is it? February. But like, I think that sometime
18:14
Speaker 1: before the election, they have to there needs to be
18:16
Speaker 1: a shot across the bow there that like you send
18:18
Speaker 1: federal agents in. They are. No, they are not going
18:21
Speaker 1: to be welcome.
18:22
Speaker 3: I asked Janet Mills about what they were doing in
18:25
Speaker 3: Maine to secure elections. And people can stay on and
18:29
Speaker 3: listen to the answer. But what is clear is that
18:31
Speaker 3: Democratic governors are beginning to think about this. And I
18:34
Speaker 3: didn't ask this, but I imagine there are conversations happening
18:37
Speaker 3: amongst Democratic governors about what they can do together. Because
18:40
Speaker 3: there are some simple things like make clear the points
18:42
Speaker 3: you're making. Just make it clear that the– I mean,
18:46
Speaker 3: this is an insane thing to say in the United
18:49
Speaker 3: States of America. But that– state troopers will be guarding
18:53
Speaker 3: the counting centers or the voting machines. Like there's just,
18:58
Speaker 3: a message has to be sent early that this is
19:00
Speaker 3: not going to be tolerated and we're not going along
19:02
Speaker 3: with this. I think that's right.
19:03
Speaker 1: And it is as much, I think because what Democrats
19:06
Speaker 1: have done in the past, what we love to do
19:07
Speaker 1: is it's like, we got all our lawyers in line
19:10
Speaker 1: and it's a big legal strategy and that's very important,
19:12
Speaker 1: but it's just as much of a communications strategy at
19:15
Speaker 1: that point as it is a legal strategy. I feel
19:18
Speaker 1: good about our legal strategy. We got some great lawyers
19:20
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party But on election night, if the
19:25
Speaker 1: count is close, you know that Trump's going to be
19:27
Speaker 1: out there and every Republican is going to be out
19:29
Speaker 1: there saying like, oh, these mail-in ballots, they're late. All
19:32
Speaker 1: the shit they did in 2020, all the shit they
19:34
Speaker 1: do all the time now. And Democrats just got to
19:37
Speaker 1: be out there right away being like, absolutely not. Do
19:39
Speaker 1: not come near us. Do not come near our, you know,
19:41
Speaker 1: we have the state troopers there. We don't want to
19:43
Speaker 1: see you here. You're not welcome. Like they just got
19:45
Speaker 1: to show a little, a little fight on this and
19:48
Speaker 1: not be, not be like crying at actually tell them
19:51
Speaker 1: what you're going to do and why they're not allowed
19:54
Speaker 1: to actually fucking violate the constitution especially when it comes
19:57
Speaker 1: to our elections so that's that's just a thought that
20:00
Speaker 1: i've been having.
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22:57
Speaker 1: See mintmobile.com. Now that it's been a week or so
23:02
Speaker 1: since the Fulton County raid, do you have a better
23:05
Speaker 1: understanding of what specifically Trump is trying to do there,
23:09
Speaker 1: aside from just relitigating 2020? And obviously.
23:14
Speaker 1: You know, I think we can guess that he wants
23:15
Speaker 1: to use the made up fraud that he's going to
23:18
Speaker 1: come out with from 2020 as a pretext to screw
23:21
Speaker 1: with 2026. But like how? Like what?
23:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I don't think there's a master plan here.
23:30
Speaker 3: I think this is the product of having a diluted
23:32
Speaker 3: conspiracy theorist in the Oval Office with the capacity to
23:35
Speaker 3: send federal agents down the rabbit holes you'd.
23:37
Speaker 2: Like to explore.
23:37
Speaker 4: Yeah.
23:39
Speaker 3: And so that's why this happened. He's obsessed with this.
23:43
Speaker 3: He can't get over it, even though he's back in
23:44
Speaker 3: the White House. He's wanted to do this for a
23:46
Speaker 3: long time. Now he's got no one who's going to
23:48
Speaker 3: stop him. He has a director of national intelligence who
23:51
Speaker 3: was doing yoga on the beach during the last major
23:54
Speaker 3: military operation and is trying to win back favor. So
23:57
Speaker 3: she is spearheading this process. It's just worth noting that
24:00
Speaker 3: the director of national intelligence is spearheading an effort to
24:04
Speaker 3: investigate election fraud, fake effort to investigate fake election fraud
24:08
Speaker 3: from Five years ago, six years ago. It's totally ridiculous.
24:12
Speaker 3: But I do think this is a pretext and a
24:15
Speaker 3: pretext like along the ways we talked about. So there
24:17
Speaker 3: is what the federal government can do. And then what
24:19
Speaker 3: can you do if you create this– let's say they
24:22
Speaker 3: find– they make something up. They doctor something. They find
24:27
Speaker 3: one ballot where the signature didn't match even though they
24:29
Speaker 3: were all matched by hand because of how this went.
24:30
Speaker 6: Right.
24:31
Speaker 3: And they use this to suggest fraud. So then that
24:34
Speaker 3: can lead to a couple things. That can lead– not
24:36
Speaker 3: just pretext for federal government action. It can lead to
24:39
Speaker 3: getting Republican election officials to change how votes are received
24:45
Speaker 3: or counted or certified, to change procedures or laws to
24:50
Speaker 3: limit mail-in voting, early voting, like making the signature match
24:56
Speaker 3: that much harder, throwing more ballots out, purging the rolls again.
25:00
Speaker 3: ways to do that. Now, they are limited in what
25:03
Speaker 3: they can do because a lot of the places, especially
25:05
Speaker 3: a lot of places where the House races will be
25:06
Speaker 3: decided are in states run by Democrats, California, New York,
25:10
Speaker 3: a lot of states in the Midwest, including Pennsylvania, and
25:13
Speaker 3: then Pennsylvania. But the Senate, the path to the Senate
25:17
Speaker 3: runs through red states.
25:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say this.
25:19
Speaker 4: Georgia.
25:19
Speaker 1: The states with Republican governors that are going to matter
25:24
Speaker 1: in 2026, both in the Senate and in the House
25:26
Speaker 1: to an extent as well, Iowa, Ohio, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alaska.
25:31
Speaker 11: Yep.
25:32
Speaker 1: And those are the ones, and you know, like Maine,
25:33
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, all Democratic governors. There's
25:37
Speaker 1: some have seats in Arizona, Democratic governor, Pennsylvania, Democratic governor.
25:40
Speaker 1: But yeah, those are the, that's the concern there.
25:43
Speaker 3: And that's where they can really fuck with things. And
25:47
Speaker 3: do they need this fake 2020 ballot thing to do that?
25:50
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. But it would make Trump happy if they
25:52
Speaker 3: found it.
25:53
Speaker 1: And when he talked, the Fulton County thing, It's not
25:56
Speaker 1: necessarily if they find something and make a big deal
25:58
Speaker 1: of it, it's the federal government that can do something.
26:01
Speaker 1: But if the Fulton County Elections Board is now majority MAGA,
26:06
Speaker 1: then they can just get them to put in place restrictions, controls,
26:11
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, which they will.
26:13
Speaker 10: Yeah.
26:13
Speaker 3: And so people understand Fulton County is where Atlanta is.
26:17
Speaker 3: This is where the overwhelming majority of Democratic votes are.
26:20
Speaker 3: And so if you were able to reduce turnout in
26:24
Speaker 3: Atlanta through a series of things that you can do.
26:27
Speaker 3: They can be explicit, like changing voting procedures, but also
26:32
Speaker 3: as implicit and devious as reducing the number of machines
26:36
Speaker 3: in certain precincts so that the lines are too long
26:38
Speaker 3: for people to vote, etc. Then that would really hurt
26:42
Speaker 3: John Ossoff's chances to win if he can't count on
26:46
Speaker 3: the same chunk of votes that he's gotten, Warnock's gotten,
26:50
Speaker 3: and Joe Biden got in 2020 out of Fulton County.
26:53
Speaker 1: I've been wondering about the Tulsi angle as well. Why
26:56
Speaker 1: is the director, and he's talking about foreign governments in
26:58
Speaker 1: that interview, foreign governments, there's some cheating and interference. I
27:01
Speaker 1: hadn't realized because when I was going down the rabbit
27:03
Speaker 1: hole on the executive order to seize the voting machines
27:07
Speaker 1: from 2020, I realized that one of the orders that
27:12
Speaker 1: he was going to use as justification or thought about
27:14
Speaker 1: using as justification to seize the machines is about foreign
27:17
Speaker 1: election interference. And it was basically saying if there's evidence
27:21
Speaker 1: of foreign interference in then A, it authorizes him to
27:26
Speaker 1: levy economic sanctions on the country, but also to somehow
27:30
Speaker 1: seize the voting machines to look at them for national
27:32
Speaker 1: security reasons because they have been attacked somehow by foreign governments.
27:38
Speaker 1: So I do think that's the Tulsi angle.
27:40
Speaker 11: Yeah.
27:40
Speaker 3: Once again, not a master plan here in the sense
27:43
Speaker 3: that most of right-wing big lies stop the steel world.
27:49
Speaker 3: is so fucked up in the head that they think
27:50
Speaker 3: Venezuela was involved in this. They thought Chavez was doing
27:53
Speaker 3: this from the grave at one point.
27:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.
27:55
Speaker 3: There's a lot of speculation online that Maduro is going
27:59
Speaker 3: to cut a plea agreement by copying to some sort
28:01
Speaker 3: of Venezuelan experience. We know that, even though this is
28:04
Speaker 3: not foreign interference, but we know that Tulsi Gabbard was
28:07
Speaker 3: investigating some conspiracy in Puerto Rico connected to Venezuela. Like
28:13
Speaker 3: this is– like we are so far– through the looking
28:18
Speaker 3: glass of insanity with the things that is guiding this
28:20
Speaker 3: conversation that it all comes back to this international stuff.
28:25
Speaker 3: And they would love after Russia, Russia, Russia to have
28:28
Speaker 3: some make this argument that no, it was actually Venezuela
28:32
Speaker 3: or Cuba or some other country that interfered with our
28:35
Speaker 3: elections that cost Trump the office.
28:38
Speaker 1: One other on this topic before we go, one other
28:40
Speaker 1: scoop that Crooked Media got, or Matt Berg again, just
28:44
Speaker 1: crushing it. You know, Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguiar
28:49
Speaker 1: from Nevada. So he talked to Matt and told him
28:52
Speaker 1: that Aguiar and basically all the secretaries of state got
28:58
Speaker 1: an email from the FBI organizing a call in a
29:03
Speaker 1: couple weeks with all the various agencies in the federal
29:06
Speaker 1: government to talk about election security. And Aguirre told Matt,
29:10
Speaker 1: I was just like, this is the strangest thing in
29:12
Speaker 1: the world that the FBI is reaching out to us
29:14
Speaker 1: and trying to coordinate election security. It has never happened
29:17
Speaker 1: in the past. The casualness with which they did is
29:20
Speaker 1: just beyond crazy. And Matt got a hold of the
29:23
Speaker 1: email and it is just like, hey, everyone. Hey, every
29:26
Speaker 1: secretary of state. This is the FBI reaching out. We're
29:29
Speaker 1: going to do a call soon. What?
29:32
Speaker 3: Like in this Trump administration, especially in this poorly run FBI,
29:37
Speaker 3: like that can be one of two things. It could
29:39
Speaker 3: be some fucking... doofus organizing a grand conspiracy to steal
29:42
Speaker 3: an election, or it could be the one soon-to-be-fired, well-meaning
29:45
Speaker 3: bureaucrat in the department who wants to actually secure our elections.
29:48
Speaker 3: You just never know.
29:50
Speaker 1: Or both. The person gets fired, and then they're like, wait,
29:53
Speaker 1: I have an idea now. Yeah, exactly. So something to
29:57
Speaker 1: keep an eye on. But I think too big for
29:59
Speaker 1: everyone listening- Too big to rig. Unless you're a Democratic official, then,
30:03
Speaker 1: you know, make sure that you.
30:04
Speaker 3: Just start talking tough if you're.
