Latest / Pod Save America / PSA Presents: The Pundies.

Transcript

PSA Presents: The Pundies. · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We only have 100 days left until the 2022 midterms,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and we need to make every one count. We know
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: how high the stakes are in these midterms. Abortion is
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: on the ballot. Climate is on the ballot. Our basic
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: freedoms and ability to make our voices heard to protect
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: them are on the ballot. Head to votesaveamerica.com slash midterms
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to take our Count Me In pledge to volunteer the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: weekend of July 31st and become part of our Midterm
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Madness program to get involved in the most important elections
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: in 2022 from the Senate, to your local school board.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. And welcome to the pod. We
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: got all four of us here. On today's show, we're
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: going to answer 2021's last round of mailbag questions, revisit
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: 2020's New Year resolutions, and set some new ones for 2022,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and present the second annual Pundi Awards for the absolute
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: worst takes of 2021. Busy show, lots to do.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: A lot going on here.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Very exciting.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: We'll get to it. When does this come out?
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: December. A couple days before New Year's. A couple days
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: before New Year's. Andy's nodding.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Leave it all in.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Andy, for being helpful.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's start with some of your questions. We
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: want to do mostly fun questions, but because so many
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of you have asked about student loans and student debt,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: we will start there.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Background.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: In March of 2020, the CARES Act paused all student
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: loan repayments because of the pandemic. Payments were supposed to
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: start again on September 30th, 2021, but Joe Biden extended
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the pause until January 31st, 2022. But last week, the
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: White House said he's not extending it again, which means
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: people will have to start repaying their loans in February. Separately,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Biden still hasn't kept his campaign promise to cancel up
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: to $ 10, 000 in student debt for every borrower. Guys, what gives?
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: What's going on?
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I have a theory.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: You have a theory. Tommy has a theory.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think judging by Joe Biden's public statements,
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: he thinks he's not a big fan of this proposal,
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: even though he made it. I think he thinks it's
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: overly weighted towards wealthier people who paid for college. I'm
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: not saying that's accurate or the right way to look
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: at it, but I think that's what he thinks. I've
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: also just assumed that he wanted to get Build Back
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: Better done first so that Joe Manchin wouldn't see the
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: price tag on student loan debt relief and start crying
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: about it and throw a tantrum and bang his rattle
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: on the ground in the Senate and then refuse to
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: pass the bill.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: That's what I got.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I think that I think that's all right on the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: canceling debt. I want to separate the two. I want
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to start with the pause on the payments, because you
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: could imagine the White House saying, you know what, the
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: whole idea of pausing the repayments on the debt was
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: about getting people through the pandemic. The pandemic is very
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: much still with us. So instead of ending it at
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the end of January, we will continue to another three
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: or four or five months. What do you think, Dan?
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: I think they're I am very confused by the politics
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: of this, but there is this tension in their messaging,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: which is the economy, despite the short-term challenges of inflation,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: is doing great. Historic job creation, we save the economy. Also,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: we need these emergency measures at the same time. And
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: I think that that is a place that they have found,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: I think, is a navigable piece of tension, but it
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: is tension within their message.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I think that there's an obvious compromise, which is you
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: continue to suspend payments for everyone except for people who
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: have debt from an MBA because I don't care about them.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: That's a great proposal, honestly.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: What should happen? I think that they should obviously extend
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the pause for another couple months. It's a no-brainer. If
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: someone has a good reason.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Is there a court ruling that may be made that hard?
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: That you think of the homeowners. Ah, fuck. Yeah, so
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: this is what I'd love to know. smart people out there,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: because I've tried to look, look this up before the episode.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: If there is a, if there is a legal reason
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: for not being able to extend or the Biden administration
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: or why the Biden administration thinks they shouldn't extend the pause,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: then let me know. But if there's no legal reason
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that I don't think there is a good substantive reason
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: or political reason, certainly for not extending it. And then
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: when you get to the canceling up to $ 10, 000 in
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: student debt for every borrower, I do think Tommy, that's
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: probably like, You know, let's give them until the the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: build back better passes on that one. And then once
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: that passes, we don't know what the education department actually
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: it's supposed to be under review with the education department,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: whether Biden has the authority. Of course, we don't want
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: them to get into the situation. They got in with
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the the housing extension, the eviction moratorium where Biden administration
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: extended the eviction moratorium. Everyone celebrated in the courts were like,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: absolutely not. Fuck you. And so it did help some
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: people for a month or so, but didn't give a
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: lot of relief.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: I see there's a double whammy here because there are
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: people who both are depending on the continued pause in
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: student loan payments and depend on the expanded child tax credit.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Both those things are going away this month. So there's
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: going to be a section of the population who's going
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: to get hit with a huge bill in January absent action.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: And my fear about waiting for BBB to pass is
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: my dad used to have this New Yorker cartoon on
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: his fridge where a guy was making plans and he said,
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: How about never?
