Tommy Vietor
Appearances
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Lots of long descriptions of hideous, awful crimes. Yeah.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Yeah, and the taxing interest on car loans is, like, a very regressive tax cut.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Don't look at me. Billionaires might be. The tariffs you put in place today are a huge deal. Canada and Mexico account for 40% of US imports and exports last year. 40% of cars and trucks sold in the US are imported. The Canadians slapped a bunch of retaliatory tariffs on us. The Chinese, their statement was like, fuck you, this means war.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
So depending on how long this lasts, it could end very, very badly. And I don't know that brushing it off in the State of the Union is a Very smart play. This issue cannot be that dismissive of jacking up people's costs at a time of high inflation.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
So like gas prices are going to... The energy tariffs are only 10%, not 25%. Which is based on lobbying from the oil industry. But like...
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
I think this is crazy. I don't get the end game, but this is what he's been promising to do for a long time. It's the only thing he talks about. He's relentless. He's hellbent. So it's like, it doesn't make sense, but I think he's going to keep doing it because why build up a bunch of nonsense and then stop? I just don't get why he would do this.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
The tariffs on Canada are ostensibly because fentanyl is coming across the border. That's just completely made up. 0.2% of all seizures of fentanyl come across the Canadian border. All of it is coming from Mexico. So why the fuck are we tariffing these people? He can't explain it.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
and trudeau took a bunch of steps to try to address his concerns they named a fentanyl czar they spent a bunch of money they put like black hawk helicopters on the border and drones and like he tariffed them anyway so fucking stupid it's like he made up a fake problem canon asked him then make up a fake solution to the fake problem i know and then we still get the tariffs which have real consequences
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
The bar on the Panama Canal keeps changing. Do we want the full canal? I thought we just wanted cheaper rates or maybe to pass through for free. Before, it was about Chinese influence. But today, this Hong Kong-based holding company that owned two ports on either side of the canal sold them to BlackRock. So I thought he was going to take the win on that.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
I thought he was going to do more on that, too, when I saw that story.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
But like, you know, maybe Middle East is a tough neighborhood covers it, but the Gaza ceasefire is currently falling apart. Yeah. Israel is currently blockading all aid shipments into Gaza. Things are not on a good trajectory. You'd think you might talk about it.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Like, they just decided they didn't want to talk about it? Right, but why not take the win on getting the ceasefire, getting the hostages back, and then using it as a moment to, like, get everyone in that chamber to applaud for whatever you say about Israel and condemn Hamas? Because that's where you could have gotten everyone on their feet.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Yeah, and initially when he made that comment. What heights? What is he going to do? Trump Greenland? And I don't know if you guys noticed, when he first mentioned Greenland, J.D. Vance and Speaker Johnson kind of started chuckling. And then by the end, they were like, oh. They were excited about the Greenland question. Yeah.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
I thought it was really weird when he had Kash Patel, his new FBI director, stand up and get a standing ovation. It just felt like the Praetorian Guard was all in the room. And we were supposed to see them. It just bothered me a lot.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Yep. She's going to get the dead people collecting Social Security that don't exist. Right. She's going to arrest a spreadsheet, I guess, with some names on it of dead people. Filing error.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
I think we can doge things we don't like. Oh, yeah. About ourselves. Yeah.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
On the Slotkin thing, if I were to offer her advice, I would say ditch the cliches. We don't need to say things are as American as apple pie. I would say if you can do the setting over again, have some people there, give it some energy, not just sort of in a random room. I agree. She delivered it really well. It was tight. It had a message. It was coherent.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
It was just like a little bit – it felt like it was from a pre-Trump era. And I think in the post-Trump era, like, we all need to think about ways to really get people's attention and make a speech memorable in a way that will go viral on TikTok and Instagram and be seen by more people than whoever is still watching MSNBC.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Didn't hate that it interrupted Trump and got him out of his flow for like 10 minutes. Wait till the Republicans compare it to January 6th. That's when this is going to get really annoying. Yeah.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Imagine a version of her speech that is entirely focused on Elon Musk and Doge cuts and going through all the mistakes and fuck-ups in great detail like he did. Like, she did a little bit of this. She did the things that we've all been hitting, the nuclear weapons people who were fired, the Social Security Health Administration. But imagine you ticked all of that.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
It's like, Doge is this unbelievable threat. It's the only thing we should care about. Here's my focus. It's a really interesting idea. Yeah. different.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
This is the time. Do you guys see this CNN Instant Snap poll?
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
44% very positive reviews of Trump's speech. 44% very positive. 25% somewhat positive. 31% negative.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Here's a little more numbers. Yeah, I know what I'm saying. They're all positive, but his are not. 66% say his policies will move the U.S. in the right direction. 34%, the wrong direction. That's a little better for him. 80% say Congressman Al Green's interruption was inappropriate.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
It's worth remembering, though, when MTG, Marjorie Taylor Greene, interrupted Joe Biden, he then had that back and forth with her. He looked really strong and like he was kind of sharp and, you know, making light of it, kind of making fun of her a bit. And it was a good moment for him. And, you know, I don't know if MTG keeps standing and won't sit down and keeps screaming.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
Maybe the sergeant of arms kicks her out. But I do think Dan's point is... right, that it did look a little authoritarian in the moment.
Pod Save America
The State Of the Union Is ... Long
It's just a bunch of people who don't have a date of death associated with their record. They're not getting benefits. They're just making this part up. And the Mozambique grant for circumcision was to a nonprofit to do HIV and AIDS prevention. You can explain all these things. It just takes time.
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The State Of the Union Is ... Long
He blamed everything on Joe Biden. He ran harder against Joe Biden in that speech than he did in the campaign at times. It was constant.
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Introducing: Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
Hey guys, it's Tommy. We're taking a break for the holiday season, but we've got something special for you today. Instead of our usual episode, we're dropping a new one from Assembly Required, hosted by the one and only Stacey Abrams.
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Introducing: Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
In this episode, she talks with Celine Gowder, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist, about the threats to public health with the incoming Trump administration. They dig into what's at stake with appointees like RFK Jr., how to bring science back into policymaking, and the path forward to driving real change.
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Introducing: Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
If 2024 is leaving with a lot of questions about the future, or if you've also found yourself shouting at the TV more than usual, stay tuned for this great episode, because if anyone knows something about not giving up, it's Stacey Abrams. Don't forget to subscribe to Assembly Required wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
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Just Another Orange Monday
Both Europe and the United States should move ideally, in my view, to a zero tariff situation.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And so like over the years that followed, there was this slow, deliberate effort to keep moving the kind of politics on this from Donald Trump is finished to this wasn't led by Donald Trump to this was a false flag operation led by the FBI. Now we're at the point where these are political prisoners and actually nothing. They didn't do anything wrong that Donald Trump won the election. Right.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And like, I do think it's worth thinking, OK, well, what's next after that?
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Yep. Right. Well, that's that's where I think there's some. Some little glimmer of hope. Right. Because all of that's true. Right. Like Republicans, they're not afraid of right wing media because right wing media is on their side. They're not afraid of the mainstream media because they've now discovered that it's mattering less and less and less. Right. They're only afraid of Donald Trump.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Donald Trump's the only one who can hurt them. But that's not true of a vulnerable House Republican who is up for reelection and just wants to keep his or her job. Right. Like there are still places where. where the reality distortion of Trump can be broken.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
So there are some friction points in immigration, which we'll get to in a minute, but immigration seems easier for them than taxes. Taxes are hard because taxes get back to kind of good old-fashioned Republican politics, which is the base versus the pro-business funders. So they think they could do immigration first and get a win on the border and they can keep everybody in line.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
which would be good. They want to get a quick win on the board, but they think they need immigration because tax is going to be so tough given they only have a one seat majority. And that actually could become a two or three seat majority once they have these special elections in a couple of weeks.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
So the question is, do they jeopardize a quick win that they could get on the border in order to make a tax victory later in the year more feasible? Because they can use both to kind of wrangle people and sweeten the deal to get some people in.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Right. And so do they want to spend it and get the win or do they want to use it to try to get some of their more unpopular tax policies across?
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And so there's that part of it. And then they've also – there's another side of this, which is they have to raise the debt ceiling. And they've promised – in order to get the – keep the government open over the holidays, they promised $2.5 trillion in cuts on top of that. So they have, like – they have built for themselves quite a – I don't know what you'd call it. Bear trap? Spending disaster.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And this is where, this is for some of them, it's truly is like, this is why they're there. This is what they believe. It is genuinely motivating. It is this,
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And by the way, just one note on those. Most of those are red states. And a lot of that money is already out the door.
Pod Save America
Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Many circles that they have to square. Look, we Democrats do, Republicans do it. There's some budget trickery they can do, right? They can sunset certain things and set up a new cliff down the road. Like there are ways they can get around it. But again, like you getting that by Chip Roy and those guys? Yeah. So there's that.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
But then there's also just Donald Trump saying that Medicare and Social Security are off the table means you're pushing for steeper and actually more difficult, far more difficult cuts to get through Congress on Medicaid, on food stamps, on on veterans.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Just one thing. I just like nobody say the phrase tax scam again. It's I don't understand the tax scam. It's nonsense words. We land on that. It must have tested well in some messaging document, but it sounds fucking stupid. I hate tax scam.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Look, I think you can, they're trying to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, basic services for people in order to pay for tax cuts for their wealthiest benefactors, friends and cronies, and the biggest corporations shipping jobs overseas. There's some basic stuff that you can do.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
My question is only like, how much should Democrats get ahead of the part of this, which is that some of the tax cuts, a small portion of it, but some of the Trump tax cuts were tax cuts for the middle class, for the working class, right? And so you need to get out there and say, here's our proposal, right? We would love to extend the tax breaks. for the middle class.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
We'd love to attend the tax breaks for working people in this country. And we'd love to attach it to a raise in the minimum wage. Donald Trump says he's for working. And by the way, you wanna do no tax on tips? Here's our proposal for no tax on tips. We'll do all the middle class stuff. And we know how to pay for it. Now it's your turn.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Because I think like that to me is where they're gonna try to say the Democrats are for a big tax increase.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Also, the Cornhusker kickback, he was... fighting for a kickback for Cornhuskers. It seems like it should have been good.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Don't you want your Cornhusker senator to fight for Cornhusker kickbacks? Tip O'Neill did for his whole career.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
which by the way is also normal, old school Republican politics. That sure is. It sure is.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
No, I don't know. Well, no, but H-1B, if you go look at it, it's actually defined really strangely. It says for H-1B that it is for skilled workers and and fashion models. And so I actually think it may- Oh, that's right. It is the fashion model. I remember that, yeah. And so I think it might be because- Melania? Melania and others, but Melania. What do you make of this fight, Levitt?
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
It was a beautiful marketplace of ideas. What I thought when I saw it is that it's as if all these guys were kind of standing in an open field and then somebody stepped on a twig and they all started shooting. You know, it's like the piece broke. The thing that was interesting to me is like, first of all, it's like...
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
It's interesting just to see Elon Musk turn his kind of way of talking about politics as somebody who is new to politics, which is just like, there's two kinds of people, your friends and retarded pedophiles. It's like, that's how we talk about politics. Terrific. But if you put the name calling part of it aside, it was interesting to watch Elon Musk. He said, think of it like a pro sports team.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
If you want your team to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole team to win. which is not just an argument for the H-1B visa, it's an argument for immigration. And he found himself, just because he happened to have experience with this one kind of immigration, defending the concept of immigration.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And because he is new to this, he doesn't realize how anathema that is to all of these anti-immigrant right-wing zealots.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Yes. So this has bothered me for a while. Just indulge me for a second. The quote is, those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. but it's not about countries, it's about people. And the actual quote, if you go back and look at it, is not about the magical ability to remember things, like, memories do not prevent insurrections. That's not what the quote's about.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And like this is a riff. This is not new to tech bros versus Maga World. This is a Republican fault line.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Like when George W. Bush proposed immigration reform, comprehensive immigration reform, he included a guest worker program because the free market pro-immigrant, pro-business right has always understood that when you give the base the enforcement and border security they demand, you have to for the sake of the economy invest.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
acknowledging the law that is that our businesses and corporations run on cheap immigrant labor. And so this has always been the friction point in this debate for Republicans.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And by the way, I think I have the credibility in this issue as the person who was at the Saturday math competitions and was not at the sleepovers and someone who was very clearly a screech, desperately trying to figure out what are all these Zacks? I'm sitting at a table with two fucking Zacks.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Yes, yes. The big grand reveal that Screech is also stupid was tough. That Zach is not just lazy, but also brilliant. Terrific. Great model. Thanks a lot. Kind of make him a vague point. That's America.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Yeah, the, you know, Bernie also always- And I think you can be for immigration. Yes.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
What the quote's actually about is, if you don't remember anything, you're doomed to do the same thing over and over again. But if you're too mired in the past, right, if you become a, this is from the original philosopher, stubborn like an old man, you also become doomed to repeat yourself because you're not adaptable and you don't learn from what's happening in the actual present.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Well, Bernie has always been against, H-1B is a form of guest worker, as is the farm worker programs that have been always, that Bush has been proposed that were debated when Obama was proposing comprehensive immigration reform. And I'm not sure if he's always been completely against it, but Bernie's always been
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
I think, ideologically and ethically opposed to them because they are really ultimately about creating a kind of second class status for a certain kind of worker. And the point that like, I can't remember which right wing ghoul in between their racist rants went and looked at the entry level positions that have been filled by H-1B visas. I think it was Loomer.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
But like, yeah, like these are, this is supposed to be, you can't find the person in the U.S. and you're going to pay them what you would pay a U.S. worker. And obviously- As Elon knows and as all these right wing people know, that is not how it is used. It is used to fill a bunch of positions for for for for less pay.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Oh, wow. I want it to be the most beautiful story ever told. Wow. I want it to be an American story, John. American story. I want it to be a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Okay. That's good. That's a good start. Here's the thing that I keep coming back to. I don't know if you've ever heard anybody say this before. I just think it's not about wringing your hands.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
That's what 2025 is going to be about for me. It's about rolling up my sleeves.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Look at those. You can't see this, but mine are already rolled up. You can't roll up your sleeves while you're wringing your hands.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
I mean, I haven't noticed any difference, but as long as you feel different.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And so like- That's pretty on the nose. Yeah, it is pretty on the nose, Tommy.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
I mean, good for him. He did have to start by praising Melania. Speaking of coups, you know? Yeah, first couple of paragraphs are about how Melania is looking more and more beautiful.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Honestly, it's one way to make the Senate fucking work for us.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Yeah, that Joe Biden farewell international tour is not going to go so well.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
You mean with the Pope? Oh yeah, he's going to see with the Pope. Great. Have a good time with the Pope.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Yeah, which I liked. I thought it was a cool move. Now Trump can't do it.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Tuck a little pardon in there for some of those people.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Well, I guess they're not really, they're not really on speaking terms, I suppose. After all that's happened.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
It's just a cool thing you can get. I do think it's fun that you can do them posthumously, which sort of means you can go all the way back. Right? I'm like, why not? Give one to Jesus.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Yeah, give that man a peace prize. Ralph Lauren, that's the one you think that Ralph Lauren's a great one? You like those? Well, it's weird. Oh, you're saying that's weird. Oh, it's weird. I thought you said it's a great one. No, no, Jose Andres. Jose is a great one.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
I don't have a problem with Ralph Lauren, but I don't, I don't, I mean, you know, I suppose it's nice to wear on a boat, but I don't think it's on the level of Desmond Tutu. I'm there with you.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
I wrote a book over the break called An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. Okay. And it was interesting because it was about what happens at- Ooh, the book report section. This shows over. This shows over. Give us three books that are- I will give you three books, John, but I'll start with this one.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
It's, you know, we are both remembering and repeating the past, seems this week.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
What was interesting about it is it was about what happens in a country after the fascist fervor breaks and everyone's just looking around being like, why did you do this to us?