30:06
Speaker 1: A Democratic official. Yeah. You have some state troopers. You
30:09
Speaker 1: got some National Guard. Fucking use it. All right. Let's
30:13
Speaker 1: talk about the.
30:13
Speaker 3: Just think about that for a second.
30:15
Speaker 2: Oh, well, that's, you know.
30:17
Speaker 1: It's going to be too late once we're in an
30:18
Speaker 1: election to be like, oh, how did the voting machines
30:20
Speaker 1: get stolen and the ballots are gone? Now what are
30:22
Speaker 1: we going to do?
30:23
Speaker 3: Pod Save Blue America, coming to you in 2027 after
30:25
Speaker 3: the Civil War starts.
30:26
Speaker 1: You know... All right, let's talk about the latest with
30:29
Speaker 1: Trump's invasion of Minnesota. Borders are Tom Homan announced this
30:33
Speaker 1: week that 700 Department of Homeland Security officers will be
30:37
Speaker 1: leaving Minneapolis. That leaves about 2,000 in place. And the
30:41
Speaker 1: way the White House is thinking about the mass deportation
30:44
Speaker 1: campaign doesn't seem to have changed very much at all.
30:48
Speaker 1: Trump and Tom Yamas of NBC talked about this a
30:50
Speaker 1: lot in the interview. Here's a sampling.
30:53
Speaker 6: I learned that Maybe we can use a little bit
30:57
Speaker 6: of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough.
31:00
Speaker 6: I'm not happy with the two incidents. It's not, you know,
31:03
Speaker 6: it's both of them. Not one or the other. He
31:08
Speaker 6: was not an angel. And she was not an angel.
31:11
Speaker 6: You know, you look at some tapes from back. But still,
31:13
Speaker 6: I'm not happy with what happened.
31:15
Speaker 2: Nobody could be happy.
31:16
Speaker 6: And Ice wasn't happy either.
31:18
Speaker 1: Two people. It's bad.
31:20
Speaker 6: I hate it.
31:20
Speaker 3: I hate even.
31:21
Speaker 6: Talking about it. Two people out of tens of thousands. Okay.
31:27
Speaker 4: And you get bad publicity.
31:29
Speaker 6: Nobody talks about all of the murderers that were taken
31:32
Speaker 6: out of our country.
31:33
Speaker 3: They don't talk about, they don't.
31:35
Speaker 6: Talk about, we have the smallest trucks. As an example,
31:39
Speaker 6: we've been very tough on the waters and soon, you know,
31:42
Speaker 6: pretty much overall. But if you look at the waters
31:46
Speaker 6: where we knock out.
31:47
Speaker 1: Boats, Think of all the people, think of all the
31:52
Speaker 1: Americans ice agents haven't killed. Why aren't we getting publicity
31:56
Speaker 1: for that? You kill two Americans and suddenly everyone's up
32:02
Speaker 1: your ass just complaining about this and that. But think
32:05
Speaker 1: of how many boats we've blown up. Isn't that cool?
32:08
Speaker 1: Think of how many potentially innocent people we executed on
32:11
Speaker 1: the high seas.
32:13
Speaker 3: I went through that same journey with Tom Yamas in
32:16
Speaker 3: real time, which was the waters.
32:18
Speaker 1: The waters.
32:19
Speaker 6: Oh, the waters.
32:19
Speaker 3: We've been very tough on the waters.
32:21
Speaker 1: Well, you don't know if he's going to talk about
32:22
Speaker 1: how he saved Los Angeles by turning on the water
32:24
Speaker 1: in Northern California so it.
32:26
Speaker 3: Could come down the map. Or the showerheads.
32:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the showerheads. Or the showerheads.
32:30
Speaker 3: There's a lot of waters. You just don't know. This
32:32
Speaker 3: is a man focused on water.
32:33
Speaker 1: He's been very tough on the waters. But, you know,
32:36
Speaker 1: what he's trying to do there, of course, is the message.
32:38
Speaker 1: And you see this from Stephen Miller and J.D. Vance
32:40
Speaker 1: and all the rest of them on Twitter. All they
32:41
Speaker 1: do is... They're like, well, you know, we don't hear
32:44
Speaker 1: the Democrats showing any sympathy or remembering the people that
32:50
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants have murdered.
32:52
Speaker 2: What?
32:52
Speaker 1: What the fuck does that? What does that have to
32:54
Speaker 1: do with anything? Yes, people who murder other people should
32:58
Speaker 1: be arrested. And if eligible for deportation, deported. And if not,
33:03
Speaker 1: thrown in jail after a trial. That's America.
33:07
Speaker 2: Welcome.
33:08
Speaker 6: Yeah.
33:08
Speaker 3: Like, it's totally unconnected to ICE agent's shooting two American
33:13
Speaker 3: citizens in the street, and then the administration lying about
33:17
Speaker 3: the incidents for the world to see.
33:19
Speaker 1: You think Trump's answer there, that's the right messaging for
33:23
Speaker 1: a national TV audience that will be watching the full
33:27
Speaker 1: interview during the Super Bowl?
33:29
Speaker 6: Yeah.
33:29
Speaker 3: Are they going to air the full interview?
33:31
Speaker 1: Well, everyone kept saying it's the Super Bowl. Is it
33:33
Speaker 1: during the Super Bowl? Is it before the Super Bowl?
33:36
Speaker 1: It is.
33:36
Speaker 3: I mean, John, we only did this for eight years.
33:39
Speaker 3: I know. It airs in the pregame long before the
33:41
Speaker 3: Super Bowl.
33:42
Speaker 1: Usually before people's.
33:43
Speaker 3: Even Super Bowl parties start.
33:44
Speaker 1: This is the one that you advised Joe Biden not
33:46
Speaker 1: to do.
33:47
Speaker 3: I was just thinking that it had been two years
33:48
Speaker 3: since that debate. Two years since that. And I guess
33:53
Speaker 3: no one did one last year. Well, I guess, did
33:54
Speaker 3: Trump do one last year? I don't remember.
33:56
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Who knows? But this year, if
33:58
Speaker 1: you tune in before the Super Bowl begins.
34:00
Speaker 3: If you're just milling about, you're filling out your Super
34:02
Speaker 3: Bowl squares, you are... waiting in line to get access
34:06
Speaker 3: to the six-foot sub or the wings. And did you
34:10
Speaker 3: just hear Trump say that two people who were murdered,
34:12
Speaker 3: who the vast majority of Americans think were unjustly killed,
34:15
Speaker 3: were no angels?
34:16
Speaker 1: No angels. In fairness, they were no angels. I hate
34:18
Speaker 1: that they died, but think of all the people who
34:20
Speaker 1: weren't murdered.
34:21
Speaker 2: In fairness to who?
34:22
Speaker 3: In fairness to who?
34:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
34:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, just.
34:27
Speaker 1: Oh my God. Trump also said on Thursday that he's
34:30
Speaker 1: definitely not going to fire Kristi Noem. And Republicans in
34:33
Speaker 1: Congress don't seem very open to even modest reforms to
34:36
Speaker 1: rein in DHS and ICE. Democrats sent Republicans a list
34:41
Speaker 1: of 10 demands this week that include banning masking, racial profiling,
34:46
Speaker 1: military-style weapons, and raids near schools and daycare centers. They
34:51
Speaker 1: also want to require body cams and ensure better conditions
34:53
Speaker 1: and congressional oversight at detention facilities. They also want to ensure,
34:59
Speaker 1: you know, that you go find a warrant. before you
35:03
Speaker 1: arrest someone, wild idea, or before you break into someone's home.
35:07
Speaker 1: Usually they think that's a crazy extremist idea from the Democrats.
35:11
Speaker 1: But then again, lead negotiator for the Senate Republicans, Katie Britt,
35:15
Speaker 1: called the letter, quote, political posturing and, quote, a ridiculous
35:19
Speaker 1: Christmas list of demands for the press. A reminder that
35:23
Speaker 1: there's a two-week clock on these negotiations before the Department
35:26
Speaker 1: of Homeland Security either shuts down or gets funded at
35:31
Speaker 1: current levels. What's the best play for Democrats here?
35:35
Speaker 3: Democrats have to recognize that the American people are on
35:38
Speaker 3: their side here. And it's not just Democrats. It's not
35:40
Speaker 3: just independents. You have a quarter of Republicans who believe
35:45
Speaker 3: in a recent Data for Progress poll that ICE should
35:48
Speaker 3: not be funded without real guardrails on what ICE is doing.
35:52
Speaker 3: And so I do think they have to narrow that list.
35:55
Speaker 3: And so one, recognize that you have the political high
35:57
Speaker 3: ground here. You have limited legislative leverage, like we should
35:59
Speaker 3: be very clear, but you do have the political high ground.
36:02
Speaker 3: And I think that you should narrow that list to three,
36:06
Speaker 3: maybe four very popular, easy to understand, very substantial guardrails.
36:12
Speaker 3: I would, on that list, I would include no masks,
36:15
Speaker 3: body cams. I know Chrissy Noem said she was gonna
36:17
Speaker 3: put in body cams, but let's have a law about it.
36:19
Speaker 3: And that law should contain, as Janet Mill said to
36:21
Speaker 3: me in our interview, like requirements to make sure that
36:25
Speaker 3: footage is saved for transparency. Number three, independent, transparent investigations
36:32
Speaker 3: into the killings of Rene Good and Alex Pretty. And
36:35
Speaker 3: number four is warrants. A judicial warrant.
36:39
Speaker 1: Warrants is at the very top of the list for me.
36:42
Speaker 1: Way more than masks.
36:45
Speaker 3: And I guess the fifth thing, if I was going
36:46
Speaker 3: to do a fifth thing, is to ensure that ICE
36:50
Speaker 3: and CBP have to operate with the same use of
36:53
Speaker 3: force and other standards as the rest of federal law enforcement,
36:55
Speaker 3: including the FBI. Those are very... simple, very popular things
37:00
Speaker 3: that would make a difference. They're not going to solve
37:02
Speaker 3: all of the problems with ICE, far from it. It's
37:04
Speaker 3: not going to abolish ICE or anything like that. But
37:06
Speaker 3: if you could get those, or some of those, it
37:09
Speaker 3: would make a difference. And that is a position of
37:12
Speaker 3: strength to argue from.
37:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if you're going for something that every
37:17
Speaker 1: American understands, banning warrantless arrests, I think that'll get people going. Because,
37:25
Speaker 1: you know, John Thune today, he basically agreed with Katie
37:28
Speaker 1: Britt that like, oh, these demands aren't serious. And he's like, well, if,
37:31
Speaker 1: you know, the Department of Homeland Security shuts down, then
37:33
Speaker 1: that means TSA will shut down and we could have
37:37
Speaker 1: some of those travel problems. And it's like, you know,
37:39
Speaker 1: if you want to tell people your plane is delayed,
37:42
Speaker 1: your flight is canceled because Donald Trump refuses to require
37:47
Speaker 1: ICE agents to get a warrant before they arrest you
37:50
Speaker 1: or break into your home, I think you could probably
37:52
Speaker 1: win that battle.
37:53
Speaker 3: I will be bringing this up to you in about
37:56
Speaker 3: a week when we're flying home from Australia to see
37:58
Speaker 3: how you feel if our flight is canceled.
37:59
Speaker 1: You know, there's just extra time in Australia. I mean,
38:04
Speaker 1: I do think, like, at some point that's going to happen, right?
38:07
Speaker 1: They're not going to agree to this shit. They're just not.
38:10
Speaker 1: And so we're going to head to a shutdown, and
38:13
Speaker 1: then it's going to be who feels more pressure about
38:16
Speaker 1: the fact that there are flight delays.
38:19
Speaker 4: Right?
38:19
Speaker 1: Is that where we're headed? Yeah, I mean.
38:22
Speaker 3: The Republicans did– like the fact that they agreed to
38:26
Speaker 3: this in the first place suggests that they feel real
38:28
Speaker 3: political vulnerability here. Now, the attention is starting to focus elsewhere.