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Is never good for you? And I worry about that
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: dynamic here. Classic cartoon. It's a classic.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: It's a real. I do, too. And look, a lot
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: of people are angry about this. And I totally understand that.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: And people should keep pushing the Biden administration very hard
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: on this. People should keep making noise about it. Like,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I think it's a totally fair criticism and they have
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: not talked a lot about it. And they should give
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: people some answers as to why they can't do it
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: or else they should do it.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think here's the other thing. I think
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: extending the pause won't make him less popular.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Right. There's there is that as well. All right.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: We will elegantly segue into the fun questions with this
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: transition one. Joshua asks, would you rather go up against
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: one large Kirsten cinema or a hundred tiny Joe mansions?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: This is so easy.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, What time? Okay.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: A hundred tiny Joe Mansions, because if there's like a
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: tiny thing coming at you, you get to just drop,
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: kick them into oblivion.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: So many, so many. I think people sometimes underestimate just
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: how tiring it would be to take on a hundred
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: small enemies. So like practice, join a club soccer team
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: for a month or something. I also just think having
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: a conversation with one Joe Mansion clearly has exhausted- dozens
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: of democratic senators. They've literally, they literally seem completely out of,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: out of juice. And I don't care how small your
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin is. The arguments are not going to get worse.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? They're not going to get better.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: They're not going to get worse. It just may be
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: a slightly higher pitch. You had a pitch for cinema, Dan?
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Well, she has, I would say a couple of things. One,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Joe Manchin's, whether large or small, are easily distracted. Right.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: Sue is just like, yell, no labels conference over there.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: They would all just leave you alone.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Sprinkle some coal. That's right. All right.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: And Kirsten Sinema has shown such a commitment to her
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: physical fitness that she is willing to miss key Senate
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: votes for it. So that would cause me some concern.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you get caught with a thumbs down.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: You're done. Also, if it's 100 Joe Manchin's, does that
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: mean he has all those votes? Then we'd be in
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: real trouble.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Just making one of Kirsten Sinema's outfits would mean there
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be enough fabric for all the Chico's in the world.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I don't. I think we have now officially exhausted the
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: answer to this fun question.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: That was for Andy.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Jay Friesen asks, as a Starbucks barista, I'm curious to
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: know what's your everyday coffee order and what's your treat
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: yourself coffee order?
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Thank you for asking. I'll go first. It's just sort
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: of a classic all-American drink. No big deal. Triple espresso
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: and extra ice with three pumps sugar-free vanilla and a
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: splash of half and half.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I will read you mine because I have it in
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: front of me right now. It's a venti Americano, a
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: splash of cream, five pumps of sugar-free vanilla, and two Splenda.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: It's a venti. It's a venti.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: I just want to say... Are you in the movie Elf?
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: That's disgusting.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: Some of the worst moments of my life have either
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: been A, early mornings in Penn Station, or B, getting
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: coffee for you and having to fucking... Say five pumps
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: of skinny vanilla latte out loud.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Well, do you want to know my treat yourself?
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Why? What is it about your masculinity? Because it's disgusting.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: It's not my masculinity. What is it about makes you uncomfortable?
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: Why do you go to a gendered place on this question?
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Can't it just be disgusting tasting?
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: How dare you? Why don't you want to say it?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Vanilla's delicious.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Is it better how bad?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Vanilla's delicious. My treat yourself coffee order is from Dunkin' Donuts.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: It's a large Dunkin' with just a French vanilla Dunkin' with...
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: We don't even need sugar in that. You think sugar-free
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: vanilla syrup in Starbucks is bad? Just wait until you
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: get to French Vanilla Dunkin' Donuts. That's the good shit.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: You can smell that shit a hundred miles away.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: I know. It's like benzene. It's gross. I will say,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: what's really pathetic is my treat version of that drink
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: is just one extra pump of sugar-free vanilla. That's so bad.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: It's so dark.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Tommy and Dan?