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And it was interesting. What happens? A lot of people are pretty sad. A lot of death. But it was interesting just because it was this older guy grappling with his involvement and the younger generation looking at disgust at what they did to the country. And it just reminded me as I was reading it that there's a lot about what happens on the way in, but there's also a way out.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Tommy's getting ideas. I'm just going to get in a spaceship with Elon and go.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
I read Henry Kissinger's last book about AI that he wrote with Eric Schmidt because it was very short. And I was like, you know what? I want a primer from the oldest man in the world. Did he get a Medal of Freedom yet? I'm sure he did. I want the last musings on a new technology from a dying 100-year-old man. It was interesting.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
for all of history. And that's what I think is so, and by the way, I know I'm just like, hey, we're back, it's a new year, time to criticize Joe Biden again. It's like, you're right. If we don't learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat it.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
But one of the things we should learn from the recent past is Democrats performing virtue, explaining over and over again why the insurrection was so terrible, it didn't work. This style of politics is not working. And we should also probably remember the recent past ourselves.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Well, that's what it was. So like the op-ed by Joe Biden does not mention Donald Trump by name. And I understand the logic of that, which is like you're trying to, I don't know, perform that you're performing normalcy to, I don't know, hope Donald Trump learns from your example. But it's privileging normal looking behavior over being honest about the situation, which is you are handing over power.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
to someone who has promised to use the pardon power and the powers of the Justice Department against his enemies in terrifying ways. You are doing that. That is what you believe is your responsibility. But you're not being honest about it. You say in this op-ed, we cannot accept a repeat of what happened four years ago. But just in how you're talking about this right now, you're accepting it.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
It's like, okay, Joe Biden, I've read your op-ed. I've gotten to the bottom of it. I agree. I'm doing it right now. I'm remembering January 6th. Here I am. I'm remembering it. There's no next step. There's no next step for what you do to actually prevent an insurrection or to prevent an overthrow of our democracy.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
There's no, there's, there's just, there's no kind of, I don't know, like sense of agency. We're just passengers. That's good luck for four years. Yeah.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
No, I agree with that. You know, it's like in the same way that like we talk about, like remember when like whenever North Korea would test a nuclear missile, the State Department would say, well, this is unacceptable. And it's like, OK, seems like then what? You've accepted it. It's accepted. Yeah.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And so it's like, are we just going to accept that that that all of these people that that we're just going to accept that, you know, The country is just going to move on from the insurrection. Well, like, yes, it's true. That's what's happened. But the question is, what do we do?
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
And also, like, again, like, how do we learn from the fact that this wasn't salient enough, important enough for people, enough people as they voted to make the difference? Why? Right. Some of it is just time. Right. Like some of the most right wing Republicans. thought Trump was finished after January 6th.
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Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!
Not just the establishment types, but real right-wing Republicans thought he was doing so much damage to himself and to the conservative cause that he had to be pushed aside.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
Is it where the production company is? None of this makes sense.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
So Chastain's got a book coming out called Papa's Coming Home. It's a children's book. We talked about why he wanted to write that, LGBT representation in books, what it's like to be the focus of disgusting, constant right-wing attacks on his family, book bans, their adoption story, being a dad. Pete's beard, got into that. Pete's journey into the manosphere. It's fun to just hang.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
Yeah, I mean, Trump throws out ideas and we all sound insane trying to make sense of them. I have a few thoughts. One, industry. One soul, not industry. Always industry. Insane. Two, he's calling it a national security emergency. He's trying to do this.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
I think they're floating doing this under the typical AIPA, the legal authority that are doing all the other tariffs, which would mean he's declaring a TV and film national emergency, which is just so stupid. Again, just to make fun of how stupid this is. Also, the Gavin Newsom approach, as you said, love it. It's to increase the tax credit from
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
330 million to 750 million annually to try to bring back some of these productions to the L.A. area, to the Hollywood area. I was talking to someone in Gavin's office today and they're like, yes, we have to do that part for Paramount.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
But we also need to do more for like the person who works craft services on these productions, help them find more affordable housing, better schools, better services. So they're trying to think of it in a more holistic way. And Trump's just like, I don't know, tariff it.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
Are we abundant? What are you saying about the word industry? He says industry. Oh, I see. And it drives me crazy.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
You never know. This would kill like a Disney, for example, because they make the Marvel movies and the Star Wars movies in England. So if those movies are getting tariffed at 100 percent, they are screwed.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
I mean, they recovered because one day everyone realized it was made up.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
Absolutely no chance. I was talking to someone in the crypto industry today who said they believe that Trump's family has probably made around a billion dollars in cash from their crypto ventures. We're not talking about unrealized gains of the coins. We're talking about like transaction fees on the meme coin. So you get fees, as you just said, when they buy and sell the meme coin.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
that much just on the transaction? Yes. Wow. And also when you buy and sell the World Liberty financial tokens, the Trump family is entitled to 75% of net revenue on those token sales. And the family owns 60% of the company itself. And by the way, there's like zero upside for the people who buy these tokens. You don't get any profits. You don't get to trade them. It just like makes no sense.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
And also in that interview, he's like, He's like, we started this long before I ran for office. They started the company in September of 2024. It was right before the election. I mean, this whole thing, it's like, the grift is staggering.
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Trump's Trade War Hits Hollywood
Yeah, I mean, that's the only one on the trade war, but there's a far more egregious example that's out there. So there's this Emirati state-owned investment firm called MGX. The president of the firm is like the president of the UAE's brother or something, runs the company.
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They want to make a $2 billion investment into Binance, which is the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange and one that has gotten into a lot of legal trouble in the United States because they were allowing people to like money launder, evade sanctions, criminal behavior, just like the wild, wild west. And the company paid $4 billion to the government because of that. And the CEO did jail time.
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So MGX wants to buy a piece of Binance. instead of doing it in cash, for absolutely no reason, they are purchasing $2 billion worth of Trump's stable coin.
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The only reason is purring favor with the administration because presumably it will cost them more than $2 billion because there will be a transaction fee on the purchase of the stable coin. So that one transaction will make Trump's stable coin one of the biggest stable coins in the world.
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And I think WorldLiberally will probably get paid on both sides because they'll probably get a fee when you buy the stable coin from them. And then normally the way these stable coins are supposed to work is they're supposed to be backed by something which they use to peg the value of the stable coin to like $1. So presumably they'll buy treasury bonds or something.
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And then they'll get the interest on those. And by the way, that's like the safest version of this scheme. We don't know that they'll actually buy treasuries because we don't know how this works. So again, this Emirati state-owned company is just going to buy $2 billion worth of Trump coin for no reason.
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No, I mean, the politics are complicated for the reason you just mentioned, because I think the the crypto industry spent like one hundred and thirty million dollars last cycle on either pro crypto candidates or to target anti crypto Democrats, even ones who were not anti crypto at all. Their number one target was Sherrod Brown, former senator from Ohio.
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I think that one crypto PAC spent 40 million to defeat him. And that was like their head on a pike to send a message. And I've been told by someone today that getting Sherrod Brown is like a is a verb now on Capitol Hill. And so Lutnik, Howard Lutnik and David Sachs were trying to ram this crypto bill through Congress.
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Democrats, I think, were trying to figure out how to like be for something, because they don't, there's like, there's not just the crypto money, but then there's a constituency that likes crypto, that thinks it's exciting, that thinks traditional financial services are broken and rigged against them, and they're not wrong, but we don't need like a worse version backed on the blockchain, right?
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And like getting that message through is really hard. But I think what happened here is, Trump's stable coin corruption with the UAE was so brazen that even the member of the Democrats who are for this in committee were like, OK, we can't do this right now because this would essentially allow like Trump put out an EO saying he has control of independent financial regulators.
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And this bill would give him the authority to regulate the stable coin market as he is entering it. And like, that is just insane. And it would also give big tech companies the ability to issue stable coins. So you would see like, oh, Jesus, X coin on from Elon Musk, or like Libra, I think was the version that came out of Facebook.
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Because traditionally, like there was an effort in like 2005. Someone was reminding me that Walmart basically tried to launch a bank and we tried to keep those two things separate because it's really bad. But now the outcome of this bill passing in a bad form would be you would have like bank like companies performing bank like services with no banking regulations.
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Yeah. So the Democrats on the committee, like Elizabeth Warren, they're trying to improve the bill by being like, hey, what if it said the president and members of Congress can't get into the stable coin business? How about that? Or like big tech can't either, or we got to apply consumer protections to stable coins.
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But I think the Republicans on the committee are trying to exempt stable coin regulations from the CFPB, for example. So there's all the consumer protections are going to go out the window.
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But like the Ruben guy goes to the world. Look, I understand that people are trying to work on this stuff in good faith, but like at the end of the day, the crypto industry fucking hates you, right? Like it is run by people like Marc Andreessen who have a radical libertarian vision of the world. They view you as the enemy.
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They will not think twice about dumping tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars on your head in the next election and just go in there eyes wide open. Cause like you're not saving yourself from these people.
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Yeah. I mean, we sort of talked about this last week too. It's the most beta passive aggressive way to start a constitutional crisis ever. Like the big strong man who says I alone can fix it is now like, oh, I got to defer to my lawyers. You've been railing against the courts nonstop for years and now you're deferring them. This is just a simple difference of opinion on legal precedent.
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Imagine, like, the counterfactual. Imagine if it were not the case. If you're a green card holder and the government could just threaten to punish you unless you, what, gave them money, supported them politically. Like, it doesn't make any sense. What Stephen Miller's argument is is nonsensical. It's completely un-American.
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Yeah, J.D. Van Soothe, like his tone is either the most self-righteous, sanctimonious, insufferable prick you've ever met online or like, why can't you take a joke, man? Drives me crazy.
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A bunch of people died at the Capitol. I say leave it in. Yeah, yeah.
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Well, that was because they had that fire jam they put out. That's right. The J6 choir. Yeah, the choir. You get the stream money.
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Well, and also the heads of these law firms. I understand there were actual real business pressures. Like if you're a head of a firm and some other firm is trying to poach your clients because they think you can't represent them because you can't go into a government building, that sucks. I get that.
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But the people doing these negotiations thought they could be cute and just agreed to do pro bono work on like helping veterans or stopping any semitism. And Trump is like, actually, you're defending the coal industry.
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Him just listing off the ages of girls just creeps me out.
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The Independent reported that Trump announced the Alcatraz reopening just a couple hours after Escape from Alcatraz aired on PBS. That's awesome. So causation is in correlation. But, you know, it's a fun thing to think about.
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Yeah, over a million people a year go there. It makes money. There'd be a huge loss of tourist revenue. But also, they closed the prison in 1963 because it was three times more expensive than normal prisons because you have to take everything there by boat. And also, you have to take your sewage back by boat. It's really expensive.
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Yeah, this one isn't even a threat to me. It's just like a headline grab.
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It's like, I don't know. Reopen Alcatraz. I don't care at all.
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I was talking to someone in Gavin. It's a little bit strange when you think about it. It is a little bit strange. Now that I think, I haven't thought about it.
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talking to someone in gavin's office today about this and i was like have you seen any like economic assessments of what he's like why are we talking about this seriously this is not a serious idea also the but the rwanda piece of tending migrants to rwanda i just want to point out was a boris johnson idea from 2022. they were trying to send people who sought asylum in the uk to rwanda and then forcing them to go through their legal process and if they're granted asylum they would have to stay there so we're stealing this one from uh the floppy-haired idiot across the pond libya that's a good one just we're just really really safe places
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And presumably it would be because their home country wouldn't take them back. Correct. Although none of that makes sense because my understanding is that Venezuela is now taking deportation flights that leave out of Honduras. They just didn't want to send their planes to the United States Because there was concern under the Alien Enemies Act that those assets could be seized by the U.S.
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Well, yeah, Rick Grinnell, like like former human Twitter troll, came to life, became a person, wanted to be secretary of state, didn't get the job. But he was going down on these little missions to go see Maduro and trying to get back people, Americans who are in prison.
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And he tweeted, I think, like the day they sent all these Venezuelans to El Salvador that he had gotten a deportations agreement signed with the Maduro government.
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By the way, the crime that they were all tweeting about that happened in the New York subway was a man raping a corpse. Yes. And the mega people were like, why did you say he was an illegal immigrant? I'm sorry. That's not the part of that story that worries me the most. That's not the part that shocks my conscience. His immigration status.
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Yeah, I think there's a couple parts of it. Part of it is like it's not dumb to do a little expectation setting when you know your tariff policy is going to create some at least rocky shores financially in the short run. But then he's betting that blaming Joe Biden for everything, whether it's tariffs, the economy, Ukraine, immigration, Gaza, all of it.
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My guest today is the author of the new children's book, Papa's Coming Home, which is out May 20th, right? But available for pre-sale now.
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Chasten Buttigieg, great to see you. Nice to see you. You're also the best-selling author of a young adult memoir called I Have Something to Tell You.
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Folks can pick that one up too. Thanks. Thank you for making the trip to LA. Happy to be here. I know it's not an easy thing when you have little kids at home. In fact, that's... kind of the point of the book in a lot of ways. I hope you don't mind if I give listeners just a little peek behind the curtain here. So I called Chasten, was it Monday night? We had just recorded Patsy of America.
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I called you at like 4.30 Pacific. And you would just put the kids down and we were kind of like commiserating over the battle that can be bedtime and like- patting ourselves on the back for getting it done. And I hear this adorable little voice in the back. It's like, daddy, who are you talking to? Yeah.
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I think that's good. I think that's great. Do they manipulate you at bedtime the way my daughter does me, just like for extra seconds?
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Hours. Hours. Yeah. The other night, I think I'd read Lizette like 10 books. You know, like the stack just gets higher every single night. So I read through all the books. Hannah comes in to say goodnight. She has this little stuffed animal called Pink Lovey, the bunny, right? We sleep with it every night.
