Jon Lovett
Appearances
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
So he is basically, he's not acting democratically in any way that a person would. You can imagine a version of this whole process unfolding where he says, you know what? I'm going to all these agencies. I'm going to listen to some of the people there. And I'm going to go to the heads of these various departments. And I'm going to say, oh, you have three months.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Yeah, lesbians know what penises look like. We know what they look like. That's partly the way you figure out you're a lesbian.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
two months, three weeks to give me cuts. And these are the amount of cuts you have to give me. And if you don't give me this amount of cuts, I'm gonna do it for you." And you can imagine him engaging with people on the actual substance of these criticisms, but he can't do that. He has no aptitude or willingness to do that.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And we don't know with Elon, when he goes in front of a crowd and says, this is a grand scheme, to bring in immigrants to turn them into voters. We don't know if he believes that or if he just believes that's an advantageous argument to make in front of the people for whom he has no respect.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I will just, can I just, I will say though, I do think the most important, like just stepping back from his sort of repellent qualities.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Very good word. Here's what I think we've learned. And I think this is what's most important, even if you don't. For Democrats. For Democrats and Republicans, even if you can't totally, you can't tease the, you know, the correlation from the causation. Yeah. We learned that $25 million in Wisconsin did not change the outcome of these races, and Crawford overperformed against other statewide races.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And then we learned in Florida, in these special House races, that Democrats overperformed by roughly whatever, 15 to 17 points. And what does that tell you? It tells you that there are a bunch of vulnerable Republicans
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
whose margins of victory were well below 15 points, who are looking at this and saying, hold on, I have a deeply controversial vote coming my way for reconciliation that involves tax cuts for the wealthy and Medicaid cuts. Elon's money cannot protect me from the general. So is it now the choice? Do I side with Elon, prevent a primary, and hope his money protects me in the fall?
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Or do I side with my constituents, brace for a primary, get through it, and hope my voters reward me for not going along with the Trump agenda? That choice just got a lot harder for some of these Republicans.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Yeah, it's a good stunt. I thought it was a good idea. I was glad he was doing it. I'm glad to see when anybody is basically trying things to try to grab attention in this chaotic media environment. But I was like blown away by the number of people watching it, the amount of clips that were circulating because of it. And it just speaks to the fact that there is a huge hunger
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
among the majority of the country that does not support Donald Trump, that are looking for people who are going to fight, that just are going to respond to the moment, to the scale of what we're facing with a sense that this is a different time and we're going to need to treat this differently. And we can't just go along with business as usual, that you can't
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
The plan can't be to vote for the continuing resolution and then go on your book tour. That's just not the world we're living in. This is a dangerous moment and you want to see leaders that reflect that. Look, it is a stunt because ultimately it doesn't have any impact. It does draw people's eye to what is happening in our political system.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And he is doing something that required him to sacrifice and to go through like some, sounds like a fair amount of pain, and good for him for doing that. And I think a lot of people will see moments from it, see his passion in it, hear some of the different arguments he was making. I thought he did a great job talking about Social Security and Medicaid.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Yes. You know, dipping your pigtails in ink, for sure.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And, you know, look, I think a lot of times, you know, Democrats are skittish about how to thread the needle, because on the one hand, They they view Trump as an existential threat to democracy. But in the other, they hear from the consultants and the polls and genuinely believe that where their best argument is day to day is on the ways Trump is going after democracy.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Social Security, Medicaid, healthcare, the basics, the services and programs people rely on. And I thought he did a really great job of articulating both of those arguments, specifically around, look at all the chaos, look at all the destruction he's bringing to our democracy. What are we getting for it?
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does. Is he running for president? Is there any senator that isn't in their minds in some way running for president?
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I sort of, it's funny, like, even as you asked that, like, I'm such a political fiend. And for whatever reason, I have just no appetite for that right now. Because it, first of all, because it feels so far away. And also, like, I don't really think there's much you can do to kind of handicap this race right now. Anybody who wants to be president,
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Oh, of course. Of course. They're trying to divide the T off from the LGB. That's what they've done.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
has got to be somebody, and Cory Booker did this, great, has to be someone out there in the fight showing that they understand the politics of this moment, that they have a passion and a rage in them to protect the country. And that's what I'm looking for. My one sort of...
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
feeling about it is I am so not interested in the kinds of planning and maneuvers that are about like building a profile and carefully managing the rollout. Like that is from another era and I'm just completely not interested in it. Yeah, it really is, right?
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I don't think they know what the Q is. They certainly don't know what the IA is. They're not into any of these letters, but they're mostly focused on trying to, they want the T off of the flag. And we have to keep the T on the flag.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Yeah, so this is sort of a boxing day for Liberation Day.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Trump's building a wall and we're all going to pay for it is, I think, what's happening. Larry Summers, Larry Summers posted this and he's the famous economist and former economist. Treasury secretary and somebody who is not hyperbolic, saying that a crude estimate of Trump's tariffs puts the projected loss at $20 trillion or well over $200,000 per family of four.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And then he walks through how he reaches that very conservative estimate of the damage. They're not reciprocal tariffs. People were baffled by the number. I'm not an economist, but people looking at this, they're sort of scratching their heads trying to figure out what this number is. And they realized that it's not based on the tariffs of these other countries.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
It's a crude calculation based on the trade deficit with these other countries and not the trade deficit on goods and services, but just the trade deficit on goods. The the even the administration itself admitted that it was too hard to actually calculate for every country what the reciprocal tariffs would be. And so they came up with this ridiculous formula.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
The hope has to be that these fake numbers. are just an opening bid in a negotiation.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I think Trump has believed since the 80s, the last time he formed any new ideas, that tariffs are good and that we have trade deficits because other countries are taking advantage of us. He has been he has been pushing and pushing and pushing to do sweeping tariffs. He was stopped in the first term by cooler heads.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Like there's many ways in which what Trump what we're seeing with Trump is a kind of extreme. bizarro version of a normal pattern with first and second term presidents, which is in the first term, presidents work for the White House. In the second term, the White House works for the president. Presidents figure out where they can get more control. They feel more confident in exercising the power.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
They feel like they belong there. They no longer feel like they're imposters. And so all the people that would have stopped Trump from doing this, they're gone. Right. It's a different set of people, but he has more responsible people.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I mean, I think they're all they all look like fucking idiots today, but he has more responsible people on on economics than he does, say, running around the FBI or HHS. But Trump wanted to do this and nobody could stop him. They put together this half baked. cockamamie plan involving ridiculous calculation to create these charts.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Nobody is really crossing the T's and dotting the I's, which is why we're taxing penguins. And the end result is this chaos. That said, I think the point that Chris Murphy is making is a is a really important one. He has a lot of grand language there. Trump knows that Trump likes using his power. He likes the way it feels to exercise power.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Congress has given way too much authority to the president on tariffs. He puts these tariffs in place and all of a sudden Republican House members are lobbying him. Businesses are lobbying him for relief. Countries are lobbying him for relief.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And even if you view it, even if you take the most generous version of it, right, which is not that he's doing this to destroy democracy, but doing this to create leverage. The question is, what does he do with it? Right. And can he use these tariffs, say, on agriculture or to provide relief for these tariffs on agriculture to to rally votes for a bill, for example?
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And so I do think this is about power. I do think this is about control. But I also think he genuinely believes that tariffs are good.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I think we just don't know. It's interesting because we talked about this on Pod Save America on Monday. And look, there's a lot of like hyperbolic partisans talking about how the markets are crashing, the markets are crashing. And they weren't. They actually weren't. They were down. They were, of course, down. But year over year, they were up. And the question was why.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And it seems like what we've learned today is nobody really believed it would be as bad as what they announced. And I still don't think we know. And what we have to watch unfold is, are we seeing the beginning of a truly disastrous long-term tariff policy?
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Or is this an extreme version of what we saw when he first put in place the Canada and Mexico tariffs, which is he talks a big game, but if he gets... concessions in quotes or pushback or just fake concessions like a fentanyl czar or a press conference in which the Mexican president announces policies she had already put in place months earlier. Will he lower them? Right.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Like what what does he want to reduce these numbers? The hope has to be that because these figures are so ridiculous, right, like he's calling them reciprocal tariffs. Like how does Vietnam
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Yeah, that's what it seems like.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Well, the reason I know about it is because she called you a bitchy lesbian or whatever she said. I mean, that's the whole purpose. There's a cycle to this, right? She picks these fights. It generates a page six story. It gets attention. Who do you beef with? Who beefs at you from the right? Well, John got in a fight with J.D. Vance on Twitter.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Which it's just incredible that the vice president- Explain that for the people, what it was about. It was about the fact that the Trump administration is, I don't even want to call it deporting. It is kidnapping people and dispatching them to a- Gulag in El Salvador and we have increasing evidence that they're making mistakes as they do this.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And now the administration is claiming once you've been sent to this mega prison in El Salvador, they don't they don't have the ability to bring you back. So no mistakes. So there's no due process to catch mistakes in advance and no way to rectify mistakes once they've happened, which is obviously wrong, even if you are getting it right. But now we see that they are getting it wrong.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
He seems busy. I haven't noticed any change in the actual use of the app. It is interesting that how much this has become Trump's decision, right? Like this, how far down the road we've come. We talk about how he wants to be the main decider on tariffs and wants people to come kind of kiss the ring. That's what we're seeing here, right? This presumably should be ByteDance's decision.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And Vance was defensive and dissembling and lying about what the record said about one example of this.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
But Trump isn't right. Well, that's and that's that that there was some hope apparently on the part of the Chinese that TikTok was a bit of leverage in the in the terrified. But that doesn't appear to have gotten them anything. I don't know what happens with TikTok. I was pretty upset. about the way this all went down. The law itself.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
The law itself, because there was very little public debate or explanation about why TikTok was so dangerous. And a lot of the explanations were about the harm it does to people. But people didn't seem to mind if that harm was being done to Americans by Americans, Instagram is awful for young people. I think TikTok can be really awful for young people.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
So why is it a good thing if Americans do it to each other, but a bad thing if a foreign country does it to us? Why do our own billionaires, you know, running rampage through our minds? Why is that acceptable? And so I never thought they made the public case, which is why when all of a sudden they caught the car and TikTok was about to be banned, they did this ridiculous save TikTok.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Thank you, President Trump bullshit. And it worked. So I really don't like the way this works. went down.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
They didn't make the case at all. They didn't. They didn't. They just, oh, it's a national security threat. Excuse me. Excuse me. Like, my For You page is.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Right. My For You page is, you know, recipes. And old clips of Conan. A lot of recipes. Got to make the viral Turkish pasta, Cara.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Just, you know, among other things. Hot guys, hot guys doing new kinds of exercises. Oh, yeah. Teaching me ways to lift weights.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I think that there's a big overlap between fit middle-aged men and gay guys. There's a big overlap in what they're seeing, which are just handsome men rocking their delts.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Oh, I think there'd be, hmm, I think we'd see, you know, lesbian talk and gay talk are so separate. They're so distinct. They're such distinct universes. I don't know what we'd see with you, woodworking, clips of Brandi Carlile, that kind of thing.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Well, we have no idea other than there is no evidence for it, right? And the evidence, there's no... Which you want. Well, of course, there's certainly, yes. They have provided no evidence that this person was in MS-13. Vance claimed he was convicted. As far as we could tell, this person has never... been convicted in the US of a crime, right? And the evidence he cited wasn't there.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
When I was a kid, the Food Network launched. Yeah. And everyone was like, that's got to be a joke. How can you fill a whole network with food content? And the answer was, you can. And it's great. It was ahead of its time. But I used to watch the Food Network with my mom.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
You know, I was at Jeffrey Weingarten. Remember Jeffrey Weingarten?
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Yeah. I remember he said, my mother and I used to joke about this for years because he said, fava beans are very in right now. And that's just something we said to each other for years. Fava beans are very in right now.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I think one of these deals is going to be the deal, and it's going to basically look the same at the other side of it. And the user experience will roughly be the same, but there'll be this sort of change in ownership.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I do have a prediction. I'm actually re-upping a prediction that I made before the election, but I want to make it here because I want it on the record, which is, I said this last year, which is that if Donald Trump won, Eric Adams would end up in the cabinet. And I just want to just lay that down once again, that I believe that that is the end result of a lot of this.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And he's already started the suck-up process with Trump. I just...
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Kash Patel? I thought he was a natural for Homeland Security. Oh, Kristi Noem.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
That's a natural fit for him, but I could see him at FBI too. We'll see. We'll see. Depends on how long Kristi Noem lasts.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
You got to get close to the king.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
If America is going to go from having a democracy to a court, you've got to be near the court.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Similarly, we have this for other examples of people that seem to have been rounded up because they had tattoos that rubbed an ICE officer the wrong way, including a tattoo for autism awareness.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Put me in. Put me into this debate. Put you in. All right, I shall. I'll make a case. I really want to be part of that.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I'll tell you. I've gone back to the beginning of Real Housewives of New York. And it is a joy. Look, when the world- Are you watching it? Okay. I'm starting from, I never watched it before. So I'm going back to the very first season of Real Housewives of New York. I have been resistant, I think from a kind of snootiness to Real Housewives for years.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I've always said to myself, I don't like the reality shows. I like competitive reality shows, but I don't like the true bravo. And in hindsight, that was, I was hurting my own viewing and, The Real Housewives are incredible. And I do believe it is hard to understand Trump, right? People call up, talk about him being a reality show because of The Apprentice, but that was a competitive show.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
You really need to understand Real Housewives. Now that I see it, It is a great way to understand how Trump operates and the way these women use conflict to draw attention to themselves.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
No, the gay barber had a crown that said mom and a crown that said dad.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
So I think, first of all, we should dispense with the idea that this is because the 130-day window is up. Because as we all know, Trump has nothing but respect for arcane rules governing when people can and cannot serve. So that's ridiculous.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I think it is probably too pat and too convenient for all of us that have found the way that Elon Musk has sort of rampaged through the government to be obviously disgraceful, but also politically unpalatable to say, look, we'll talk about Wisconsin, but he's deeply unpopular. Doge is bringing negative attention to Trump. Trump put Elon out there as a shield. He took all of these hits.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And now because he's unpopular, Trump's moving him aside. I don't think it's unreasonable for them to say this was always basically the plan, that he was going to come for a few months, get this thing rolling, and then step back. That said, Elon Musk has drawn so much negative attention to what could have been a far more boring
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
endeavor, that he has brought so much negative attention to the kinds of cuts that they might have wanted to make, but probably not with this much fanfare and probably without this much chaos. What is unclear is, A...
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
how much of this can go on without Elon as this singular aggressive figure, and B, how much of what he's already done is so damaging and so complete that really they've gotten what they wanted to get out of Doge and now they can move on. Right, which is to break everything. Which is break everything, fire everybody.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
I have a friend at the VA and he was talking about how, yeah, the surgeries are continuing, But a bunch of people lost their access to the computer system because they were fired and then unfired, but they haven't gotten it back. So they're not really able to work. Right. Like a lot of the chaos, it leaves the headlines, but it's ongoing. Right.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
These agencies have been hobbled in ways that we know about in a lot of ways that we don't know about. So, yeah. It doesn't surprise me that he'd be stepping back. And I also, you know, Trump can't possibly be enjoying how much blowback this is getting and how much is coming on to him.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Oh, it's a very good thing that he lost. He got nothing for that money. They lost the other statewide races as well. I was in Wisconsin in the run-up, and I didn't went knocking on doors. And obviously that's anecdotal, but we talked to, went to 150 doors and Elon had made himself the main character. It was what's on people's minds.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
One example, we were just walking down the street and someone in the neighborhood was like, well, what are you guys, what are you knocking on doors for? And we said, oh, we're trying to make sure everybody gets out to vote for Susan Crawford. And they said, can you believe what's going on with Elon? They're setting the Tesla's on fire.