38:32
Speaker 3: There's less attention on Minnesota. There's– they sort of pulled
38:35
Speaker 3: the– we're de-escalating bullshit and like attention turned. The narrative
38:40
Speaker 3: switched a little bit. But they're still in a really
38:42
Speaker 3: bad place here on immigration and ICE. It's a huge
38:45
Speaker 3: vulnerability for them. Like– Both sides are talking tough right now.
38:49
Speaker 3: The question is, like, nothing's going to resolve in the
38:52
Speaker 3: next however many days we have left here. The question is,
38:55
Speaker 3: can you do another short-term extension to keep negotiating another
39:01
Speaker 3: couple weeks? Like, I think that would be a very
39:02
Speaker 3: reasonable thing for Democrats to do. These are big changes,
39:05
Speaker 3: and just to think that you're going to get them
39:06
Speaker 3: done in, like, 10 days is hard to imagine. But,
39:11
Speaker 3: you know, maybe you get another short-term extension. I don't know.
39:14
Speaker 3: I'm not sure the Republicans want this fight as much
39:16
Speaker 3: as they'd like Democrats to think they want this fight.
39:18
Speaker 1: I think that's true. I wonder if Democrats have the
39:23
Speaker 1: stomach and are ready strategically when the shutdown happens, if
39:28
Speaker 1: and when the shutdown happens. to go out there and
39:32
Speaker 1: stick with the fight. Because I just, you got to, like,
39:34
Speaker 1: you know, we're right back to ACA subsidies, which, by
39:37
Speaker 1: the way, negotiations over the ACA extensions are over.
39:41
Speaker 6: Yeah.
39:41
Speaker 1: So there will be no ACA extension at all, even
39:45
Speaker 1: though Republicans felt like maybe they, you know, felt a
39:47
Speaker 1: little pressure. But once again... news moved on. And so
39:51
Speaker 1: they feel like they can get away with it.
39:53
Speaker 3: I mean, news moved on. The American people did not
39:55
Speaker 3: move on.
39:55
Speaker 1: Correct.
39:55
Speaker 3: So they're going to, they will pay, they will pay
39:57
Speaker 3: a stiff price for this one in the fall. I
39:59
Speaker 3: think the question is not, do Democrats, like we can,
40:02
Speaker 3: we can say, do Democrats have the right communications plan?
40:04
Speaker 3: Are they going to be able to do all the
40:05
Speaker 3: right things? I think they did a pretty good job
40:07
Speaker 3: during the last shutdown. The question is, are those Democrats
40:11
Speaker 3: who reopened the government, what's their stomach?
40:14
Speaker 6: Yeah.
40:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
40:15
Speaker 3: Like that is the question, because I think the vast
40:17
Speaker 3: majority of Democrats will go up, definitely in the House,
40:21
Speaker 3: and certainly in the Senate, will go to the mattresses
40:23
Speaker 3: on this. It's that last group there that you have
40:27
Speaker 3: to worry about, and I just don't know where they
40:30
Speaker 3: will come down on this since they were so willing
40:32
Speaker 3: to fold back in December, or November, I guess that was.
40:37
Speaker 1: Just to give everyone an idea of what a nightmare
40:40
Speaker 1: DHS is right now, there's a story that caught our
40:42
Speaker 1: eye this week about DHS lawyer Julie Lee, who had
40:45
Speaker 1: been detailed to the the Department of Homeland Security. On Tuesday,
40:51
Speaker 1: a judge pressed her on why ICE violates so many
40:54
Speaker 1: court orders. And according to courtroom transcripts, Lee responded, the
40:59
Speaker 1: system sucks, this job sucks, and I'm trying with every
41:03
Speaker 1: breath that I have so that I can get you
41:05
Speaker 1: what you need. Sometimes I wish you would just hold
41:07
Speaker 1: me in contempt, your honor, so that I can have
41:10
Speaker 1: a full 24 hours of sleep. She also said, quote,
41:14
Speaker 1: I am not white, as you can see. and my
41:16
Speaker 1: family's at risk, as any other people that might get
41:18
Speaker 1: picked up. Her family came from Vietnam. Lee told the
41:22
Speaker 1: judge she'd already tried to quit, but that they can't
41:25
Speaker 1: find a replacement for her, and that she'd even taken
41:28
Speaker 1: to emailing ICE officials in 24-point font to try to
41:32
Speaker 1: get their attention, mostly unsuccessfully. Lee has now reportedly been
41:36
Speaker 1: taken off the Minnesota assignment and is back at DHS
41:39
Speaker 1: headquarters in Washington. Wild story. It also comes from, there
41:43
Speaker 1: was a Politico story about how overwhelmed prosecutors are everywhere,
41:47
Speaker 1: but especially in Minnesota, trying to deal with the legal
41:51
Speaker 1: fallout from what ICE is doing. Particularly, basically everyone that
41:56
Speaker 1: DHS picks up, rounds up, whether you're a legal resident,
42:00
Speaker 1: whether you're an asylum seeker who is legally supposed to
42:04
Speaker 1: be here, whether you are an undocumented immigrant, they all,
42:07
Speaker 1: they file habeas petitions and You have the right to
42:10
Speaker 1: file a habeas petition, meaning, like, why have you put
42:12
Speaker 1: me in jail? And you've got, you know, the government
42:15
Speaker 1: has to, like, have a reason. And every one of
42:17
Speaker 1: these habeas petitions then goes to trial or at least
42:21
Speaker 1: has some kind of a hearing. Not a trial, but
42:23
Speaker 1: a hearing. And there's just too many. There's too many
42:25
Speaker 1: for the courts. There's too many for the prosecutors that
42:28
Speaker 1: they have. There's just too many. And so all these prosecutors, paralegals,
42:32
Speaker 1: everyone working around the clock, and ICE is so irresponsible
42:37
Speaker 1: that they are just... They're not responding. They're not cooperating.
42:41
Speaker 1: They're not doing anything. They're just a fucking rogue agency.
42:43
Speaker 1: That's what they are.
42:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems suboptimal. The system is not set up
42:50
Speaker 3: for this level of mass deportation. Even if ICE was
42:53
Speaker 3: doing everything right, they were crossing the I's, dotting the T's,
42:59
Speaker 3: then just processing this number of people, having these number
43:01
Speaker 3: of hearings would stress the system. But the fact that
43:05
Speaker 3: you have an incompetent rogue agency that it's just sweeping
43:08
Speaker 3: up people because of their accent, because of the color
43:10
Speaker 3: of their skin, because they looked at an officer the
43:13
Speaker 3: wrong way, means you get a lot of people who
43:15
Speaker 3: are being detained who shouldn't be detained. And the court,
43:19
Speaker 3: for good reason, puts tremendous pressure on the government to
43:22
Speaker 3: respond to these habeas petitions because there is a person
43:25
Speaker 3: in a detention center who maybe shouldn't be there. And
43:30
Speaker 3: this is what the courts are for. And it can't
43:32
Speaker 3: operate with this level of incompetence and disregard for the
43:38
Speaker 3: law and human decency that you're seeing from ICE.
43:40
Speaker 1: And by the way, it's probably incompetence as you get
43:43
Speaker 1: sort of down the food chain there to like random
43:47
Speaker 1: ICE agents at DHS. But it is also a pretty
43:51
Speaker 1: intentional strategy on behalf of Stephen Miller and the people
43:54
Speaker 1: who are running the show, because what they're doing is
43:57
Speaker 1: they're rounding people up, they're putting them in these detention centers,
44:00
Speaker 1: which are just under horrific conditions. Many of the detention
44:04
Speaker 1: centers they put you in, if you're rounded up, are
44:06
Speaker 1: not in your home state or your city, but in
44:08
Speaker 1: Texas or somewhere far, far away. And what they're telling
44:12
Speaker 1: people once they get them there is, yeah, you can
44:13
Speaker 1: file your habeas petition and you can wait for your
44:16
Speaker 1: hearing in this horrific detention center under these awful conditions,
44:19
Speaker 1: or you can sign this piece of paper right now
44:21
Speaker 1: and we'll just deport you and you can waive your
44:23
Speaker 1: right to a hearing. And so for a lot of
44:26
Speaker 1: these folks, they don't know if they're going to be
44:29
Speaker 1: successful at their hearing and maybe they need medical care.
44:32
Speaker 1: Maybe they want to be back with their families. Maybe
44:33
Speaker 1: they have young children. And so they feel this pressure
44:36
Speaker 1: to sign the document to then be deported as opposed
44:40
Speaker 1: to waiting for the habeas hearing. And this is like
44:42
Speaker 1: Miller's strategy to try to get as many people deported
44:45
Speaker 1: as possible.
44:46
Speaker 11: Yeah.
44:47
Speaker 3: I mean, this has always been true of Trump and
44:50
Speaker 3: the people around him, which is it is a stunning
44:52
Speaker 3: combination of incompetence and malevolence.
44:57
Speaker 1: Did you check out that Wall Street Journal story about
44:59
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller? Did a big profile of Stephen Miller?
45:01
Speaker 3: I did.
45:02
Speaker 4: I did.
45:02
Speaker 3: I was going to send it to you, but I
45:03
Speaker 3: was like, there's just no way John hasn't read this yet.
45:05
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a couple points. First of all, it's
45:08
Speaker 1: interesting that Donald Trump is maybe starting to realize that
45:13
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller is causing him some political problems. It says
45:17
Speaker 1: in one paragraph, Trump told advisors he isn't comfortable with
45:20
Speaker 1: how far Miller has gone on some fronts. He's mad
45:24
Speaker 1: that business officials were calling to complain. about getting their
45:27
Speaker 1: workers rounded up. And then at one point he sees
45:30
Speaker 1: Miller on TV talking about Venezuela and Trump talked to
45:33
Speaker 1: aides nearby and he said, why is he on TV?
45:35
Speaker 1: He doesn't do foreign policy. Why is he talking? He
45:37
Speaker 1: doesn't talk about foreign policy. So Trump's, there's a little,
45:40
Speaker 1: you know, maybe Stephen Miller's going too far, but like
45:43
Speaker 1: some of the stories about that guy and these are
45:46
Speaker 1: all from White House officials who were sourced in the story,
45:49
Speaker 1: that he basically decided to label Trump Rene Good, a
45:54
Speaker 1: domestic terrorist, and Alex Preddy, an assassin, without any approval
45:59
Speaker 1: or review from anyone else in the administration. After Alex
46:03
Speaker 1: Preddy was murdered, Stephen Miller was just texting directly with
46:07
Speaker 1: Border Patrol agents on the ground. And then it went
46:11
Speaker 1: from the text from the Border Patrol agents to Miller
46:14
Speaker 1: to Twitter calling him an assassin. That's it. That was
46:17
Speaker 1: the whole process.
46:19
Speaker 3: Not a good process, apparently, because.
46:22
Speaker 1: He was the one who suggested the Insurrection Act, apparently,
46:24
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis. He was the one. So apparently, after Rene
46:30
Speaker 1: Good was killed, there was this debate in the White House, like,
46:32
Speaker 1: should we just withdraw from Minnesota or at least draw
46:35
Speaker 1: down the agents there because things are getting out of control?
46:39
Speaker 1: And Miller was like, no, we got to send in more.
46:41
Speaker 1: We got to double down. He's the fucking cancer at
46:43
Speaker 1: the heart of the administration in the country. He really is.
46:45
Speaker 3: He's a deeply dangerous individual. who is obviously a huge
46:53
Speaker 3: narcissist but also a megalomaniac with very, very– I don't
46:59
Speaker 3: even know if disturbing is a strong enough word. He
47:01
Speaker 3: has a set of odious views about the world that
47:04
Speaker 3: are as white nationalist as it could possibly be. He
47:09
Speaker 3: has a very explicit project about making this country whiter.
47:14
Speaker 11: Yep.
47:15
Speaker 3: That is what he wants to do.