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We have like four of them because Pink Lovey gets like kind of nasty and you got to wash Pink Lovey, but God forbid you don't have Pink Lovey at bedtime. So sometimes she'll tell us she wants not that Pink Lovey, but that other identical Pink Lovey. And she started to fake cry, but then halfway through made herself crack up.
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And we just like had this moment where we like all were laughing about knowing she was manipulating us. And it was just the funniest thing too. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm done. I'm screwed.
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is some sort of get out of jail card, free card. And so, I don't know, when he gets to the $30 versus $3, he doesn't, it's so tone deaf because he doesn't realize that there are kids who can currently only afford $3, right? Who will have zero dolls. That's the part he can't compute.
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So your book, Papa's Coming Home, it's a very sweet bedtime story about a young family welcoming dad home from a work trip. And by the way, I appreciate that you guys, the dog is like a fully... You know, family member. That's how we are, too. Yeah. Why did you write the book? And what's kind of the deeper message, you know, for the parent reading the book?
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Yeah, it's very cute. I think the little kids, they'll like the way the story escalates.
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Perfect. I love it. You talk about the need for representation in books like this. Yeah. Republicans, they love to make LGBT parents the focus of their attacks, their culture war, like things they're demagoguing. You and Pete get singled out in like very terrible ways by some of these horrible people. How do you deal with it? Is that something you have to talk to your kids about?
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And I don't know if you guys saw this, when people were posting a bunch of photos of his kids when they were younger, like driving around like little toy Mercedeses and things, like every toy you could ever imagine.
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Yeah, my dog's gained 15 pounds probably, but her fur is just, you know, finally you get her groomed. It's like, you know, there's constellations in there. The book is coming out at a time when books like yours are being targeted, challenged, banned, taken to court. What is it like to debut this book while the Supreme Court is hearing this case?
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It's Mahmoud versus Taylor, where parents are trying to pull kids out of lessons with just, you know, LGBT characters like this.
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Like communicating what's going to be in the lesson and letting people opt out.
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It also works. You know what I mean? Like it does normalize like families that look all kinds of ways.
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As an educator, I mean, I imagine when you were teaching like the kind of libs of TikTok kind of like these assaults on teachers, like they probably weren't happening. But I mean, do you talk to educators? Are they scared of, I don't know, being singled out, being targeted?
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The rub is it's got to be an Elon Musk kid, it turns out.
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Those explode off the truck. I've experienced the joy and the wonder of being a parent and also setbacks and the challenges that go into the process of trying to become one. I know that you and Pete have talked about the adoption process and setbacks you guys had, heartbreak. Did that like, what was that experience like for you? Did it cause stress between the two of you?
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And do you have advice for other parents like going through the adoption process, which I know can be tough?
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No, I know exactly the feelings you're talking about. Like, get that stroller out of this house. I don't ever want to fucking see it again. We had that. And then there's also the moment you meet your kids again. And in a weird way, you're like, okay, everything that came before this had to happen, should have happened because it brought you here.
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All the heartbreak, everything that gets you to the point you're at.
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Do you put in for twins? Was that in a miraculous accident?
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You and Pete, you know, you walk this tightrope of like your public figures. You're also millennial dads who like spent half your life on social media. I know for me, I struggle with, you know, I got a cute video of my daughter and I want to post it on whatever. Oh, yeah. But then I know it's like in the world forever and strangers will see it. And my kids don't have a say in that decision.
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No, but I've read enough takes on it to feel like I have a good sense.
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I got my cousin Easter egg roll tickets in like 2011. And then in 2012, I was like, hey, Jeremy, you want to go back? And he's like, no. We're good.
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I don't, it's hard to know where to draw it. Yeah. Um, speaking of more personal questions on a podcast by strangers, uh, who keeps the baby? You didn't ask for, you didn't ask for pictures.
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Yeah. Um, who keeps on the, uh, the nanit or the baby monitor at night? Or do you guys, do you trade off? Well, we don't need it now. You're fully done with the... Yeah. I guess they get out of bed and they IRL wake you up.
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Oh, my kids. Last night, I think Lizzie was kind of chirping on the Nana at like 10, 2.30, 3.30, and then at 5. The whole family was just up. We got to get them to sleep in.
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I know the feeling. Are you going to enter the Manosphere podcast universe on your book tour the way Pete has? Is this not the Manosphere?
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Maybe the beta Manosphere. The Rogan, Theo Vaughn, Flagrant. Are you doing any of those? I don't think I need to. I'm glad Pete is. I'm glad he is too. I thought I listened to the whole Flagrant thing.
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I was like, oh no. I got in this weird Twitter back and forth with Andrew Schultz about it too. Because I was like, I tweeted that I was, I thought it was good that Pete went on. I guess I described it as like unfriendly territory.
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And that was maybe, I think, an unfair shorthanding of... their political beliefs. But I do think, I don't know, I am glad he's going on these shows. I'm trying to force myself on these shows. I do think, what's the point of...
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He was thriving. He got a fire clip that. He's also good at... That's a quote. He's also good at just pretending he didn't hear the thing he doesn't want to respond to. You know, like the dude in the fourth row chirping the kind of sexual innuendo or whatever.
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Can I just make a request to Kristen Welker, whoever gets to interview Donald Trump for an hour next? The 10th time he complains? Just can someone just say to him, sir, do you ever get tired of just constantly whining about the media? He's such a bitchy little baby.
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There's a lot of commentary on Pete's new beard. Yeah.
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They look good. I like it. Yeah. I don't know. I just wish I could grow one. Seems cool. Same. Seems cool. Yeah. Just have options, you know? I've had the same haircut since I was birthed, essentially, and can't grow a beard. Sucks. Barely have eyebrows. Pete seems like a bit of a workaholic. Does he drive you crazy if he's home too much?
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Fold some laundry. Yeah. Do some calls with Biden or whatever. Whatever you do down there. Whatever you do down there. That's good. You guys, anything good on TV? Anything you're streaming?
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We'll just take it back to the last question and start over. There was nothing to spoil. Whatever. It's been out for long enough, right? So long. Everyone can deal with it. One month. I thought, I don't know. It just didn't do it for me this season. It's fine. I really liked this season. It's beautiful places, beautifully shot, fun to watch. Yeah, half of it is just like travel candy.
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I've been loving the studio on Apple TV. It's like Seth Rogen, 30-minute comedy, hilarious. It seems like every terrible TV executive that they have ever come across makes a cameo in this, and it's like a punching bag, like catharsis for them.
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More than one is too many. And also, it's so hard to find overlap. I know what you're saying about... watching these shows and having worked in these places in politics and then becoming the annoying person about realism. Like my- I don't want to be like, I'm sorry. I know. Well, I don't even, my wife got really into like the ambassador or whatever it was. Oh yes. Yeah.
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And I'd be like, this is not how it is. And she's like, I don't care.
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Yeah, shit like that. I remember when Homeland came out, I was in the White House at the time, and I was talking to a bunch of people, and Obama was there about it. And we all loved it. We were like, this guy's fucking texting from the sit room. Come on, man.
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Yeah. Pete Hegseth is just hammering classified details. He's copy and pasting from, like, Centcom.
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It says a lot about what they think about the UN, that they were trashing this guy.
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Well, listen, Chasten, thank you for joining us today. You got it. Pop is Coming Home is out on May 20th. Everyone pre-order it today. Oh, thanks. Buy one for your local library. I appreciate that. Yeah. Support your local library. Support your local library. And thank you for coming in. Appreciate it.
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And very few young children use pencils. No, none do. It's weird that Trey Gowdy's kind of become a voice of reason. He opened that segment criticizing Trump for talking about invading Greenland and Canada. And then Rove made some smart points, I thought. He talked about how Trump hadn't visited the border yet. Why hasn't he visited the border? It's the only thing you seem to care about, sir.
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Why wouldn't you just go to the border and take some credit? The Oval Office address idea is absolutely stupid.
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Also, Rove said that the Pope Photoshop was very offensive. As our resident Catholic, were you seeing a lot of chatter about Catholics upset about that Photoshop thing?
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Yeah, I was just surprised to hear Rove say it. And there was someone at Fox News asked Trump about it today in the press briefing. So I just didn't know if there was a critical mass of angry Catholic Photoshop gates.
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I think all of them, they kind of like remember in the 2008 campaign, Bill Burton told all us little young comm staffers that we had to call 10 reporters before 10 a.m. I think they have to pick like 10 Twitter fights before 10 a.m. with annoying libs. And that's just kind of how this White House operates.
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Right. The policy is like white label Republican policy. It's like tax cuts and deregulation and then these stupid tariffs that are causing all the problems. Let me read you one line from this op-ed, though. Mr. Trump intends to usher in the most prosperous decade in American history, but not at the cost of the spiritual degradation of the working class.
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Did that give you a bit of like a Joey, a job is about more than a paycheck?
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Besson is the most upright person I've ever seen. Sorry to interrupt. He almost leaned backwards.
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Thoughts on Rubio? I've noticed this in all of the photos of Rubio in the context of these U.S.-Russia talks. There were a bunch of photos that came out of Saudi Arabia with Rubio, Mike Waltz, Steve Witkoff are all there, and there's Sergei Lavrov in the Russian delegation. Rubio just has this thousand-yard stare in all of them.
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I don't want to put him on the psychiatrist's couch, but I do think you can tell he knows this is wrong. Because I do think it's fair to say, okay, after three years of the Biden policy, we got to a place where It was a permanent stalemate, kind of. And a stalemate is not a strategy. So let's not reemphasize diplomacy and try to end the war. But Rubio knows Zelensky's not a dictator, and Putin is.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
He knows who started the war and who didn't. He knows that Zelensky can't hold an election right now because a huge chunk of the country is living under Russian occupation. Another big chunk has been displaced. Another big chunk is at the front lines fighting. How are they going to have people vote in free and fair elections in this context?
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And so he just looks like a guy who sold out all his beliefs to get the secretary of state job and now is like living with the consequences. And by the way, has no real power.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I was trying to find this Elon Musk tweet, and I was scrolling for like 25 minutes, because God, all he does is tweet. But he tweeted, Zelensky wants a forever war, a never-ending graft, meat grinder, this is evil. Like, the way they talk about this guy, these are Zelensky's people getting killed. Yeah, the Russians tried to murder him repeatedly in the early days of the war.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
They sent assassination teams to Kyiv to find the guy. And he survived through bravery, through, you know, really tough fighting by the Ukrainians in those early days. And it's just disgusting the way they talk about him. But to your point, John, I mean, like, I think there's some truth that, look, between 50 and 85 million people died in the Second World War.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
So the United States was like, the world came together. It was like, hey, maybe we should set up some institutions to prevent this from happening again. That's why you have the UN that was designed to try to maintain global peace. That led to the creation of NATO, which was to counter Soviet expansion and unchecked nationalism among some of the member states like Germany.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Always got to keep an eye on Germany. You do. And both institutions have a lot of flaws, and we can talk about those if you want. But there hasn't been a war between a NATO member and Russia since. And no NATO member has been invaded by another country. So it's been a pretty successful project.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And I agree, it does seem like Trump wants to go back to a time where the great powers divide the world up and they bully people and might is right. And I think the problem with that, there's a lot of problems with that logic, but what you're gonna see is more militarism. You're gonna see more nationalism.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
You're gonna see more development of nuclear weapons as a deterrent because of the US nuclear umbrella is not gonna protect us. Like, I guess it's time to make one of my own. And so it's gangster diplomacy. And you're already seeing Elon Musk tweeting about, he talks about the spoils of battle when he's talking about Doge cuts.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
But I do think he's applying that more broadly and like a really kind of, you know, old school in a bad way way.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
One even simpler explanation is Trump looks at a Russia or a China and sees a kleptocracy. And there are people who think that Vladimir Putin's the richest person in the world because basically at one point along the way, he went to all the Russian oligarchs and says, now you give me half. Or else you're falling out a very high window. But is he happy?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
You can imagine a version of that where, you know, the state functions as just another means for Donald Trump to get paid. And we're already seeing some pieces of that.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah, I bet no one knows about the U.N. vote. I mean, look, the U.N. Security Council has been broken for a long time because the Russians and Chinese veto whatever they want. And we veto any criticism Israel and nothing gets done. Right. It's been that way for a decade plus. A UN General Assembly vote is basically just kind of like a show of hands of what you believe.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
It's like a global roll call. And boy, did we show our hand in a new and scary way to the world. I do wonder if the Zelensky-Trump meeting will break through and, I don't know, hit people differently. Yeah. They did say Slava Ukraine at the Oscars. Is that worth anything? No, nothing.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Bullying a man who's like trying to rescue 19,000 Ukrainian children who were stolen, kidnapped and taken to Russia. Like, I don't know. That's pretty fucked up. That's dark stuff.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
You don't look tough. It's like a three on one fight. And it's not about sending weapons or spending more money. It's just about like treating a man with decency whose country has been massacred. I mean, the casualty counts you see from the U.S. estimates are 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed, 100,000 wounded. The Russian casualties are like double that. And so this war has been a catastrophe.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Like I'm all for trying to end it, but we have to do it on terms that won't lead to a ceasefire that just reignites in a couple of years when the Russians have had time to reconstitute their forces. And that's what Zelensky's worried about.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Elon sort of always seems partly aware of and on board with the Trump policy agenda. No one in the White House wants him to call a Social Security Ponzi scheme because, boy, it's hard to pivot from that to fighting for a $5 trillion tax cut for the richest people in the country, which is their primary objective this year.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Oh, I remember. Under the Affordable Care Act, Obama used to say, if you like your plan, you can keep it. But then some plans were canceled because they didn't hit the mandatory requirements under the new ACA rules. And my wife's mother had a plan that got canceled. And- I remember having that conversation with her and, you know, she was able to get a new one and it was fine.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
It was probably overall better. But like that was not a small thing. That was not a blip in their feelings about the ACA or Barack Obama's standing for a little while.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
But part of what you're making is just a basic government competence argument. And if suddenly a bunch of Social Security checks don't go out, that shatters people's confidence in the U.S. government in a way that I think is really hard to recover from. Again, the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare.gov rollout, was more than just a website being broken for a while.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
It just fundamentally undercut people's faith in the administration to roll out and administer their healthcare, which is a very personal thing.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah, people are using it in the morning, at night, for workouts, after workouts, to kind of do a little A-B testing.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
So the initial tweet said the reserve would include XRP, SOL, and ADA. That's Ripple, Solano, and Cardano. Then he quote tweeted himself saying, of course, it'll also include Bitcoin and Ethereum. And that will matter in a second. So- This idea has been on the top of the crypto Bitcoin maximalist wish list for a long time.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Because if you own a lot of cryptocurrency early, and then the US government pumps a lot of money into it, your Bitcoin is going to go up in price. The main elected official pushing this idea has been Cynthia Loomis, a senator from Wyoming, who I'm sure everyone here at this table has heard of. Very well aware of Cynthia Loomis.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