Pivot
Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
He's spending 25 million, we're spending millions of dollars in the state. And I think it again, like I would love to say. that, oh, Elon, this is proof that Elon Musk is political poison. I don't know that. I think what you can say is that in this environment, and this is very good news, no amount of money can overcome the political fundamentals.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And Elon Musk is not a persuasive figure to the kinds of voters that Republicans need. And so- The independence. Yeah, he seems to be- The independence.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Look, I think there's the... The obvious answer, which he has a terrible personality. So we're getting to know him more, meaning. And he's abusing his wealth without respect for our democracy. And I don't mean even, you know, look, he puts out this announcement saying basically he's going to buy votes in Wisconsin. It's based a lot of blowback. He's accused of committing crimes.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
He changes the language on it so that it's more legally permissible. So he's no longer giving you money for votes. He's giving you money for signing a petition, whatever it may be. But fundamentally, he's flying in to Wisconsin on a private jet to throw money down in front of the populace, like a grand vizier visiting the colonies.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
And he is cutting in this chaotic and destructive way parts of the government. They may be the parts where they view it as the weakest for Democrats to defend, places like USAID, but they're also shuttering Social Security offices. They're coming after Medicaid. It's a small, I don't believe most people are seeing this, but I do think it's important
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
that this figure who has taken on this vast amount of power, basically bought his way into this role, does it with so little respect for the tens of millions of people that are skeptical of him or don't like him. That if somebody is protesting him, they're Soros backed. Democrats oppose him only because they are evil and they want to send social security checks to undocumented.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
immigrants, that when people are critical of Doge, he claims, oh, it is because they're not being specific. Have you noticed they don't offer any specifics? They offer, there has been, there's never been more valid, specific, clear, focused criticism.
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Liberation Day, Elon Exit Rumors, and Guest Co-Host Jon Lovett
Are you kidding me? You are cutting billions across or claiming to cut billions across this government. We are pointing to specific container ships. holding specific amounts of food to get you to release it. So there's a total lack of respect for anyone who is not MAGA, right?
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
You have people like Elon Musk, these are unelected, just billionaire donors having meetings with foreign heads of state on Trump's behalf. I'll meet with Iran.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Right. I'm trying to, like, separate my, like, frustration with basically Joe Biden in his final year and culminating that debate and hanging on that, like. How much we paid for having somebody who just wasn't articulate and comprehensible messenger, not just on behalf of his own presidency, but on behalf of like progressivism democracy. Right. And like, I am very angry about that.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And I'm a little bit mad at myself for not being more honest about how I felt or not seeing it as plainly because I think we're obviously paying dearly for it. I guess what I'm more concerned about is less like, am I seeing Joe Biden enough? Maybe he's right that people don't want to hear from him.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
It's more like, do I feel confident right now that Joe Biden behind the scenes is thinking of every single way he can try to future-proof the White House, that he's thinking through all the different levers of powers, the kind of creative ways in which he can do everything to protect everyone from undocumented DACA recipients to trans people to the benefits of the inflation reduction.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I think there are very smart people thinking about that. And I hope they succeed. And it sounds like from that memo the White House put out that they are thinking about the best ways to do that. But do I think Joe Biden himself is like at command being thinking about this? Like right now, I don't. I just honestly don't. Maybe he is. You can't tell.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
There's a debate about what the president can do on behalf of, say, DACA recipients. And there are some legal scholars that assert the president can use the pardon power, even though immigration violations are civil, to pardon DACA recipients or undocumented immigrants more broadly. There are some people that say that that would create problems.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
There's a debate about whether, because it's never been used in that way, but whatever. There's lots of ways in which presidential... Someone you then you use it. You assert it right. Like, is there a debate right now about whether President Biden can can pardon DACA recipients? Is he asking about that? And others are saying no. Are people coming to him with that? And he's not sure. Right.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Right. Right. But this is I think like right now, like I don't know what we're meant to think is happening. Right. And we get a memo that basically lays out the fact that that Joe Biden is going to try to use his time most effectively over the next couple of weeks. But the memo exists in part because Joe Biden either is unwilling or unable to go to the microphone and explain himself.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
But like, yeah, it was it was it was interesting watching a bunch of people on the left being really critical of this because this was a monstrous.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
crime that i think basically kind of it was a kind of like a for-profit version of the cruelty and unfairness that the judicial system often meets out right so this is somebody receiving clemency for participating in the larger evil these people are are spending their lives fighting exactly against so that that's what made it i think like a little bit like confusing but it also does expose that like even people that advocate for
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
whatever prison abolition there's a part of us that demands justice and that wants someone like this thrown away for fucking ever but I think part of the deeper thing is like also prison abolition is crazy I'm just gonna say that it's crazy but you murder someone you're gonna keep them away from people for sure and then no no and I just wanna I just wanna second that we're in similar t-shirts similar view on murder but I'll take the slings and arrows it's fine but the pardon power is strange
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
John, there's nothing defamatory in any of the things that he describes.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
and like silly and yes but so I think what's so galling about these examples is just like who gets who gets mercy in our system exactly there are so many people that deserve mercy yes and they deserve it before these corrupt public officials and the other part too is it's like Donald Trump He cut taxes for the rich. He vilified immigrants. He shifted the court to the right.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And he basically decriminalized corruption. And we are going to pay for that. Like corruption is a cancer. And these are corrupt officials. And it would be nice if one of the ways in which Joe Biden kind of defended the values he cares about is to is to strongly defend laws that protect against corruption, which is what these people were punished for.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I was surprised by how mad and disappointed I was when I saw it. I couldn't believe it. I thought I must be missing something to see them. So this is Disney we're talking about. Now, you might remember Disney famously tried to avoid facing consequences when someone died of an allergy at Disney World by claiming that in the Disney Plus terms of service, they'd been indemnified.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Well, no, I'm just curious what it is. Can't I just be curious about what it is? I've said my part. Tommy?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, I do think, look, I think she has paid politically for having come up as a prosecutor, then run for president at a time when that was seen as a liability and shifting to the left on a bunch of issues and then walking away from those positions.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And if you were to ask me right now, what are Kamala's views, actual personal views on a host of those issues, I sincerely would say, like, I think she's
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
consensus builder I think she but like I don't actually know and if she is going to want to seek whether it's California governorship or national office I think like it's about taking the time to figure out an ideological perspective that like informs everything that she does going forward because I do think some of the ways in which she's had these like whether it was tough interviews in the 2024 race or the quotes that were taken out of what she said in the 2020 race like the lack of that
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I think worldview and ideology is going to make it very, very hard for her to get past the previous two runs. That's my concern.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
It's not at all. Actually, it's more Shakespearean. If you want to say it's Shakespearean, you have to find the ways in which her own deeper flaws were ultimately her undoing, which would be, I think, more dramatic.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Right. Yeah. Anyway. I guess it's a Romeo and Juliet. They're both fucking dead. Oh, no. Maybe that's it. Just star-crossed lovers, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I do not remember that. Disney has lawyers. They are famous. They are famously brutal lawyers. And so to see them capitulate in this way, and by the way, if I got any of that wrong, Disney, I'm sorry. Do not revoke his fast pass. Yeah, and don't come after me. Don't come after me.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, finally showing some discipline. Yeah, man, it is tough having a country when you're like, oh, what are the drones? Well, some of them are manned and maybe some of them are hobbyists. And actually, we don't know what some of them. And then the next president of the United States grabs the microphone and says, it might be the Jews.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
What is this country? What's going on here? You know what? If the government won't, if the federal government won't shoot some of these things down, we're going to have no choice but to give your meanest friend from high school the authority. That's what's going to happen. That's where this ends up.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
But Disney knows how to fight a frivolous or false lawsuit if it wants to, and it is choosing not to in this case, and that is very disappointing.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Look, by the way, and that's the second worst option, because what's really going to happen is randos are going to start going outside and shooting at drones. And of course they are. And you know what? Some of these drones are planes and those planes have people in them. So we got to just shoot one down. Can we just shoot one down? Let's make sure it's a drone.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
It's like a deep state head. Let's see what the deep state has to say.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Here's the thing. Here's the good news. Here's the good news. All right. I obviously I think the worst case scenario would be shooting down a passenger aircraft.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
After that, after that, after that, if you shoot down a hobbyist drone, I don't care. Bring them down. Those people should be sadder, frankly. Commercial drones, government drones. Shoot one down. Take a look. And when you look in the air, you'll be able to tell which is which, right? I think you should be really sure. Let's be really sure. Someone tell Elon Musk about this guy.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
We've got to get him in government. No, if I'm going to press the Elon button, it's going to be around daylight saving time. We're getting there.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I believe the Larry Hogan ones turned out to be celestial bodies, which is tough. It's tough. People are losing their minds. Yeah. Look, I love a good mania. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. People are losing it out there. I also do like Andy Kim being like, I think it's economic anxiety. It's like, okay. I'm with you. I'm with you to a point.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
That's wrong. Yes, I know. It should be Daylight Savings Time, but it is technically Daylight Saving Time.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah. So he does probably almost certainly means making daylight saving time permanent. He actually tweeted that in, I think, 2019. So currently there is a bill in Congress called the Sunshine Protection Act. It is sponsored by Rubio and Padilla in California. Also, Ed Markey in Massachusetts, Patty Murray.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And a bunch of other senators, 20 states have already passed by ballot measure or legislation state rules that would switch to permanent daylight saving time if Congress allows it. Now, I have actually like I used to think, yes, of course, we should switch to permanent daylight saving time. That used to be my position. I really dug into it for a while.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I did a lot of interviews, did a lot of reading about it. And I have a more nuanced view on it, which is basically, it's not a surprise that it's being led by a Massachusetts senator, a Florida senator, and California senators. Florida and California were further south. All that means is our winters aren't as dark and our summers aren't as bright, right?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
The closer you get to the equator, the less the time shifts, not with time zones, but just with longer days and shorter days. In Massachusetts- in the dead of winter, right now in Maine or Massachusetts, the sun is setting around four o'clock. It gets late. It gets even into the threes, right? But in a state like Michigan, which is in the same sign zone, it's fully an hour later, right?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Because they're further west in the time zone. So it makes sense that a bunch of East, like Maine, Massachusetts, Florida, California, all these states would want to do it. The problem is- I was in Vancouver the other weekend and it was like four o'clock dark. Yes. So- Even in California, Los Angeles, the sunset in Los Angeles will be almost an hour later than it will be in Seattle or Portland.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
So some of this is where you're located. What needs to happen is Congress needs to amend the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to allow for a third option. And then every state can choose between permanent daylight saving time, permanent standard time, or continuing to make the switch. This is the compromise. This is the solution.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Because we did do permanent daylight saving time in the 70s during the oil crisis. And in a lot of places, people fucking hated it because there are places where if you go to permanent daylight saving time... sunrise won't be until either close to nine or even after 9 a.m. Oh, wow. Right. People don't like, people, if you poll them, say they don't like daylight saving time.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Really what they mean is they don't like springing forward. They hate losing the hour. They hate the time switch. And the time switch does suck. But really what people like are longer days in the summer and shorter days in the winter. And unfortunately, you can't legislate For that. But I like if I had to choose between the switch and permanent daylight saving time, I would choose that.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Well, that is that is like even that I think is being so like generous towards Trump interpretation of what Stephanopoulos said, because, yes, it is true technically that it was for sexual abuse and not rape. Even the judge in the case made a point of saying this is a narrow legal definition. And by the common use of the word rape. it could apply in this case.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
But that's because we live in California, which is a place that would benefit from being in permanent daylight saving time. But there are states like Michigan. Michigan, for example, should actually switch to permanent standard time because in Michigan in the summer, the sunset is so late. Is it possible? Can a possible solution be that some like. Yes. Yes. Yes.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Because in practice, I think a few states would continue to switch. If you pass the Rubio-Markey-Murray bill, then everybody's going to be on permanent daylight saving time. But if you pass a law that just allowed states to choose, just add the third option, letting them choose permanent daylight saving time, about 20 states, their laws would go into effect.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And then some states would either choose to keep switching or stay on permanent standard time. Michigan So if you look at the time zone map, Michigan is so far to the west. I know, now I know, I feel it. This was the moment, I went too long. This was the moment. Will you let me know when this wraps?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, Michigan is so far west of Massachusetts, it doesn't really make sense that they're in the same time zone. Michigan should be in permanent standard time, Wisconsin can be on permanent daylight saving time. In practice, what that means is they're both in the central time zone. Michigan would just shift one time zone over.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Well, you know there's going to be companies that are going to start allowing you in the night to rent light via mirrors. What? There are companies that have like, they want to put satellites up that have big reflectors, and then you could go on your phone, literally on your phone, and say, I would like it to be light out on my yard at this time.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And they'll turn the mirrors, and you'll have daylight on your yard. What kind of dystopia is that? Dystopia? Okay. Okay. What about AI, permanent sunlight, corrupt fucking dumbasses present? What about this screams dystopia to you?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Is there a call to action? There is a call to action. The call to action would be to say we do not need to argue about whether the whole country should be on permanent standard time. Oh, by the way, the scientists and the nerds, they're all for permanent standard time. I've interviewed them. They're fucking wrong.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
They're just wrong about it because they are confusing the benefits of not switching to the benefits of standard time. We should switch to permanent daylight saving time in a lot of places. And there's a reason 20 states haven't. have passed it. But no, this is the compromise. The whole country doesn't have to switch and the whole country doesn't have to have one policy.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
It won't be complicated because you go through a period of transition over a year or two, which people can choose which time zone they want. And then basically you just end up with a new time zone map and we never have to deal with this again. Most places would choose either permanent standard time or permanent daylight saving time.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
A few might continue to switch, but we know that that's fine because Arizona doesn't switch, right? And society moves on. Society's fine and so does Arizona.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And so there's an argument to be made that this isn't what what Stephanopoulos said wasn't even incorrect. His interpretation of the conclusion of the court is that it was liable for this, even if the technical legal wording might be different. So like it is all eminently defensible.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
That's the thing is, it's like, A, it can be interpreted as being accurate. B, he wasn't intending and purposely misleading anybody. Relying on the judge's words and the Washington Post. And see, it's not even clear if there were any damages to Donald Trump, right? Like all of this, the lawyers at Disney are well aware of.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
But it's also like and all of that, like it's also there. It's a charitable donation. They're going to write some of it off. It would have cost them millions of dollars to defend the suit. Right. Like the delta between the big 16, really, because you pay a million dollars for the legal fees. Right.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
The delta between the $16 million they're going to spend versus the millions they'd spend if it went to court, plus the cost to their reputation of fighting this in public, the damage, right? Like, I'm sure they're thinking about all of that. But there was a time when news organizations understood that they had an obligation to the public and, by the way, to their own journalists –
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
that they know that even if they make a good faith mistake, which can happen, that they will have lawyers behind them defending them because people make mistakes. People say the wrong thing. People are allowed to get things wrong without the threat of a lawsuit. We have really good. That's a great thing about the First Amendment and the way we do defamation in this country.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Assuming everybody. And, like, look, do all of these come to, did they actually pursue any of them? Does Trump's lawyers talk him out of some of these and not others, whatever? But, like, the effect of that, like, The chilling effect of this is real. Like they're raising the cost of investigating these people. They're raising the cost of doing journalism.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And there are going to be places that just decide it's not worth it. There are going to be people that decide it's not worth it. Somebody like Olivia Troy. There's a lot of people that could speak out about what they saw inside the Trump administration that have it. They're making it more costly. They're making it more dangerous.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And I mean, look, take just a pure fact. Donald Trump killed JonBenet Ramsey. That is not something you're going to be free to say in the public sphere anymore because you say it and all of a sudden people are going to.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Oh, that's a good idea. For sure. I have some members of my tribe, the Gata tribe, I'd like to sue.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
It's funny to be like Liz Cheney is like, no, no, no. Yeah. Protect the land. Got to keep those trees safe.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah. I watched the SoftBank CEO speak and it is this sort of funhouse mirror version of a presidential announcement because, yes, as you noted, he's not president. But in the past, when when there's been a major announcement and it did involve like a private sector figure speaking, they would speak about how great America is.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
and how important it is to be investing in the future of this great country. But instead, this guy gets up there and be like, God, this guy, Donald Trump, what a deal maker he is. It's all about Trump. It's all about him.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, well, it's another exact, just more blending. Yeah, it's more blending of like the private and the public and making it less about the country and more about Donald Trump personally. That said, like, you know, Joe Biden believes in tradition and institutions and we should only have one president at a time. And I think it's a surprising choice to allow it to be Donald Trump.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
But if that's what his plan is, I think it's about his long term respect for our kind of our basic mores.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