47:16
Speaker 1: And look, none of that is going to convince Donald
47:18
Speaker 1: Trump ever to get rid of him. But Republicans do
47:22
Speaker 1: poorly in the midterms. Stephen Miller's fault. Donald Trump can
47:28
Speaker 1: look around and realize that he lost Congress or lost
47:31
Speaker 1: one or both houses of Congress if that happens. It
47:34
Speaker 1: is Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller is probably more responsible for
47:37
Speaker 1: that than anyone else around him, I would say.
47:40
Speaker 3: And you know who will get fired? Kristi Noem.
47:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe, maybe.
47:47
Speaker 3: There is– I mean, this is like such nerdy old
47:50
Speaker 3: people political talk, but there is a lot of– like
47:53
Speaker 3: these are imperfect historical analogies. I don't want to stipulate that.
47:57
Speaker 3: But immigration is becoming to Trump in 2026. Immigration to
48:02
Speaker 3: ICE in particular is becoming to Trump in 2026 what
48:04
Speaker 3: Iraq was to George W. Bush in 2006. We don't
48:08
Speaker 3: have it at Don Rumsfeld. Exactly. Like that is exactly right,
48:11
Speaker 3: which is– They refuse to fire the people responsible or
48:15
Speaker 3: at least make a firing to acknowledge that even if
48:19
Speaker 3: it's just purely symbolic, that something is going to change
48:22
Speaker 3: and they don't do it until afterwards because they're so
48:25
Speaker 3: afraid of admitting failure or weakness that they make their
48:28
Speaker 3: political problems much worse.
48:29
Speaker 6: Yeah.
48:38
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Speaker 1: Make sure to use our URL so they know we
51:09
Speaker 1: sent you. One last thing on immigration here.
51:15
Speaker 6: J.D.
51:16
Speaker 1: Vance did an interview with the Daily Mail, not sure why,
51:20
Speaker 1: where he got this question.
51:22
Speaker 2: Have you apologized?
51:24
Speaker 8: Did you plan to apologize to the family of Alex Bredy?
51:27
Speaker 2: For what?
51:28
Speaker 8: For, you know, labeling him an assassin with ill intent.
51:31
Speaker 9: Well, again, I just described to you what I said
51:34
Speaker 9: about Alex Bredy, which is that he's a guy who
51:36
Speaker 9: showed up.
51:36
Speaker 12: With ill intent to an ICE protest.
51:37
Speaker 8: No, but if it is determined that his civil rights
51:40
Speaker 8: were violated by this FBI investigation, will you apologize?
51:44
Speaker 9: So if this hypothetical leads to that hypothetical leads to
51:47
Speaker 9: another hypothetical, will I do a thing?
51:50
Speaker 12: And again, like I said, we're going to let the
51:51
Speaker 12: investigation determine. We're going to let the actual law come
51:56
Speaker 12: to the surface and figure out what happened.
51:58
Speaker 2: For what?
52:00
Speaker 1: For what? What I said about Alex Prady is that
52:03
Speaker 1: he showed up with an intent. First of all, no,
52:06
Speaker 1: he didn't. Second of all, you can't know what his
52:08
Speaker 1: intent was. Third of all, you called him an assassin.
52:13
Speaker 1: Or Stephen Miller called him an assassin. You retweeted Stephen Miller.
52:18
Speaker 1: Still up on your Twitter feed.
52:19
Speaker 3: You called Rene Goode a domestic terrorist.
52:21
Speaker 1: You called Rene Goode a domestic terrorist.
52:22
Speaker 6: No.
52:23
Speaker 1: So maybe you apologize for that. I don't know. I
52:25
Speaker 1: thought you were a Catholic. No, no. Don't feel as
52:30
Speaker 1: a Christian that perhaps sometimes you make mistakes, that you're fallible.
52:36
Speaker 1: He's so fucking smug. I cannot. It's the smugness that
52:39
Speaker 1: just takes it to a whole new level for me
52:41
Speaker 1: with him.
52:42
Speaker 3: He is the most obnoxious high school debate nerd. you
52:48
Speaker 3: could ever possibly meet. Oh, so this hypothetical to that hypothetical?
52:52
Speaker 3: The way he just uses nonsense logic to run circles
52:57
Speaker 3: around these reporters, or at least get out of answering
53:00
Speaker 3: questions is incredibly frustrating. But he is missing something fundamentally human.
53:06
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is also missing it. But he just, he can't, like,
53:10
Speaker 3: there is no shame There is no guilt. Like you said,
53:12
Speaker 3: he's Catholic. He certainly didn't get the guilt part that
53:15
Speaker 3: comes with that. There's no inherent decency. I just can't
53:23
Speaker 3: imagine saying something like that about someone and feeling no
53:28
Speaker 3: obligation to the family, to yourself, to your family to
53:33
Speaker 3: correct that publicly. Instead, just to stand by it because
53:37
Speaker 3: you've been convinced that to admit failure or to admit
53:43
Speaker 3: being wrong is weakness and treason in Magerwald. And that
53:47
Speaker 3: is a really, that is stupid politically, but it's a
53:50
Speaker 3: really toxic way to go through life.
53:52
Speaker 5: Yeah.
53:52
Speaker 1: He really combines like the smugness of the most annoying
53:57
Speaker 1: coastal elite, you know, with the soul of Stephen Miller,
54:01
Speaker 1: with the charisma of a shoe. That is, that is J.D. Vance.
54:05
Speaker 1: Presidential candidate, president from 2028.
54:09
Speaker 3: A shoe has neutral charisma. It is something much worse
54:12
Speaker 3: than that.
54:14
Speaker 1: Everyone missed Trump in 16. Trump could never be president.
54:18
Speaker 1: But people thought Trump could never be president because they thought, oh,
54:20
Speaker 1: he was too offensive for America. It's not that J.D.
54:23
Speaker 1: Vance is too offensive or too extreme. It is that
54:26
Speaker 1: he is so fucking smug and just devoid of charisma.
54:31
Speaker 1: I don't know, man.
54:33
Speaker 2: Who knows?
54:33
Speaker 1: Who knows in this country? But he does not have
54:36
Speaker 1: what Trump had.
54:38
Speaker 3: No, of course not. Like, not even close.
54:40
Speaker 1: I don't even think he has... I think Ron DeSantis
54:42
Speaker 1: looks better than him.
54:45
Speaker 11: Maybe.
54:45
Speaker 1: Right?
54:46
Speaker 3: That's a lot.
54:47
Speaker 1: That's a tough one.
54:48
Speaker 3: I think he probably is a little more deaf than
54:50
Speaker 3: Ron DeSantis, but I think he's more odious.
54:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, more repulsive, for sure.
54:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, more repulsive.
54:58
Speaker 3: Look, I have a lot of thoughts about this. This
55:01
Speaker 3: is coming, maybe next week, depending on how my long
55:04
Speaker 3: flights go, but... that's coming in message box soon, is
55:08
Speaker 3: I have a lot of thoughts about J.D. Vance, what
55:11
Speaker 3: we should be doing right now to frame J.D. Vance,
55:15
Speaker 3: because we have this advantage as Democrats.
55:17
Speaker 1: I feel like we're trying every week here, Dan.
55:19
Speaker 3: We are.
55:19
Speaker 2: We are.
55:20
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm trying to take what we're doing here
55:21
Speaker 3: and move it out to the rest of the world
55:23
Speaker 3: and also maybe focus what we're doing. Maybe be motivated
55:26
Speaker 3: by strategy, not just pure, adulterated rage. But J.D. Vance
55:31
Speaker 3: is going to be the Republican nominee. There's almost no
55:34
Speaker 3: history of a sitting vice president not getting the nomination.
55:37
Speaker 3: Will he have to fight for it? Will he get
55:38
Speaker 3: a primary?
55:39
Speaker 2: Probably.
55:39
Speaker 3: But he's almost certainly going to be the nominee. So
55:41
Speaker 3: we have another three years to shape his public image.
55:45
Speaker 3: And Republicans did this very successfully with Al Gore from
55:48
Speaker 3: 1996 to 2000, by the point where everyone thought that
55:52
Speaker 3: Al Gore, this famous Boy Scout, was now this inveterate
55:54
Speaker 3: liar who made up things about inventing the internet and
55:57
Speaker 3: was corrupt in all these ways.
55:59
Speaker 1: J.D.
55:59
Speaker 3: Vance, we just have to let people see who he is.
56:01
Speaker 3: But- He does not have any of the charisma or
56:06
Speaker 3: cool factor. I know that's gross to say about Trump,
56:08
Speaker 3: but Trump has something that powered his rise that J.D.
56:12
Speaker 3: Vance does not have, and we can be weaponized against him.
56:16
Speaker 1: He's a smug weirdo who probably only appeals to incels.
56:19
Speaker 1: How's that? Test that one.
56:22
Speaker 3: No one better come down from the top of the mountain.
56:26
Speaker 3: That's a stage direction.
56:27
Speaker 2: I don't want to hear.
56:27
Speaker 1: Someone coming down from the top of the mountain with
56:29
Speaker 1: the tablet saying, the message says that J.D. Vance is
56:32
Speaker 1: in line with the oligarchs and he's going to hurt
56:35
Speaker 1: working people.
56:36
Speaker 3: I don't want to hear that shit. He's fucking smug
56:38
Speaker 3: and weird.
56:38
Speaker 1: He's an odious individual. That's the message. All the other
56:44
Speaker 1: stuff is right, but that is the message. He's out
56:47
Speaker 1: there doing a bunch of media. He also did a
56:49
Speaker 1: sit-down with Megyn Kelly. speaking of people we love, where
56:53
Speaker 1: he brought up Trump's attack on Caitlin Collins earlier in
56:57
Speaker 1: the week. We will play that for you first, in
57:00
Speaker 1: case you haven't seen the Trump attack on Caitlin Collins.
57:03
Speaker 1: Let's watch.
57:03
Speaker 10: You know, she's a young woman. I don't think I've
57:06
Speaker 10: ever seen you smile. I've known you for 10 years.
57:09
Speaker 10: I don't think I've ever seen a smile on your face.
57:11
Speaker 10: You know why you're not smiling? Because you know you're
57:14
Speaker 10: not telling the truth.
57:16
Speaker 1: No, she was trying to say she wasn't smiling because
57:18
Speaker 1: she was asking about survivors of jeffrey epstein's sexual abuse
57:24
Speaker 1: of underage girls that's that's what she was asking about
57:29
Speaker 1: a couple times when he did that uh but here's
57:31
Speaker 1: what the vice president had to say about it she's.
57:33
Speaker 12: Asking a question the president says why don't you ever
57:35
Speaker 12: smile yeah and it's actually like so perceptive even if
57:40
Speaker 12: you're asking a tough question even if you take your
57:42
Speaker 12: job very seriously Like, why does it always have to
57:44
Speaker 12: be so antagonistic?
57:46
Speaker 11: Well, I laugh because I saw online everybody was calling
57:47
Speaker 11: him sexist for saying that. And I literally said the
57:49
Speaker 11: same thing about Caitlin Collins a year ago on my show.
57:52
Speaker 11: She never smiles. Every once in a while, you have
57:55
Speaker 11: to smile. Roger Ailes used to tell us that. Every
57:57
Speaker 11: once in a while, you can remember to smile.
57:58
Speaker 1: I bet he did. I bet Roger Ailes did tell
58:01
Speaker 1: them to smile and a whole bunch of other things
58:03
Speaker 1: that they have alleged in court documents.
58:05
Speaker 3: I mean, this goes back to the earlier point, but
58:08
Speaker 3: to understand J.D. Vance's understanding of as someone who is
58:12
Speaker 3: an empty vessel for ambition. He just wants power, and
58:15
Speaker 3: he'll do anything. If he has to be against Trump,
58:16
Speaker 3: he'll be against Trump. If he has to be for Trump,
58:18
Speaker 3: he'll be for Trump. You and I have debated about
58:19
Speaker 3: how much he actually believes this stuff. I think he does,
58:22
Speaker 3: but it's not here nor there. But I think the
58:24
Speaker 3: lesson he's taken from Trump is that the path to
58:27
Speaker 3: political power in America is to be an unapologetic asshole.