She introduced the Boosting Innovation Technology Competitiveness Through Optimized Investment Nationwide, or... Bitcoin?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
So you put out the Bitcoin Act, the NAMBLA Act, as Lovett called it, at a conference in 2024 where Trump also spoke. Her bill is basically, she frames it as a way to bring down the debt, which makes no sense. But the gist of it is the U.S. government buys a million bitcoins, which is about 5% of total supply of bitcoins over a set period of time using existing treasury funds.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
they say will be paid for by these existing treasury funds because it's like accounting gimmicks to make it sound like it's cost free but the money's fungible so for spending us government money on bitcoin you're not spending on something else so obviously it's not free well it's only it's only and also it's only fungible if you consider it like a stable asset like the dollar right but it's not it's a it's a highly volatile it's like it's buying stock it's buying stocks
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
So the reason I'm talking about this Loomis bill, though, is because there's no details of whatever Trump's plan is beyond these tweets, except that the Loomis plan was just Bitcoin, while Trump's plan included those other cryptocurrencies like Ripple and Cardano, which are why a lot of Bitcoin advocates actually don't like what Trump rolled out, because those other currencies are like jokes.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Like no one uses Ripple. No one uses Cardano. Solana is like a platform through which you make other stuff off it, like meme coins. So the idea that like if you are a Bitcoin maximalist and you believe that Bitcoin is the new gold, OK, I guess you could argue for diversifying like our holdings of stuff, but like not for this other shit coins that no one ever uses.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
So the only argument for how those other currencies get into the mix here is because special interest lobbying and corruption. And surprise, surprise, Trump had dinner with the CEO of Ripple in early January. He's now surrounded by these Silicon Valley guys with vested financial interests like David Sachs, the AI czar. So he tweets this out, crypto prices spiked on Sunday about 10%.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Now they're crashing down as we're recording this. And I guess there's like a big White House crypto meeting on Friday. But like, there's a good chance that this tweet was all it was. It was just a chance to pump and dump.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
If you're previously holding these these shares because a bunch of crypto news sites reported on someone making a 50 times levered bet on Bitcoin and Ethereum on Saturday, only to cash it out for a $6.8 million profit on Sunday. So, must be nice. What do you think, guys? Clean out Fort Knox, fill it with thumb drafts?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah, give everybody a gift card. Buy whatever crypto you fucking want. There's also no guarantee that Bitcoin price will rise. Like if it was guaranteed to rise, then like the way markets work is it would already be priced at that level, right? Because that's how guarantees work. I mean, so none of this makes sense. You could come along and create a new cryptocurrency that displaces Bitcoin.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
All of our holdings go to zero. Also, the US government holding a ton of cryptocurrency or Bitcoin is completely antithetical to like the libertarian anti-government roots of these cryptocurrencies.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I think we know it swelled during that meeting, Stephen Miller.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Also, Donald Trump didn't give Ukraine really any aid and J.D. Vance voted against the supplemental spending bill for Ukraine aid. So who are we thanking exactly?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Well, to your point, a strategic oil reserve makes sense because you're going to need to use oil.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Finite resource. You could make the argument with crypto that you could make with gold. Like, look, in a pinch, we can't eat gold, right? It only has value because for thousands of years it has had value. But Bitcoin's been around for like 15 years. It could just disappear and no one would know.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Right. And it doesn't crypto is not what you need. Also, long term cryptocurrency will undercut the use of the dollar as the world's reserve currency, which, long story short, gives us a ton of power and influence. And on the corruption part, I mean, I had this really smart reporter on named Zeke Fox on the February 26 episode of Pod Save the World.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And I called him today just like check back in on this. There's this guy named Justin Sun. who is a, you heard of him?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Chinese crypto entrepreneur. He bought $75 million worth of Trump's World Liberty financial tokens. This is a certain crypto asset where the Trump family gets 75% of the profits from that coin. So there's a, right off the top, he just gets a rip of 75%. The SEC just paused its case against Justin Sun. They're investigating him for basically fraud.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Oh, did you see Eric Trump tweeted by the dip on Tuesday? And then this announcement happened Sunday. I wonder if he was in a position to know something about the Bitcoin price.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah, they claim to have saved $8 billion on like a DEI program for ICE, when in fact it was an $8 million program.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah, so I think in terms of Zelensky's efforts to get more support from the U.S. or get some sort of security deal, you just mentioned a way where it got worse in the near term because it sounds like they're freezing an additional, they're freezing some more money that could be transferred over to Ukraine in terms of weapons stockpiles.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
But the bigger picture problem that Zelensky has is that Trump and J.D. Vance just want a deal and they don't care about the substance of the deal anymore. They don't care if the Russians end up occupying 20 percent of Ukrainian territory or if Ukraine is told that they can't have a real armed forces going forward.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Also, I've been pivoting to TikTok because I'm just trying to reach people where they're at.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
So they're just kind of a sitting duck sitting there like Trump just wants a win in the Western press. Now, from Europe's perspective, I think maybe the meeting was clarifying and maybe that could help Zelenskyy because, you know, now there's all these reports that France and the UK are trying to pull together a European peacekeeping group that will give Zelenskyy a security guarantee.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Just, would you say 200,000 more kids getting polio?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I mean, look, we eradicated smallpox off the face of the earth. Like the next goal was to eradicate polio. And I think it was only found in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The fact that it's now going to resurge because of these cuts, like Jesus Christ, what a, what a hit to humanity. On the USAID money generally, I do think like people are going to die.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
There are going to be refugee camps in Sudan where they're going to run out of food. Babies are going to die. There's going to be people we've been giving AIDS medicines under the PEPFAR program that'll be gone in months. Now there's going to be, I personally think that that is cruel and morally wrong and damaging to our standing in the world in the long term as a nation.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
But let's say your view on this is the United States can't feed every starving person anywhere, everywhere, and we can't be the world's policemen. Then you say to them, okay, what about programs that help people that we actively harmed as a nation, right? Early on in this process, we talked about
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
the freeze on foreign aid, stopping programs that clean up unexploded bombs that the United States dropped on Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia. If we don't clean those up, little kids pick them up, their arms get blown off, they get killed, they're gonna die.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
The New York Times recently had a story about a doge cut that cut off funding to a program that provides the most meager amount of support to people who are severely disabled because of Agent Orange. Because the United States dropped Agent Orange on their villages during the Vietnam War, and then people who lived there had kids who had these severe disabilities.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Now we're cutting off loans to these people?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
after there is a peace deal, and that's what he really wants. So I think the challenge going into that meeting, now that I've thought about it more, is the US media tends to forget that all these foreign leaders who come in have their own political considerations.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I think we can doge things we don't like. Oh, yeah. About ourselves. Yeah.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And for Zelensky, that meeting going really badly and getting in a fight was not good, but a worse outcome for him would have been getting bullied into taking a ceasefire deal that leaves them vulnerable going forward. when Putin decides to break a ceasefire agreement that he cuts just to kind of make Trump happy. And so it's a bit of a mixed bag. I don't know.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I mean, this is what they want to do. That's just theory of the case. This is economic vision is you throw up all these tariffs and somehow that will ultimately rebuild domestic manufacturing or our ability to produce goods. But it just feels very unlikely. And, you know, we're going to put in place these tariffs on Canada and Mexico and they're going to retaliate.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Like the Canadians have talked about 25% tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods globally. of U.S. products, and then that might expand to $85 billion more. And they're talking about ag products, consumer goods, liquor. I think they're targeting Republican districts, so like bourbon, appliances. And Mexico has not been public about their retaliations, but they're preparing them.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
So you made the point like the auto sectors are so entwined between the U.S. and Canada and Mexico, and I don't know how that's going to work. Mexico and Canada account for 70 percent of U.S. crude oil imports. So gas prices could go up. And also we're talking about trade agreements that like Jared Kushner negotiated.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
The USMCA was the updated NAFTA that Trump like was one of the things Trump talked about as a primary accomplishment in the first term.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Well, so, so far it's backfiring. I mean, his, his ostensible political allies are the conservative parties up there, this guy, Pierre Polyev, and he still might be the next Canadian prime minister. But Justin Trudeau's polling was like rock bottom. He stepped back. They did this thing where they, it's called proroguing parliament, where basically the liberal party is now going to figure out.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
It's a new leader. And that person will then become the prime minister when they go back into session in like a couple of weeks. And the liberal party's polling numbers, because of Trump's attacks, have gone way back up. Yeah. Like he is rallying support. And you're seeing Canadians booing the national anthem and all this sort of Canadian nationalism. And it's just it's not working.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
The hopeful version is maybe the Europeans will get their shit together finally and give Ukraine what they need.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah, I just think that Trump is the most relentless messenger in the history of politics. And I think we can't let him talk in a vacuum or else like he's going to pin every failure on Democrats and some not insignificant part of the electorate will think that egg prices are high because of Gaza protesters at Barnard. You know what I mean? And so that's not true.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
As far as I know, that is not true. It's the Jews.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I think you're right, Lovett. It's smarter to talk about these fights around a specific thing like the budget, but I do think we have an opportunity there to drive a message that's really strong, which is that Donald Trump is allowing this
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
unelected, unwell billionaire to break the US government so that you could pretend it's going to save enough money to pay for a $5 trillion tax cut for the richest people in the country. I think that's a good story. We have a good villain in Elon Musk. But we're not going to win this fight with op-eds and MSNBC hits. It's going to be a volume game on social media platforms and local press.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
But I do think part of this- Has been seeing us on Chris Hayes lately, I guess. and the points we're making there. But like, I do think we have to have like, we have to have a motivation. We have to have a story with an enemy and we have to have an alternative. Yes. You know what I mean?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
You're not against it. I'm not against the shadow cabinet. And the Labor Party are spelling it with an OU. I'm up for Trump. Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
The Trump people are going to break some parts of the government and people are going to get hurt and they have to understand why that happened. Yes. So we've talked about the Doge stuff, but there's another thing that's happened. So in 2020, Congress passed a bunch of tax credits to make Affordable Care Act plans more affordable. Those were extended through 2025. Those are going to expire.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And if they are not reauthorized, you're going to see a bunch of middle class people see like serious premium increases. We need to explain to them as Democrats why their premiums are going up. Otherwise, it might just happen in a vacuum and people are going to think, oh, actually, government health care sucks.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Yeah. Or the Obamacare sucks. No, it's explained because the Democrats in Congress passed these enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. We need a better name for them, by the way. It's actually expanded premium support, Tommy. Thank you. That's even worse. And Republicans let them lapse. Yeah.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Trump apparently said to the press corps, oh, this guy dressed up today.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
One thing that I think insulates Trump from a lot of criticism is people think, well, he's rich. He's not trying to make more money. Because somehow people have gotten it in their heads that billionaires don't always want more money and that's how you become a billionaire. I think we need to undercut that by exposing the reality.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
For example, The Washington Post reported that Elon Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits. We need to lift that up. as he's slashing things through Doge or advocating for a $4.5 trillion tax cut for the richest people in the world.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
That's the kind of stuff I think where there's an enemy and it's newsworthy and it's new and it's interesting. I think we can sell that.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Right. I reject that. And I think you're doing a great job. You're the doge of this podcast with all your fucking falsehoods in this episode. Yeah. But yeah, I think like we have to remember as a party, a list is not a message, right? We have to tell a story. It's got to be, there is like a lot of work we have to do as a party. Like there's a bit of a reboot of like,
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Who we like you say, who is Trump? What is he? People are like, I don't know. He wants to make America great again. Sounds stupid. We used to make fun of it. But like, boy, is that simple and effective? We don't need a slogan, but we need people to think like Democrats are like they believe this. They stand for that. They fight for this.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I do think that there's a lesson from the RFK thing where, look, he's a terrible person. I would not want him part of the Democratic coalition.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
I don't think it was a mistake for Kamala Harris not to like cut a deal with him or whatever. Remember that was kind of a narrative, but Republicans, they will let anyone into the tent, including him. And they saw Donald Trump correctly saw that RFK overthrew, uh,
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
decades of misleading and, you know, sort of being emotionally manipulative to people who had been, had children with disabilities, et cetera, had built this constituency and built trust with a community that was like pretty significant. And they saw the value of this kind of like wellness to anti-vax to MAGA to MAHA pipeline, and they were willing to go for it.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And I just, I don't know, like, it's not a good example. It's not something I'd like to emulate, but that openness and willingness to bring people into the tent is something.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Right. Which was also nice. I respect Maggie's reporting, but there were times where I felt like the headline was like this wasn't an ambush. And then the substance of the story didn't back that up. For example. Lindsey Graham is running around telling everyone that he told Zelensky not to take Trump's bait. Well, if this wasn't a setup, then why would he be baited in the first place?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And maybe that's an overly literal meeting. But like Trump's position is you have to come into the Oval Office. You have to bow to my will. You cannot disagree with me even about points of fact. And that's just not tenable for the leader of a country. Fighting for its existence. And so like ambush, not an ambush. It was designed for domestic political consumption. Like J.D.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Vance's speech was his chance to finally talk in a big boy meeting and lead the headlines 41 days into the administration where Elon had been ahead of him every other day. And then Trump at the end says. well, I think it was good for the American people to hear all that, and this will make for good TV.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And if you want to make this all a private discussion about the substance, don't have the fucking pool spray in there for 45 minutes.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
And it's like, why do we want to normalize things with Russia so much? It's a broken economy. It's like a wartime economy now. They just make artillery shells that they use to kill Ukrainians. But one sort of under-discussed bizarre part of Trump's rant, because you also have to think about the original impeachment and how Zelensky was involved, right?
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Because Trump called Zelensky and was trying to held up military into Ukraine in order to get dirt on Joe Biden. But an under-discussed part of when Trump gets really mad is he starts ranting about the Mueller investigation. And he says, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. And then he said, and it came out of Hunter Biden's bathroom.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
So none of this makes sense, but he was talking about how he and Vlad endured something terrible together Like somehow it was bad for Putin to have been perceived by the world as having handpicked the American president? Like they're blood brothers.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
Sir, do you know it was on Hunter's laptop? There's a lot of photos that you probably don't want to see.