He got a little too loose, I think. He's only got a couple more weeks to drink. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. What are some relationship green flags? Those are positive actions or traits in your partner and loved ones. We hear about red flags often that we should avoid. What do we focus more on looking for green flags in friends and partners?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I think they talk later about how the mistake was there wasn't a meal. There needed to be food.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I sometimes think that the reason there's such a focus on cancel culture is because it used to be more fun to be a celebrity. You could drive your car through a plate glass window and tip somebody 500 bucks and nobody heard about it.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
My guest this week is television host, political commentator and stand up comedian Bill Maher. Welcome, Bill.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Thrift savings from the government. I had that too.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Where's your head on social media right now? What do you mean? Are you using it? I feel conflicted about it. I think it's a corrupt force destroying the human soul, but I also get good recipes from it.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah, TikTok, you get good recipes. There's a viral Turkish pasta I made. Have you heard about the viral Turkish pasta?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Well, we do have boom mics.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
If you're not sure what they look like, therapy is there to help you identify green flags, actively practice them in your relationships, and embody the green flag energy in yourself. Whether you're dating, married, building a friendship, or just working on yourself, it's time to form relationships that love you back. Hey, Tommy?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I was gonna get to 69ing later, but we've just covered it so we can move on.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah, I think that's right. I think you don't need to go there, especially with the chef, because then you don't need the recipes.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
You should tell your chef about the viral Turkish pasta. I don't eat pasta. You don't eat pasta? Is that a keto thing?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
No, it's an important question. Honestly, that's why you're here. No one's ever asked us that question before.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
You can switch hands. But it's different when you stand. You don't hold the microphone.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Eye of the tiger. Yeah. You got to stay fit. You got to stay hot. You got to stay fit.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Because here's the thing. When you fall in love with somebody, you stop caring what they look like. You got to get through that first step. Did that happen to you? Not yet. Not yet. Thanks for asking. Obviously not. Look how good I look. Not something I have to really worry about yet. Yeah, you look great. Oh, thanks for saying that. How old are you? I am 42. You look great for 42.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah, I don't think that what I do works if I get older.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah, it's the quantum computer. Yeah, maybe that'll fix it. Well, there's that guy that's trying to seem young. You know that guy? I had him on my podcast. He seems out of his fucking gourd. He's not. I would rather die at 70 living the way I live than live to 250 the way he lives.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I started. All right. Welcome to you. Okay. That's done. Okay. We like to start each episode with a land acknowledgment. We are on the land once occupied by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Quibi.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
He's eating kind of human chow. Right. Like a kibble.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Well, also, you know, all the studies also show that, like, what's the key to longevity? It's happy, close relationships. It's a bunch of, like, social things. uh, uh, things. And I gotta say, who wants to hang out with the guy that's like, I gotta go to bed. It's eight 30. I gotta get up in the morning and eat my kibble. You know, it's not like a friend. It's not like a great friend situation.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Sounds like a great hang.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah, yes. A lot. Yes. First of all, good to hear that that's happening in person as well, because he also talks about his son's erections.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I gotta go. So, now, you talked about you not really changing, and that actually was- Well, politically. Politically. No, politically. Well- That's what I took away going back and watching some of the original shows, which is that you say that your politics hasn't changed, that the right went where it went, and the left went super woke, and that you're the same.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
And it's like, how often are you using it's not you, it's me when you're breaking up with somebody? Yeah.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Take a political answer or a human answer.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
That having healthy relationships contributes to longevity.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing processes, along with premium fabrics and finishes. We love that. I love Quince. I have great sheets from Quince. I have great sweats from Quince. Super comfortable, really well-made. It's really affordable. It's a great option. You should just open up a Quince tap. You're darting around the internet.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Trying to fill the time between dinner and fitful sleep. So open up a tab. Put Quince on that tab. And see what it has to offer. What are you, too busy? Everyone's pretending to be busy. The greatest myth in the history of society is that everyone's busy. There are busy people. You may be one of them. And if you are, I'm not talking about you.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But how can everybody be so busy while also having six hours of screen time? The point is, Quince has good stuff. Indulge in affordable luxury. Go to quince.com slash crooked. Oh, I'm so busy. Let me see your phone. Let me see your phone. You looked at Instagram for two hours. Quince.com slash crooked for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash crooked to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash crooked. On to the politics. You brought it up. I did bring it up. And I know that. And everyone's hearing. They know that. They know that I brought it up.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah. We can do whatever we want.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yes, they do. They do a great job. They're right over there. It's a great team. It's a great team. So let's talk about how the Republicans have changed. You said in your special, Trump got the White House again, but he's not going to get your mind.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
It's well, it is. I mean, look, I. There are some people that claim that they're not surprised by how bad it's been so far. I find that hard to believe because in all the you know, if if we knew in October that the planes were going to start bumping, we would have maybe said something right. Like, I don't nobody was like, hey, and then we may invade Panama. Like that wasn't anything.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
And Kamala Harris wasn't out there being like, and don't forget, we might invade Panama.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But a lot of this does seem to like, you know, the fucking, I think there's not just a lack of knowledge, but there's a disdain for knowledge that leads, whether it's Elon wandering around government bureaucracies, he knows nothing about cutting at random and then discovering that, oh, that person was working on bird flu. We should probably get him back.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah, I thought I might set you off. Seems like it worked. All right, so now I want to start with this because I just realized that... Politically Incorrect is about to be 30 years old.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Or Trump's routing off about the Middle East. There's a lack of appreciation for expertise and nuance. Which is very, very fascist, very authoritarian, which is to say, you know what? Yeah, democracy is sometimes slow and complicated, but there's a reason and there are good reasons. There's a good reason that this is not how we've done things in the past. There is value to stability.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
There's value to the slow and sometimes frustrating work of compromise and change.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Well, I remember watching it. It was on Comedy Central, then it moved to ABC. Correct. But I could only watch it because Comedy Central re-aired it in the afternoons. I didn't know that. And so I would... It has to be true. But I would come home from school.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
There's a... There was a congressman, Tom Malinowski, I think, and he said this on The Bulwark and it stuck with me. And he said that Trump understands our power, but not our values. And Joe Biden understands our values, but not our power. And it really stuck with me because there are moments where, yeah, you know, Nixon playing crazy. Donald Trump says things that change the contours of a debate.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But he does it by proposing ethnic cleansing and some of those ghastly policies that any American president has ever talked about. You talk about, oh, we need to do some of these things. We're worried about the deficit. We know what the source of the deficit is. We know. It's actually not the debt. We know the source of the debt. We know the source of the deficit.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
The number of federal workers has not increased as a share of the population. That's static. So there's not some big behemoth of federal workers. It's lower than it was in the 90s as a share.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
The source of our deficit and debt are the tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts, the Trump tax cuts, the cost of Medicare, the cost of Medicaid, the cost of Social Security, and the cost of the military. That's what drives the cost. That's it. Then there's cuts to be made and fraud to be found, for sure.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But the part of this, too, is it's not... Obviously, they have... They don't really respect...
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But you host a show that's about the value of debate. And one of the two sides no longer, they'll use a debate when it's useful. They'll use politics, normal politics when it's useful, but they'll cast it aside, right? They'll go through Congress when they can. They'll ignore it. when they can't.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
And I would watch it every day when I got home from school.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
They'll come on your show and make a case when they can, but they'll say, you're an evil Marxist and all should be ignored when it's not useful. That's really dangerous. And so, yeah.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
It felt like that. It felt like that.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I catch it now and again. And I'm not like, click, click, click. I'm not waiting for the sound every Sunday like I used to when I was a kid. When I was a kid, I watched it every Sunday. Really? I wasn't a cool kid. It was a lot of Bill Maher in 60 Minutes and wondering if I was going to get invited to prom. The answer, I was not.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Well, I... It was very, I actually was thinking about it. It was very formative for me. And I went back and I watched the first episode of Politically Incorrect.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
No, no, of course, but I guess I just, like, you know, we have a lot of problems in America. We've got the vice president going to Europe to complain about sort of German social dynamics, and it's like, okay, I mean, this is about a larger project of the right.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
kind of a big thing and it should be to you especially you make your living doing it of course of course but as you said these are people that are right now in our own country attacking free speech every day so i take it a bit disingenuously when jd vance is in germany i just said that i know i agree with you that's why i'm rolling my eyes okay i'm rolling my eyes at the situation bill okay
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
What are some of my green flags to you?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Jerry Seinfeld. Right. And Jerry Seinfeld, you asked Jerry Seinfeld about, a question about whether or not pedophiles should have to have signs on their lawns. And it gives you this look like, I'm here as a fucking favor. I do jokes about cornflakes.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
We're going to take a quick break. But before we do that, a reminder that during Black History Month, Vote Save America is supporting black led organizations and candidates of color through our anxiety relief program. One candidate is Kimberly Pope Adams, who's running for a Virginia statehouse seat this year. A critical opportunity to expand the Democrats slim one seat majority.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
So let's talk about our woke quotient a little bit. Let's talk about the woke mob. You say that, you know, the Republicans went the way they went and the Democrats went the way they went. And you're still right where you were. Is it just, and I don't mean this in a, I'm like genuinely asking, is it really just the social questions?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I mean, it's not about like the Inflation Reduction Act and like monetary policy when you say the Democrats. It's just about...
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
to a different place. There's always been a center, a center left, and a left. That's always been the case. There were things that the Vietnam protesters said that was anathema to what was mainstream for Democrats at the time. But put aside the specific of the issue. Joe Biden was for a two-state solution. Kamala Harris was for a two-state solution.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Most mainstream Democrats are for a two-state solution. Donald Trump has embraced Benjamin Netanyahu and no two-state solution, no deal on the table.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
So, Pod Save America, I've taken a lot of shit for what I've said about Israel, my belief in a two-state solution, my horror at what Benjamin Netanyahu has done, but my belief that we ought to be critical of Israel, not just because of what it has done in Gaza, and not just what it has done to the Palestinians, but because it is not in the interest of Israel.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
to create the conditions that they're creating. I am not what you would call woke on this topic. More woke than me. But not what elected Democrats are saying, which I think represent the people that would ultimately be wielding
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
So, like, what are the, like, are there issues where you see, like, the mainstream Democrats, elected figures, not people on college campuses or organizations that have moved left because they're captured by whatever lefty part of their staff or whatever?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah, well, maybe she feels an obligation, a moral obligation, that the best way that she can represent her values is to be this one voice.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Right, there's 434 other members of the House. So one should be from Palestine? I'm not saying one should be from Palestine. I'm saying that she can in an important debate. Well, it's what it seems like and what it is. She's obviously representing her constituents.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
She has a lot of Palestinian constituents, but also feeling like that is a role that she can play in an important debate, that she is not just a member of Congress for one district, but she is representing a point of view that she doesn't feel like is often represented. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Even when, by the way, I have been extremely critical of what she has said.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But back to elected Democrats. I think the reason I'm bringing this up is sometimes I feel like, You have Democrats. There is an entire Republican apparatus that exists to lift up the dumbest, most extreme campus professors, organizations, also mainstream politicians who say something stupid that comes off terribly and have that represent Democrats. And that it actually has an impact.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
And then we end up in a, yeah, I'm just, do you think that's true?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
So I, I largely agree with that, but I think sometimes we lay the blame at the feet of Democrats for two reasons. One, uh, You know, there's bias in the media. But one of the ways the media is biased is that it treats Democrats as the protagonist and Republicans as the antagonist. So Democrats have agency. They're people you can reach. They're people you can persuade.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
They're people you believe will try to do the right thing. And they're people that will actually respond to you.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I think when people feel that there's a liberal bias in a lot of mainstream coverage, one of the manifestations of it is that they are treated like the protagonist. Republicans are, if not villains, they're kind of other and removed. Correct. And Democrats are meant to be the people that respond.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Well, one of the other things it does, though, is it means Republicans aren't held as much accountable for their own decisions.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
And I think part of it, too, the other piece of it is that people are just uncomfortable with saying, hold on a second. There's a... Yeah, Democrats should do a better job of tamping down misinformation and lies. But we're drowning in it. We're drowning in it. Yeah, I wish Democrats were better at pushing back against this bullshit. But we're kind of asking them to solve for a society problem.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
You got, like, Jerry Connolly as the minority leader in this House committee raising his hand to beg Nancy Mace to stop saying a slur. And it's like, we can't win a fight that way. We're not going to be able to... Like, we're... These people don't care what you have to say. They want the fight. They want you to yell at them for saying the wrong thing.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
They don't care what you have to say about any of this.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah. And I think there are, like, those are the political questions, the strategic questions we have to ask. But I think it's also worth saying, hold on a second. The Trump administration is illegally shutting down a government agency that is our counterweight to China around the world. Yeah, true.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
And we all kind of understand that it's hard to tell people why it's important and nobody's going to understand is you got to let that one go.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I mean, don't you have to register? I think that's what this was about. It was about registering and people being, it was about public shaming and who should be shamed and who shouldn't be shamed. It was very 90s.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
That's what they say they believe. But come on, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Akeem Jeffries and Kamala Harris. These are mainstream figures that are not dangerous at all. They have they either are lying to themselves or persuading themselves to believe that Democrats pose a threat because it is part of the project of denying the legitimacy of Democratic politics.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
What was something he did? But like, I'm not, I'm not.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Let's talk about it. But before we do, are there other, that's the one people come to. Is there another example in your mind of Joe Biden that somehow was super woke?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Let's talk about I got to my car. This is trans. Let's talk about it. The position like other countries have national health services. The Democratic position is leave it up to parents, doctors. Just leave. It's not the government's decision. That's the democratic position. What's wrong with that position?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
The democratic position, right?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Sick body. Great hair. The hair I bought. There is a doctor that gets a green flag for the hair. Well, Tommy, I just really like the cut of your jib. Better help. It's fully online. It's helpful for learning positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, and empowers you to be the best version of yourself. It isn't just for those who've experienced trauma. It's true.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
So look, there are delicate problems here. But wait, wait, there's delicate problems here. And there's a delicate problem where you have a kid, who is either non-binary or trans, who feels scared at home, feels unsafe at home.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
There are things that happen in the world. But for the most part, that's not what we're talking about. For the most part, what we're talking about is a teenager who has felt that they have a gender dysmorphia. So what they feel like is that they don't, they feel deeply unhappy, depression, all really rampant.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
No, there was something about it. And that's why I wanted to get to it. And we'll get to it because Seinfeld is like, what the fuck am I doing here? And then Ed Rollins, who was Perot's campaign- Ed Rollins. He was on- Yes. And it really put me back into a different time.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yes, explain. I think we all get it. But yeah, explain it. Entrapment.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Right. I'm sorry. You're right.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
That was rude. That was rude. Bill, finish. You're explaining how being trans is like being recruited into Al Qaeda. Yeah.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Can I just respond to something?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But there is one moment where Seinfeld lights up because it was about polling and focus grouping and whether it was valuable or not valuable. And suddenly there really was an interesting moment.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
You definitely said your piece.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Just stay for one second. Okay, I'm kidding.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
All right, no, I know. Okay. A lot of things there. First of all. Oof. This is going to sound confrontational. For a long time, people said, oh, older gay people are recruiting kids to be gay. And they wouldn't really be gay. It was they were being recruited. They were being groomed that that they were being drawn. That was their conservative position.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
The Christian right position for a long time was the reason you don't want to have gay teachers is they're going to recruit kids. That the gay lifestyle is going to look so enticing and so exciting that it's going to bring these poor defenseless boys, mostly boys, into the gay lifestyle and destroy their lives. But of course that wasn't true. Really, all gay teachers were an example, right?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Look, there are a few examples of people getting older and realizing that they shouldn't have transitioned. That happens. It's real. That's real.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But there are also really important surgeries that people get for their heart, and they go wrong, and somebody dies. And nobody says we must stop the cardiologists. No one says we must stop the surgeons. We say, let's- That's your analogy? Well, my analogy is only that- Wait, let me finish.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yes. Is it my turn to talk? You're right. And what you say is, let's make sure that this version of it is being practiced well. We don't get rid of the specific surgery. We don't throw out a whole field of medicine. We say, let's make sure we're doing it in a way that's healthy. The science, the research, all right, makes clear that, yes, there are exceptions.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yes, there are people practicing it in ways that maybe go too far. But for the most part— Study after study shows that gender-affirming care saves... Wait, let me... I'm talking. It's my turn. I was so quiet for so long after I interrupted a few times. But once I stopped talking, boy, I was good at it. and that gender affirming care saves a lot of lives.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