58:30
Speaker 3: And maybe you can get away. Trump has gotten away
58:32
Speaker 3: with that, but Trump has a showman-like appeal that works
58:37
Speaker 3: for him. that J.D. Vance does not have. So he's
58:40
Speaker 3: just an asshole. He's not a funny asshole.
58:43
Speaker 1: But again, once again, right there, he added the smugness
58:47
Speaker 1: too of the most annoying pundit because he did punditry
58:50
Speaker 1: about Trump. It wasn't just like, I agree with what
58:53
Speaker 1: Trump said, right? Which would have been bad enough. It
58:55
Speaker 1: was like, and if you actually look, it's so perceptive.
58:58
Speaker 1: It was so perceptive to- just scream at a female
59:03
Speaker 1: reporter that she should smile more while she's asking about
59:06
Speaker 1: victims of sexual abuse. So perceptive.
59:13
Speaker 3: He sucks. He sucks.
59:15
Speaker 1: His approval rating's not great. They were asking young college
59:20
Speaker 1: Republicans who are as extreme as they get these days,
59:23
Speaker 1: college Republicans, and he's like 18 points underwater with college Republicans.
59:28
Speaker 1: He's supposed to be like, the young next generation leader
59:32
Speaker 1: of the party. Not doing so well.
59:34
Speaker 3: I saw that in Puck. He's not going to appeal
59:36
Speaker 3: to young Republicans. I mean, Sarah Longwell has put it
59:38
Speaker 3: out in multiple occasions just how poorly he does in
59:39
Speaker 3: focus groups with young Republicans. And also she said on
59:42
Speaker 3: Twitter recently that in focus groups of women, J.D. Vance
59:48
Speaker 3: consistently gives them the ick, Sarah's words. He has real.
59:52
Speaker 1: And then people like Clavicular think that Gavin Newsom mogs him.
59:57
Speaker 6: Yes.
59:58
Speaker 3: Yes. He's very moggable.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: Yes.
1:00:01
Speaker 2: That's his problem.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: Is that the way to use it?
1:00:03
Speaker 3: I have no idea. I honestly have no idea.
1:00:07
Speaker 1: Austin's shaking his head no. Anyway, while we're talking about
1:00:11
Speaker 1: the assault on the free press, we should mention what
1:00:13
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos, another person we love, did to the Washington
1:00:17
Speaker 1: Post this week. On Wednesday, the Post laid off about
1:00:19
Speaker 1: a third of its employees. The sports and book sections
1:00:24
Speaker 1: were eliminated. The metro section and international coverage were also
1:00:27
Speaker 1: hit hard. A lot of incredible journalists, including guests we've
1:00:30
Speaker 1: had across all of our crooked pods, lost their jobs.
1:00:34
Speaker 1: Adding insult to injury, neither Bezos or Will Lewis, the
1:00:37
Speaker 1: publisher Bezos appointed in 2023, had the balls to log
1:00:40
Speaker 1: on to the Zoom where the layoffs were announced. This
1:00:44
Speaker 1: is according to Ashley Parker, our pal Ashley, who's a
1:00:47
Speaker 1: former Post journalist now at The Atlantic. Meanwhile, this is
1:00:51
Speaker 1: what Jeff Bezos has been up to lately. On Monday,
1:00:53
Speaker 1: he welcomed Pete Hegseth at his Blue Origin rocket facility. Afterwards,
1:00:58
Speaker 1: writing to Hegseth on Twitter, huge honor to have you
1:01:01
Speaker 1: at Blue Origin today. Lovely. And of course, Amazon also
1:01:04
Speaker 1: sank around $ 75 million into the Melania doc. That's $ 40
1:01:10
Speaker 1: million for the licensing rights, $ 35 million for marketing, which,
1:01:14
Speaker 1: you know, they hit $ 8 million so far. So close
1:01:18
Speaker 1: to making that money back. I know you wrote about
1:01:21
Speaker 1: all this, what happened with the post this week in
1:01:24
Speaker 1: Thursday's message box. So the floor is yours, Dan.
1:01:30
Speaker 3: I'm going to rant for a minute, so I'm going
1:01:31
Speaker 3: to apologize to everyone in advance. But we talk all
1:01:34
Speaker 3: the time, I write all the time about the declining
1:01:38
Speaker 3: relevance of legacy media institutions and how the economics of
1:01:42
Speaker 3: big media have gotten so hard. And so things like
1:01:46
Speaker 3: this should not feel unexpected, but I think this is
1:01:50
Speaker 3: an absolute tragedy. It did not need to happen. On
1:01:54
Speaker 3: the day in which the Post announced these layoffs in
1:01:56
Speaker 3: the New York Times, announced that they had gained more
1:01:59
Speaker 3: than a million digital subscribers in 2025, and their revenue
1:02:02
Speaker 3: was up 10% year over year. The Wall Street Journal
1:02:06
Speaker 3: remains strong. They've been growing. They've been adding subscribers. The
1:02:09
Speaker 3: Post is our other national newspaper. They could have had
1:02:14
Speaker 3: a very similar path. Maybe they couldn't be the New
1:02:15
Speaker 3: York Times, the Wall Street Journal, who have very specific
1:02:17
Speaker 3: business models, but they absolutely could have succeeded. They didn't
1:02:21
Speaker 3: succeed for two reasons. The first is that Jeff Bezos
1:02:24
Speaker 3: hired Will Lewis, who is an absolute doofus. He came
1:02:28
Speaker 3: from the British tabloids. He immediately showed up. He was
1:02:30
Speaker 3: enmeshed in the phone hacking scandal in the UK, lied
1:02:36
Speaker 3: about it, lost the newsroom, never had a plan, didn't
1:02:39
Speaker 3: seem particularly interested in executing a plan, had no real
1:02:42
Speaker 3: attempt to actually save the paper, did not seem to
1:02:44
Speaker 3: care about the paper. But the biggest reason is Jeff Bezos,
1:02:48
Speaker 3: because when he bought it in 2013 for $ 250 million,
1:02:49
Speaker 3: which is fucking couch cushion money for him. He was
1:02:55
Speaker 3: heralded as like a savior of a great journalistic institution.
1:02:59
Speaker 3: He put money into it. He, you know, was sort
1:03:01
Speaker 3: of like, he was treated as a savior and someone who,
1:03:06
Speaker 3: like one of the old media barons, like who would,
1:03:08
Speaker 3: through their generosity was supporting this important institution in the
1:03:10
Speaker 3: fourth state and all of that. And then around 2024,
1:03:13
Speaker 3: he realized that the Washington, owning the Washington Post, the
1:03:17
Speaker 3: paper that Donald Trump hated was now going to be
1:03:18
Speaker 3: bad for business for him. It was going to make
1:03:20
Speaker 3: him less, filthy rich, slightly less filthy rich. It would
1:03:23
Speaker 3: make his companies, hugely successful companies, slightly less successful. And
1:03:27
Speaker 3: so he made a couple of decisions that basically torpedoed
1:03:30
Speaker 3: the paper. The first was he personally canceled the paper's
1:03:34
Speaker 3: planned endorsement of Kamala Harris in 2024. That caused thousands
1:03:38
Speaker 3: and thousands and tens of thousands of people to cancel
1:03:42
Speaker 3: their subscriptions. And then in 2025, he announced that the
1:03:47
Speaker 3: Washington Post editorial page was no longer going to change
1:03:50
Speaker 3: in a way to make it less likely to anger Trump,
1:03:53
Speaker 3: who's going to stop doing politics. The whole thing was
1:03:55
Speaker 3: just ridiculous. It was a naked ploy. And in doing
1:03:57
Speaker 3: those things, they lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers they
1:03:59
Speaker 3: could not afford to lose. And it completely lit on
1:04:02
Speaker 3: fire the trust the paper had built over many, many
1:04:06
Speaker 3: decades with their audience. And it is absolutely a tragedy.
1:04:11
Speaker 3: I care about this a lot because I went to
1:04:12
Speaker 3: college in DC. I've read the Post forever. It is
1:04:15
Speaker 3: not just a great political newspaper that covers Washington, although
1:04:18
Speaker 3: they do a great job of that. It had one
1:04:20
Speaker 3: of the all-time great sports sections in any paper ever, right?
1:04:24
Speaker 3: Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, Sally Jenkins wrote there. It covered everything.
1:04:29
Speaker 3: The metro section, people don't remember this, but Watergate started
1:04:33
Speaker 3: as a metro section story. The way that– because I
1:04:37
Speaker 3: lived in D.C. for a very long time. There is
1:04:40
Speaker 3: the town of D.C., head to Mark Leibovich, which is
1:04:42
Speaker 3: the political stuff, and there's the city, right? But everything
1:04:45
Speaker 3: else that's happening there, what's happening in the government, what's
1:04:46
Speaker 3: happening in the suburbs and the metro section– cover that.
1:04:49
Speaker 3: The style section was incredible. You remember the profiles done
1:04:53
Speaker 3: on politicians by our friend Mark Leibovich and Dana Milbank
1:04:57
Speaker 3: and others who wrote those. There were great columnists, the
1:05:01
Speaker 3: political reporters there like Dan Balls and David Broder and
1:05:04
Speaker 3: people like that. And that was all destroyed because a
1:05:10
Speaker 3: man worth a quarter trillion dollars couldn't be bothered to
1:05:14
Speaker 3: try to save the paper and thought it would be
1:05:15
Speaker 3: better for himself to let it die on a vine.
1:05:18
Speaker 3: And what's left, like maybe they can bring it back
1:05:20
Speaker 3: in some way, shape, or form. But right now what's
1:05:22
Speaker 3: left is the rotting husk of a great journalistic institution.
1:05:25
Speaker 3: And everyone in DC and in the country are poor
1:05:29
Speaker 3: because of it. Everyone except Jeff Bezos.
1:05:31
Speaker 1: And look, like some of it definitely is just, you know,
1:05:34
Speaker 1: I don't want to piss Trump off. And, you know,
1:05:37
Speaker 1: Amazon has contracts with the government. And if the government,
1:05:40
Speaker 1: you know, if Trump turns on Bezos, what's going to happen?
1:05:43
Speaker 1: All that bullshit. Some of it's also, I think, with
1:05:45
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos is like, He's just another fucking rich guy
1:05:48
Speaker 1: that thinks his niche political views and the views of
1:05:53
Speaker 1: the people he surrounds himself with are the views of
1:05:58
Speaker 1: most Americans. And so you get this sort of like center-right,
1:06:04
Speaker 1: Wall Street-y, Silicon Valley kind of sensibility that sort of
1:06:08
Speaker 1: took over the paper, at least in the editorial section.
1:06:13
Speaker 1: And it's just, you know, these fucking... billionaires they're just
1:06:17
Speaker 1: they just they think that they're told yes they're surrounded
1:06:19
Speaker 1: by people who share their views they all bitch about
1:06:23
Speaker 1: this and that and politics and and they just they
1:06:26
Speaker 1: they they are rich enough to buy these toys and
1:06:30
Speaker 1: then treat them like toys and break them and not
1:06:32
Speaker 1: really care and i saw some people say like well
1:06:34
Speaker 1: you know all these subscribers that quit uh after the
1:06:38
Speaker 1: canceled editorial uh endorsement of kamala harris like bear some
1:06:43
Speaker 1: responsibility as well like why do you Why do you
1:06:46
Speaker 1: stop your subscription when there's so much other great reporting?
1:06:49
Speaker 1: Who cares about the editorial board? And, like, I get that.
1:06:52
Speaker 1: But it's also, like, at the end of the day,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: you're selling a product to the customer. And if you
1:06:57
Speaker 1: piss the customer off and they don't buy the product anymore,
1:07:00
Speaker 1: that's your fault.
1:07:02
Speaker 3: Yes, 100%.
1:07:03
Speaker 1: Like, you can blame the customer for sure. But, like,
1:07:07
Speaker 1: you're the one who caused them to leave with your decisions.