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Trump’s Ukraine Fallout and Crypto Grift
If you haven't tried it and you're over the age of 30, you're just an idiot.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Jesse, who is in the Oval Office today. Oh, yeah. Rupert Murdoch. And Larry Ellison. Larry Ellison.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I meant hummus, not Hamas. How do we route that money in the wrong place? Who are we sending hummus to? No, it was payment for. We split that app.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Anyway, this is pretty... First of all, I didn't know that Uncle Sam had a Venmo. This seems alarming and unprecedented. Like Elon Musk, just an unelected tech billionaire.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
wrestling away congressional authority to spend money and the treasury department's role in the whole process and i don't know like this vindictive unstable man calling usaid evil and leftist marxists terrorist supporters uh this all seems like a pretty bad setup i forgot to mention that
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Also, apparently, even in past financial crises or debt ceiling fights, the political staff have never... done this. They've always let career civil servants handle this kind of sensitive information. And by the way, there was some reporting about the identities of members of the Doge team, these tweens and teens running around the place. I don't think they're any tweens. You don't know that.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Nope. You don't know that there were tweens. I like calling them tweens. Good job, Tom. Now the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is threatening to arrest people or prosecute people that, I guess, expose their identities or put them at risk in some kind of way.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And now you've got like Elon's army of dipshits and losers on Twitter now doxing the reporters who reported on the Doge staffers and leading them getting threats. So this is just incredibly facistic.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I think that this is not about wasteful spending or even about USAID. I think this is a broader effort to usurp Congress's role in the spending process and create a precedent that they can then use again and again. Just to be clear, the president does not have the legal authority to abolish USAID.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Congress established USAID's authority apart from state and merging it with state would also be unconstitutional. So this is just a power grab. And I think how it goes... could determine whether there's another power grab. You're seeing some reporting that the Department of Education could be next. That's the thing in Elon's crosshairs.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And it is part of a broader pattern that we're seeing in these first two weeks of them ignoring or breaking the law, ignoring norms to seize power. So they fired those inspectors general at all these agencies. They did it
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
illegally by not giving congress sufficient notice it would have been very easy to give congress 30 days notice and then fire all these people the republicans wouldn't stop them they wanted to have this fight and maybe take it to courts and win in court they have crippled the national labor relations board by firing a member so now the nlrb doesn't have enough members to meet so they don't have a quorum uh that means in practice this independent agency
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
That is supposed to investigate and prosecute labor law violations, cannot do its job. Similar thing happened at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or EEOC. They are browbeating Republican senators into supporting unqualified nominees. Like this is a massive, unprecedented power grab. And Democrats, I think, don't really know how to fight it or don't have the power to fight it.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
It also sounds like that OPM letter. went through Elon shop and did not go by people like Stephen Miller and other top White House officials. So I'm sure there's some intra administration.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Well, they didn't know if they should show up for work. So some of them didn't.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I also think there's this lack of clarity now about whether some parts of USAID funding has been unfrozen. Secretary Rubio said that life-saving assistance like medicine, medical service, food and shelter would be exempted from the aid freeze. But no one really knows what that means. And I think that's kind of the point because this uncertainty has just upended everything USAID is doing.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And I think, honestly, I think talking about this as a freeze is probably a mistake. I have zero confidence that the vast majority of this funding or these programs will be turned back on. And I think that, by the way, Rubio used to be a big defender of USAID funding. He said it was critical for our national security, and now he's totally flip-flopped.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
But let's just say that something you're working on is paused for 90 days. If you're a contractor working for USAID in Kenya or Ukraine or Southeast Asia, You don't have 90 days worth of savings to just sit on to see if your job is around in three months. You're going to go do something else.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And it's going to completely cripple all this work that has taken decades to set up, this infrastructure, these contractors, these networks of people in these countries. And to your point, if you're getting antiretrovirals through PEPFAR and you stop, you're going to die.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
But in some instances, it's worse than that. They are folding this into their preconceived ideological anger, and they've decided that USAID funded programs that led to gain-of-function research that led to COVID. This is all kind of getting folded into like prosecute Fauci madness.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And it's like Elon Musk retweeting at Wall Street Apes, which is his source on someone found some 40 million in taxpayer funding that went to some scientists in Wuhan. And it's just like, I don't know. Apparently, this is all just part of a conspiracy theory about how the lab leak was on purpose from, you know, thanks to Fauci's funding from USAID, I guess. That's the new...
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And most of those 6,000 are like so tangential. So people who got random leads who pass along information or were part of a wiretap or God knows what.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Or they were just assigned a case and you don't have a choice.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I'm so sick of this, this is what people voted for line. No, no one voted to give Elon Musk a line item veto for the entire federal government. And voting for Donald Trump doesn't mean we get rid of basic civil service protections for government employees.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Those are in place to ensure merit-based employment, to ensure that political influence isn't dictating every single person who is hired or fired, that there isn't discrimination or arbitrary actions. They have collective bargaining rights. There's whistleblower protections. There's all sorts of workers' rights that don't go away because Donald Trump gets elected president.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I didn't love the USAID press conference setting. The reason being, as we just discussed, the Republicans are about to find a bunch of examples of USAID programs that seem silly even to us or seem like a bad use of money. And if the shorthand is Democrats defend USAID while the White House bully pulpit and Elon's Twitter amplifies all these bad things about USAID, I don't think that's a winner.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I think... I want them to focus in on the Elon piece of this right now, because I do think like it's genuinely scary. It's a he's a nefarious new element to Trump 2.0 that is newsworthy. And he's the shiny object right now. And reporters want to cover it. And everyone knows who he is and want to know what's going on.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And there's been some recent polling that shows that Elon's favorable ratings are underwater. Something comes on cases by like 16 points each. And I think Democrats should drive a wedge in between Elon and Trump and drive both their unfavorables up by talking about why an unelected billionaire is just kind of combing through the government books and doing whatever the hell he wants.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Like that is a weird, crazy, interesting story that no one is going to like. And I think it'll get covered. And I'm good for Brian Schatz for blocking all these State Department employee nominations. I think that's great. Hakeem Jeffries' 10-point plan has some good stuff in there. I read through it all, but I learned about it when I read the outline for this episode.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
So I don't know that it's broken through. I know a lot of it is like planning for down the road. But I don't know. I would focus on the Elon piece right now and just go hard. Yeah.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Are we at like King Hippo if it's Mike Tyson punch out? Where are we at in the escalation ladder?
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I don't want him to have a slush fund, but for the United States having a sovereign wealth fund, it's a conversation worth having.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Oh, yeah, yeah. That sounds right. King Hippo. Yeah, I mean, the fentanyl czar is going to have some free time because I think USCBP had some data about seizures at the northern border in 2022, 2023, and 2024. And they found 70 pounds of fentanyl at the northern border as compared to over 66,000 pounds at the southern border.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah, I don't... I think we can critique it. We can make fun of that.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Look, they need to step up. Like... Good to do a press conference today. They've been slow. There's all these reports of the Democrats, the congressional Democrats doing a conference call to figure out their response as the news changes. The OPM memo gets rescinded, whatever. Be a little more nimble. Take some shots. Don't worry about the words being perfect.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Make sure you try to get it to the people who need to hear it. Maybe don't use the word aroused. Maybe don't defend the most unpopular spending we do and defend some of the popular spending. But look, yeah, points for fighting, I guess.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
I do think everyone really needs to keep an eye on these media lawsuit settlements with Trump. It's not just ABC and their defamation suit. It's not just Facebook and their $25 million, you call it whatever you want, to Trump and to his library. There's reports that CBS might settle a suit that didn't even involve Donald Trump. Which is fucking crazy. The most ridiculous one.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that they edited, like every news organization edits everything always, and Paramount might settle that. And by the way, they happen to have a Paramount Skydance merger with that's sitting before the Trump administration, but suggesting that those things are connected would be untoward, so I wouldn't do that.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Literally in the Oval Office with Rupert Murdoch. So if we see the biggest media organizations in the country and their corporate overlords preemptively caving to the Trump administration and settling lawsuits. They could have won.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
That is a very scary signal about press coverage and fighting for the First Amendment right to cover the White House in the second administration, and we need to keep an eye on that.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
So I don't think the fentanyl issue was one with Canada as much as it was with Mexico and with China.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
We've been dealing with this guy for a decade and Trump's like, we gave $50 million to Hamas for condoms and then they use the condoms as bums. It's completely made up because some dork over at Doge, she was 19 years old and has the Twitter handle bigballs69420 misread a spreadsheet and didn't realize this funding was going to like Mozambique or something.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And then the response though is like factcheck.org has Trump administration makes unsupported claim about 50 million for condoms to Gaza. It's like, oh my God. And then- We're done.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
And Twitter's successful. The Elon fluffers are out in force. They're everywhere. They're attacking everything.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah, I think it's going to be a lot easier to get either real concessions or just lip service out of the Canadians and the Mexicans than it will be out of the Chinese. Xi Jinping is not going to bend or break easily. And so it does look like, ultimately, I think, the results matter a lot less to Trump than the politics.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
There were stories in the Wall Street Journal a week ago about how the Canadians didn't know what he wanted. They were on the other end of this fight. They didn't know what they were negotiating over.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Yeah, they wanted a new czar. But Trump looks like he's taking action. He's getting stuff done. He's making progress. He's picking big fights. So it's splashy. It's getting covered. You're right, state media is covering it, but so is every other news outlet that's trying to follow this administration. So I think it's really smart politics for him.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Well, you know what you do with a Jim Cramer prediction? You bet the other side, almost exclusively.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
Well, yeah, the J.D. Vance theory of the case is you throw in the tariffs and you create a big domestic industry. But these are all long game proposals that will take decades to play out. And Trump's just dicking around and doing a political move. Like it's clearly just naked politics. He wants to look like he's taking action. I think it's pretty effective in that sense.
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Elon Musk's Nerd Coup
you know he makes up some other big problem that canada and mexico doing he does this all over again yeah i just think it's like the casual news observer the just the headline person like oh you see trump he beat up on the canadians he got some concessions like good for him doing stuff
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100 Perfect Days
Anyway, what are your takes on how consequential these 14 weeks have been? That was the question I wrote down here. It's been consequential.
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100 Perfect Days
If you choose to have a U.S. citizen child knowing you're in this country illegally, you put yourself in that position. You put your family in that position. What we did is remove children with their mothers who requested their children depart with them. This was a parental decision. Parenting 101. The mothers made that choice.
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100 Perfect Days
And I tell you what, if we didn't do it, the story today would be the Trump administration separating families again.
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100 Perfect Days
Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I'm excited for the book. I'm excited for the book, too. I'm excited to talk to them on this podcast. Oh, yeah, we're going to talk to them. Anyway, anyway, it was a good time. Always good to pop into D.C. and then leave. One more thing we wanted to mention before we go.
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War in the Group Chat
Yeah. I wonder if Mike Waltz has any Houthis in his contacts.
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War in the Group Chat
Do we really believe that Trump is sated? Do you think if Paul Weiss takes another case against him he doesn't like that he'll be like, ah, we had a good meeting with Brad back in the day? Not a fucking chance. Right. See, with Mark Zuckerberg, you can cut a million dollar check to the inauguration. You can settle the lawsuit for 25 million and bribe Trump that way.
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War in the Group Chat
But do you think he's going to side with you over Elon Musk in the next big AI fight? No way, buddy. Or like TikTok, right? Which Zuckerberg would rather have banned. And now is our moment to establish some guardrails and everyone is just caving.
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War in the Group Chat
Yeah. yeah i just think that there's an argument just on the on the merits for the for their bottom line long term to fight now and not well that that is a good argument yes but long term i don't know like they think that short term this is good for them and maybe they're right individually but long term you know i don't think you want to be in a country like this
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War in the Group Chat
I mean, my big takeaway was the point you made about Trump calling it a precondition for formal negotiations. That is the strategic approach we took to negotiating with the Taliban or the North Koreans or the Iranians.
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War in the Group Chat
What are we doing here? I mean, the anti-Semitism definition, I'm not entirely sure what anti-Semitism definition is. is going to pass muster with the White House, I assume one that is pretty expansive. And as we've discussed before, that is a problem.
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War in the Group Chat
Because a lot of those definitions of anti-Semitism, like the IHRA definition, includes a completely legitimate criticism of the Israeli government or Israeli government policy, or suggests that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are the same thing, which they are not. It can have a hugely chilling effect on free speech.
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War in the Group Chat
Yeah, exactly. And then but like also just big picture, it is what are we talking about? This is so heavy handed, like the White House is dictating whether student protesters at Columbia University are allowed to wear masks. What?
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War in the Group Chat
And the broader context being that Mahmoud Khalil, this Columbia student who was swept up by ice and disappeared to Louisiana. I mean, there's this unprecedented attack on one of their own students. And I understand that that could create fear, but it seems like it could also be a time to fight for the kids who are enrolled in your institution.
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War in the Group Chat
I think Levin made an important point, which is like, I think UPenn has like a $22 billion endowment. So you could fill some of these gaps in the short term and you could probably pay the legal fees to fight here.
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War in the Group Chat
Yeah, I mean, reading that time report was haunting. It's one of those things you read and it just sticks with you because what is happening to these people is just so profoundly wrong and enraging. And obviously we all want murderers deported, but what is happening is ICE is just sweeping through communities and picking up Venezuelan men
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War in the Group Chat
and and deporting them with no due process in most cases seemingly because they have tattoos just do we trust the the cultural fluency of ice agents to determine what tattoos mean your back like but that's what we're doing now and the story of this one man uh his name is andre he's a makeup artist he is a legitimate asylum case because he fled the maduro government in venezuela and by the way trump just slapped a bunch more sanctions on the venezuelan economy today he's going to put more uh uh
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War in the Group Chat
He's going to sanction other countries that buy Venezuelan oil starting April 2nd. So we're crushing their economy, making it so there's no Venezuelan country to go back to, but also shipping Venezuelan men who try to come here and seek asylum to El Salvador.
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War in the Group Chat
And the Trump administration sent this man, Andrea, he's a makeup artist, to rot in hell in this gulag in El Salvador, I think just because he had a couple tattoos on his arm. And because Nayib Bukele is an authoritarian sadist, he allowed this time photographer to witness what happened.
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War in the Group Chat
And we have this account of Andre weeping and crying for his mother, and in the response, getting slapped and beaten and thrown to the ground, having his head forcibly shaved. And I just think if you- This guy had no hearing, no hearing. If you hear a story like that and your response is to shrug it off and not think that could be me, that could be my family, that could be someone I love.
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War in the Group Chat
I think there is something wrong with you because this should shock your conscience. This is evil. It should not be how the United States of America-
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War in the Group Chat
should act i know we have fucked up in some of our worst excesses uh after the war on terror or other um dramatic events but like this is so profoundly wrong it was it it's it's hard not to throw your phone through the wall when you read about what's happening these people
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War in the Group Chat
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War in the Group Chat
To manage a crisis. This happened on March 11th through 14th, which is like Tuesday through Friday. Everyone should be sitting at their desk where they could presumably get on the J Wix, the top secret email system and fire off a classified message to each other or walk downstairs into the sit room and have a meeting about this, this who the target they want to bomb. It's insane.
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War in the Group Chat
Oh, I don't know. Or he's just irrelevant. I mean, my big takeaway from the kind of the messaging flow and sequencing is it seemed like Stephen Miller is the end all be all decision maker on this chat about whether they're bombing Yemen.