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Shout out Jeremy.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: My barista friend, yeah.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: I mean the, I don't really go out to coffee
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: anymore cause we, you guys know why. Uh, but back
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: in the day when I was painting houses, the best
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: tree drink was the extra large Duncan iced with like
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: an inch of sugar at the bottom and extra cream.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Dan, in a weird way, I only started drinking coffee
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: five years ago. So after I left the white.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: House, really?
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. What were you drinking in the white house in
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the morning?
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Well, I was drinking diet soda, which is fucking disgusting. And, uh,
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: may have contributed to at least one trip to the hospital.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: I have no, I only drink basically plain black coffee.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: It's just– it is flavored caffeine. It has no– if
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: I'm treating myself, I'm not doing it with coffee.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Alexa asks, thoughts on the succession finale? It was sort
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: of in line with your guesses for who would actually succeed.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: That's right. Dan and I talked about this on the pod.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: First of all, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. Jump a little bit forward. Stop the pod.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Throw your phone out the window.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: We were recording Pod Save the World, and Ben was
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: just like, how would you think of the scene when
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: Kendall's floating, thinking he's dead?
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I was like, ah.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Very bad. Very bad. Who wants to go? Who wants
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: to start? I thought it was exquisite.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. More DVDs often. Yeah.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: And just searching for one that would really get there.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: I'll say this. First of all, I loved it. Second...
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I am glad that there was a bit of a
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Jeremy Strong discourse before the finale because I have never
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: felt more convicted of, in my view, that that whole
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: thing was a bunch of bullshit. Jeremy Strong is great.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I'm glad he does weird shit like ask for personal
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: props to help him get into character. This town is
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: filled with people who don't give a fuck. who are
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: cynical and are doing it for the paycheck, but not
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Jeremy Strong. Jeremy Strong's showing up on days when he's
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: not in the scene to cry at funerals he is
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: not supposed to attend. That fucking rules. Jeremy Strong rules.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: I won't hear a bad word about him. Oh, he
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: cares too much. Is that our problem as a culture?
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: That's not our problem. We need more Jeremy Strongs in Congress.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: The scene when they were sitting... The scene when they're
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: sitting on the ground and.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: he goes from disclosing that he murdered someone to them
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: making fun of it is one of the best moments
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: of TV. I do wonder, okay, we've done several seasons
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: of this now. How do we sustain this show in
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: another season? I'm a little anxious about it on their behalf.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I feel like four seasons you can definitely do. I'm
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: wondering about five because now I think season four is
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: either the kids maintain their alliance that they just started
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: against Against Logan or that alliance falls apart because they're
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: all assholes like within the first couple episodes. But either
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: you could see either happening.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: I will go with these people wherever they want me
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: to go.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Me too. I will sit with them.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: There could be a whole season where they just go
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: to some sort of like retreat vacation spot and argue
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: for a week. I don't care. I'm in.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: The one thing about this season that I was worried
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: about is. I love when they just go to like
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: rich people places and you know, it's just like when
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: they're like, we're going to go to Italy and now
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: we're going to go to Lake Cuomo. I guess it
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: was Lake Cuomo. And now we're going to Switzerland. Like
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the season was missing that until the end. I was
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: really happy about that. Dan, go ahead.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: Love the show. One thing I give two shits about.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Who eventually takes over the dying right wing cable company?
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Do not care.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: It's not like reading the tea leaves to figure that out.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Like if they want to keep it on for 20 years,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: we just get to hang out with these people. And
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: like you said, go to fun places where they make
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: fun of each other.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: I'm in. When I was working on the newsroom, I
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: said something that made Aaron Sorkin so upset, which was.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: Sir, I want to be the first to inform you
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: that we killed Osama bin Laden.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: That was my thing.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I was like, hey, what if they're on a plane
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: and they have to tell people that Osama bin Laden
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: was killed?
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: What if he played Fix You towards the end?
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: No, but we were having some sort of debate about
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: what the show was going to do. And it was
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: like a very high drama debate about what they were
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: going to air on the Jeff Daniels program on their network.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: And it was going to be heated, and it was
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: going to be this debate about the future of the news.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: And I was like, hey, I just want to remind
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: everybody that in this world, what we're talking about here
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: is the opportunity to make a really great episode of
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Rachel Maddow. So maybe we should just chill.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Out a little bit. That's what this is about.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: And I love Rachel Maddow, but I don't know how
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: dramatic this music needs to be.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: You didn't exactly.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Jeremy Barr that episode. Jeremy Strong.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Shit. Fuck. One more television-related follow-up here from Josephine. How
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: excited is Tommy for season two of Emily in Paris?