1:07:12
Speaker 3: I think to the extent there is a larger lesson here,
1:07:14
Speaker 3: it is, you know, we have talked for a long
1:07:16
Speaker 3: time about the absolute essential need of building up a
1:07:19
Speaker 3: progressive pro-democracy media ecosystem. And over the many years, and
1:07:24
Speaker 3: I have been to one gazillion meetings, you know, fundraising meetings,
1:07:27
Speaker 3: pitches about this with everyone in the Democratic Party. And
1:07:31
Speaker 3: a lot of what you hear is, we need our
1:07:33
Speaker 3: billionaires to come in and support progressive media. And you
1:07:36
Speaker 3: do need that, like you need support to do it.
1:07:39
Speaker 3: But what a billionaire can give, they can also take away.
1:07:42
Speaker 3: And so what you need here is that we're not
1:07:45
Speaker 3: going to be able to build up a competing ecosystem
1:07:48
Speaker 3: to Fox News and Breitbart and Daily Wire and all
1:07:51
Speaker 3: the rest simply by a handful of democratic billionaires giving
1:07:55
Speaker 3: money to progressive content creators and media people. You have
1:07:58
Speaker 3: to build sustainable businesses. That's the only way that independent
1:08:02
Speaker 3: media will work. And like that is– and you know this.
1:08:06
Speaker 3: You are running a large media company in MessageBox. I'm
1:08:08
Speaker 3: running a much smaller little media company. But like that
1:08:11
Speaker 3: is it. Is it– If you are depending on what
1:08:16
Speaker 3: are equivalently charitable donations from foundations and individuals, that can
1:08:19
Speaker 3: last you for a while, but one day that's going
1:08:21
Speaker 3: to go away.
1:08:22
Speaker 4: Yep.
1:08:23
Speaker 3: Either because the billionaire changes their mind, the economy changes,
1:08:25
Speaker 3: or whatever it is. And so it has to be
1:08:27
Speaker 3: a sustainable business, which is why at the beginning of
1:08:29
Speaker 3: this podcast, you made the request that people subscribe to
1:08:33
Speaker 3: Friends of the Pod because that is one of the
1:08:35
Speaker 3: ways in which we make Crooked Media a sustainable business.
1:08:38
Speaker 3: It's one of the reasons why I'm constantly bothering people
1:08:40
Speaker 3: to subscribe to MessageBox because it's one of the ways
1:08:42
Speaker 3: in which I can continue to do it because I'm
1:08:43
Speaker 3: not depending on anything other. We're trying to build products
1:08:46
Speaker 3: that people want and will pay for so that we
1:08:48
Speaker 3: can make more of those products, which we believe is
1:08:50
Speaker 3: good for democracy and good for our messaging.
1:08:52
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. It's because it's not it's not just
1:08:55
Speaker 1: to sustain us now but it's to grow it's because
1:08:57
Speaker 1: we want to we want to make sure how many
1:08:59
Speaker 1: fucking journalists are out of a job right now right
1:09:01
Speaker 1: and like we desperately need more reporting and i'm not
1:09:04
Speaker 1: even like just it's not even about like opinion reporting
1:09:07
Speaker 1: at this point or opinion journalism or punditry or analysis
1:09:10
Speaker 1: like we just need people out there doing reporting um
1:09:14
Speaker 1: and some of the people that were laid off from
1:09:16
Speaker 1: the post they were in war zones in ukraine.
1:09:19
Speaker 3: They fired the post reporter while she was in a
1:09:22
Speaker 3: war zone.
1:09:24
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like we are heading into this.
1:09:27
Speaker 12: By email.
1:09:27
Speaker 3: They fired her by email, to be very clear.
1:09:29
Speaker 1: We've been dealing with misinformation and this difficulty in figuring
1:09:35
Speaker 1: out a shared reality. We are now, it's going to
1:09:38
Speaker 1: be supercharged by artificial intelligence. And it is not the
1:09:44
Speaker 1: time to have less reporting. Because pretty soon people aren't
1:09:48
Speaker 1: going to know what to believe at all. Um, and,
1:09:50
Speaker 1: and reporting helps us do that. So I, you know, I,
1:09:53
Speaker 1: I know that some people are like that you see some,
1:09:55
Speaker 1: a lot of right-wingers and MAGA people and just like
1:09:58
Speaker 1: annoying pundits are like, Oh, it's a business and a
1:10:01
Speaker 1: business failed. And you know, you don't need to cry
1:10:04
Speaker 1: over it and blah, blah, blah. It's like fine, whatever.
1:10:07
Speaker 1: But like you, you need journalism is valuable for democracy.
1:10:10
Speaker 1: Reporting is valuable for a democracy. If we want to
1:10:13
Speaker 1: live in a world where we have good information, we
1:10:16
Speaker 1: know what's going on, and we can make decisions based
1:10:18
Speaker 1: on good information about how we live together, you need
1:10:20
Speaker 1: journalism for that.
1:10:22
Speaker 3: It is true that some media businesses are doomed to
1:10:25
Speaker 3: fail because of changing economics, and we can talk for
1:10:27
Speaker 3: a long time about what has happened with social media
1:10:29
Speaker 3: platforms and advertising and now AI, but the Washington Post
1:10:32
Speaker 3: was not one of those. The Washington Post had a
1:10:34
Speaker 3: clear path to sustainability, and they did not go down
1:10:38
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Speaker 3: Joining us now is the governor of Maine and a
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Speaker 3: candidate for U.S. Senate, Janet Mills. Governor Mills, welcome to
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Speaker 3: the podcast.
1:13:17
Speaker 4: Thank you. Good to see you. Good to be here.
1:13:20
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:13:20
Speaker 3: So there has been in recent weeks so much attention,
1:13:23
Speaker 3: understandably so, on what's been happening with ICE in Minnesota.
1:13:26
Speaker 3: But at the same time, ICE has been in your state.
1:13:29
Speaker 3: And I've seen some of the videos and they seem
1:13:31
Speaker 3: quite terrifying to lots of your residents. Can you tell
1:13:34
Speaker 3: us what that experience was like with ICE in your
1:13:36
Speaker 3: state and what's happening with ICE right now in Maine?
1:13:38
Speaker 4: Sure. Thanks for the question. Listen, we heard three weeks
1:13:41
Speaker 4: ago that ICE was looking for a staging area. So
1:13:44
Speaker 4: we got word. They might be coming. The cavalry are coming.
1:13:47
Speaker 4: And we started preparing. And ICE said, I made a
1:13:49
Speaker 4: public announcement that, listen, if they're sending ICE agents with
1:13:53
Speaker 4: those provocative and violent behaviors that they showed us in
1:13:58
Speaker 4: Minneapolis and elsewhere, that they weren't welcome here. Well, they
1:14:02
Speaker 4: came and we kept an eye on things. We worked
1:14:05
Speaker 4: with local law enforcement and state law enforcement and with
1:14:07
Speaker 4: local organizations to keep track of what they were doing
1:14:10
Speaker 4: and where they were doing it. And so for about
1:14:13
Speaker 4: a full week, they began, well, first of all, they
1:14:16
Speaker 4: announced they were making this operation and calling it catch
1:14:19
Speaker 4: of the day, operating catch of the day, which is
1:14:22
Speaker 4: about as insulting as you get. I mean, it was
1:14:26
Speaker 4: not a fishing derby. It involved real human beings being
1:14:30
Speaker 4: taken violently from their cars, taken from workplaces and schools
1:14:34
Speaker 4: and from their families and homes, and taken God knows where,
1:14:39
Speaker 4: one state to another state to another state. And they
1:14:42
Speaker 4: said they had a target of 1400 people they wanted
1:14:45
Speaker 4: to take into custody. 1400 people Well, these aren't the
1:14:48
Speaker 4: worst of the worst, let me tell you right now.
1:14:51
Speaker 4: And what we saw happening on the streets of Portland
1:14:53
Speaker 4: and Lewiston and Bedford, Maine was not anything to do
1:14:56
Speaker 4: with the worst of the worst. We saw people with
1:14:59
Speaker 4: no criminal backgrounds, no criminal charges, being hauled from cars,
1:15:04
Speaker 4: being hauled from their homes and taken into custody and
1:15:07
Speaker 4: kind of disappearing. Disappearing, and that included a civil engineer
1:15:12
Speaker 4: who was here on a construction job. It included two
1:15:16
Speaker 4: law enforcement agents, two corrections officers in two different counties
1:15:20
Speaker 4: who were snatched from their cars and their cars left
1:15:22
Speaker 4: running in the streets. So the local sheriff said, this
1:15:27
Speaker 4: is a botched operation. This is Bush League policing, Bush
1:15:32
Speaker 4: League law enforcement. So that's what we saw. Has it subsided? Well,
1:15:36
Speaker 4: we've heard a couple more reports yesterday of people being
1:15:40
Speaker 4: taken by unidentified officers, unidentified people. That's disturbing. Susan Collins
1:15:48
Speaker 4: made an announcement that the enhanced ICE operation had ceased.
1:15:54
Speaker 4: We have yet to have confirmation of that. But the
1:15:58
Speaker 4: point is, why did it happen in the first place? Seriously,
1:16:02
Speaker 4: catch of the day? Why did she not know it
1:16:04
Speaker 4: was coming in the first place? Why didn't she stop
1:16:06
Speaker 4: it in the first place? Stop people with no criminal
1:16:10
Speaker 4: charges being taken from their families, snatched from the state
1:16:13
Speaker 4: of Maine. And so now I'm working with local authorities
1:16:16
Speaker 4: and organizations to identify exactly who has been disappeared. They
1:16:21
Speaker 4: claim they took 206 people. Who are they? Where are
1:16:25
Speaker 4: they now? Under what legal status are they now? What
1:16:29
Speaker 4: warrants were used? We haven't seen any yet. And identify
1:16:33
Speaker 4: how people can be reunited with their families and get
1:16:36
Speaker 4: back to work and contribute to their communities.
1:16:41
Speaker 3: As you point out, Susan Collins announced on Twitter, I think,
1:16:43
Speaker 3: that the operation was over and claimed credit for it.
1:16:47
Speaker 3: This is, I imagine, sort of how she's going to
1:16:49
Speaker 3: run for reelection in the state to try to show
1:16:51
Speaker 3: independence of some kind from Trump or show influence with Trump.
1:16:54
Speaker 3: But you say you have no evidence that the operation has,
1:16:58
Speaker 3: that these extra ice officers have left or anything like that.
1:17:01
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
1:17:02
Speaker 4: Yeah. Fewer reports of kidnappings and whatnot. Fewer reports of
1:17:06
Speaker 4: people disappearing from their cars and homes. That's true. But
1:17:12
Speaker 4: who knows? Would it restart tomorrow? They gave us very
1:17:16
Speaker 4: little warning that it was happening in the first place.
1:17:18
Speaker 4: And we demanded answers. The Attorney General and I wrote
1:17:21
Speaker 4: a letter last Friday to Christine Ohm and insisted on
1:17:24
Speaker 4: answers about who the people are, where they are, and
1:17:28
Speaker 4: their legal status and whatnot. So Susan Collins has the
1:17:32
Speaker 4: ability to control this behavior if she wanted to. She
1:17:35
Speaker 4: has that ability. But she's been playing these political games
1:17:39
Speaker 4: for a long time. And she has voted with Trump,
1:17:41
Speaker 4: as you know, like 94% of the time. 94%. She's
1:17:45
Speaker 4: not fooling anybody here by claiming a victory lap. It's like,
1:17:49
Speaker 4: they came in. Why did they come in in the
1:17:51
Speaker 4: first place? Why didn't you stop them if you had
1:17:53
Speaker 4: that power? And she's a person who, you know, supported,
1:17:58
Speaker 4: voted to confirm Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem, who has no
1:18:02
Speaker 4: law enforcement ability or experience whatsoever. who shouldn't be heading
1:18:06
Speaker 4: up this agency to begin with. And where did the
1:18:10
Speaker 4: orders come from? Where do they get these 1,400 targets?