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War in the Group Chat
He sort of comes in and says, this is what the president said in the meeting, so this is what we're doing. It's like Mike Waltz, you're the national security advisor. You haven't talked to the president. J.D. Vance, you're the VP. You haven't talked to the president.
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War in the Group Chat
He was like, I don't like the Atlantic, though. I'm like, okay, well, your staff does because they copy him on deliberations.
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War in the Group Chat
Yeah. J.D. Vance is big, kind of an isolationist case against striking the Houthis, which big picture I tend to agree with. But he comes at it by arguing that a much higher percentage of goods come from Europe than and are at risk from the Houthis than U.S. goods. Through the canal.
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War in the Group Chat
Yeah, because if you think about the Suez Canal, it connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea down to the Indian Ocean, so it links Asia to Europe.
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War in the Group Chat
And it's just weird that he makes all of this about Europe and European goods because the bigger argument you usually hear about the Houthis scaring ships out of the Red Sea is that everyone ends up going around the Horn of Africa and all shipping takes longer and everything is just net, net more expensive for everybody.
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War in the Group Chat
How is this about Europe and not Israel? The proximate cause, the reason the Houthis are firing missiles and drones at ships is because they're doing it, they say, in solidarity with the Palestinian cause because they want the war in Gaza to end or they want humanitarian relief to get into the Gaza Strip.
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War in the Group Chat
This is clearly an effort to help out Netanyahu because the Houthis are also firing missiles at Israel.
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War in the Group Chat
I was thinking about this. I made a video for the Crooked Media Instagram about some previous multifaceted mix-ups with the wrong people getting CC'd on email chains. Remember when we sent about 30 emails to Lyle Lovett? thinking we had copied John Lovett. Yeah. Oh yeah. And then he finally replied. It was like, Hey everyone. I made me.
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War in the Group Chat
because someone removes them and you forget. Remember Jen Psaki got in trouble for this. She like forwarded some opposition research by accident to John McCormick, who then I think was at the Tribune. We've all done this. We've all AOL IM'd the person we're talking shit about directly instead of talking about them amongst the group, you know, with our friends and colleagues.
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War in the Group Chat
See, I was going to say he should have recommended some targets and just sort of like mixing it up, getting involved in the conversation, see if anybody noticed. But yeah, I mean, to those who are there were some people online who were like, how dare he leave? Why would he do that?
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War in the Group Chat
I do think in this, you know, legal climate, there is some actual risks to you if you're perceived as violating the Espionage Act.
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War in the Group Chat
That is, I think, like... Who do you think's in that one? Peter Baker? No, it's probably like Steve Wyckoff. I'd listen to an hour and six minutes of an hour and a half of Steve Wyckoff talking with Tucker Carlson about their entire foreign policy agenda, and I can't wait to listen to the rest after this. But I bet...
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War in the Group Chat
I bet when all these guys are traveling, they are just absolutely breaking the rules and ignoring the Presidential Record Act and talking on signal all day long.
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War in the Group Chat
Yeah. I mean, just look, Signal is broadly viewed as kind of the gold standard and the safest communications app because it's open source and it's got really strong encryption. But we don't know. We don't know if the Mossad has broken it or the Chinese or the Russians.
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War in the Group Chat
If they can get access to your device itself, it doesn't matter if it's encrypted flying across the transom. If they are on your device somehow, then they've got what you're saying.
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War in the Group Chat
A couple observations. People, Democrats in that district hate Ken Calvert, hate his guts. He's been around for decades. They can't get rid of him. And they were really grateful to Roe for coming out. I mean, we had a similar experience. You did love it. I mean, I think Roe said the crowd we saw was about a thousand people. It's definitely several hundred. I was expecting like 50.
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War in the Group Chat
And everyone we talked to, whether they're from the 41st district or not, they were scared, they were angry, they were desperate for any guidance on what to do in this moment and any kind of leadership and someplace to channel their energy.
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War in the Group Chat
And I think the Democratic Party needs to view these events as a huge opportunity because all of us are having the same conversation about how things feel worse this time and it's scary and there's no marches, there's no clear sense of activism and people seem a little more resigned to what's to come.
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War in the Group Chat
And the reality is there are millions and millions of people who are desperate for someone to help them channel their energies. And I think Roe, AOC, Bernie, people that are getting out into the country and doing these town hall meetings and listening, It's going to go a long way. And it's not just the midterms and sprinting towards 2026.
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War in the Group Chat
It's that you want these Republicans battleground districts to feel vulnerable and to see headlines of like a thousand people for Ro Khanna in my district. And maybe I shouldn't follow Elon Musk and Donald Trump down every fucking path. So I thought it was great that Ro did it. It was it was great to have been there and talk to a lot of people. And I'm glad we went.
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War in the Group Chat
Fun to say. Yeah, I liked it. It's a term of art. It's a legal term of art. It means repeatedly filing frivolous, redundant lawsuits with the intention of harassing the other party more than winning them, but fun to say. That was a big takeaway for me. I agree with you.
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War in the Group Chat
I think Paul Weiss has $130 million per year in pro bono support already, so I imagine they will just fold the $40 million into that and call it a day. There was one part that was weird where there seemed to be a disagreement between the White House and what Paul Weiss thinks they agree to around hiring
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War in the Group Chat
Paul Weiss, the White House says that Paul Weiss agreed to merit-based hiring and not doing anything DEI related, which is a problem because a firm like Paul Weiss should be able to hire whatever lawyers they want, including people from diverse backgrounds. It's a good thing for them as a practice.
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War in the Group Chat
But there was also a piece of it where the White House said they agreed to retain some expert in employment practices to review their hiring. To like audit the firm or something. Right, which is super weird. Like some outside expert is going to tell them how to hire. That seems bad. So yeah, the principle is terrible.
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War in the Group Chat
It's the funniest person you could possibly include on that group chat, too. It's perfect. Unless it was a Houthi.
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War in the Group Chat
It's vexatious. Yeah, I think the first mistake was sending Brad Karp to negotiate. You should have sent Paul Weiss.
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War in the Group Chat
But I agree. In the first term, we all complained about... the collective action problem among Republican elected officials and Trump senior staff, right? Cause they would complain to Maggie Haberman on background, but never quit or like put anything on the line.
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War in the Group Chat
Now, uh, the, the, the, the problem, the collective action problem has broken containment and is in academia and with CEOs and law firms and the media and, And they're all just preemptively caving. And like, not only did Paul Wei say they're going to lose clients, but they said that other firms were trying to poach their clients.
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War in the Group Chat
That's the good stuff. Yeah. That is shitty. But also I wanted to say, did you expect a fight with the president to be easy? Right. We're all going to like when you stand on principle, you might lose money. You might lose status. You might get harassed. You might deal with risk and hardship. That's the point. And like there is a decent chance that they made things so much worse in the long term.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Yeah, last night was one of those times where I sort of thought to myself, if we were slowly sliding into, you know, an authoritarian state, what would be happening differently than a purge at the FBI and the Pentagon?
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
I just want to point out that before C.Q. Brown was the chairman, he commanded the Pacific Air Forces. He was the chief of staff of the Air Force. He was the deputy commander of CENTCOM. He logged 130 hours in combat. This guy was like eminently qualified for the job. And he was fired because he is Black.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Pete Hegseth, as you mentioned, sort of questioned in his book whether Brown had been promoted. because of his race. Hegseth later said on a podcast, I think last year, that Brown had to be fired because any general involved in quote, DEI woke shit has to go. In C.Q.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Brown's case, that meant literally just like talking about his experience as a black man in the United States after George Floyd's murder. And then you mentioned the head of the Navy was fired. That was Lisa Franchetti. She was the first woman to lead the Navy. About a month ago, Trump fired the commandant of the Coast Guard, who was the first woman ever to lead a branch of the U.S. military.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
So they're just pushing out all women and all people of color. And again, as we talked about before, like the military is very diverse at the lowest ranks at the senior level. It is almost exclusively white men. And Trump is just destroying any diversity that was, you know, had been improved by the Biden administration.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
And as these guys are ranting and raving about DEI, they're putting Pete Hegseth in charge, who is a weekend Fox anchor. And then Lieutenant General Dan Cain is going to be the replacement chairman. He's the guy that Trump always talks about, Raisin Cain, who he met in Iraq, who said, I can kill ISIS in like two hours, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Cain doesn't actually meet the statutory requirements needed to hold the position. He was a three-star. You needed to have been a combatant commander or a service chief. Trump can give him a waiver. But again, the idea that this is like a fucking merit-based appointment is ludicrous on the facts.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
He said that Mark Milley, the former chairman, should be executed, so I guess it could be worse. Yeah, that's true.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
I feel for these workforces because you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Either you stay in, maybe you have to go along with something because you're ordered to that you know is wrong, either morally or legally, or you leave and potentially someone worse and more loyal to Trump gets your job. I mean, it's terrible.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
I mean, I'm no AI expert, but the idea that you can just put a five-paragraph, like, what I did at camp this week letter into the machine, and it can just tell you if your job has value seems... Like it's the machine that checks whether kids are good or evil in Willy Wonka.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Of course I have, yes. Love the basilisk.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Just save it as a .csv file. That's exactly right. I think that's good. It's just a .csv. What is it? Rococo basilisk? It's Rocco's basilisk. But that's Elon's drug dealer.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
It's that. Also, at some point, you're the secretary of, fill in the agency name, education. You're ostensibly running the thing. You're supposed to be in charge. You want your little fiefdom to be yours. You want to decide who you're... hiring and firing. So I think there's probably just an ego piece of it. But it also seemed like a legal part.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Just a pure political ad. Yeah, indistinguishable from a campaign ad.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Kristi Noem has also been doing kind of the job as performance art. Have you seen this? Lots of costumes. I think there was a, she was in a cowboy hat. She might have been on a horse at one point. This is what Trump wants. Bulletproof vest in some photos. Really kind of living the part.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
This is Schrödinger's segment that I'm alive, but I want to die.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
There's a lot on the cards I didn't get to. There's a lot of the cards I didn't get to on Bill Maher. I haven't been able to listen to that. When he walked out, was it a Huffy walkout? You know what?
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Yeah, they made fun of my Stephen A. Smith thing. They just made fun of me being like, who the hell is Tommy Vitor? I'm like, you just excerpted our interview. Obama pod bros.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Thanks for saying I shower, John. Yeah, you do shower. We would rather have our dress code than have to just put on like a half pound of bronzer every time you walk into the studio.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Gutfeld's in a long-sleeve tee every goddamn day. Gutfeld has the most hilarious wardrobe and posture on all of television. The Five has been on a lot.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
It just seems like Zelensky's negotiating a gunpoint and he feels like he has no choice. I mean, it's as simple as that. The war is still raging. I think to honor the anniversary of the full-scale invasion, the Russians fired the largest drone attack since the war started. So, you know, he is getting attacked by the Russians and then now the Americans are coming in to extort him.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Yeah. I mean, I think the theory of it. Well, first of all, I mean, there was a report in the FT today that Putin said Russia was prepared to offer to help the U.S. on some sort of cooperation on extraction of these minerals. Oh, wow. That's so helpful. He wants in on the action. I mean, the kind of Trump theory of the case is that.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
increased economic cooperation might be seen as a turn to putin for to invade again i don't think that's remotely credible so i think it's very likely that putin is viewing this as a chance to refresh his army and rearm and then you know try to take the rest of ukraine in a couple years were you shocked by the un resolution I mean, yes, but no. Right. I mean, we've we've picked a side.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
The great thing about going to Loli is you're guaranteed not to see Bill Maher.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
And I think the U.N. resolution just showed how much of a change there's been in U.S. policy.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
That's like the common thread. I mean, Trump refuses to say the Russians invaded. He refuses to say who's the aggressor.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Very bad that the AFD doubled its support from the last time, but most of their success came from mobilizing new voters. So it just tells you there's a lot of energy there. So there's some AFD voters who support their really disgusting policy views. I think there's some people that view it as a way to give a middle finger to the system and just show a protest. Where have I heard that before?
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Yeah, exactly. The more traditional conservatives, they got the most votes, but they underperformed politically. The Social Democrats had the worst result for them since 1887. So a tough day for former Chancellor Schulz. So it's most likely that Friedrich Merz and the CDU will go into coalition with the Social Democrats. And that's the next government.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
And that's kind of the best possible outcome in terms of what's next for Germany and their ability to govern. What's the worst, Tommy? What? The worst is they form a government. They can't get anything done. It collapses.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
And then in the next election, you see the AFD do even better because the real growth in this election was on the far right for the AFD and on the far left, especially among 18 to 24 year olds. The far left and the far right did really well because everyone is just furious at the two traditional political parties.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
And, you know, now we just have to see if they can form a government that seems responsive to the people.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Yeah, they're Euro skeptics. And so that's, you know, worrisome in the longterm. And then Friedrich Merz, who's the head of the CDU, which is Angela Merkel's party,
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
He said during the campaign that his top priority is going to be strengthening Europe as quickly as possible so they can achieve independence from the United States because they know the Americans are now largely indifferent to Europe's fate. And he also said that Elon Musk's interference in German elections was not less dramatic and drastic than what Russia did.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
So they're just viewing a future without us. Wonderful. As is Zelensky. Wonderful.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Jen Psaki takes a deep dive into the state of the Democratic Party in her new original MSNBC podcast, The Blueprint with Jen Psaki. As President Trump's second term takes shape, Jen and her guests will dig into what lessons can be learned from the 2024 election and help uncover a blueprint for how to respond to the current moment.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
As you could hear there, it's got some temperament issues. I think if an anabolic steroid morphed into a person, it would be Dan Bongino. Fortunately, when you give people power, usually they settle down. Yeah, they chill out. To Lovett's point is right about the experience. The deputy director is always a career FBI agent.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
When we were in the administration, this guy, Sean Joyce, who had one of the best Boston accents I've ever heard, but he had been in the bureau for like 30 or 40 years. He did all these operational meetings. He was deep in the weeds of everything. He was always briefing the deputies committee. Dan Bongino has none of that experience.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
Search for The Blueprint with Jen Psaki to follow and listen to the series. New episodes drop on Mondays. Love it. I'm going off script here to say we love Jen Psaki. Huge fans. One of the smartest, most effective people in Democratic politics. Amazing show on MSNBC. Check out her podcast.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
I mean, he was a secret service guy turned gadfly political candidate, turned Fox News host, turned podcaster. And I think this is even more dangerous this time around because Kash Patel has no experience. He's never worked at the FBI. He's like, what, 44 years old? He's like a little bit of experience on the Hill and a little bit of time at the DOJ, but he doesn't know what he's doing.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
And so I'm not one of those people that you see a lot of liberals kind of lionizing the FBI, like, how dare you criticize the institutions? No, they've made a lot of mistakes. They screw up a lot of stuff. It's an incredibly conservative organization, by the way, very Republican. But the FBI is supposed to protect us from terrorists, foreign intelligence operations, organized crime.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
They're not just It's raiding Mar-a-Lago. Public corruption. Right. That's not their only job. And now it's run by two people who have no idea what they're doing. And the only explanation for how they got the job is loyalty to Trump. And if I were to think of the two parts of government, you could most easily weaponize against political opponents.