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: Pretend you won't be. I realize I did this to myself.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: I just want to clarify that I thought the show was,
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: it was like a B, it was a B minus.
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: It entertained me. It didn't challenge me in any way.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: There are barely conflicts are resolved. So I will probably
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: watch it. And you guys, I will probably watch it.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I will probably watch it. I like the show. It
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: was a pandemic. It was a pandemic. You like it.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: You will watch it more.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: So we just came from a period of outstanding television and, uh,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I've been out of television to watch. So, Emily agreed.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I started Emily in Paris because I had missed it
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the first time. And Emily's like, okay, I'll watch it again.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And we got a couple episodes in and we're like,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: can't do it.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I want to thank the producers of Emily in Paris
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: for sending us all bucket hats, by the way. I
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: really appreciate that.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: Listen, it's better than the fucking Sex and the City reboot.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's just... That's an unholy text. It's just
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: absolutely terrible.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: That show is like someone wished on a genie but
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: broke the rules and brought something back from the dead.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: You know? It was like, could this get worse than
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: when they went to Abu Dhabi? Sure could. Sure can.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Wendy asks, what do you really, really want for Christmas
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: that isn't connected to politics?
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Nothing.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: I'm at the age where I ask for nothing. My
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: wife gave me a laptop bag. I'm very, I'm happy
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: about it. I probably should buy a new sweatshirt since
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: you see me in the same shit five times a week.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: What kind of laptop bag?
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: That's the one you had yesterday?
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: It's nice.
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: I got Ronan a new bag. I did some recon.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I did some comparison shopping. Dan, what do you want? Nothing.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: We're so boring. You hit an age and you just
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: don't ask for things.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: You know what I asked for is a Kindle. because
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: reading books on the iPad doesn't work so well on
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: the distraction front. A lot of other things are happening
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: on that.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: If you want to read more books, you need a
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Kindle and then some kind of a surgery.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: New personality.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Sever your corpus callosum or something.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: We'll see if it works. We'll see if it works.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Tune in next year. Tune into next year's mailbag. Libby
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Lee on Instagram asks, what is a Christmas movie you
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: never get sick of?
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Die Hard. Die Hard. Christmas Vacation.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Christmas Vacation.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: That's a good one.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I know almost every line to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I haven't watched it. You watched it already?
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I put it on last night.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Usually I watch it with my dad and brother who
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: are huge fans as well.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Give us some lines.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I'm all set. If we could just cut in the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: audio of Randy Quaid saying the shitter is full here,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: that would be great. Unless we're going to get sued
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: for that. Rebecca asks, what's your favorite holiday memory from
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the White House?
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: I guess mine was probably Obama used to do this
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: staff dinner every year. It was like kind of the
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: last day before he would go to Hawaii. And it
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: was always like a really, really nice, wonderful event. But
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: probably the second to last year was in the White House.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: It took my mom, which was like the greatest thing
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: that ever happened to her. Joe Biden bonded with her
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: over Delaware, talked to her for like 45 consecutive minutes.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: It was very fun.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's nice.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, I didn't get invited to some fucking staff dinner,
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: but the White House threw like a hundred amazing Christmas
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: parties for the plebs.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: And I invited my mom to one of the pleb fests.
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: And I would say, joking aside, like I think going
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: to any events in the like state dining room is
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: like an unbelievably heady, cool experience.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: And it blew her mind.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: But then I walked her over through the colonnade to
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: my office in the lower press office. Then we walked
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: up to the Oval Office. We ran into Katie Johnson,
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: who's our friend, who was Obama's secretary at the time.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: Obama hears us out there, calls us into the Oval,
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: takes a picture, like.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Hung out with my mom for a minute.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: And I think one of the things he got, I
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: think intuitively about the job is that 30 seconds of
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: just basic decency to any human being can be one
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: of the coolest moments of their life.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: And that's what happened there.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: That's so nice.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: We have a nice photo of it.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I had a sort of embarrassing one, which is when
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: in one of those staff dinners, they always have like
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: a special guest and they had the Rockettes come. And
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: somehow I got in a picture with Alyssa and all
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: of the Rockettes in which I was kicking my leg up,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: as was Alyssa. Where's that picture? Alyssa has it. Alyssa,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: tweet it. I think she's posted it on Instagram before.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: It's happened a couple times.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: It's also me when I shaved my head and was
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: like 10 pounds heavier. It's not great.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: It's not a great picture. It's your second worst picture.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: It's not. Third?