1:18:14
Speaker 2: How?
1:18:15
Speaker 4: We need answers.
1:18:17
Speaker 3: So there's a larger conversation about what's going to happen
1:18:19
Speaker 3: with ICE. And I think there's two parts of that conversation.
1:18:21
Speaker 3: There is what can be done right now, short term,
1:18:23
Speaker 3: while Trump is president. And then there's the question of
1:18:26
Speaker 3: what happens when a Democrat is president and hopefully has
1:18:28
Speaker 3: a Senate congressional majority. Let's start with the first part here.
1:18:31
Speaker 3: So over the next week or so, Congress is negotiating.
1:18:35
Speaker 3: over the funding for the Department of Homeland Security bill.
1:18:38
Speaker 3: Democrats want some set of guardrails in exchange for their
1:18:41
Speaker 3: votes to fund the department. You're running for Senate. Seems
1:18:44
Speaker 3: like a fair question to ask. What would it take
1:18:48
Speaker 3: if you were in the Senate right now? What sort
1:18:49
Speaker 3: of guardrail would you need for your vote to keep
1:18:52
Speaker 3: the department funded?
1:18:54
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, there shouldn't be $ 1 more additional
1:18:56
Speaker 4: funding for ICE and for DHS without concrete controls, substantive
1:19:01
Speaker 4: controls and reforms to account for the behavior they've already conducted,
1:19:06
Speaker 4: already engaged in, and to prevent such behavior in the future.
1:19:10
Speaker 4: Basic training would be a good thing. Sure, body cams,
1:19:15
Speaker 4: they've been talking about body cams, but you've got to
1:19:17
Speaker 4: tell them to turn them on and save the tapes,
1:19:19
Speaker 4: for instance. You know, our police officers in Maine, they
1:19:22
Speaker 4: know how to do that. They've been trained. It's sort
1:19:25
Speaker 4: of simple, stupid. De-escalation techniques, of course. It sounds like
1:19:29
Speaker 4: this group has been trained to escalate, not to de-escalate. And,
1:19:33
Speaker 4: of course, there's no need to be anonymous and unidentified.
1:19:37
Speaker 4: If you're a trained police officer under basic standards, You
1:19:40
Speaker 4: shouldn't have any problem identifying yourself before you make an arrest,
1:19:43
Speaker 4: stop somebody on the street, or tear into somebody's home
1:19:47
Speaker 4: or car. It's basic police procedure. Identify yourself. And so
1:19:53
Speaker 4: there are a lot of other concrete things you could do,
1:19:55
Speaker 4: but not a dollar more in funding until you account
1:19:59
Speaker 4: for what's happening. Have independent investigations into what's already happened.
1:20:06
Speaker 4: The people have no confidence anymore in the suggestion that
1:20:09
Speaker 4: there might be an investigation into the killing of Alex
1:20:13
Speaker 4: Preddy or Rene Good. This is not happening. There should
1:20:18
Speaker 4: be a transparent and independent investigation. We know how to
1:20:21
Speaker 4: do that. I was Attorney General for eight years in Maine.
1:20:24
Speaker 4: We did independent investigations into the police use of deadly force.
1:20:28
Speaker 4: It's by law and by good public policy in our
1:20:32
Speaker 4: state and most every state. We know good law enforcement
1:20:35
Speaker 4: in this state. We train them up for 18 weeks
1:20:38
Speaker 4: minimum in Maine. And I help teach the courses on
1:20:42
Speaker 4: constitutional law, Fourth Amendment and such. They know better than
1:20:45
Speaker 4: to do what the ICE agents have been doing in
1:20:47
Speaker 4: Maine and other states in recent months. And our law
1:20:51
Speaker 4: enforcement agents, they don't have to wear masks. They know better.
1:20:55
Speaker 4: And they don't go out and do a sweep of
1:20:57
Speaker 4: whole communities based on some artificial quota set by some
1:21:02
Speaker 4: political figurehead for no good reason.
1:21:06
Speaker 3: Would you require a ban on masks in exchange for
1:21:08
Speaker 3: your vote?
1:21:09
Speaker 4: Sure.
1:21:09
Speaker 3: I mean, it's sort of.
1:21:10
Speaker 4: Simple, fundamental. Why would any law enforcement agency need to
1:21:15
Speaker 4: wear masks for fear of retaliation? Well, what would there
1:21:18
Speaker 4: be retaliation about if you weren't doing some bad stuff, right?
1:21:23
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:21:23
Speaker 1: I mean.
1:21:24
Speaker 3: That's sort of the point, right? That's the point of
1:21:26
Speaker 3: the accountability.
1:21:26
Speaker 4: Don't do it in the first place. You won't worry
1:21:28
Speaker 4: about retaliation. All right.
1:21:30
Speaker 3: Let's talk long-term or medium-term, I guess. Your primary opponent,
1:21:34
Speaker 3: Graham Plattner, has called for abolishing ICE. In a CNN interview,
1:21:39
Speaker 3: you didn't go that far. Can you tell me what
1:21:42
Speaker 3: would you want to see if you were in the Senate,
1:21:44
Speaker 3: how to change ICE, if I'm correct in that you're
1:21:47
Speaker 3: not for abolishing it? What does a new reform of
1:21:49
Speaker 3: ICE look like?
1:21:50
Speaker 4: It could end up being abolished. But first of all,
1:21:53
Speaker 4: you've got to have accountability, as I mentioned, investigations into
1:21:57
Speaker 4: what's going on so far. And how do you prevent
1:22:00
Speaker 4: that from happening again And for goodness sakes, when bad
1:22:03
Speaker 4: things do happen, you have to coordinate with local and
1:22:07
Speaker 4: state officials to investigate bad stuff like the killings of
1:22:11
Speaker 4: two people in Minneapolis. We investigate killings here in Maine.
1:22:17
Speaker 4: We know how to do that. And you don't just
1:22:20
Speaker 4: abscond with the car, the body, the evidence, and not
1:22:24
Speaker 4: let local enforcement who know what they're doing investigate bad
1:22:29
Speaker 4: behavior like that and and violent acts by ICE. So
1:22:34
Speaker 4: require independent investigations into these actions and prepare for investigations
1:22:40
Speaker 4: coordinated with state and local officials if things continue to
1:22:44
Speaker 4: happen like that. That's sort of basic. Retraining the people
1:22:49
Speaker 4: who've been hired with these amazing recruitment bonuses from the
1:22:53
Speaker 4: big bad bill of last summer. Retrain them if they've
1:22:56
Speaker 4: been trained in the first place. Teach them de-escalation. It
1:23:01
Speaker 4: seems like these people have been trained in escalation, not de-escalation.
1:23:05
Speaker 4: Make sure they're accountable and obviously identifying themselves. A lot
1:23:12
Speaker 4: of nitty-gritty things that would have to be reworked to
1:23:16
Speaker 4: hold ICE accountable for what they've done and let them
1:23:20
Speaker 4: continue operating in any sense of the word, but not
1:23:22
Speaker 4: one dollar more in funding. And look, then there's the
1:23:24
Speaker 4: money they've gotten from last summer to build these detention
1:23:28
Speaker 4: centers in states across the country. That's pretty scary, too,
1:23:31
Speaker 4: and that ought to stop.
1:23:34
Speaker 3: At the beginning of your answer, you said it could
1:23:36
Speaker 3: be abolished. What do you mean by that?
1:23:38
Speaker 4: Well, if they can't make these basic concrete reforms, these changes,
1:23:43
Speaker 4: they can't let them go on doing what they're doing,
1:23:47
Speaker 4: terrorizing neighborhoods and communities and whole cities, terrorizing the public
1:23:52
Speaker 4: safety and people's fundamental constitutional rights, civil rights.
1:23:57
Speaker 3: So abolishing ICE is on the table or moving or.
1:24:00
Speaker 3: Sometimes I hesitate to just use the slogan, but moving
1:24:04
Speaker 3: enforcement to a different part of the government.
1:24:08
Speaker 4: But the problem is, the problem is if you change
1:24:11
Speaker 4: the name, this administration will just create another agency with
1:24:15
Speaker 4: a different name, with the same mission, a very dangerous,
1:24:18
Speaker 4: violent mission. You have to stop the violence in whoever's
1:24:23
Speaker 4: name it's done. And it's the people giving the orders
1:24:26
Speaker 4: from above. that are the threat to our country.
1:24:29
Speaker 1: Right.
1:24:29
Speaker 3: And theoretically under this scenario, it's a democratic president doing this, right?
1:24:33
Speaker 3: Like I've like, I don't have any, any, any hope
1:24:37
Speaker 3: or that, or idea that this would happen under Trump.
1:24:39
Speaker 3: And I'm sort of thinking of 2029, you're in the
1:24:43
Speaker 3: Senate and the Senate majority, potentially we have a democratic house.
1:24:46
Speaker 3: We have president pick your, your candidate of choice. And
1:24:50
Speaker 3: so it's like, what can Democrats do there where it's
1:24:53
Speaker 3: not just Trump, just not renaming it. It's, a democratic
1:24:56
Speaker 3: decision about how to enforce immigration law and whether ICE
1:24:59
Speaker 3: as currently constituted would be part of that?
1:25:02
Speaker 4: That's the question?
1:25:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:25:05
Speaker 4: Or suggestion?
1:25:06
Speaker 3: Well, I guess that's my, I guess I was just
1:25:10
Speaker 3: surprised to hear you say abolishing ICE was on the table.
1:25:12
Speaker 3: So I just wanted to get to some clarity on that.
1:25:15
Speaker 4: If there's no other way to change what's going on
1:25:17
Speaker 4: right now, but first and foremost, the Congress right this
1:25:21
Speaker 4: minute has the power to withhold further funding from And
1:25:24
Speaker 4: the Senate has the power to stand up with this
1:25:27
Speaker 4: administration and demand concrete answers, concrete reforms, changes, and accountability.
1:25:33
Speaker 4: And that's what must happen. I think the American people
1:25:37
Speaker 4: are insisting on that. Even the Republicans are hearing that
1:25:39
Speaker 4: voice back home that things have got to change. Things
1:25:43
Speaker 4: have got to change. And you know what? It can't
1:25:46
Speaker 4: just be, oh, let's wait 10 days, another two weeks,
1:25:48
Speaker 4: kick the can down the road like Washington tends to
1:25:51
Speaker 4: do anyway. Look at the ACA. And let's say, oh,
1:25:54
Speaker 4: let's start a task force and look at this, a commission,
1:25:57
Speaker 4: a blue ribbon, pink ribbon, green ribbon commission. No way, okay?
1:26:03
Speaker 4: People know what's happened. We don't need to re-examine things,
1:26:08
Speaker 4: but let's get answers to the questions that were raised
1:26:11
Speaker 4: just the other day in those hearings from the brothers
1:26:15
Speaker 4: of Rene Good, from other victims of the Minneapolis rampage,
1:26:21
Speaker 4: Get answers for what happened then and how we can
1:26:24
Speaker 4: stop it from continuing, first and foremost. And until that happens,
1:26:29
Speaker 4: not one dollar more.
1:26:31
Speaker 3: In the last couple of days, Trump has said that
1:26:33
Speaker 3: he wants to federalize elections that the federal government take over.
1:26:36
Speaker 3: He has doubled and tripled and now quadrupled down on
1:26:39
Speaker 3: that in recent days. Steve Bannon said that he declared
1:26:44
Speaker 3: that ICE would be showing up at polling places on
1:26:47
Speaker 3: Election Day. We have the Director of National Intelligence seizing
1:26:50
Speaker 3: ballots in Fulton County. Have you begun thinking about how
1:26:54
Speaker 3: to secure elections in Maine from federal interference this November?