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Finally, a Podcaster at the Top of the FBI!
It would be the FBI and the IRS just giving the kind of tools you have in your toolkit.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Is that a... There are so many strange and extraordinary things happening. How on the list of obviously it's not high on our list because of what else is happening. But this is a strange order, right? Because Boasberg didn't hold anybody in contempt. He was just beginning the process to try to gather information.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
So as you've noted on Strict, Trump has a lot of power here. First of all, one way in the past a judge might try to enforce contempt is by referring it to the Department of Justice. That's run by a Trump stooge. Boasberg can actually appoint a prosecutor himself right? But even then, the president would have pardon power, so could shut it down at any moment.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Look, we're far from here, but it is a question that I had. When Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, the contempt was concluded, right? If the administration takes no steps to right this wrong of these deportations that Judge Boasberg ordered stopped before they had even reached El Salvador, and Trump pardons anyone connected to it, the crime would be ongoing.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
It would be a pardon of a bank robber while they're inside of the vault. So presumably contempt would just begin again because the president, though the pardon power is incredible, can't pardon people in the future.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
So let's talk about what the courts are willing to do. Is there a reason to have some tiny kernel of relief, if not hope that seven members of the court, including three justices appointed by President Trump, stepped in to halt deportations under the Alien Enemies Act?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
So you're reading into what would have driven the order, but the order doesn't it's it's not detailed. We actually we got more information in Alito's dissent than we got in the order. But is there any other way to read this than as the seven justices looking at their previous ruling requiring reasonable time and being concerned that it's not being followed?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
So Alito writes this short but very mad dissent And reading it, it's very technical, actually. But it seems to be, if you step back, what he's saying is nothing extraordinary is happening to require this extraordinary response.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
He sort of plays dumb, like, why would we do this? Why would we do this? But seven of his colleagues have decided it was urgent. And there's two aspects of it that I wanted to hear your take on. One is they put out the order before Alito had written his dissent. They thought this was such an emergency that they put out the statement freezing the deportations without the attached dissent.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
And have you seen that ever before of the dissent coming later?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
He is usually mad. There was another part of this, too, which you also talked about on the most recent episode of Strict, which is – There's a kind of jurisdictional issue that happens with members of the Supreme Court for a case like this. And in this case, it would have gone to Alito alone first. And in that case, normally Alito would have had the chance to rule or refer it to the full court.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
On the other side of the conservative legal spectrum, you have Judge Harvey Wilkinson, who wrote a beautiful and extraordinary ruling around these deportations. And I'm wondering, it's been a few days since it came out. Is there any part of it that has stuck out with you? Any impression that it's left?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Yeah, the head of the Federalist posted after that missive, when we're done deporting illegals, it's time to start deporting rogue judges.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
It's just an intellectual treaty. It's like saying you're regardless. Right. It was just this sort of like treatise about why seven justices, including the three Donald Trump appointed, are not just wrong, but they have to be captured by liberal ideology. It must be evil. Because there's no other way to make sense of why they would... Do this. Disagree. Yeah.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Like the, it's interesting, like just these people that you've picked out, a lot of them have sounded like, these are the fringe that are now in more, either in the government or just louder voices that reflect a bigger part of the base. These are people that have talked this way and thought this way for a long time.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
But for the first time, there's a genuine possibility that the president, that the people that work for the president might actually listen to these cranks, these sort of authoritarian right-wing fucking cranks. And it is really, really scary.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
The other sort of line of reasoning from some of these far-right people is, well, if we can't deport people – Well, we don't have a country anymore. And first of all, Donald Trump can deport people. He has his will. He's allowed to deport a lot.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
The other part of this is why is he deporting people to a foreign gulag?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
And that's what makes, I think – and I talked about this a bit with Leah, like sort of the – The legal aspects of it, but it is extraordinary that the Supreme Court has done this because they're basically acknowledging the urgency of it, the doing it in the middle of the night, the doing it before Alito could finish his own dissent.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
They are acknowledging that by the logic of the Supreme Court, which Wilkinson talked about in his ruling last week. that if they deport someone in error to this prison, they can't get them back.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
And the Supreme Court, which already said people have a right to a certain amount of time to respond, is clearly saying here, this is so urgent, this is so dangerous, we gotta shut this all down right now. until we've had more time to examine what the Trump administration is doing. And we can't take what the Trump administration says at face value.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
We cannot believe them when they say that, oh, there aren't going to be any flights this weekend, or they're not aware of any flights this weekend, that the lawyers that are speaking to the court on behalf of the Trump administration either are not telling the truth or don't have all the facts themselves.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
If we can't – We're not gonna deport millions of people 100 at a time on an airplane to a foreign jail. Even all of this is still a sideshow. There are millions and millions of people in this country who are undocumented. They came here to work. They came here to work because we built a system of second-class citizenship for people who can get to this country, they can be employed.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
There are people that have wanted to do things like E-Verify, which would require employers to make sure someone is a citizen before they are hired. There are lots of stuff. I think undocumented people, I think we should have a path to citizenship. I'm not saying that these are good ideas. There are lots of steps you could take to address undocumented immigrants.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
They have chosen to target people who have received temporary protected status, asylum seekers, right? Like they're choosing this because, first of all, I think they like the politics better.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
And second of all, it doesn't make a lot of their biggest, wealthiest donors angry when it cracks down on the people that work for agribusiness, when it cracks down on the people that work for construction companies, when it cracks down on the people that make our economy go.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Be like when Carter didn't let the Americans go to Russia, you know?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
It's like the fact... Throughout all of this, right, we've been saying, like, this could come for U.S. citizens, right? And, like, the fact that the government is willing not just to do this without due process, not just to repair it when a judge orders it, but that the spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security is actively lying about these cases. Here it is.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
This is an American citizen who was picked up. They are clearly lying. She is just passing along this fucking lie. And... What if he had been on a plane to El Salvador?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
It took 10 days? This is where it's like the kind of intellectualizing that like J.D. Vance and others are doing to defend this behavior. It's just so ridiculous and so just so false on its face. let's say every single sentence about what you're trying to do is true, why wouldn't you want to fix mistakes? Why would you want to lie about Americans? Why wouldn't you want to get it right?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Even on your own fucking terms, why wouldn't you want to get it right?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Joe Rogan, making a lot of sense. Yeah. It's also, like, back to where we started, like... Do you wanna do like, this is breaking through for people. Do you wanna be seen as fighting, as having a genuine moral conviction during this moment? Or do you wanna be out there saying it's a distraction and that we really need to be talking about the cost of living?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
There are people watching to see what people stand for right now.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Pee Wee German was great. Amazing. Pee Wee German was great. Well, one of the reasons they want to be talking about this is the markets are tanking. People are angry about the tariffs. The cost of living is going up, not down. His approval on the economy is as low as it's ever been since he's been president last term, this term. So they have a real big problem on their hands.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Well, that's what he's, look, they're, they're all, they're fucking all hyper. All the people that are around Donald Trump are like super online and reading all the same stuff we're talking about there. What Trump has been doing is saying, Pam, we got to figure out what the law is. Got to follow the law.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
I have great respect for the Supreme court while they kind of play this sort of this game of breaking, kind of breaking, directly breaking, um, the orders, I do think you kind of get back to this sort of like the, you know, the Pope died and there's this apocryphal, maybe it's apocryphal Stalin quote of like, oh, how many divisions does the Pope have?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
you see a lot, you see Joe Rogan, but you also see a lot of, I think, respected conservative people talking about the importance of following the Supreme Court. I think the Wilkinson opinion matters. I think the intellectual conversation on the right does still impossibly matter.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
I remember when Kennedy, Senator from Louisiana, was doing a hearing, he said, the one rule is you got to tell me you're not going to break A court order, you got to follow court orders, right? That's what Schumer has been banking on.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
And I don't know, but it does feel like they at least in the White House are not completely sure that they will get away with outright breaking right now a Supreme Court order.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Tell me about the friendships you don't value. I know.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
There were several today. Trump issued his statement about the death of Pope Francis standing next to the fucking Easter bunny.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
These are the people that are saying, it's not important, but these are the people saying that we need to trust them on random deportations, but they can't figure out a way to get Donald Trump to speak to the cameras about the death of the Pope. Probably the one time Trump will ever get to talk about the death of the Pope as president without the Easter bunny standing next to him.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
It's a classic to share the same joke in multiple group chats. Yeah, that is true. The same information. Yeah.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Do you think he uses a really great password manager on his private phone, Pete Hegseth? Do you think Pete Hegseth has got state-of-the-art security? He was a Fox News anchor three months ago.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Well, it's almost as if when people noted before that he'd run two tiny nonprofits. Poorly. Poorly. Couldn't do it. Had a bunch of public intoxication, chaos, missing money, all kinds of problems in running these groups. Assault allegations.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
He wasn't up for the job of running these organ this the the biggest bureaucracy in the federal government there might have been some fucking truth to it and that now his the You can you can spin your way to it. You can bully a bunch of Republican senators into going along with this but now he has the job and it's a real job and he can't do it and like, you know
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
But the problem with being a bunch of liars is we can't take it seriously. Nobody knows.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Donald Trump has said I'm sticking with Donald Trump has said about people he fired within days, if not hours. I'm not firing this person. It's true. So we will see. But this Donald Trump does not like this is this is this reflects very poorly on him. It looks fucking bad. He's getting nothing for it.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
It seems like a bad dream. You're at the Easter egg roll. There's a bunny next to you. Donald Trump is next to you. You're being asked about these terrible mistakes that you made.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
And I say that as a friend. That's very real housewives, by the way. As a friend, Pete, I'm telling you, you're a piece of shit. But the other, yeah, the other side of it is that the more Pete Hegseth is under siege, the more loyal he'll have to be to Donald Trump, right? The more weak, right?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
So there is that aspect of it of like, can he hold on, get to the other side of a news cycle and still be there at Trump's largesse?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
we're just in our Wednesday Pod Save America meeting, and you're like, oh, Hannah's going to sit in to be here.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
But I'm saying, even without that, we'd be like, that's weird.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Right, except it would have to be cuts to future U.S. assistance under a different regime. I was surprised that he got the meeting because it's like he's bending to pressure. Van Hollen was staying to try to get the meeting. It all feels very, like, I think even the margaritas point to Trump and Bukele are doing this on the fly and figuring out what they're doing on the fly.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
So what is strange about this is it took a few days for us to find out that the administration is claiming this is a mistake. But if it was an actual mistake, they would have known instantly. And yet they spent a week freezing the funds, then adding this new threat to tax exempt status. So they... Went forward as if it wasn't a mistake. Fine.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
The problem with the claim that this is somehow a mistake, it would imply that these demands are materially different than the demands they put on Colombia when they're really not. Right. That like the federal oversight of admissions and hirings.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
The set of it that Columbia, I don't know exactly what Columbia ended up conceding to, but those were part of the demands on Columbia, up to and including a new provost to oversee a specific department. The demands that Columbia agreed to, which is why it was so pathetic that Columbia caved, basically, in the same way this does, made Trump dean. They're different. They're different.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
But I think it's hard to claim that these are so much more extreme than what Columbia had already agreed to.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Some of them aren't the same. They treated them differently. But I think Donald Trump basically demanding a private university hire a specific fucking administrative official is crazy, right? Demanding that Columbia take greater control over student groups is crazy. Maybe these demands are different, but this is exactly the plan, including them then threatening the funding after.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
So like, all right, maybe this was sent in error. Maybe it was sent too quickly, but like... I partly wonder if this is cleanup because the blowback was so much worse than they expected and all the other schools jumped in behind Harvard after Harvard went forward.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
What is the message that putting, like, two margaritas, like, it's so fucking stupid. But the whole point of Seacott is that it's a fucking hellhole that you brag about. The reason Kristi Noem and these members of Congress took tourist photos in front of these prisoners is to send a message about how fucking terrible it is. So what exactly is the point of the margaritas? It's not terrible.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Hey, Robert Herr, listen, you know, there's a lot of things were said last year. 2024 was an interesting time. And, you know, we can look back on it. I don't think we should look back. I think we should just move forward.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Right? Like that would cross my mind. I think any time spent with JD Vance does kill the vibe. My mother went on, it was, we didn't call it this, but she, it was not to their faces, but it was a farewell tour to visit some of her oldest relatives before they died.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
He's actually on a vacation down there. I thought that's the opposite.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
And we had a great uncle, Jerry, and just before he died, my mother brought him a blueberry muffin and he ate the whole thing and he'd never been so happy. He was dead in 48 hours.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Yeah, like there was that moment a couple weeks ago where J.D. Vance was talking about what the golden rule means and seems to have not fully understood it. And there was, again, I'm so Jewish, but there was always just something
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
beautiful about a pope that even an institution that, yes, does not acknowledge the rights of LGBT people, that does not allow women to be priests, that he gave voice to the beautiful parts of Christian values, like the parts that everyone ought to appreciate. that is so absent from American politics.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
So much of the time, there is such a vicious and cruel version of Christianity represented to be the one true path. And then you had this Pope, this undeniable Pope, right? Moments before he dies telling JD Vance in not so many words to fuck off before he dies.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Right. So then the meeting is a troll showing that he's fine. That's why the margaritas are there. You know what? It doesn't need to make sense.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Yes. And there's something that I think like our, you know, as we think about what it means to build a big church, small d democratic movement. There's something beautiful in that, in that he, that what he is fighting for applies to everyone, even the people that disagree, even the people that are getting it wrong, even the people that are horrible and that we are fighting for that here, right?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
We are fighting to build a democratic movement because we believe in democracy for everybody.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Remember when the Pope called, called gay people, frogachinis though? That was funny. I love everybody, even the frogachinis. And he's like, you can't say frogachinis. All right. I'm gonna say it one more time. It was a real Bidenism. It was awesome.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Right. It's just fascist jazz. And they thought, let's give him the meeting. We'll make a joke out of it. We'll show that he's fine. We'll turn it to our advantage.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Listen, it's all going to come down to turnout. Conclave. Conclave. Best movie of last year. I haven't seen it.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
God and I. Not the Hebrew fag. Charlie's. Got a good Christian on that. Yeah, good and religious.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
When's the last time Tommy saw the inside of a Bible? Give me a break. Give me a break. Are you going to a lot of Sunday Mass? Who are you seeing there? Make a lot of friends at church?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Anything you want to add to that? It's a great Zevi. Our designer did an amazing job. Listen, if you go to any government website right now, they're trying to get the T separated from the LGBTQ. And we got to make sure we keep the T's with the LGBTs because otherwise they're going to be S out of L. You know what I mean?