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Third. I think it's third. I think we got two ahead.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Hey, leave me out of this.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: That was such a weird dinner because it was Rockettes,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Jon Bon Jovi playing Christmas music, and then Will Ferrell
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: reading The Night Before Christmas.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's right.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: And he made no jokes.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Did it straight from the text. Very serious reading. Alexandra asks,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: favorite Christmas Eve dish and or cocktail? Old-fashioned for me.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Love an old-fashioned around Christmas.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: I'm a wine guy. Mostly around the holidays.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Food-wise, my mom makes this appetizer where she mixes cream
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: cheese with this sort of like curry powder or something
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: and then puts chutney and like chopped green onions on
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: top and you eat it.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: It's like his favorite meal before Christmas is cultural appropriation.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: It's the waspiest thing. I was going to say it
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: was pretty waspy, but I guess you're right.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Wow. Dan?
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Uh, The cocktail used to be old-fashioned, but I have
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: transitioned to paper planes.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, those are good.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I had one of those recently.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: It's like an offshoot of the old-fashioned.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Any kind of bourbon-based drink I'm a fan of.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: Found a picture of Alyssa and Dan. Dan is asleep
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: in the car next to her. It's on the Instagram here.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Good stuff.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: We got a lot of these. What video game is
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Lovett looking forward to most?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: That's easy. Early 2022, I believe February. Elden Ring. What's that?
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: From the twisted minds of Dark Souls and Bloodborne and
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: George R.R. Martin collaborating together. Miyazaki. George R.R. Martin together
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: creating Elden Ring. I cannot wait. It's like you're.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Just speaking a different language.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: I feel very left out.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: It's, I'm like, Mario 2, Mario 3? No, no. What
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Mario are we on?
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: If you're hearing this, all right.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Zelda's still kicking?
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: If you're a Souls-born person, all right, if you understand
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: what I'm talking about, you know how exciting it is.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Then in February of next year, we get a George R.R.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Martin Miyazaki collab. You sure you finished it? Cannot keep it.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: I think this is yet another example of what he's
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: done to procrastinate finishing those books. And you know what?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: I don't give a fuck about those books anymore. I
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: found out how that story ends, and it's just okay.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: But Elden Ring, yes. Elden Ring. Dark Souls. The games
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: for the true gamers. Charlotte knows what I'm talking about.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Charlotte doesn't. You like Soulsborns? Yeah, but I'm not very
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: good at them.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: No one is.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: They're really hard. Wow.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Cool. Well, stay tuned.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: I cannot wait. You will not hear from me that weekend.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: NHLPA 94.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: NBA Jam 45. Is that where we're at now? All right.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Multiple asks for book recommendations. Dan and Tommy, you guys
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: can take this one. Love it doesn't read.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Don't. I do fucking read.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Okay. I do read. All right. Clara and the Sun.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Clara and the Sun. You go. Dan, you go first.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Two books.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: One, Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. and Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Both are sort of very, very well done crime novels.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Is the Colson Whitehead one new? I read, was it
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Nickel Boys?
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it came out this year.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: That was very good. Very dark, but very good. I
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: was late on this, but I read The Sympathizer this year,
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: I believe. It's as good as everyone said it was.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: Takes like 50 pages to get into because there's whatever.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: I'm reading Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos about his
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: time living in China.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: It's very good.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: I have a couple books that I'm just like constantly
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: slogging through. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: and then Reaganland by Rick Pearlstein. You guys have heard
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: me talk about Rick before. Basically what happens is I
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: usually just get, you know, a little too high before
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: bed and I kind of toggle between whichever book my
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: brain is sort of tuned to with frequency.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Read about the Reagan era while a little stoned.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I took an edible and read Nixonland. I think he
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: wasn't very good. Yeah, that's what I took away. That's
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: about all I got.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: I'm going to read Heather McGee's book that some of
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: us has downloaded. I've downloaded some books about AI because
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: I feel like we talk about it and I should
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: know what it is, but I haven't read them yet.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Wow, good stuff. Knowing my taste, and I want to
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: read a book over the next couple weeks.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: What do you got?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Will you guys have a recommendation for me?