And the, and the truth is we talk about these edge cases, talk about athletes, talk about locker rooms, but for the most part, what we're talking about is a very small group of people that just want the opportunity to live and express themselves. And there is a war on that group of people from the right to make salient extreme cases, edge cases, uh,
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
not for the purposes of stopping those, but for doing what the Trump administration is doing entirely, which is stopping all gender-affirming care altogether and making trans people fucking nervous when they have to pee at the airport, right? Which is the end result of all this.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Unbelievable. Take a compliment. I'm saying I'm watching the episode and all of a sudden the pilot, you suddenly see the magic that you were trying to get in this show. I wasn't saying it was the only moment. I'm saying there was a moment amongst several. Okay. Are you okay?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But because it is a hard question. Because it is a serious question. It is a personal question. I don't want Donald Trump deciding. I want parents and doctors.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Well, I don't think parents should get shut out. There are rare exceptions. Look, we all believe that parents should have the decisions over their children, but we also recognize that some parents do such a bad fucking job that the kids are in danger. That happens outside of trans issues. That happens all the time. It's terrible.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Somehow the fact that there are terrible parents in the world gets erased on these questions. Do I think that schools should, as a baseline, be keeping a secret from parents? Of fucking course not. No one thinks that.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
And the least bad answer is to not let the government decide from above. It's just to leave it up to people and parents and the kids and the doctors. Right? You want the government to ban gender-affirming care for kids?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
First of all, I'm not talking about winning or losing elections. I agree that there's a salience to this issue. I agree that this has been weaponized. I agree with all that, but I'm just talking about the issue itself. What does that card say?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Let me see if I hit all my points that I wanted to make about this.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Um, let's not, you gotta go.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I'm just leaving. Bill Maher, everybody.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
I had questions more. I had other questions. Oh, we could do it all day. Well, I guess not. We, we could. All right. Good. Bill Maher, everybody. Get out of here.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Where all of a sudden you have Ed Rollins and you have Jerry Seinfeld talking about what they both know about, which is polling and focus grouping and where it works and where it doesn't work. And what I was wondering is what you were trying to get out of having... comedians and celebrities sitting across from politicians and experts.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
It really was. I really did watch it every day when I got home from school.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But there was... You talk about how things have changed, and I want to talk about how the media has changed and also how the parties have changed. But in terms of the media, there was an episode where... It's really interesting. You brought on Sarah Silverman, and you brought on this... What?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
She was on. Well, what was really interesting.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
She was, and you brought her on and an activist. He was an Asian American activist who was angry about a joke she told that used the word
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
No, it was politically incorrect. I'm sure of it. And it was really important to you. They'd both been criticizing each other in public and gone back and forth.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Most probably she have thought about it. Just take it in the most generous sense.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Asian, uh, you know, media organization that was critical of the way Asian people were portrayed.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yes. And, and look, I, I think people evolve. I like, you know, they, they went back and like stopped airing certain episodes of the golden girls and cut things out of certain shows. And I think that's ridiculous, right? Cause there's, let's just, this was the past and it was different even though shows are look modern and maybe, and we should be able to see those things. That's obvious.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But, but, but I wanted to say,
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
There was a pretty racist episode of the Golden Girls, but let's just... There was. But I think let people see it. Who cares? I'm not talking about that.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
For sure. And when they're putting warnings on Gone with the Wind, it's like Gone with the Wind sucks, but not because it's racist. It is racist, but that's not why it sucks.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Okay. But we'll get back to it. We'll get back to Gone with the Wind. We'll talk about movies at the end. Let's challenge our assumptions. But the... The reason I bring up the Sarah Silverman moment, who I love and think is an incredible comedian, and she's sharp in that debate as well, is it was really important in that moment where you said, you know what?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Visit betterhelp.com slash PSA to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash PSA. Welcome to Pond Save America. I'm John Lovett. We're up and running with our Sunday shows. These episodes are going to be coming out every other weekend. We'll give John, Tommy, Dan and me a chance to have deeper conversations with a range of interesting people.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Let's have the debate right here and have it in front of everybody and let people hash it out. And you talk about how things are different. And what's striking is, like, you think about that moment and... There wasn't public forums for people to have debates. There was television. There was radio and television, some newspaper op-eds. People could write a letter to the editor.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
But for the most part, political conversations on television weren't about or next to the political culture. They were the political culture. And if you got people together and had the debate, the 1,000 people that got to have an opinion on television would see it and it would impact them, right? And you could really feel the impact of debate. And we don't live in that world anymore.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah, we've talked about that here. And I think in the early years of this company, we were much more reluctant, in part because we were trying to, I think, be just a platform for progressive voices. But as we've grown, we've realized that we want to have more voices.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah, I want to come back to that in a second. I want to stay on debate only because what I felt when I was watching those old episodes is a kind of nostalgia for a culture where debate mattered. Like, you still do the kinds of debates you did back then, though you do it with more kind of serious people. There's fewer Christine O'Donnells popping up.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
On that episode where Sarah Silverman and this activist are talking... At what point, I forgot he was even there. David Spade was sitting there in fucking silence. And you turn to David Spade and you're like, so David Spade, what do you think? And he's like, fuck you, Bill. How about that? I don't want to be here. What am I doing here? I'm in Tommy Boy.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Why are you asking me this really hard question?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Yeah, it used to exist more in, like, the old, before they went live to tape, when, like, Carson was truly live. And there were just, things would go wrong, right? No, Carson was not live. when there would be like moments early on in the early years and there, yeah, you got, you got like, uh, uh, just like drunks on the stage and there, and he's like, I gotta get out of here. Drunks.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
There was an episode where like, I want to say like Peter, uh, what's his name?
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Peter Lawford. And two other people in a movie that we've all forgotten are on their promotional tour and they're just drunk. They were just drunk on that stage.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
But I saw all my fellow castaways. Do they remember you?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, I think that I feel like the interpretation that Sarah has there is completely fine. The hope that the that Seltzer was right is completely fine.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You remember me, short guy, first day? They're like, you're a producer, right? Yeah.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
She's taken enough shit for this poll and she had the kind of courage of her convictions to do a poll the way she was accustomed to doing it, taking what the data showed her and releasing it, which is what a lot of pollsters refuse to do, which is why all the polls heard she got this one wrong. Whose take are we judging, Sarah?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
No, I actually don't think it is. I think it's the fucking keys.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
She said, you'll distribute my ashes over Des Moines.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Because you know what? Because there's... We're people. People make mistakes. People get things wrong. The best methods lead to an incorrect result. But she had the humility and like the expertise to put behind it and the rigor. This guy's running out there being like, I've I've been in the sarcophagus and found the secret eye that tells you how politics will be in the future.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
The this is an insurrection commentary was some of the dumbest fucking shit ever. And the indignity of having to actually walk through why it's so fucking stupid. I don't think we even have to. I don't think we ever had to. We never did.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You're either stupid enough to believe it or you're full of shit. And I don't need to convince any of those people.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, good luck in life. I hope you figure out how to tie your shoes.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Okay, Saul, let's do another take, but this time kind of more throw it away. Who was that? Who was that? Yeah.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So this is somebody claiming that it's a conspiracy on Epstein's Island to remove Joe Biden?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think you do. That is chilling. The two of you calling that name out there being like, I remember who said it. That is chilling.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
No, he's not the game theory guy. What happened to that guy? Where'd that guy go?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And another kicker, Kamala Harris, black. Right. That's also an important thing to know. Joe Biden. White.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
It was pretty bad. A white guy accusing other white guys of being racist for trying to dethrone a white guy. It reminds me of this other like you'll see like a white male comedian refer to white women and make fun of them because he knows he can't say women. And so he has to add the white so that he can make fun of women. You know, it's like I'm suspicious. I'm suspicious. Color me suspicious.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
That was a good one. I think that wins for me as well. That also was a moment where also the worm kind of turned.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Sorry. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no. And you know what? Honestly, I would like a cogent, comprehensible president. If that makes me an ableist, so be it. If that's what ableism means now, then I'm an ableist.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
So that was about RFK Jr. believing, according to the the rules that have traditionally been used, that he would have gotten a slot at a presidential debate, which which might be true. And then there was a separate discourse about whether it was bad for the country that the debate commission was basically ignored. And then the candidates spoke directly and figured out debates with the networks.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
The whole thing was so, everything about it was stupid. Everything about it was frustrating. Like I love Chapel Roan. I think Chapel Roan, like a lot of the people criticizing Chapel Roan should go outside and touch grass.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And like I'm being perfectly clear and then kind of like a pundit, just like fucking losing it, like like being like, how dare you misinterpret my completely elliptical and confusing way of talking about politics. Allow me to make myself perfectly clear. I'm once again going to say something similar. That's very hard to interpret. It was like for no one.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And it's like, you're not a political expert. You're putting yourself out there. You became incredibly famous in this year. That must be an insane amount of pressure. Why are we doing this?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And who is the current president? Right. And is that person involved at all? Do we know what that person thinks about this?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Well, I think like the bigger thing to take from it, it's not like this one moment about Chapel Rome, but like, you know, like there was like a big chunk of people, like, The people that got behind Trump were super excited and gung-ho about it.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
A few people were like that about Kamala, but there were a lot of people like Chapel Roan that felt like it was uncool or problematic to full-throatedly get behind a Democrat. And I would like that to not be true in the future. It'd be great if we were a movement where Chapel Roan was excited and it was valuable for her to be a part of it and in both directions. That'd be cool. That'd be nice.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Too many fags in the Democratic Party, huh, Travis? Jesus Christ.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, we have a huge problem. I think it is. I think pointing at consultants is whatever, but it's a collective inability to sound like normal people. Also, a bunch of podcasts where it's like, hey, come over here. You can say whatever you want. We don't care. I don't love that. But on our side, it's like, you better be careful. There are tripwires, and you're going to hit them.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Look, we're having a human problem. We're having a difficulty reaching voters.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Think about what? Here's what I've been thinking about just as we watch the final few weeks of the Biden administration. And it becomes clear in just these past few weeks how ridiculous the assertion was that he was in shape to be president over the next four years. That my regret is that it took until... Not just seeing him once behind the scenes when we went to the White House.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Not just seeing him a second time when we saw him at that fundraiser. But till the debate, to be full-throatedly honest. Don't we this. I wasn't there. Didn't I say I?
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I was there when we saw him. Well, some of us were there. He was at the Clooney fundraiser. You're part of it. You're fucking part of it.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
But I think... Because he wasn't dropping out and it seemed like a fait accompli, we were very hard on Biden and wanting him to get out there to dispel questions about his age. But looking on it back, could we have gotten there faster? Could we have pushed harder? I don't know. But I come away from that moment thinking more about how we got to that place in the first place.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Right, right, right. But he did. But the pressure did come.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
No, I don't think so. No, I don't think so. Some of the best discourse. Some of the best and most of the best discourse we've ever had.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Debate commission. We choose debate commission. Sometimes an ugly, shitty little pug makes it to best in show and that thing never wins.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
What a weird thing to say. He's always tongue-in-cheek about those kinds of things, but it is just a reminder that masculinity is a prison that locks from the inside. Oh, is it gay to have a birthday, fellas?
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think it's that George Soros, via his vehicle of Taylor Swift, is going to push a pro-gay, pro-trans, pro-abortion agenda.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I don't know if she stuck the landing on that one.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
It's also just like goldfish level memory. Taylor Swift has endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, endorsed Marsha Blackburn's opponent, got involved in a bunch of different issues. Ties just pride every pride when she's on tour. Like just it just this is just part of her politics in the documentary. Yeah. There's a documentary about it where she's on film talking about why she wants to talk about politics.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Just like you're just paying attention. But but like even though you don't have like the world exists when your eyes are closed.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
There's a fallacy in philosophy that Tommy will remember from his studies, which is, it's called no true Scotsman. No true Scotsman, which is, he says, I'm not against vaccines. He's like, well, are you? You've said this or that. I'm just for safe vaccines. Well, can you name any safe vaccines? No, I'm for safe vaccines, but there are no safe vaccines. What about this vaccine?
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Well, that's not a truly safe vaccine. What about this vaccine? It's not a truly safe vaccine. It's a way of claiming something while never actually allowing it to be true. Sounds like Twitter. Yeah. Fun. Yeah. Guys, give me a charge of the water. Enjoy, everybody. It's very bad. Drink up. Drink up. Drink while you can. Yeah. Get all those shots.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
30 years from now, everyone's teeth are going to fall out of their fucking face and be like, I wonder why this happened.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Both have hats? Oh, the tribe has spoken? Wow. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I've been saving these for a while.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You have one person who's going to prosecute this.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Like we said about the January 6th hearings, so good they should be illegal. Yeah.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
It's just before you would have a lot of video. Someone had a flip cam or something. Shameik was busy at the fucking newspaper until 2 in the morning wasting his fucking college life on op-eds. Oh yeah, Williams' record really make a difference? I was playing music.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think Trump's take really was the take of the year. I mean, it it it. It became the discourse. It was the hinge point. It was one of the policy hinges of the whole election.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Being a speechwriter is about figuring out the best way to convince a bunch of people to either come along with you or agree with you or support you. I think that's a lot of what Survivor is. You know what?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, really crushing on both this year. Got my finger on the goddamn pulse this year. Yeah, thank you for that. Next up.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, now she's in charge of the TSA. The one thing is, it's funny, because that was a very cogent and reasonable take, but Trump was like, actually, I don't need to worry about any of that. I'm going to pick the opposite, a piece of shit guy that makes women uncomfortable, and it won't matter. Yeah.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think people hate the Biden administration so much that I can choose one of the biggest assholes around.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, I feel like... No, no, I think the polls are... And that's so important to keep in mind, that polls are... If you've ever heard us say that, polls are a snapshot. In time.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
If you look back on the year, but you take away from all of these like very reasonable, like these are all opinions about like ways things could matter at the margins in a race that wasn't really fought. Like, but we were, but oh, but would that it mattered, but we're so fucked it doesn't.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
He's saying that first you put up the sporting dogs, up to the little dogs, then you got your other dogs, and then the best dog in each category, you know, pugs and so forth, they all go head to head in the final category where you're deciding.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You know, I... I remember, I'm not judging. We were all in that headspace. But man, were we grading on a fucking curve at that time.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Well, that's the point I was making about old Seth Meyers. And I would say, by the way, that's the bar that we had set for ourselves, and it was too low. Too low. We're like, Joe Biden is losing the election, but good news, he can occasionally do a public event that's kind of a draw. What are we doing here? Not winning.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
That was pre-State of the Union. It was pre-State of the Union.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
That was the Seth Meyers appearance, though, where Amy Poehler had to come out. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was at the point where he was no longer doing things by himself.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I like that. I have to say, in terms of bad takes, the meta bad take of the year was, hey guys, I know it sounds crazy, but I'm going to go on Survivor. I think it'll be good. Yeah, that's true. That was a bad take. Did you have fun? Yeah, I had a good time. I had a good time. Missed three dinners. You did miss three dinners. Missed three dinners.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Right, exactly. And where a group of adults decide whether or not a Shih Tzu is better or worse than a Labrador. It's like, no, this one's better. Stupid.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Would Michael Phelps be as good of a swimmer if he had diarrhea in the pool and then killed himself? Huh.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And I think, look, and it's funny because it feels like mean. Like we're punching down. Yeah. But I think it's worth just saying, like, there was a lot of people like Alan Lichtman, which were people that were looking at, like, a miasma of contradictory data and saying they knew the answer. And, like... How many times are we going to fucking do this? Because I cling to those people, too.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Like, you know, you're like you're just like reading all things. And there's this person like looking at me like, here's why it's so clear what's going to happen. And like you want those things to be true. Like you want to believe those things, but you just can't. And this was like a signal, ridiculous example of it.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
But no, you're not going to confidently predict the future based on your 14 political science fucking keys.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Alan. Alan Lickman. Your prize money's in the mail.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
This is our last chance to talk about it. How's that late alarm?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Defrosting turkeys all day long? I need more corn for the chili.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
How's your spam problem, Tommy? A lot of self-reflection going on?