1:27:00
Speaker 4: Sure. I mean, these are dangerous, dangerous words, dangerous talk,
1:27:04
Speaker 4: dangerous thoughts, dangerous threats to our democracy. And as governor
1:27:11
Speaker 4: of this state, I will stand firm. And as a
1:27:14
Speaker 4: state that has repeatedly challenged large turnout, a large turnout
1:27:19
Speaker 4: of voters every election year, one of the highest turnouts
1:27:24
Speaker 4: in the country. We will protect every individual's right to
1:27:28
Speaker 4: vote this November and take every action necessary to secure
1:27:34
Speaker 4: the polls and secure absentee ballots. We just fought a
1:27:37
Speaker 4: battle with Republicans this past November where they tried to
1:27:41
Speaker 4: take away absentee ballots, put a measure on the ballot
1:27:44
Speaker 4: to take away balloting. And we defeated it by a
1:27:47
Speaker 4: huge margin because people don't want to do that. They
1:27:52
Speaker 4: hold dear their right to vote. It is sacrosanct, not
1:27:57
Speaker 4: just in this state, but every state. And we will
1:28:00
Speaker 4: make every effort to make sure that the polls are
1:28:04
Speaker 4: not violated by some agency like ICE. The Constitution says
1:28:09
Speaker 4: the states have authority over elections, and we will assert
1:28:13
Speaker 4: that authority under my governorship and in this state, make
1:28:18
Speaker 4: sure that people are able to vote safely without intimidation,
1:28:23
Speaker 4: without deprivation of rights.
1:28:29
Speaker 3: When you announced that you were running for Senate, it
1:28:31
Speaker 3: appeared they came after significantly long deliberation. You thought long
1:28:35
Speaker 3: and hard about it, and you decided that you were
1:28:38
Speaker 3: the best person to do it. This was the time
1:28:40
Speaker 3: to go you know my sort of I am I
1:28:43
Speaker 3: intuited from that that you believe that you're the best
1:28:45
Speaker 3: person to beat uh Susan Collins uh do you think
1:28:50
Speaker 3: you're the only person to beat Susan Collins look.
1:28:54
Speaker 4: Right now I am the issue is electability right now
1:29:01
Speaker 4: And we have run people against Susan Collins before, wonderful people,
1:29:06
Speaker 4: but we've run people who are not tested. I have
1:29:10
Speaker 4: run and won two statewide elections. I had a seven-way
1:29:15
Speaker 4: primary the first time and I won. I had a
1:29:17
Speaker 4: four-way general election and I won. I have been up
1:29:21
Speaker 4: and down this state. People know me, whether they agree
1:29:24
Speaker 4: with everything I say or not, they know me. And
1:29:28
Speaker 4: they know that what you see is what you get.
1:29:30
Speaker 4: I'm a person in this primary who has done that,
1:29:33
Speaker 4: who's won two statewide elections by 13 points last time,
1:29:37
Speaker 4: increasing margins. I'm the only person in this primary who's
1:29:40
Speaker 4: delivered progress for Maine people when it comes to healthcare,
1:29:44
Speaker 4: reproductive rights, education, climate action, all those things. And I'm
1:29:48
Speaker 4: the only person in this primary who's actually stood up
1:29:51
Speaker 4: to Donald Trump. And I'll do it again as a
1:29:55
Speaker 4: US Senator. So I put my record up of electability.
1:30:01
Speaker 4: This is a crucial state, as you well know. Control
1:30:05
Speaker 4: of the U.S. Senate, I believe, goes through Maine.
1:30:08
Speaker 3: It has to.
1:30:10
Speaker 4: The Republican machinery has already promised. They've already committed $ 42
1:30:14
Speaker 4: million to an advertising campaign this coming fall. They've already
1:30:18
Speaker 4: had Susan Collins up on TV saturating the airwaves since
1:30:23
Speaker 4: last fall, saying all these good things about her and
1:30:25
Speaker 4: trying to build up her image and trying to get
1:30:27
Speaker 4: behind the fact that she voted. She gave the critical vote.
1:30:32
Speaker 4: She cast the critical vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. She
1:30:36
Speaker 4: cast votes for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. She cast the
1:30:40
Speaker 4: vote for Kristi Noem. She cast the votes for Linda McMahon.
1:30:44
Speaker 4: All these decisions and her 94% voting rate with Donald Trump.
1:30:52
Speaker 4: And this is the woman who said just a couple
1:30:54
Speaker 4: years ago, Donald Trump, I think he's learned his lesson,
1:31:00
Speaker 4: quote unquote. You know, I'll take her on. I'll take
1:31:05
Speaker 4: her on because it'll be a hyper-local campaign. What have
1:31:09
Speaker 4: you done for Maine? What have you done for Maine?
1:31:12
Speaker 4: And I can go toe-to-toe with Susan Collins on that basis,
1:31:16
Speaker 4: and I can win.
1:31:19
Speaker 3: One of the concerns, as you know, and has been
1:31:21
Speaker 3: brought up in every interview that you've done, has been
1:31:24
Speaker 3: about about your age. And so you have, you know,
1:31:30
Speaker 3: I've appreciated that you've taken that on directly in a
1:31:32
Speaker 3: lot of ways, but one way in which you took
1:31:33
Speaker 3: it on is that you have made a pledge to
1:31:35
Speaker 3: serve one term. Can you talk to me about why
1:31:37
Speaker 3: you made that pledge and whether some people's fears that
1:31:40
Speaker 3: this just means we're going to have another open seat
1:31:42
Speaker 3: race in Maine in six years is a concern.
1:31:47
Speaker 4: What's really critical to me is the next couple of years.
1:31:51
Speaker 4: the more I see what's happening in Washington. You brought
1:31:54
Speaker 4: up just a few minutes ago the threat to our
1:31:56
Speaker 4: elections this year. That's not going to stop. And if
1:32:01
Speaker 4: we don't take control of our country in the next
1:32:04
Speaker 4: couple of years, I worry we may not have a country.
1:32:09
Speaker 4: And that is why I'm running, because we need to
1:32:12
Speaker 4: take back control of the U.S. Senate. We need to
1:32:15
Speaker 4: stand up to Donald Trump. We need to push forward
1:32:19
Speaker 4: on things like universal health care And I have the
1:32:22
Speaker 4: ability and the experience to start on day one, getting
1:32:27
Speaker 4: stuff done, making these changes, standing up for the rights
1:32:31
Speaker 4: of people, standing up for a better economy, affordability, and
1:32:38
Speaker 4: progress for people and healthcare and education and otherwise. I
1:32:42
Speaker 4: have the ability to do that on day one. And
1:32:45
Speaker 4: I'm not going to start on day two, dialing for
1:32:47
Speaker 4: dollars and running for reelection. I want my whole focus,
1:32:51
Speaker 4: and my whole focus will be on getting the job
1:32:54
Speaker 4: done as soon as I get there. We have a
1:32:59
Speaker 4: young bench behind me, and the office would be open
1:33:03
Speaker 4: another six years. God forbid we still have a country
1:33:06
Speaker 4: and we still have elections. There will be other people
1:33:09
Speaker 4: behind me, and I've always been pleased to mentor young
1:33:13
Speaker 4: people and younger Democratic Party candidates. And I'll continue to
1:33:18
Speaker 4: do that as well. But I'm giving it my all.
1:33:21
Speaker 4: I'm not running because I need a position or a
1:33:23
Speaker 4: platform or a resume builder. I don't need that. I
1:33:28
Speaker 4: need to be down there. And I think people say, well,
1:33:30
Speaker 4: we won't have seniority. Really? If I'm proud of taking
1:33:34
Speaker 4: back the US Senate, my voice will be heard. And
1:33:38
Speaker 4: it will be heard loudly.
1:33:42
Speaker 3: Last question for you. you have said that you are
1:33:45
Speaker 3: undecided on how you would vote for Senator Schumer as leader.
1:33:49
Speaker 3: My understanding, at least, is that Senator Schumer spent a
1:33:51
Speaker 3: lot of time and energy recruiting you to run for Senate.
1:33:55
Speaker 3: I've been on the other end of some of Senator
1:33:56
Speaker 3: Schumer's phone calls over the years, so I can imagine
1:33:58
Speaker 3: what that was like. The DSCC is supporting you. Is
1:34:01
Speaker 3: that an awkward position to be in? How would you
1:34:06
Speaker 3: decide whether to support Senator Schumer or not? What is
1:34:09
Speaker 3: making you undecided on that point?
1:34:10
Speaker 4: Let me back up a second. Before I decided to
1:34:13
Speaker 4: run in mid-October, I had had exactly one conversation with
1:34:17
Speaker 4: Chuck Schumer. Oh, interesting.
1:34:19
Speaker 3: Okay, that's good to know.
1:34:20
Speaker 4: In January or February of last year, he was not pushy.
1:34:24
Speaker 4: He simply said, we think you're the candidate who can win,
1:34:27
Speaker 4: who can beat Susan Collins. And I gave it a
1:34:29
Speaker 4: lot of thought in the meantime. It was I who
1:34:32
Speaker 4: decided to run, nobody else. Anybody who knows me knows
1:34:36
Speaker 4: that I'm not beholden to anybody. I have made no
1:34:39
Speaker 4: commitment to Chuck Schumer. Nobody in Washington pulls my chain,
1:34:43
Speaker 4: yanks my chain. Whether it's Chuck Schumer or Bernie Sanders
1:34:47
Speaker 4: or Donald Trump, people know that I stand up and
1:34:50
Speaker 4: speak my mind. And the question I will ask anybody
1:34:54
Speaker 4: running for majority leader next year, year from now, would be,
1:34:59
Speaker 4: what can you do to help me do the best
1:35:02
Speaker 4: job I can for Maine people? How can you help
1:35:06
Speaker 4: me help Maine people? And I've had conversations with other
1:35:09
Speaker 4: senators who well may be in the running for a
1:35:12
Speaker 4: majority lead. I don't know. But I've held an open
1:35:15
Speaker 4: door to them as well and happy to hear from
1:35:17
Speaker 4: them on all accounts. So, you know, I have no commitment.
1:35:22
Speaker 4: I appreciate that the DSC thinks I'm the best candidate.
1:35:27
Speaker 4: I think I'm the best candidate also. I happen to
1:35:29
Speaker 4: agree with that. And that's why I'm running. And let
1:35:32
Speaker 4: me be clear. I would be running for this seat
1:35:35
Speaker 4: because I feel so strongly that we have got to
1:35:39
Speaker 4: stand up for our country, especially in the next few
1:35:42
Speaker 4: months and the next few years. I would be running
1:35:45
Speaker 4: for this whether Chuck Schumer were in office or anybody
1:35:48
Speaker 4: else in that office. I chose to run, and I
1:35:53
Speaker 4: am running with a commitment and a passion to help
1:35:58
Speaker 4: turn things around in a broken Washington, D.C., in a
1:36:03
Speaker 4: government that is not simply not doing the right things,
1:36:08
Speaker 4: but is doing all the wrong things. A government that
1:36:11
Speaker 4: is taking a wrecking ball, not just to the White House,
1:36:16
Speaker 4: but to the Constitution, to our economy, to the rights
1:36:20
Speaker 4: of American people. I can't stand for that anymore. My
1:36:24
Speaker 4: work isn't finished here. With everything I've done at the
1:36:27
Speaker 4: state level, I'm very anxious to go on to the
1:36:30
Speaker 4: federal level and continue the work I've done at the
1:36:33
Speaker 4: state level, but also stand up to an abuse of power,
1:36:37
Speaker 4: the likes of which we have never seen before. Because
1:36:40
Speaker 4: I think these times are most urgent, most urgent, dangerous
1:36:46
Speaker 4: times that we've seen since the Civil War. That's what
1:36:50
Speaker 4: I feel. And that's why I'm running.
1:36:53
Speaker 3: Governor Mills, thank you so much for joining us. Good
1:36:54
Speaker 3: luck on the campaign trail. And we will talk to
1:36:57
Speaker 3: you again before your primary, I hope.
1:36:59
Speaker 4: Hope so. Thank you very much.
1:37:05
Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Janet Mills for
1:37:07
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1:37:09
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1:37:11
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Speaker 4: Thank you.