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: What are you are you looking for fiction non-fiction.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Fiction I'm looking for fiction and I kind of like
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: let me start small like light fiction like I don't
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: need I don't need something so heavy I need something
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: that's like a little more fun.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Something get you into the habit there's somebody who said
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: something about AI and I'm going to bastardize it but
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: it's something like AI is just a term for the
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: next generation of computing that we don't have yet that
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: like oh that's not AI AI is this next thing
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: artificial intelligence is the next thing and then we have
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: like In the movie Mission Impossible, Ving Rhames is like,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I need some of those Pentium 5s thinking machines. And
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: it's like, Pentium 5s, those are garbage to us. Yeah,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: that's just product placement. AI is just a word for
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: a computer that's a little better than the computers we
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: have now. I wonder how true that is.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Elon Musk might disagree. Clara and the Sun, John. I googled.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Clara and the Sun.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Clara and the Sun? It's by.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Ishiguro, who's my favorite author. Okay. Beautiful story. It's an
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: easy read.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Great. Okay. I'm going to check it out. Thank you.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we will talk New Year's resolutions.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's finish 2021 with the worst takes of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the year and our second annual edition of Pod Save
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: America's Pundi Awards. As Crooked Media's chief take officer, Elijah Cohn, says,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: defend your takes like they're your family, because at the
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: end of the day, your takes are all that you have.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Let's... Who has... a nominee, a nomination for a really
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: bad take for, uh, 2021. Who wants to start? Tommy's
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: chomping at the bit.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: I got one right here.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: There's the normal stuff that presidents are required to talk about. Like, Oh,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: the so-and-so of Finland is coming today. Or Tennessee is
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: somehow tricked us into announcing our new Asia strategy this week.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: We got to talk about that, right?
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Like all that other stuff.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: That has importance in the world, I guess.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Dan Pfeiffer to Asia. You have importance, I guess. What
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: I like about that is also Tommy to Dan Pfeiffer,
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: I listen to you at 1.5 speed if you're lucky.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Of course. You're the psycho if you listen to one.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Dan is not pivoting to Asia. There is no Asia
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: strategy for Dan.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: I stand by that take. America first.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Bad take from Dan coming in right under the wire.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: That was a yesterday take on Pod Save America.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: I'll do two of my own bad takes. Are you ready?
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Bad take number one. we should just give Joe Manchin
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: whatever he wants. Just, you know what? He doesn't care
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: about the country. He doesn't care about Democrats winning. He
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: doesn't care about helping people. He has all the fucking leverage.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: So just give in. I know we're not supposed to
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: negotiate with terrorists, but that's just something you say before
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: you figure out how to get them the money to
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: get your aunt out. You know what I mean? The
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: whole we don't negotiate with terrorists thing is a rule
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: that exists to be broken by people negotiating and paying
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: fucking terrorists.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: So what's the bad take?
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: That's some realism right there.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: That is it. I'm calling it a bad take to
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: protect myself from the internet because it's my take. It's like,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: how long are we going to fucking do this? This
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: connects to my second bad take, which is we got
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: to get Build Back Better done because going to voting
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: rights without first doing Build Back Better is like a
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: plan to make sure Republicans win fair and square. Can
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I build off of that?
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Here's a bad take.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: This is a headline from Nick Kristof on May 1st, 2021.
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden is electrifying America like FDR. Now that could
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: end up being true.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Incomplete.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: It was a touch premature. And I think that speaks
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: to an expectations management problem that has become challenging for
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: the administration.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Again, I love Joe Biden. I think he's doing well.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Dan, do you have a take that you want to
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: hit us with?