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
All right. Let's hear Lovett's. My resolution is to not spend the year worrying about
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
food and diet like for the first time to go into this year without any kind of like emotionally unhealthy relationship with food and diet and exercise that's my resolution and to keep that going oh yeah well how did you find the willpower to do that where did you gain the strength first of all yeah yeah yeah we're making america healthy again one injection to the hip at a time
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Now, this resolution came after I'd already started taking experimental pancreas medicine.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
No, but I will say I did also fail because I'm still, I'm better, I'm definitely better But I still do have an unhealthy relationship to food. It's so hard. But it's interesting. All of our resolutions, attention span and diet, it's all about trying to find some inner reservoir of discipline to defeat a cultural force. And it's hard. It's hard. Because I'm now better about the diet stuff.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And I am a little bit crazy about exercise. So I don't know. I don't know. Better. Better than I was. That's for sure.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Right, that's the argument for Trump from Republicans in the House.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think that's great. Okay. I think it's good to write things down. I think sometimes writing things down is to, you figure out what you really think when you actually try to write it down. That's right.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
We'd love to, but we're just so impressed for our time.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
The overlap is one is a group of people helping to make the world clear. The other is a technology that will make it much harder. So in a way, they're in competition. So that's interesting.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Tommy's going to meditate. It is good. Maybe while you're meditating, you'll see John on one of his walks.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
There's some dead ends along the way. The path is the mindfulness, guys.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Downward Dan. Dan, I'm so excited for you. When you're next in LA, you and I We're going to Pilates. Oh, I'd love to watch it.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Downward Dan. Downward Dan's pretty good. Love it. So I feel like we are coming to the end of the year where we made a lot of shows and we did a ton of content and there was a lot happening. And I want to try next year to do a little bit less, a little bit better and like really be deliberate about because I do think that like like Joe Biden, you're quite quitting, too.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
A little bit more than him. No, but I do think that we're heading into another Trump era. It's going to be exhausting. And we keep saying, we got to make sure that we're disciplined about what we care about, discipline what we pay attention to. And I just want to apply that to what we cover, how we cover it. I want to make sure that... So we took down the Tuesday, love or leave it.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And that's in part because I want to try to make the Thursday show even better. And I want the time and space to think about that and to think about other things to do outside of these two shows. And I want to have the mental space And it's not about time or even like work. It's just like the creative space to think about how to talk about politics.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Because so much of what we've just been saying for the last couple of weeks is there's something about how Democrats sound and we need to figure out how we're communicating. And like, you're not gonna figure that out in the churn.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Well, they look great. It's going to deliver. It's just for those listening at home, they both, after we began, they both put on their The Tribe Has Spoken hats. That's right. Not one for Dan. They didn't get Dan in on this. We've been saving them for this occasion.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
that honestly it's like that that take has that take it was it aged poorly and then it aged well again right I don't know I thought it no it started well it started right if you'd cut the first 20 seconds of that well I guess because he didn't he didn't end up competing in Michigan right well I guess what I mean is just that like the the liabilities he was describing were correct they ultimately did become Kamala's liabilities and cost us the country so there was some truth in that but Dean but Dean Phillips wasn't the way he wasn't the way he wasn't the way
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Right at the end there. Couldn't stick the landing. Couldn't stick the landing.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah. And the season just ended this week, right? Yeah. That's right. The finale was last night. Yeah. And many months ago, I was on Survivor.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
By the way, those are the cross promos we've been doing.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, the first one was just wrong. Just completely wrong.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
The Hill. Oh. Max Burns. The Hill, Washington's second choice to read on the toilet. What? Right? I think it's like third or fourth now.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Did we ever get confirmation as to whether there was a deal? I don't think so.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
It's also just like, even where there are times where I feel sure of something, I'm so chastened by the history of recent events and my awareness that the future will come. You will have to measure it against what you thought in the past.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You know, Andy's out there living his dream, and then that's fine. But no, but I have a picture of our meeting, which was funny.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah. And even more importantly, it's a huge problem for the country, what's happening.
Pod Save America
The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You know, it would be a less divided country if we were all Republicans, but that's also not the world I want to live in.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
That on a Sunday show for years, and this is like years and years ago, like when I was a kid, you would turn on the Sunday shows and when they did a round table of journalists, it would be mainstream journalists, mainstream journalists, mainstream journalists, conservative. There would never be somebody from the far left, but you'd have somebody as right. It used to be Crystal.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
It used to be Crystal. It used to be Crystal. Your boy. My boy. And by the way, Democrats do this too. Like when we're trying to prove that we're strong on national defense, we say, well, even Republicans like Colin Powell, right? Or even Republicans like John McCain, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Sure. And and you end up with Democrats claiming and mainstream media claiming that legitimacy comes from being seen as legitimate from the left and from the right. And and now you have Republicans that even when they agree, even when they want to say that Democrats have a point or the media is correct about something like like in the case of the signal chat.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
They know that if they withhold that support, if they withhold that honesty, the story remains murky. That's true about the debt ceiling. That's true about tariffs. That's true about a bunch of different policy questions. And we talk about the value of shame and how much shame played a role in our politics.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And when people realized if they abandoned it, there was nothing to stop them from doing whatever they wanted. That's obviously a big part of it. There's a word I come back to over and over again, just in my mind, which is forbearance. Like, I didn't understand how important forbearance was in our politics.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
That basically, if a judge ruled against you, even if you were pissed, you didn't go to the cameras and say you were going to defund that guy. There was an understanding that in our system, you're going to win some, you're going to lose some, and you just, you can bear it. You can take it. You don't have to rant and rave about your enemies. You don't have to declare war on anybody.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
You don't have to look around the corner, right? If you lose a budget fight and you don't get to end the Department of Education, you don't get to do it administratively. You wait, you wait, you show patience and restraint.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And that a lot of what we build in this country was based on a collective understanding that people would be patient, that they would show restraint, that they would have forbearance. And these people have abandoned that. And that's why Kristi Noem is standing in front of a group of prisoners shooting a video. That's why Pete Hegseth can go to the cameras and claim it's all a hoax.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
They have no sense of, yes, they're shameless, but they have no restraint.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Well, you had people like John McCain who had been tortured. And people who had a value set and a mission that was not connected to their Republican politics. They were Republicans. They were Republicans. But they were also Virginians and Arizonans and veterans and whatever, Irish. They had a core set of values and principles that had led them into politics in a different age.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
They also, by the way, consumed a bunch of – as individuals, they consumed – the mainstream media. I mean, we've talked about this before. It was always a bit of theater, right? Like Republicans would bash the mainstream press, but they would read it and care about it. And by the way, it was left. It was biased towards the left. Absolutely. Absolutely.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
So first of all, that was sort of my one and done. I regret that it happened with you, but it sort of hit me in that moment and haven't felt that calm since. It is strange, right? Because we had that conversation before we saw... what is now unfolding, which is basically a worst case scenario. Like I was talking about this with John and Tommy yesterday because
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And the mainstream press to this day, it treats Republicans like antagonists and Democrats like protagonists. Democrats are inherently the heroes and Republicans are inherently they're kind of trying to stop their foil. Yeah. Sometimes villains, but mostly just foil. Fine, all of that was true, but they read it. They consumed it. There was a basic understanding of reality.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And what happened is the right-wing fringe- through the media, slowly started eating more and more of your party, Tim. And its whole ethos is we are a rebellion within the Republican Party and within politics. Go look at Newt Gingrich's speech to the college Republicans in 1978. It's about being outsiders inside of a broken system. They are pilgrims in an unholy land.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And everything about it is we are not in charge. So we can go a little further. We can make crazy claims. We can say we're going to do things that if anyone actually did them would be country destroying. And now they are in charge.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And these are people that their whole sense of the world, of themselves, of their politics, it was all about being people who didn't have power. They were kind of throwing spitballs at the system. They were teenagers. They were teenagers with a curfew.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
who are like, I wanna stay out late, and mom and dad won't let me, and it's because they hate freedom, and it's because they don't understand what it's like to be me, and they're terrible, and they're stupid, and there's no reason, nothing makes sense, they're all crazy, and then all of a sudden, their parents go away, and they stay out too late, and they destroy the car, and they ruin the house, and they come to realize, in the movie version,
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
oh, maybe some of these rules, maybe mom and dad weren't so stupid after all. Maybe all my yelling and screaming wasn't actually totally fair. But these people are never going to realize that. Mom and dad aren't coming home. The house is burned to the ground. It's a sad version of that movie.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
They said their parents sell Salvador.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
All of these people, Everyone, every one of them, right? Like why can RFK Jr. become the head of HHS while being anti-vax? Because we live in a world where vaccines work so thoroughly that people don't fear enough what it would look like to live in a world without them. Why can we put someone like Pam Bondi at the Department of Justice?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Because people take as a baseline, as table stakes, that they don't live in a world where political prosecutions are happening left and right.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Right, like, Lutnik, Lutnik can say, oh, buy Tesla stock, right? Because he takes for granted that America is a society where there's been tons of corruption, there are tons of ways where big businesses buy influence, there's lobbying, there's a whole bunch of problems. But for the most part, we know that...
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
If there's somewhere where you gotta give somebody a million dollars to get a permit for a building, or you need to know the right people in order to do a startup, if that became the normal in this country, it would destroy the thing that made America's economy the envy of the world, the economy where he got personally rich. They are children.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
who don't respect or understand the systems that were built and how it made this country so great. And now they are tearing at the foundations of that thing because they are either stupid or careless or vile. And we will live with the repercussions.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Obviously, there are many ways in which what we could be seeing unfolding. There are many ways it could be worse. There are many ways it could be more destructive. They could be more vile, more feckless about basic rights and due process. But it's hard to imagine a version of the Trump administration unfolding in which they are doing more and bad things now.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
I wonder where you're at on it. Just think about what had to happen, right, for Nome to get that shot, right? They made those prisoners all line up and face the cameras and stand there under, you know, God knows what, only threat. By the way, those pictures in front of the Salvadoran prisoners, right? Salvador prisoners. Those are Salvador prisoners.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Those are not the prisoners that she sent there or was part of sending there. And you're just going to use them as props to film this video. And what does she say in that video? She says some version of, if you're a violent immigrant, this could happen to you. This is where we might send you.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Now, that prison, it's only been open for a couple years, was opened by this right-wing government as part of a state of emergency to crack down on gangs.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
We have now sent some unknown number, let's say it's like 260 some odd people there, because they are claimed by this administration to be members of this gang, but not because they were convicted of a crime that resulted... And by the way, they may have... These people were in detention. I don't know what they did. I don't know who they are. We haven't been told anything.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Some of these guys, I'm sure, are terrible and unsavory figures, but they are now in a prison. They've not just been deported to Venezuela, their country of origin, or deported to another country for some reason. They're in a prison. How long are they going to be there, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
The Salvadoran administration of this prison about the Salvadorans, they are holding people indefinitely as part of this state of emergency, right? They're just holding people. They're just saying, these people are not fit for society. We're holding them. In America, we don't do that. We don't do that. If someone's in a prison, it's- Sometimes you get it fucking wrong.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Without getting the blowback that might hurt them, right? They are on this sort of razor's edge. They're pushing the bounds, obviously, of due process and deporting people without evidence, including people that have nothing to do with the roundups they're claiming that they do. They are playing footsie with...
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
But even if you get it fucking right, you get it right.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
People commit crimes. That's what makes them criminals. They're not instinctively, inherently criminal. We don't lock people up because they are criminals. We convict them of crimes. That makes them a criminal. And they serve some kind of a sentence, maybe a long sentence, maybe a life sentence. But we have now sent a bunch of people to a Salvadoran gulag.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
The government has not said who they are, hasn't said how long they're meant to be there, right? They have no sentences, right? We don't know what they're accused of. They weren't a public safety threat, right? Because they were in detention, the members of this gang that they're claiming they have, right? And I'm sure many of them are members of this gang. So they're just down there now.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
We'll see how long. We have no idea with no information. And then it turns out that part of the way they've been doing this roundup is by just grabbing Venezuelan men who are non-citizens who have tattoos, even if they've applied for refugee status, even if they've applied for asylum. The one example about autism awareness that you mentioned that's exceptionally chilling is he was cleared.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
He did the background check. They looked over the tattoos. It's for autism awareness. Yeah. It's a fucking rainbow. It's a rainbow ribbon. It's a rainbow ribbon, right? It's not like, you know, I'm not a tattoo person. But when I see a rainbow ribbon, I don't think Hardin gang member.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And, you know, and there's this aspect that's been playing out when these stories break, which is that they grab somebody off the fucking street. They don't give you any information. They don't get due process. Suddenly they go to El Salvador and they're like, these are hardened criminals. And then you say, well... Show us, prove us. And then you're, and there's a little part of you, right.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
That's saying like, well, I'm going to say they got the wrong guy. And then they're going to provide the evidence that says, actually, this person's terrible. Right. And it's like, well, fuck you. These people should be innocent until proven guilty. And yeah, maybe that you, whatever the, whatever the standard may be legally for deportations, which is different. Right. Right.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
That should be our American instinct, which is, no, we don't throw people on a plane to a foreign country without putting them in front of a fucking judge. And until you give us that information, we'll assume you got it wrong because that's what we should do.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
the Constitution and just sort of claiming they're following orders, not following orders. They're ignoring Congress completely on spending. They're putting on tariffs. They're taking tariffs off. It's all very destructive, but it is like, in a way, I hate to say that it feels designed.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
He's still there. Night after night. I mean, that is, like... Like this person, right, is now scarred. I mean, just scarred in a way we can't comprehend, right? He just was... By the way, doing everything we said to do, right? Applying legally, following the rules, doing what he was supposed to be doing.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And then this is the... It's... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
It's really much more of a kind of gut instinct on Trump and a bunch of lackeys at random kind of operating on what they think he wants. But the end result is They are marching us down this path towards authoritarianism in a way that is not eliciting as big a response as you would hope. That's how I would feel about it. I'm just angry all the time, I think, more than I am scared.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And maybe that's because I can't accept what's happening and can't really feel where it's going. And then yet the strangest part about all of it is then you go out to dinner with some friends, right? And then you have a great night and then you buy new placemats for the table and you... It's as bad as it could be. Plan a wedding.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Things are as bad as they could be without it feeling insane that normal life is still happening. And normal life is still happening. And I don't think it should stop and I don't think it's wrong. But it is. There is a dissonance there. There is something confusing there. Because... We have spent years saying, this is how bad it could get. And it is getting that bad.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Our show, Speech Center, by the way. Yeah. It's the hit of the channel. It's actually kind of hurting my feelings.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . in in in in in. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P.,,. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. in P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P of P. P. P. P. P. P. P. It's not that millions of people will show up in the streets of D.C. to stop this. It's that they won't, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And yet, life carries on around it.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
It's not that this will culminate in some great democratic movement that will be ugly and scary. It's that that democratic movement won't coalesce. And I do think our project over the next... six months, next year, is to try to figure out how to reawaken that spirit of democracy.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And that's why I've been struggling to articulate this too, which is why I find the kind of Luigi fanfic so disgraceful. And by the way, why I think throwing fucking Molotov cocktails at a Tesla is so stupid. It's not because I'm some liberal squish, although I am, and I view those things as wrong, though I do.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
It is because fundamentally, I remember there was this historian, Richard Evans, I believe his name, I may be having his name wrong, but he wrote these three books, The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and The Third Reich at War. And he gave an interview about the books about one thing he learned from them. And he said, you will never out-violence the fascists. Why?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Well, because at root, what is right wing authoritarianism? What is what is the kind of the final form of right wing authoritarianism? It is one person deciding how the rest of us live. And that's what an assassin does. That's what a dictator does. That's what a person who commits violence at a rally does. It is someone deciding for themselves what's going to happen to the rest of us.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
What is the core fundamental left decision? expression of power. It is solidarity. It is millions of people coming together to make a choice for themselves and choosing what happens to the country. That is a protest. That is an election. That is a Congress. And so what we have to do is build towards that kind of mass mobilization, that kind of solidarity. And violence...