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: I have a couple takes. One, anything and everything Chuck
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Schumer ever said about time.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: That's good.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: The man doesn't own a watch. Clearly.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: My other one is, one version of this is from
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: The Guardian, but everyone else did it. How Trump not
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: being on Twitter is cramping his style. Turns out, doesn't
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: need to be on Twitter. Fact, we may want him
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: back on Twitter.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: That's a hot take right there, get Trump.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Back on Twitter. I gotta say, I'm loving the turnaround.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Once again, you know, look, I've taken shit for this
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: in the past. I'm glad that Dan Pfeiffer's official position
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: is Vice President Kamala Harris just damaged our political prospects
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: by fighting so hard to get Trump off of Twitter.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: That's Dan's view. It's not mine. I just respect such
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: an intense and hot take.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Wow. I got one. I got one. Politico, March 18th, 2021.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: How Ron DeSantis won the pandemic. Oh, of course. Which reads, quote,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: after 12 months in which he was pilloried as a
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: reckless executive driven more by ideology than science, Florida has
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: fared no worse and in some ways better And now
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: here's the Associated Press in September, just a couple months later.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Florida now has the 11th worst per capita death rate
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: among the 50 states, with about 1 in 400 Florida
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: residents dying from COVID. That's how we won the pandemic
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: right there, guys.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: Last seen passing the Stop Woke Act or whatever the
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: fuck thing he did yesterday.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: Also seen leading every poll for the Republican nomination that
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: doesn't include Trump.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: This one's from 2020, but I want to grandfather it
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: in if so ordered. That's fair. There will be no
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Trump coup.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: A final pre-election case for understanding the president as a
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: noisy weakling, not a budding autocrat. This is from October 10th,
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: 2020 by Ross Douthat.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Come on, Ross.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Come on. Didn't nail that one. I got one similar
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: to that from the LA Times. I'm going to print
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: that out and storm the Times Bureau. This is from
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: early 2021. This is from David Lauter. Trump's sway over
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Republican Party fades as end of his term nears. A
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Senate vote against Trump remains uncertain. What is clear is
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: that the events of the last week have done what
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: four previous years could not, break Trump's unquestioned hold over
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a party that he once conquered but no longer controls.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: His future now depends on how rapidly his decline accelerates.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: He has less than a week left. Wish it were true.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Wish that one were true.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: There was this, there was a fleeting moment where, uh,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: It could have been true. There was that one week.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Well, so this isn't a bad take. I don't fault
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman for this. This was
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: a lead of the New York Times in early January
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: after the insurrection. Senator Mitch McConnell has told associates that
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: he believes President Trump committed impeachable offenses and that he's
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: pleased that Democrats are moving to impeach him, believing it
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: will make it easier to purge him from the party,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: according to people familiar with this thinking. At the same time,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Representative Kevin McCarthy of California said, has asked other Republicans
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: whether he should call on Mr. Trump to resign in
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the aftermath of the riot at the Capitol last week,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: according to three Republican officials. You had McConnell and McCarthy
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: telling people he should be impeached. We're going to call
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: on him to resign. And now look where we are today.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even it seems as well. I mean, Kevin McCarthy
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: is just as, you know, as much a spine. I mean,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: he's one of the most despicable and craven and sad
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: figures in all of history. Right. And so, like, he
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: even at that moment, read his own party wrong. Even
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: he thought at that moment that that argument was true.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: For one fleeting moment, they actually didn't understand just how
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: authoritarian the base had become. Just how lost the base was.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Dan, you got any others? Anyone else got any other
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: bad takes they want to.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Anything I said that was hopeful?
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Jeez. That's hard.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a personal one that I don't think
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I said publicly because we're not in the predictions business,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: but you guys all heard it. I was very sure
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: that we would win Virginia.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: And the reason that I was sure we were in
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Virginia is not because I thought Terry McAuliffe was a
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: dynamite candidate, but because I was like, look, this is
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: a plus 10 state. And, you know, the partisan lean
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: of a state and the demographics of a state should
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: tell you like 90 percent of where this state is
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: headed in any given election. And boy, was that fucking wrong.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think one one like or take problem
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: on our side is I think. Correctly, we have focused
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: on like the assaults on democracy. We're seeing at every level, gerrymandering,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: vote suppression. All of that is true. But right now,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: even if those weren't issues, we have another bigger problem,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: which is we are on track to lose right down
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: the middle, fair and square. Republicans are more popular than
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Democrats right now. And I think we don't spend enough
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: time worrying about that.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: No voter restrictions or gerrymandering problem in a statewide election
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: in Virginia.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I got one.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Quote.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been immunized.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: That was from Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. And what he
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: meant by immunized was like, I don't know, rubbing himself
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: with quartz crystals and like juniper oil or some shit.