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
individuals taking it upon themselves to decide what happens and where is anathema to that and makes that harder because it will enable the crackdown that we are already seeing unfolding.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And what we have to think about every single day is how do we get to the point where millions of people are in the streets to send a signal to Republican politicians, to send a signal to their fellow Americans, or by the way, A big enough protest that in and of itself can help is power. In and of itself can shut down a city.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
In and of itself can stop authoritarianism or force authoritarianism to reveal its horrible nature before the country. I don't know where we're heading, but that's one of the places where we could be heading. And if we are, it requires forbearance on our side too.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Where are the protests right now? Were there student protests at Columbia? Agree with them, don't agree with them as people standing up for what they believed in. Columbia just gave in to the most flagrant attack on free speech that I've seen in my lifetime.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
The president of the United States declaring himself basically provost of Columbia, dictating specific departmental rules, dictating specific policies on a private university's campus. Where is the protest? Where is everybody? Why don't people care enough? Why isn't there a politics that is inspiring people to take to the streets when these kinds of things happen?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Why are we more geared towards the political fights we've had for 30 years than the biggest fight we've ever seen in our lives happening right in front of our faces and people aren't showing up?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Yeah, so this is a Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. This is not just about a signal. This is incredibly important. Basically, last year, or I'm losing track of time. I think this was last year, the beginning of last year. There was a Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. This judge, Janet Protasewicz, she won. That shifted the balance of the court from right to left.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
That's why Republicans were so upset. That's why they've tried to stymie this court now at every turn. What that court has never been able to do is kind of put in place fair maps for the assembly. Right now, the Republicans had a super majority because they drew their own maps, right? Wisconsin is a 50-50 state, currently has six Republican House members, two Democratic House members.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
The assembly was gerrymandered towards the right. They put in place fair assembly maps. They could put in place, if we win this race, fair, ungerrymandered congressional maps. Also at stake is whether or not they put it back in place, this 1849 abortion law.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
In theory, they can enforce the old abortion law. They can put back in place the gerrymandered assembly maps. They can prevent fair maps from redrawing the congressional districts. They also will now have somebody in place that will rubber stamp basically anything they do to try to rig the electoral system towards Republicans, right? This is a MAGA guy. We got so close.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
So they're being able to toss out Joe Biden's win in Wisconsin. If you have someone like Brad Schimel in place, who knows what could happen, but now they would be in a position to throw out election results. We're seeing this unfold in North Carolina right now. Republican judge lost that race.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
They are now trying to throw out votes they don't like purely based on the fact that they want to steal this thing. That could happen in Wisconsin. But more than that, So Elon Musk has put $13 million into this race. It's fucking crazy. He's just dumping money into this race. Wisconsin came out and voted for Judge Protasiewicz because they didn't want the 1849 abortion law.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
They didn't want a right-wing judge. If Donald Trump is able to buy this seat for Brad Schimel and they're able to put in place gerrymandered maps, have somebody in place that's going to rule in favor of Republicans when they question the outcome of elections, that sends a signal. First of all, that's terrible on its own, right? It makes winning the presidency that much harder in the future.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
But also, this sends a message, right? Right now, there are squishy Republican House members who are not sure what's more dangerous, to them. Should be the more afraid of Elon Musk or their voters, right? Should they vote for reconciliation, cut Medicaid, cut taxes for rich people and hope that Elon Musk's money protects them in the fall?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Or should they buck Elon, bear the attacks from the right and trust that their voters will protect them? If Elon Musk can buy the seat, that's a big proof point for these Republicans to just stick with the program. And we don't want them to stick with the program. We want them to be afraid. We want voters to overwhelm and overcome the advantage that comes from all of this money.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
So the stakes for Wisconsin are incredibly high, but the stakes for the country are very high, both in terms of how this court could rule in future elections challenges and also the message it sends about whether or not Elon Musk's money can buy a seat. So if you're in Wisconsin, make sure you cast your vote. If you know somebody in Wisconsin, shoot them a text. Election's on Tuesday.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Election is on Tuesday.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
It was great. We were in Madison. We were in Milwaukee. A lot of that is just about making sure everybody gets their ballots in. It was reassuring going to the doors. We went to, I think, 150 doors, something like that. And everybody knew the election was coming. Every lefty had gotten their ballot in and was making sure everybody in their life got their ballot in.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
That's what we have to do in Wisconsin, so who knows what that means. The other little moment, too, there were just moments of being out there with people that were just so gratifying and inspiring and a reminder that even... That just being among people is good for you and good for the movement. It's good for people to be out there talking to each other.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Get off your phones, get out of your house. You will feel better about things. Just, you know, you're knocking on doors and you walk by a house and there's just an older woman out there gardening. And she says something like, oh, what are you doing? What are you guys doing? Oh, we're knocking on doors for Judge Crawford. Oh, like, thanks for doing that. We got to help Judge Crawford win.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And then there's just a moment of like, you know, I can't believe what's happening. You know, I'm like so scared. And you realize that like in our asymmetrical politics, it is completely normal for a Republican politician to just go on television and say that people that live in Madison, Wisconsin are fucking communist anti-American disgraces.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And obviously Elizabeth Warren never goes on, on, on air on, on pods of America and starts talking about the rubes down there in Alabama. Right? Like that's not acceptable, but like, it was like, oh, you know, the cities are out of touch.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
What I'm just getting at is like, oh, you know, the liberal enclaves, like we already have them. They're out of touch. Democrats are out of touch with the real people, all that fucking shit. And it's like, okay, yeah, we got to do work. A lot of political work we have to do.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
But like, can we give some due to the progressives in Madison and Milwaukee that have been doing their best organizing who, if more people voted the way that they wanted people to vote, the country would be a much better place. People that are like scared and worried for their country and really fucking care. Like, yeah, I get it. We have the engaged people. We need to do better than that.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Thank God for the engaged people. Thank God for the people paying attention. They're doing the best they can. Just because their votes are assumed and accounted for doesn't mean they don't deserve a little bit of fucking love. We'll leave it there.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Yeah, that's right.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Yeah, well, there's the parts that I actually do think feel like what you would have expected. Honestly, them texting about imminent bombings over Signal with Jeffrey Goldberg in the chat does feel very 2017 to me.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And then Donald Trump threatening tariffs, turning them on, turning them off, causing the markets to be roiled, but not so much as to create a true crisis. That does feel like what we could have expected. Doge going this quickly, I think, caught everybody by surprise, their willingness to just claim an authority they do not have. over the budget and just start eliminating agencies.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
That to me is, was shocking. We obviously knew that was the plan. It wasn't really like fully expressed, but presumably Congress was going to be involved. The deportations, the deportations, you know, like the idea that we are sending people to a Salvadoran prison without due process, that seems like a joke, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Like that was the kind of thing that would seem like the kind of thing people would make as a kind of dark joke about Trump 2.0. a year ago, right? That was the kind of thing people would say, oh, Trump's threatening that, but he'll never do it. That's the kind of thing Trump just says. And then not only are they doing it, they're doing it without anyone ever coming before a judge.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And they're claiming these broad authorities over non-citizens without giving those non-citizens an opportunity to prove who they are or who they're not. And obviously that is a disgusting, vile, immoral behavior. dangerous act, even if it only ensnares non-citizens who have rights in this country. The Constitution, the 14th Amendment, due process, these things don't apply to people.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
If you read the diets, it's for people. But that's both because we understand that human beings have basic rights, but also if non-citizens never get a chance to say to a judge, Hi, here's who I am. Here's why this is wrong. What about a citizen who has a tattoo? What about a citizen who came from Venezuela or whatever country they target next?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Of course. How could we be? How could we be? They won't tell us who these people are. Even the most recent reporting says around 261 people. Yeah. Around. Around? You don't know the number? You don't know the exact number of people you've sent to a fucking gulag in Central America that you have Kristi Noem posing in front of? I mean, those things are moving faster, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
This is a line that I regret using it only because Elon Musk, I think, also thinks it's a great line to use. But the future right now is not evenly distributed. Parts of what we were seeing are what we would have expected. Parts of it are actually moving slower. And then parts of it are racing ahead. There hasn't been some great rise in deportations, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
They are not implementing their broader policy very quickly that they claim they were going to implement, right? Which is removing undocumented people to remove whatever their economic claims about what that would do. They are targeting people and they're doing it in such a way that only makes sense if what they are trying to do is build a permission structure for a host of
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
They want you. They want... They want the gay Republican versus gay Democrat anti-Trump. I don't know what you'd call it. The frisson. You know, they want that.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
My main fear right now is that in facing a million different versions, a million different threats from a million different directions, we will win some battles, lose some battles, but by the end of this four years, we won't really recognize the country.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Yeah. Yeah. A couple of years ago, it was early 2017, 2018, maybe 2019, I don't know. But we were at a live event and this woman asked a question and it stuck with me. And she said, are we really going to have to hang Donald Trump's portrait with all the other portraits of the president? And I understood what she was saying. She's like, can we just get past this and pretend it never happened?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Yeah. Right. Now we got to hang it twice. And I remember saying, no, actually, we're not going to get to do that. Like this is happening. It does reveal something important about the country. And we can't pretend that it was some anomaly. Like, yes, this is changing the country.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
But I think what I'm realizing, too, is it's revealing something about the country and not in the way we like, oh, wow, I didn't know this many Americans would love what Donald Trump is doing. Of course, of course. But realizing that we have made a lot of assumptions about democracy, due process, the rule of law, that we've treated as if they were like self-reinforcing. Right.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
That like kids get a good they get a dose of democracy of education when they're growing up and they learn about the Constitution and the founding fathers. And then we just assume people are kind of immunized against fascism because they love America and they love American principles. But then we watch this unfold and then you see Mike Johnson, someone who I'm sure thinks that he is a.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
a patriotic American who loves our founding principles. And then he says, well, if these judges keep it up, we're going to have to think about defunding parts of the courts that don't do what Donald Trump says. Or, you know, the national security advisor goes on Fox news and says, actually, I think Jeffrey Goldberg snuck into our signal channel and we're going to investigate him for that.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And espionage. And so there's like two big pieces of it. First, there's Actually, let me say there's three. First, there is just the fact that these Republicans are willing to go along with this or are starting to fully embrace it. It's like they weren't in the mood for sex when it started, but by the end, they're having a blast. You know what I mean? That seems to be kind of their vibe.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Yeah, that's right. That's great. That's perfect. That's the image we want to create right now. Then there's the capitulation of institutions, the Columbias and the law firms. And what's interesting about what Trump is doing there is, yes, he's finding the issues where there's divisions inside of these institutions, right? There are the...
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
The lawyers that represent the big, like the Exxon Mobils, and then there are the litigators taking on the pro bono clients or the kind of political clients, and these lawyers that just want the money are like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, stop jeopardizing my bag.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
And then at Columbia, I'm sure there are tons of alumni who are sick of seeing the protests, hate the fact that Columbia has been the center of this controversy, but even in a deeper way, these are institutions that have not had to defend their basic values that they claim to hold.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
They didn't discover it. You put it in the fucking thumbnail. So they were like Columbus discovering America. You know, it was set up for them. It was ready. So, you know, there's only a couple of times I played on Fox.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Columbia claims to be this institution of higher learning, of small L liberal values, freedom of expression, exploration, curiosity, core values about what an educational institution is meant to do. But they violate them all the time. But these institutions have
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
are illiberal in many ways that they don't really grapple with or think about and all of a sudden they're called upon to live up to their values and they don't know how. They just don't fucking know how. And then you have the broader public.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
who are either you know some are fully fucking engaged that's on the right and that's on the left there are people listening to this they're fully engaged they're fully bought in but there are millions of people that are just not paying attention and don't really understand why they should and we've done a terrible job of building credibility with those people and they're just watching this unfold and the big challenge is figuring out how to wake them up but we've spent years waiting for them to wake up on their own and it's just not fucking happening
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
Yeah, I don't know either. And part of the problem is that there's so many places where this had to, this required decades of like softening of the defense systems. One of which is obviously the right-wing media that is not now, has slowly shifted and then quickly shifted from accusing the mainstream media of being liberal to accusing it of being fake, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1008: Jon Lovett: A Worst Case Scenario Comes Into View
That was a transition that was happening. And then Donald Trump really accelerated it, especially around January 6th. But then there's how the mainstream media has reacted for decades. And one of the ways they fought against that is by either explicitly or implicitly believing that legitimacy comes from the right.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And then I get out to LA, again, I am in this completely new field. working on my script, I have no idea. I'm like learning. I'm trying to read other people's scripts. I'm getting feedback from people. This is going to be on television. I've never written anything like this before.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I was an imposter. No, no. For a 1600 pen, imposter. I could fake it till I made it. I learned a lot. I could get through it. But it never... It was fun and it was exciting, but part of what it required was a lot of pretend and having a lot of opinions that I truly felt, but that were meant to mask the fact that if people knew how unsure I was, like the whole thing would collapse on itself.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
There was a moment where... they had, because it was my first time working on a show, they had brought in an outside writer to do a rewrite of the pilot. He had a different sensibility. It just didn't work. And so now we're like days away from shooting and I'm just in this script trying to fix it. I've never done any of this before.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
We ended up and figuring it out with Jason and with Josh and with some help from some other writers. But it was a very, it was, it was more stressful than it was exciting.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
It was highs and lows. Like I loved being on set. I loved pitching jokes. I also feel really like, one of the parts of 600 Penn I'm the most proud of is we assembled an amazing group of writers. And the way we did it is I just read every script that came in. I treat it like a normal interview.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And so I read a ton of material and that was a group of people, they've all gone on to be incredibly successful. And I feel proud of that because I feel like I was, I had a good eye for this great group of people, all of whom have now really succeeded. And I, again, similar to, we talked about it before recording that I felt like, you know what? I'm new here. I don't know what I'm doing.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
talk my way into uh like charm my way out of not knowing something and you can't do that in math you have to really understand it and if that logic and rigor really forces you to use your your mind and concentrate and i found it made me smarter and it made me a more critical and precise thinker and i really like that but i was never
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I may at times not handle that perfectly. But you know what? Push comes to shove. I'm a great joke writer. And I can take the material that's coming in. I can figure out what's good and what's not, both for hiring writers, but also in terms of what were the scripts we're producing. And I'm like really bringing value here. And there's a reason I'm here. And I'm making this project better.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And that felt rewarding. That felt like, okay, I belong here.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I don't know. We'd have to start a pretty long list. No, I don't know. I feel... I think being a speechwriter, you don't have to be the best at anything, but you have to be competent or good at a lot of things. You have to have a good kind of sense of politics. You have to be a good writer. You have to be able to synthesize a bunch of different points of view and inputs, and you have to have
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
the ability to know when to say yes but or to say no but to an edit, a change, a suggestion. And you also have to be able to put yourself in someone else's shoes. You have to be able to say, all right, my job here, you know, people would always ask me like, oh, you know, you were gay and this was before politicians were in favor of gay marriage, that must have been hard.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And the truth is it wasn't that hard because I never thought of my job as using speeches as a vehicle for expressing my opinions. My job was to inhabit the views and experiences and voice of a different person. And so that was a big part of it. But I think those skills
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
One of the places where I brought, I think, a comparative advantage is, yeah, I had that ability, but I also like, I can write a great joke. I can. And I'm a fast writer too. And I felt like those two things together were part of my success as a speech writer and then as a comedy writer.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
You know, we get a ton of material in Wednesday night. I start editing it, kind of make your way across a ton of material. Some of that's writing, some of that's editing, some of that's reading the news and figuring out what happened, how you want to talk about it. Some of it is then jumping around. We have, you know, Let's say we have Tig Notaro and her wife on the show, Stephanie Allen.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
We want to figure out that segment, or we have a bunch of other guests that are coming on. What are we going to do with those guests? Thinking about that, and you're getting pulled in a bunch of different directions. it takes a long time to go through a ton of material. And you're also kind of going over it and going over it again.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I was always the math student who could give the funniest presentation, but I was never at the level of some of those other kids that went on to become professors.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Yeah, and I think also like just sort of coming up with a ton of different punchlines and just sort of going through it relatively quickly. The... When I talk about being a fast writer though, I'm more mean like there were moments where you need a fast statement for the president to deliver about the Dow dropping or- Oh, I see what you're saying.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Or the show is in an hour, we need three new punchlines for this or you're on set and you're trying to figure out how to make a scene work. Those are the moments where I feel like, you know what? I can come up with something pretty quick that'll work.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Never. I don't do that. I don't – it's never – I've never thought that far ahead. Opportunities come, you take advantage of them. You know, I had this chance to be a speechwriter, I took it, made the most of it. Had this opportunity to come out to LA and be a TV writer, I took it. You just grab opportunities or... But crooked media...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