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: But then he got really haughty about it and said
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: he was in the crosshairs of the woke mob. But
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: before the final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket,
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: I'd like to set the record straight.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: And then he went on to lie more. I guess
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: he's getting his casket ready because he's not vaccinated.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: And he's now only trailing DeSantis in polls for the
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: 2024 public nomination.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaking of vaccination bad takes, New York Times editorial
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: board in late September, this is no way to end
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: a pandemic, an entire editorial attacking Biden for proposing boosters
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: for all. Another headline, how the confusing booster shot debacle
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: aligns Biden with Trump's pandemic response. That's Zach Brennan at
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Endpoint News. And here's the thing. You look at experts
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: in like, you know, Zeynep Tufekci and some other people
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: were talking about this. In July- It was unclear whether
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: boosters were in July. It was still unclear with the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: evidence by September when Biden announced boosters for all. It
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: was crystal clear. The evidence was crystal clear that boosters
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: for all made sense. And instead of journalists, some journalists
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: at a lot of major publications, including The New York Times,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: went to find the minority of doctors and scientists that
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: didn't agree and lifted up their voices. The bullshit.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: I will say this. I am more angry. Those journalists
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: find like there's been a kind of. skittishness that's in
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: all of the coverage, especially because, look, we did go
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: through a terrible pandemic. It was the worst case scenario.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: I get not wanting to be rosy in the event
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: that things don't go as we hope, but I will
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: never forgive the way that the members of that FDA
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: panel handled the booster shot. Can I write down, can
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: I read a resolution I wrote down that didn't say? Yeah,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: let's do it.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: I want my friend John to go back to having
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: annoyingly detailed knowledge of polling and not of COVID variant
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: incubation periods.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: I want you to go.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Back to being a polling rollercoaster. I'm just trying to help.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: What I meant by that is I want everything to
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: go away and everyone's fine.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: No, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I need to
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: have less of that too. Hopefully the pandemic will end
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: and so I won't have to think about this anymore.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Plus or minus three variants.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Anyone get anything else? Any note that they want to
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: end on?
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I'm just waiting for Omicron to take me. Take me out, Omicron.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I had a Tucker Carlson quote praising Alex Jones,
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: you know, called him a far better guy to reality
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: than journalists at NBC News, Ken Delaney and Margaret Brennan.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: But I think that's a self-evidently garbage take. One category
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: of takes that I think I will allow me to
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: end on optimistic note is there is a kind of
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: brand of think piece now that's like, We're never going
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: back to normal. I'm never going to take my.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Fucking mask off.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: You're calling it the Atlantic is what you're talking about. Well,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: there have been several, but that is the most recent.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: And I have to say, you can take these fucking
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: despairing pieces and just shove them deep, deep, deep, deep
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: within your... This is your uplifting clothes. Your fucking butts.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Because we're going to go back to normal. I don't
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: care what you people say.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Well, you know what? When I talked to... Vivek Murthy
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: about this for offline. He was like, look, I cannot
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: tell you when the pandemic is going to end, but
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: I can tell you with confidence that we are going
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: to find ways to live with this virus where you
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: can participate in life, see your family and friends work,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: do the things that you love. Like that's going to happen.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: So you should not worry about that. And I thought
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: that was a good way to put it.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: But like regular boosters plus this fucking Pfizer pill, like
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: you see the path out and everyone needs to like
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: get comfortable with the path out and like the part
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: of this is also political because like, man, if the
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: democratic party is the party of like, everybody be careful.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: The pandemic's not over like next summer. Like maybe we
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: don't even need a house of representatives anymore.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Jesus.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Am I at a big pharma retreat? Stop eating nightshades.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: You guys have enough of this.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: Ridiculous vaccine propaganda nonsense.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Is Pfizer paying you? No. actually, unfortunately. They won't reply
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: to my emails. I keep trying to get on the
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: board with Scott Gottlieb. Scott, is there a space for
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: me on this Pfizer board? These people are amazing.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Hey, Mike, does this get me a booster faster?
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: What does it get you? I'm like an acupuncturist now.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I got three Pfizer's. I'm going to get some Moderna. Moderna.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: And honestly, I don't even, I'm not even scared of
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: J & J. Throw some J & J in there.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: I don't care.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: What?
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: I'll get that.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: I'll get Sinovac.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Sinovac, yeah. What's the Russian one? Like Sputnik?
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Sputnik? None of them work anymore. So it's all Pfizer
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: and Moderna from here on out. Remember when Putin rolled
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: their vaccine out like four months early? And everyone's like, well,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: it's exciting news. Like, I don't think they did trials, guys. Anyway,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: is this where we want to end?
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: I guess so.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Happy New Year, everyone. Happy New Year.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Happy New Year.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Happy New Year.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: It was just a little radio they threw in a
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: space just to get ahead of us. It's a lesson.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Everyone have a very safe and happy New Year. And
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: be careful out there. And we'll talk to you in January.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: We'll be back. You bet.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Sandy Gerard,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Hallie Kiefer, Madison Holman, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: slash crookedmedia.