So I was a speechwriter for Hillary, speechwriter for Obama, TV writer, did 1600 Penn, wrote some pilots, worked on the newsroom. But there was this pull to politics that I did feel throughout that time. and this is where I sort of would land on in terms of like the biggest chance I took, the biggest risk I took was Crooked Media.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And it was after Trump had won, we had been doing this podcast for The Ringer that had garnered some success. A podcast that you didn't intend to continue, right? Probably not. We really hadn't thought that far ahead. We were doing it through the election. But I remember after Trump won, the next day we had to do this live stream. We were driving.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
It was Jon Favreau, Tommy Vitor, and I were driving in my car to the Sunset Gower lot to do this live stream. My car ran out of gas. We pushed to the side of the road in front of the CNN building where a bunch of people were watching CNN and Trump accepting his victory. And we walked to the studio talking about
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
what we would do now, none of us felt like what we wanted to do was go back to our day jobs. We really wanted to figure out how to focus on this. And we thought, well, we have this podcast, let's see if we can turn a podcast into something bigger. And we started hatching this idea for Crooked Media. We didn't have the name, we didn't have really any idea of what it would be.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
That's a good question. I don't think it was as reflective as all that. I think it was a feeling like we have to do something and less about what it would be and more about what we realized we didn't want to do, right? That we didn't feel like what we were, we were certainly not inspired to go back to, you know, they had a communications consultancy. I was a TV writer, which I loved doing, but
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I hate that everyone says they hate math, and I don't blame the people who say it because I believe you, I understand why. I'm just not good at it. But see, none of that, there's something fundamentally wrong, this is a conversation for another day, but there's something fundamentally wrong with a society.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
there was this feeling like, no, we should put our energies into this moment. Trump winning is such a calamity on so many different levels. It is a representation of so much failure. And there was an urgency in that moment. And I had had some we all had at that point enough success that we had a little bit of wiggle room, right?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
That we could start something and have say six months to see what would happen. And so that gave us the space to think, what could we make? And we started thinking about what the podcast would be called. We started thinking about what the company would be called. We really didn't have much. We knew we were gonna start with podcasts. We knew it would be a media network.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
The core idea was that there needed to be, there were activist groups and there were some left-leaning media organizations, but those two things were not intertwined. And what the right had and still has, it's only gotten worse, is they had media that is 100% bought into their political project. Fox News exists to hurt Democrats and help Republicans.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Now, we didn't ever want to make something that was as dishonest, that felt like propaganda, that was unwilling to criticize our own side. But we did want to create a media company that said, hey, we are... that we believe democracy is under attack right now. We are a pro-democracy media company unabashed in that point of view, and we welcome anybody who wants to be a part of that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And we're not just going to treat people like observers the way mainstream media does, like kind of that treats the viewers as if they're aliens watching the United States from spaceships, we're going to remind everyone that they are participants and that it's not a game, there are real stakes, and we all have agency.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Anger is my motivation. I'm not a hope guy. I'm an anger guy. I'm motivated by anger. Always have been. I find that it's what I'm at my bravest and most interesting. So there's been something. Nothing's bothered me more. No, a lot of things bother me more. But one thing that has bothered me over the years is when someone says, like, I'm just looking for a politician who inspires me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And it's a real misunderstanding of what politics is and what it's for. I view inspiration as a valuable tool. It is important that politicians, the political figures, that leaders be inspiring. Inspiration has great value. It helps people change their perspective. It helps people broaden their perspective.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
As a society, we take kids, they spend more than a decade learning this subject, and most of them get to the end of it saying, I don't like this, I am not good at this. So is everybody wrong? It's the most common thing you ever hear. If you tell people you studied math, it's like, oh, I hate math. I'm not good at math. So every school is getting it wrong.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
It helps people imagine themselves taking actions or being part of a movement they might not otherwise be. That's what inspiration does. It has political value. But you, as a person watching, a speech saying I need to be inspired, what does that mean? It means you know what the right thing is, but you need someone to tug at your heartstrings to get you to do it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
If you are saying you need to be inspired, then you already understand the delta between what you're currently doing and what you believe you should be doing. So you actually don't need inspiration. And it is the kind of end result of several decades of political punditry that treats everybody watching like they are fully cognizant, fully informed observers who can't be persuaded.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
It has changed the way people think and talk about politics. They no longer say, here's what I believe, here's what I want. They say, here's what I think works. Here's what I think that's a bad look. Here's what I think that's bad politics. And so for me, I personally don't need inspiration from politicians.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I need them to have it to persuade others, but I am not in this to feel any kind of warm and fuzzy feelings.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I'm not sure. I don't think. I like to think I've moved beyond that. I think it's more not... I have found it fruitful in my life to not think of a career as a very long path, but as just a series of discrete decisions. And you make those decisions as best you can in the moment you see where you land.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And then from there, you'll have gained new experience, new wisdom, new insight, and more knowledge from which you can make the next decision. But I have never thought of it as a path more like you're kind of going from these islands, these little sort of staging grounds to take and looking too far ahead, I think is not particularly valuable for me, for me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Maybe that's just a reflection of undiagnosed ADHD that the idea of thinking three or four moves ahead seems impossible. So I'm just trying to get to the next stop.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
What a funny – very – that's a very Barbara Walters in the 90s type question.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Uh, I am lucky, uh, uh, to be, I'm, I'm very curious. I don't find myself, I find myself interested in the ways in which, uh, we've done things for a long time a certain way without really much of a reason. And I find myself looking for those seams. Sometimes that's right, sometimes that's wrong. I think that my kind of, floating around has been really good for me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Like every kid in every classroom in front of every teacher, they're all getting it wrong. So something is totally out of whack. I think it would be a better society if everyone got to the end of high school and maybe they learned less math, but they enjoyed it. They got something out of it. They came away with some basic skills.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I've gotten to have this incredibly varied career, right? Like I ended up, you know, when I was a math student, I ended up publishing a math paper. I go into politics. I have this incredible speech writing, short but incredible speech writing career. I had success as a television writer, and now I've had success with Crooked and with Pod Save America and with Love It or Leave It.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And I feel like that I was very fortunate that the fact that I'm able to kind of, that like I get curious and interested and intense about a certain idea or a certain project and I can really focus on that and then kind of can fully switch gears. Like I've been really rewarded for that, but I do, I do think I've paid a price for not being able to quiet that noise.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And there've been times in my life where I have not been able to really drill down and get something right. Like I had this pilot for a drama, it was called Anthem. It was set up at Showtime. It was about an American election. falls into chaos because both sides declare victory and I was writing that in 2014 2015 like it was a head I was like I was I had and I just couldn't get it right and I like
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And the struggle of that, I would just get pulled in a bunch of different directions and like kind of put it aside, come back to it, put it aside, come back to it. And I wasn't really able to give it the attention and focus, sustained attention and focus that could have made it a great show. And I feel like I not only let myself down, I let the people down who bet on it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And there are smaller examples of that, but I think that's the price.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Look, I get to do the fact that I had this comedy experience, I had this writing experience, I had this political speech writing experience, and it all coalesces into what I get to do now. That's the great luck of my life. I'm very fortunate. And I love a lot of what I do. I get stressed out about a lot of what I do.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
The times I beat myself up a little is when you get frustrated or annoyed or impatient and you're like, Things are good. In terms of where you are in your career, things are good. Things are happening in the country are a nightmare, but you are where you're supposed to be. You should feel very fortunate. You should feel very grateful.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
You shouldn't lose sight of that, even in moments when life is tense.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Same. I'm saying that's what I should be doing. I completely agree. Completely the same. But I do think for me, the the pandemic was obvious, like there's. There's this F. Scott Fitzgerald series of essays called The Crackup. Have you heard of The Crackup? I have not. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote this collection. It's now a collection.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I think it was in three parts at the time, but you can get it as one very short book or long article. And it's an interesting document because He doesn't have the terms for, I don't know what you would call it, manic depressive, bipolar, addiction, whatever. But he is sorting through and describing how he is living. And he's describing deep depression, manic episodes, whatever.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
It speaks to something important about where we're at right now. And because it's one of those, I don't know anything about baseball. I'm jumping around. I don't know anything about baseball, but I know what baseball bats look like. We all know what baseball bats look like. And then some guy working for the Yankees stares at baseball bats for a year and he says, I think baseball bats are wrong.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And he's writing in the middle of it, which is something strange, right? You just don't normally see that. And he talks about being what is, I think, just clinical depression, sleeping all day. And he's writing lists to occupy his mind. And one of the lists is times in which he was snubbed by those who are not his better in character or ability, which I always think about.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
But isn't that a great line, right?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Making a list of it. I couldn't think of anything more Los Angeles than that. But he talks about feeling quite comfortable in that mode of living. And then he says, and then I got a little better and I crack like a plate when I heard the news. And for me, the pandemic brought me low enough that it gave me the chance to get a little better and crack like a plate when I heard the news.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I made a lot of changes in my life after. Um, uh, a more than a decade long relationship ended. I, over the course of the pandemic had become a little too comfortable using, uh, an edible at the end of the day to avoid thinking about the problems I wanted to delay one day, which I did over and over and over again. And it led me to, uh,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I think change a bit how I think about what I do, how I do it, and to try to find, to try to think less about what I want to be and more about what I want to be doing and to try to take a bit more joy in it. And I do think that was the end of like, what was, I think I'm always a person that's prone to being a little bit depressed, but getting a bit lower helped me see the need to get a bit higher.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And I think after that, I've been on this ramp up, and I feel like I am still living in the kind of noisy chaotic way I always have but I'm a little bit more I have a little bit more generosity with myself I think I'm a better friend I think I'm better at my job and I think I'm just a little bit, uh, wiser at the end of that. I'm sure I will look back on this and feel like I've still got plenty.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I had more, plenty of, plenty of place to grow. Still not kind enough to yourself? I don't think so. Yeah, no, I don't think so. Um, it's more too about like, maybe you feel this too, which is like, as you get older, um, kind of understanding the distinction between here are the places where I would like to be better, right? And kind of address some of these issues.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And then here are the areas where, you know what? That's just fucking me. That's what I'm like, you know, that's it. And this is cooked. This part, this part, this part's cooked all the way through.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I think the little chunky bit should be a little bit further down. And they hit a bunch of home runs.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Well, you know, this sort of in a kind of like self-help culture, I think too often, right? Like it's hard because some of us do have, we all have to change, right? Like it's like, you have to, you have to understand the ways in which you need to be working on yourself. You need to be growing. You need to not feel like you're done.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And for me too, it's like a happy... hot, happy, really good relationship has been helpful. Honestly, it's strange to say, but Manjaro, going on Manjaro has taken a big source of my self-loathing. Did you have body image issues? Tons still do. That was, that... a huge problem for me, huge, huge. Yeah, I've had them all my life.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And I remember when I was talking to my therapist about it and she was really funny. She was like, you're gonna go on this thing and all the ways in which you kind of obsessively self-criticized, you're just gonna find some new avenue, right? Let's say you go on this drug and it helps you lose a whole bunch of weight. You're not gonna stop finding ways to criticize yourself.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And I was like, maybe not, let's find out. And the truth is like, the truth is it's somewhere in the middle, right? Like it, no, of course it- It's pessimistic. Well, but it is. Of your therapist, I'm saying. Well, she was her concern. It was like, hey, we should, she was not against my going on it. It was more, hey, like go on it, don't go on it, but we still have to do the work.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Like this isn't gonna address the work, which is correct. And I actually like made a chart and was like, okay, We have this much self-criticism about everything that's not my body. And we have this much about my body. If we lower this by 50%, this will go up, but probably not in equal measure. And I think we'll net out. We're going to net out with less self-criticism. Absolutely.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Right. And we have this system where most people come out of math, they won't retain anything. Could you do an algebra equation right now if I put it in front of you?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
There's all kinds of ways in which people, this is- The math is useful there. So here, I'll give you, here's one, I'll give you, this is one, which is, okay, I want you to imagine, okay, an X and a Y. On the Y, we have gregariousness. I'm sorry, on the X, we have gregariousness. on the why we have charisma, okay? Gregariousness at the bottom, charisma going up and down.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
There's a diagonal line that runs from the bottom all the way to the top. When you are below that line, you are more gregarious than you are charismatic. you're annoying. When you're above that line, you're more charismatic than you are gregarious. You're exciting and enticing to be around.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
If you are extremely charming, okay, extremely charging, but very low gregariousness, you're extremely cool because you're just not giving it out. Right? Right. If you're extremely gregarious, but not at all charming, you're a bore. And what you want to do in your life is stay below the cool bore line. Above the core borderline.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
You want to be above that line.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Well, there is that challenge. That is challenge. I remember when we were making 1600 Pen, Josh, between the pilot and the shooting, he was like, he lost a bunch of weight. And we were always joking that he's lost, he lost like 15 pounds of hilarious. It's unbelievable. The hilarious is all, it's falling off of you.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And yet, and people are... kind of enumerate in the most important skills that they should have as an adult. The skills that you need to understand investing, taxes, loans, credit cards, come away with none of those skills. Yet kids spend years sitting in front of teachers, watching, looking at graphs and algebra and all the rest. Imagine a math curriculum It would be easy.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Yeah. So we so I do think it was a risk. We had some runway, but it was a risk. I think we were fortunate in that we weren't like, it wasn't that what we were doing is leaving jobs that we couldn't get back to start a media company. We were taking a break from the careers that we had, which we could return to. But nonetheless, we had a mission statement
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
We had a core set of goals and values and we knew what it should feel like. We didn't have a business plan. We really didn't know anything about what it would take or what it would look like.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And we were... we realized we were where we got luckiest is so the three of us started it. We hired three people right away. We hired someone to be our assistant to help us manage all this. We hired a CEO and we hired a chief content officer. And those were incredible hires who really helped us build this. And Without them, it wouldn't have happened.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And so that group of six really were able to figure out the next group of hires. And Sarah, who was COO, was able to really build a business plan and We launched the show in January and we gave ourselves a couple of months. Then we said three months to get the audience. We were starting from scratch. We never had an RSS feed. We literally launched zero subscribers.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
We gave ourselves three months to get back to where we were in the ringer. Within an episode or two, the audience was back. Within three or four episodes, the audience had doubled. And then we were kind of off to the races. And that gave us the space to launch other shows.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And we basically, because we were so lean when we started, we never had to take investment, which meant we never had debt or money. who were breathing down our neck to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. We were able to be deliberate and careful. That was a double-edged sword because on the one hand, we have been profitable. We have never not been profitable.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And that's strange for a media company, certainly a media company startup. But it also meant that we never had that, like what had to drive our growth was the project itself, the belief in the company and wanting the company to be bigger, reach more people, fulfill its mission. We never had the kind of like, we never had like a tech bro behind us breathing down our neck
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Absolutely. There has been. There's been more control. But I sometimes think, too, like when you have what you have, there's a fire. There's a, there's an urgency. And so we had to generate our own urgency, which we did, which we did. So look, we've grown a ton. I went from, you know, five to 10 to 15 to 20 to 40 to 80. I think we're at a hundred right now.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
People, you know, we've, we've, and we've launched dozens of shows. We've built out YouTube. We're now, we've done touring. We launched Vote Save America, which is our kind of activism arm and seeing great success there. So like we've grown a ton. The most professionally fulfilling thing you've done, yes?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Make it fucking easy and make it fun and easy. Whatever you were gonna do for three years, four, whatever you're gonna do, take the first chunk of it, spread it out, spread it out till everyone gets it. And then everyone comes away like, oh, I loved math. It was so much fun. What a better world that would be.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
So I think that you're combining two issues. One issue is does working with your friends change your relationship? Of course it does. Of course it does. Then there's how do you work with your friends? I remember having this realization early on, which was, it's not much a realization, but like, wow, all bands really do break up, you know?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And we are not just, we are a band, but we're also kind of a record label. You know, we're kind of doing both at the same time. We are the hosts of the show. We're also building this company. And realizing that that in that kind of a environment in which there is stress, there's disagreement, there's a lot of incredibly rewarding moments that you share. Conflict that creates creativity.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
There's creative conflict. There's just different points of view. There's ego, right? You're hosting this thing together. There's history. There's all of that. And realizing that really what you're doing is you're never going to... It's not, making sure you're working well together is not like a problem you solve. It's, there's just a, it's a project, right?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
It's something you're gonna have to maintain. There's gonna be little moments that pop up and you have to talk about them and you have to be honest about them and you can't let it build up. You can't think like, oh, things are good or, oh, we're having problems. It's that you are always going, there's always just a, you have to just kind of watch the pressure dials, right?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
There's just gonna be some pressure dials. It's okay. There's going to be moments of tension between everybody. That's okay. But you're going to walk through them and talk because you care about each other. You have the same mission. You have the same goals. You're loyal to each other in each other's corner. We don't all see things the same way. We've had our conflicts over the years, but...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
You know, we ended up years later going through, we took on investors and we were working through the paperwork, right? A lot of paperwork. And there were always these questions about like, well, what if you guys disagree or what? And we were always just like, look,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
we annoy each other sometimes, but like there was, we always would say like, don't worry about what happens if the three of us disagree. Like if you're our lawyers and you're trying to protect us for what happens if we start disagreeing and like, don't worry about that. Like we will have each other's backs. We never need to worry about that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And I think that's been a really, like underneath all of it, like knowing that we are, that we can truly, at the deepest level, trust each other, makes it so that you don't have to, in the end, worry about a ton of problems that other companies have to deal with.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Well, first of all, John and I met. He hired me. We were colleagues before we were friends. Tommy and John worked together for years. So it's a little bit less. It's not as simple as that. But if you're going to spend all day working with somebody, you know, you've seen them all day. It's different.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
You're not going to, you know, you're not going to like, you know, you're going to, you have a work relationship and you spend already a ton of time together. It's just going to change your dynamic outside of work. That's like, that's not a bad thing or a good thing. It's a different thing. I think there are plenty of people who can't work with their friends, right? That's not us.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
So I when I graduated from college, I moved to New York. I was a temp paralegal working for those asbestos law firms that you see advertised in the subway. And then at night I was either doing my my law school applications or I was going to open mics. I also was interested in politics. I volunteered for the Kerry campaign in 2004. I really liked that. I was actually enrolled in law school.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
But like, if you have a great friend in your life who you see each other after work a couple of times a week or a couple of times a month and you catch up about life and you spend Saturdays working out together and then go into a movie or something, like if you work together, it's gonna be different. It's gonna be different. That's not a good thing or bad thing, but just it is gonna be a change.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And you have to just, we, we never talked about that. It was just, this was what we have to do. This is what we're doing. It was absolutely the right thing. What's been the hardest thing? What has been the hardest thing? So I don't know what the hardest thing is.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
The couple of things, one is you go from hiring everybody to hiring the people, hiring everybody to you come into the office and there's just somebody that's there and they don't know you.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
But it's more that I think for me, it's like, the way it felt when it was 10 or 20, just different when it's 100. And it's hard for you, you realize, oh, you like, it's hard to convince somebody that, you know, they can talk shit to you, right? If you feel like you're their boss's boss's boss, you know what I mean? It just, it's different. Yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I, I, I also think, um, one challenge has been, as the company has grown, realizing that making sure that you are maintaining the voice of the company in a way that is both narrow enough that you haven't lost what Crooked Media is, but expansive enough that as new and interesting and talented people come in, they lend their voice to the company as well and make it better, right?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
So it's, when are you demanding conformity versus demanding consistency, which are different things? That's been a challenge for me. being, prioritizing has always been a problem for me. It is hard to be, you know, I'm a host on Mondays, I'm a host on Thursdays. I'm in a lot of other kinds of meetings, Wednesdays, Tuesdays, Fridays.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I was doing the open mics. I was working in politics and it was basically luck that a job turned up in politics. And I took that job in politics and ended up deciding not to go to law school.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I should have denied it. I should have denied it. You caught me, but I should have. I could have gotten away with it. No, I didn't.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Fundamentally, I think all of these things tie back to like what happens when you're moving too fast, right? And when you're moving too fast, sometimes the shows you're hosting may suffer a little bit because you haven't paid enough attention to them. Sometimes you're kind of in, like you're kind of, I sometimes joke that like, I'm sorry to pop in like the Babadook, right?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Like, cause something's, there's a process, something's unfolding. And then I sort of like pop up to change it or to have an opinion. But I think in a deeper way, what you're talking about too is like, I think sometimes when you're moving fast, you realize, oh, like I, I didn't, I wasn't in a, like I could have approached that in a more sensitive way, right?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Or I could have, I was, I was brusque in that moment.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And, and, but it's that, like, how do I make sure And some of it is also just letting go of certain things and knowing that it's not maybe exactly how you would do it, but it's still being done well, even if it's not the way you think it should be going.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Yeah, it's tough. And it's also part of it too. It's like, I've noticed too, it's- You have really good people that are doing a great job, but you don't feel like you've done enough to convey what the goal is or what the tone of it should be. And then you have to be in it along the way. And that's your fault for having not done a good enough job at the start on the front.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
But I think part of it too is like, I like, I like being busy. To go back to where we started, I have a very good relationship. I like being pulled in a million different directions. I like a busy day. I'm gonna go from here, I was looking at my lunch, Because I'm going to go back from here, run back.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I think the truth is... I would have answered this question differently, but the further away I get from it, the more it's clear to me that I really didn't have any kind of conception of what I wanted. I was just deeply insecure and I was looking for a way to get the validation or the bigness to meet my ambition.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
We're going to meet to talk about a design thing with this incredible designer who runs our design team. Then I'm going to meet with the Love It or Leave It team to plan a bunch of stuff. Then I'm going to meet with the politics team to talk about what we're doing with Vote Save America. And I love getting to do all those different things.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And as long as I feel... There's a meeting we do called Comedy Corner. And it's a meeting that started five or six years ago. Comedy Corner was the name of a few funny people at the company, different jobs who just get together and brainstorm funny things we could do.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And then it's now, as we're 100 people, it's now grown into a weekly meeting run by Hallie Kiefer, who's the head writer of Love It or Leave It, where people come to pitch and also to get ideas for their projects. So we need a merch idea or we're naming this website or whatever it is. And I don't go, it used to be my meeting, now I kind of go once in a while.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And I'll be in the meeting and we'll be pitching and I'll throw a couple ideas. And a lot of times, if the meeting is pitching something for my show, I actually don't go. Because then it becomes pitching me, which is not the purpose. But I like to try to go and just be a person pitching. It's not my meeting, I'm just here to throw out ideas. And we'll joke like,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
especially with the people that have been there a long time, like, did I add anything to this meeting? Should I have come to this? Right? Because sometimes if I go and then all of a sudden everyone's pitching at me, that ruins the meeting. But then sometimes I'll come and I'll be like, oh, you know what? I have an idea, you know? And it's like, all right, I still got it, you know?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I think that's the wrong thing to care about. I think it is, I think taking, I think taking too much esteem from that is the wrong thing to care about. It's good, it's great, it's good. This team is assembled. But like, I think kind of like behold what we have built is a bad instinct. And I don't think that, I think that is, a little bit like kind of there's arrogance in it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And so I feel those things, but I don't think those are good feelings to feel. I think better to feel more oh, I don't want to let this group of people down. And if I'm here, I want to make sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do to validate everyone who's decided to be here. I think for me, I really take a lot of joy in routine and kind of hitting my marks in each of these places.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And I feel most proud when I am able to bounce from all of these and play these different parts and do it well and do it with kind of joy in the moment. That's when I'll be like, you know what? It's not like, oh, look what I've assembled, but more like, Somebody said this, like people always say like, oh wow, you guys have a lot of fun in those meetings. And we do.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And that could have been in comedy, that could have been in law school if I'd gotten into the law school I wanted to go to, that could have been in politics. I think I wasn't, it was... I was really not thinking clearly about what I enjoyed doing, what I cared about in terms of like what my passions were. I was so much more focused on external validation.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And that's to me when I feel the most joy. It's not like, oh wow, it's more like we're putting this show together and we're laughing the whole time. We're having a blast. And everybody feels like they're doing good work in a show they believe in, in part because they trust that I will deliver when I have to deliver.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I said that it's a thought process that could encourage –
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I guess, I guess that's right. I guess, I just, I think it's, I think that that's the wrong kind of pride. I think that's the wrong kind of pride. For me, maybe because I feel like I will take too much from it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I think it's a little kind of like, you know, Simba, everything the light touches. I think that's all unhealthy.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I think if there's value to you saying, you know, this is hard, this can be frustrating, but like, look how far we've come. Look what we've made already. I don't think there's anything, I don't think there's anything wrong with any of this. I'm just, for me, I'm just thinking like, what is that instinct?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I think it's an instinct towards arrogance that's worth fighting because it's also, I don't, I take, I have trouble with the word yours and, You oversee this thing that you've helped build. It is a result of a lot of people's work. It's a result of a lot of luck. It's a result of a lot of talent. You reap a lot of the benefits from it. But it's a collective work. as well.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And I was able to get some of that via standup, at least, you know, in the kind of cobbled together where you get some laughs at an open mic. I was able to get that in terms of like I had a good LSAT score. I was on the right path to go to a great law school. And then I saw this path in politics. I loved the West Wing and I thought, oh, maybe I'll become a speechwriter, right?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I think what we took from that experience is... We went from, I'm gonna get these numbers a little bit wrong, but say roughly from, we like more than doubled in size during the pandemic. And that's a lot of time and a lot of culture to develop when people are sitting in their homes and not together.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Everybody went through it during the pandemic. Everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody. And we grew a lot and we changed a lot. And we also were kind of, our business was growing and changing. We were working with Sirius. We were taking on investors. And I think we had a lot of work to do to build better communication across the company.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
First of all, we had to figure out what direction we were going in. Then we had to convey that. And then we had to kind of work with everybody to kind of build a kind of collaborative, trusting, positive culture for the company. And I think that is something that... came the realization of how much how important that was, I think, became clear through the collective bargaining process.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
But I will say now that we're on the other side of it, I feel like there was a lot of kind of growth we did together to get to that agreement. And now we have that agreement. And I do feel like we're in a really good place.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
When I walked in, you were like, are you stressed? It's like, no, this is baseline.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I subtly, subtly, there's no clock in here. Oh, there is a clock right fucking there. I could have just looked to my right. I fucked this whole thing up. Yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
That was something that was in my mind. And six months after I got this junior position as a press staffer in the Senate, This opportunity came along to be a junior speechwriter for Hillary Clinton. I jumped at it. In part, I was there because I had actually written some jokes for her. She had gone to, was supposed to go to a roast.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
It was the roast of Barbara Walters to raise money for a spina bifida charity.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
They had heard I was working for John Corzine and his Senate office. It's a little, you know, not a lot of funny people on Capitol Hill. People had heard that I had done this barest of stand up careers, amateur. And so they asked if I would write some jokes for Hillary Clinton.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And so I got on the phone, got on the phone with the Hillary Clinton staff and some of their kind of outside friends who were helping write jokes, one of whom was Al Franken, which was a big deal for me at the time. And it would be a big deal now.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I think it's, we went through a bunch, we had other options, but we kept coming back to it. I was a little nervous about having my name in the name of the show, but especially in early 2017, it just felt right.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
No, no, no. It was before he was even... This was when he was just Al Franken, author, comedian, host of Air America Radio. And I wrote some jokes for Hillary Clinton that stuck in their minds. And so I ended up getting a job as a junior speechwriter for Hillary Clinton. And so... It happened very quickly. There were all these different paths.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
It was a few days after I decided not to go to law school that the opportunity to be the speechwriter for Hillary had come along.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
It was haphazard. And... I had enrolled at the University of Chicago Law School. And one of the reasons I allowed it to go on so long as it didn't require a deposit. which they should change. There was no deposit. So I was able to say I was going and it wasn't until I had to email. I think the truth is in my heart, I didn't want to go. I never wanted to go, but it was just the thing to do.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And it was the moment when they required a photo for the student Facebook. I mean, this is getting pretty close to when I would have literally started. I was like, I can't do it. I'm out. I withdrew.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I'm sure it was just, I think that is a little bit my temperament. I think it's a little bit of growing up on Long Island, which is very kind of where I grew up in Syosset at that time. It's very, very... Career driven, what are you going to be when you're going to grow up, get to the good school? It's a very practical place. Long Island's a practical place. And I had been closeted.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I had not had a lot of friends. And so I was, I think, searching for the places where I would get the praise and the attention and the validation that I needed.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Yeah, I also, I realize now looking back, and maybe this is the same for you, that it wasn't as though I was choosing one direction over others or that I was afraid of being rebellious or afraid of trying something else. Wouldn't have even occurred to me. Wouldn't have even have occurred to me to defy the kind of direction, right? Which was, you know, do your schoolwork. Law and math.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Get good grades, law, math, right? It was like, I just, I was not... It wasn't that I felt obliged to follow the rules. It wouldn't even have occurred to me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I'll let you know when I do that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I never felt like I was taking risks, truthfully. I mean, it didn't feel that way to me. So I get this opportunity to work in politics, so I take the job, I move to D.C. Then I get this opportunity to be a speechwriter for Hillary. I'm doing that for three years. I started working for Hillary Clinton in 2005.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
This is before anybody had heard of Barack Obama, or had just heard of Barack Obama because he had given the 2004 convention speech, but he wasn't a presidential candidate. She was the figure that was going to go on. And I thought, wow, I'm in this position. I'm going to get to be on this roller coaster. She obviously loses that race in 2008.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And then all of a sudden, I get this chance to apply to be a speechwriter at the White House working for President Obama. I apply. I get that job. I would say maybe the biggest risk I took in that time, I suppose not going to law school was betting on politics and taking a chance, but the biggest risk I took was after three years of being a speechwriter.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Right, it just didn't make sense. Exactly. And it wasn't as though I had a job in politics. And so... When I decided to leave being a presidential speechwriter to come out to LA to be a comedy writer and stand up, that felt like I was finally making a choice. And I had felt this pressure
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Maybe we'll find out together. So I grew up in New York. I went to Williams College, a small liberal arts college. I studied math. I studied psychology and philosophy. I loved doing math. With math, you can't fake it and you can't almost get it. You either get it or you don't. And I found that it really, I am, you know, I will talk my way out of things. I will try to
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
and this is what I mean by kind of being driven a bit too much by insecurity, I had this realization that, and now it sounds ridiculous to me, 11, 12 years later, which is I had just turned 29 and I had this, feeling that if I didn't leave and try comedy right now, I would never have been a young standup. I would never have done it. And so I had to get out before I turned 30.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
I set this artificial deadline and I left and I moved to LA. And I didn't have any money. I had just a junior speechwriter salary from the government.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And so because I had this pedigree, I'd been working on both serious speeches for President Obama, and I did a lot of his comedy writing when he did the White House Correspondents' Dinners, which he'd gotten a lot of praise for, that had given me the credibility to get a blind script deal out in LA. A studio was willing to say, hey,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
you have this interesting background, we'll give you the money to write a script. And that was the kind of bridge to get me to move to LA. And I thought I was going to come out here, learn how to be a screenwriter, do stand up again. I did a little bit when I moved out here.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And anyone listening to this, I know it's going to sound obnoxious. I moved to L.A. and The first, before I'd even had any sense of what I was going to do, this Josh Gad, who was then in Book of Mormon, Jason Weiner, who had directed the pilot of Miter and Family, they had been kicking around this idea for a White House show. They knew that I had worked in the White House.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
So we got together and we developed this pitch for Josh Gad to play this ne'er-do-well son of a president. And it just worked and NBC wanted it. And so within days, days of moving to LA, I was basically working on this pilot that was like a fast moving train. It was just happening.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
And so dream project, it was a, I was so like my, my, my like imagination didn't have time to catch up to what was happening before I'd even gotten my bearings about what I would even want to do. I was working on a, on a pilot that was going to shoot. I had never written a pilot before. So I was forget like a dream. I was overwhelmed. I was completely overwhelmed
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Jon Lovett
Yes. I had no... I... I am now 42, I was 29 at that time. I look back on those different portions of my career with a lot more generosity and forgiveness toward myself. I remember feeling so overwhelmed and like a failure when I was a speechwriter for Hillary. But of course I felt that way. I was 24 years old. I had no idea what I was doing.