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Both of us were like really enjoying listening. I feel like there were several moments where either one of us could have cried. It was...
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Also, they can't—I mean, we'll get to it, but they also just have to either kind of quickly glide over or outright ignore the fact that these aren't just Democrats expressing these concerns. It's Reagan appointees. It's three Trump appointees to the Supreme Court. Yeah.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Yeah. A judge in the appeals court noted Nazis were treated better under the Alien Enemies Act. But just your question on the politics, because we... Right now, Democrats are supposed to be doing some kind of cost of living week or something to that effect. It's cost of living action week.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Action cost of, we're doing, we're taking off. I'm not sure what it is.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Now, dear listener, you won't know this existed because you didn't get the briefing on all the news that you get when you work on Pod Save America because it's not gonna break through because this is what the news is. And I was thinking about our conversation
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
with Sarah McBride and the way in which Democrats have kind of allowed themselves or boxed themselves in on immigration over the years to the point where you're not supposed to be talking about due process, but also you're not supposed to be talking about border security, right? Like all of these were sort of unacceptable as the bounds of what we were allowed to discuss got smaller and smaller.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
And there's this sort of consultant driven, poll-driven, best sentence message testing idea that what you really need to be doing is figuring out the message that works with the broadest group of people. But also, you should be using that message all the time.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
So you need to be trying to win everybody over a little bit all the time, which in an environment like this means, for the most part, winning nobody over all the time. You have an issue like this... A lot of people may not be following it closely. It probably isn't the most important issue for the vast majority of people that voted in the presidential election.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Maybe more people who voted in the midterm might care about this. But there are millions of people that are highly engaged that do care about this a lot. And if you're just being cynical, if you're just being crass,
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
You can spend every day talking about the economy in the hopes of persuading everybody a little bit inch by inch until the midterms, I guess, even though we have no idea what the contours of that debate will look like two years from now. And I'm sure in October of next year, we'll be talking about the economy constantly, though who knows what the main debate will be about. But right now,
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
This is the most important way we can respond to the Trump administration. And there are millions of people who want to believe Democrats are credible agents on their behalf. And you have an opportunity to build that credibility with people that are desperate for people to show some leadership, to show that they understand and really mean it when they say Trump is a threat to democracy.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Yes, I get that there, you know, you guys talked about it Friday, Newsom saying it's a distraction and there are people who think we should only be focused on tariffs in the economy. But right now, you can build a lot of trust with a group of people that will be your most important messengers a year from now. And just on cynical terms, I think that that's worth it.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Yeah, I think like the fair, the more generous argument is to say, sure, sure. But over time, you're creating the impression that you're soft. I'm not, I don't agree. I'm just saying over time, if Democrats pick this fight, what is your memory of this fight? It is not Democrats fighting for border security or fighting to lower costs.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
It's Democrats fighting for a more generous immigration system and fighting for an undocumented or illegal immigrant who applied for asylum, what have you. I don't agree with that argument, but we're making this salient for people.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
And I think that is still worth doing because I think years of trying to build a little bit of credibility with everyone all the time has left us with a lack of credibility with just about everyone.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
We talked about what it meant that Alito's hadn't yet dotted his T's and crossed his I's when it went out with Aaliyah.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
Joining us now, professor of law at the University of Michigan, co-host of Strict Scrutiny, Zingerman's Deli aficionado and the author of the upcoming book Lawless, How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories and Bad Vibes, available for preorder now out May 13th. Leah Libman, welcome back. Thanks for having me.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
I want to just say, Leah, that I am at an advantage because I've already read the book.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
I have been prepared. Well, you know, a book can do many things, but it can't keep up with the daily news cycle. But it does prepare you for this moment. So I really do urge everyone listening to this to pause this podcast and put in a preorder. Let's get this thing on the bestseller list. That's one thing we can do. to fight back against the, you know, the freaks.
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
So a lot of developments over the last few days. There was an extraordinary ruling by Judge Harvey Wilkinson in the Abrego Garcia case on Thursday. On Friday, an appeals court paused. Judge James Boasberg's plan to begin contempt proceedings against the Trump administration over their failure to turn around deportation flights to El Salvador was
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Trump's Justices Turn On Him
And then on Saturday, in a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under the Alien Enemies Act. Judge Samuel Alito issued a pissy little dissent to which Justice Clarence Thomas joined. Let's take each piece of this. First of all, what is the status of the Boesberg contempt proceedings?
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A huge chunk of American shipping goes through the Panama Canal. It has gotten more expensive, but that's mostly because of drought. People usually attribute to climate change, not China.
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Do you see the TikTok CEO sitting next to Tulsi Gabbard, the future director of national intelligence? What a country.
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Another kind of foreign policy adjacent one is he's going to designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And I'm just very interested to see what that means in practice because there's lots of reporting about connections between the Mexican government and the cartels, elected officials, or the Mexican military and these cartels.
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I want to know, are they going to get tagged with providing material support? Are we going to go back to the campaign rhetoric where we all were talking about – using the U.S. military to bomb Mexico, bomb the cartel drug manufacturing facilities.
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That's right. I mean, I guess my, like, we'll talk about this later, but my modus operandi for Trump 2.0 is to take it all literally and assume he's going to do these things. So if we're going to call them terrorists, presumably then you kill the terrorists because that's usually what you do with terrorists if you're an American government. So stay tuned.
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Well, Dan's- Enjoy Severance, you elite prick. We're watching, Dan and I are watching Yellowstone. What was it? Lioness 2? What was it called? Special Outs.
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I think that Greenland, he really does want the territory. I think with Panama, he's probably just trying to get a better deal, a better rate. But as far as I can, I looked into this a couple weeks ago when he started talking about it again. I think that they are charging us the same rate as everyone else, this ACP, the Panama Canal Authority.
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I think the big, big picture on this is Trump's brain was frozen in the 70s. And he remembers when Reagan used to attack Jimmy Carter over the Panama Canal all the time. And it was a huge political issue. And he's just bringing it back.
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I don't know. I think Lovett was Googling this feverishly during his speech. Don't tell people all the magic.
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Right, right. When we were laughing, what did Claudia Sheinbaum, the new president of Mexico, threaten to call the United States like greater Mexico or something?
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Well, little X was like, can you please stop carrying Vivek around on your shoulders?
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As you guys know, John Lovett had a SimpliSafe. He set it up himself. and top-of-the-line sensors and technology. You can turn it on and off from his phone. They kept Lovett safe, kept Pundit safe, and it'll work for you too. That's because traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in, and that is too late.
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Yeah, profoundly frustrating 24 hours. I mean, I thought Dan's piece on this in Messagebox, his newsletter, which you all should subscribe to.
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It was excellent. There was lots of less thoughtful commentary on Twitter about how, once again, Dems suck and Republicans rule because we gifted Trump this political win. And I just wish, and while that is true, the politics of this did not end well for Joe Biden or the Democratic Party. I wish people were pointing out, though, that the vote in the House... to ban was 360 to 58.
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So like 186 Republicans voted for banning TikTok or divesting TikTok. It was 79, 18 in the Senate. So you had 31 Republicans in the Senate. So this is a overwhelming bipartisan decision. The reason they did it was national security concerns, which they've done an absolutely terrible job explaining to anyone. So no one understands why this happened.
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But I also think part of the story of how Trump went from wanting to ban TikTok and trying to do it on his way out the door to getting to saving TikTok is also that he met with a big donor named Jeff Yass or Jeff Yass, who said something to him that led him to flip-flop on this issue. And I think Jeff Yass owns 15% of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. So there was a big money angle here.
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And then TikTok wasn't shut down. They shut themselves down So they could put up this little, please save us, Mr. Trump, that they shouted from their tall tower. And then they gave him the win. And they're like, oh, Mr. Trump saved us to suck up to the incoming administration. So it was just like, it was so obviously a stunt.
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And people were like, the commentary on Twitter in particular was just so fucking credulous.
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Probably, but Jeff Yass bought a ton of shares of Truth Social at the time and put a bunch of money into the Trump team's pocket. I think it could be a why not both situation.
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And they made a big show of like declassifying all this information around the Ukraine, Russian invasion of Ukraine. So why not do that again here? You know, there's a way to put information into people's hands.
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There's actually a Steve Bannon thing. He always says, we're going to fix bayonets.
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I mean, by law, by dance has to provide the Chinese Communist Party with whatever it wants. Basically. And the broader context is the Chinese have hacked into basically every single telecom company in the United States. We've been unable, the United States government's been unable to get them out.
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We've learned over time that this op that's called Salt Typhoon, they've managed to get audio and text messages of calls from Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, senior political officials. So there's this ongoing hacking war happening. And the idea that the Chinese national security state wouldn't use TikTok when it's on all our phones.
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Trump wants to force a sale to someone more supportive of him, like Elon Musk. I think the critics of this ban are right to point out comments from senior U.S. government officials where they said that like real momentum behind TikTok's ban came when there was tons of pro-Palestinian content on there about Gaza. And I do think that was sort of bizarre.
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You're buying nothing. You are technically buying a digital playing card, but it's not supposed to be viewed as a security or an investment or a donation to Trump. You're buying nothing because you like the thing.
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But people buy and sell and trade these things because they know with some of these meme coins, also called shit coins, you can see huge rips to the upside where there's like Dogecoin and all of a sudden Elon Musk likes it. And you can see people pile in and the price goes up.
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You can see the value go way up. And if you bought a million of them for one cent and it goes to a dollar, you make a ton of money. So that's what seems to have happened here. A company connected to Trump owns 80% of these Trump coins. They also get a fee on the sale of these coins.
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I saw a guy named Connor Grogan, who's a director of Coinbase, estimated on Saturday that Trump's team had made 58 million in fees from all of the Trump coin sales. So Trump, they launched this Trump coin. Trump promotes it on True Social. The thing goes to the moon. And then they launched the Melania coin. And it seems like a bunch of people saw that happen.
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And maybe they sold their Trump coin to buy Melania coin. Well, maybe you sold the Trump coin because you're like, oh, no, they're going to launch a thousand of these things. The value is going to go down. Whatever happens, people just started selling like crazy. And the price just collapsed. And it's called a rug pull in the kind of like the coin world. Yeah. So, I don't know. We'll find out.
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All the schmoes who buy late lose out and all the people who own it early win. This is the hock to a coinification of the presidency. And, you know, normally you might see like regulators investigating what happened here. Maybe law enforcement gets involved. You think Trump's going to have his DOJ dig into what happened?
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And he's now going to write the regulations for how crypto is regulated. So this is the new world, folks.
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I think credit, good for those people. There are arguments you can make for the utility of Bitcoin or the blockchain or other of these technologies. There's no utility to a meme coin or a shit coin. It's just for shits and giggles.
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And for the president of the United States to launch this thing the day before he's inaugurated and then someone pull the rug on everybody who got in late, he's harming his own people who might have bought in.
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What you should take from what I think we take away from those quotes, though, is just how egregious this was. This is like shockingly irresponsible, borderline illegal.
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Basically my son Dan Pfeiffer from Delaware. Everyone from Delaware got a pardon.
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I mean, I would like to be I would love a little more specificity if I were her. Yeah.
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What do you open the thing? It's like commutation. Come on. Yeah, pardon is so much better. But like back to Cassie Hutchinson, I mean, I don't know her. She's been on the show. She was a witness. She was someone that Republicans accused of committing perjury before the committee. And also someone who was at the lowest level, right?
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She was an assistant in the White House, has no resources, is not going to be able to hire like the fanciest lawyers out there. So I would be a little nervous if I were her. I will just say, because... And Trump called her out at his overflow speech. Yeah, he did. He went after her basically by name.
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Every personal political decisions Joe Biden makes, he tends to make only with his family and like one or two aides and then just roll it out right away. And it creates a political nightmare. Right.
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Right. There's all this reporting about how he decided to run for reelection without really running it by staff. There's reporting that the Hunter pardon was made in concert with, you know, like a family meeting. And then they kind of rolled it out weeks and weeks ago and then did the rest of them this week. So, yeah, I mean, I think the the.
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And the timing, the communications plan wasn't really there for a lot of these. I do think it's going to really hurt Joe Biden's reelection chances. It hurt how he was talked about. He could have put Hunter in this last batch and buried it all. I guess there was kind of the question, the issue of sentencing that complicated things timing wise. I guess.
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The Leonard Pelletier one is interesting though. He's a Native American activist who's been in jail since 1977 for allegedly murdering two FBI agents. But it's been very controversial. And I think, you know, people have been trying to get him released for years and years and years now. I mean, Amnesty International called him a political prisoner, et cetera, et cetera.
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Yeah, but also there's this presumption of guilt. And you see shitty people like Rand Paul tweeting about how now we know... You know, Fauci is guilty for his actions during the pandemic. And maybe that maybe who cares?
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Tommy? January 20th, 2025 is Liberation Day. It's just a giant Bill Pullman ripoff from Independence Day. Yeah, no aliens. How dare you, first of all. It's funny also that Dan criticized Trump for being too wonky, too policy focused. Didn't expect that. I sort of had a similar reaction. It was sort of remarkable in how unremarkable it was.
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My memory of the 2017 inaugural address is all that one line about American carnage. And then I rewatched that speech after I watched the 2025 version. And it's actually amazing how similar the two speeches are. We're going to make America great again. We're going to protect our borders. Some hand waving about unity.
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You should, everyone should listen to Strict Scrutiny this week. They go deeper on this. It was very interesting.
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He updates this one with new, more modern grievances, like the judicial system being weaponized, the battle against inflation and the need to invade Panama. But there's like verbatim lines at the top. Like in 2017, he said, for too long, a small group in our nation's capital have reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
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I also everyone should go watch this just to see the look on J.D. Vance's face at the top where he starts talking about all the things he didn't want. And he looks like so pained and kind of constipated. Speaker Johnson is like twitching and looking around and staring into the middle distance. It's it's.
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And Melania and her big, goofy fucking hat is just hiding her eyes and looking down. And it's so pissed the whole time. And then Trump starts talking about how her feet hurt and how she wanted to go home. But he made her come here. It's so weird.
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2025, for many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair. So it was, you know, just kind of like stump like the same thing. I did note, though, for all Joe Biden's attempts and efforts to be a decent person and have a dignified transfer of power.
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Trump still took a dump on his entire presidency in existence right next to him. So that was kind of him, cordial of him.
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Watch what he does, not what he says, and focus on those midterms.
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I mean, I think moving all the events inside and only doing things with tech CEOs and billionaire donors while the MAGA faithful have nothing to do or go to some giant arena where they get ignored, that's kind of a perfect metaphor for how I imagine this whole thing is going to go.
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Well, there were Proud Boys marching through the streets. Idle hands, devil's playground. But I mean, I do think this is why you're seeing like the Steve Bannon fight against Elon Musk and the tech oligarchs, because they're worried that their populism is erasing the minute the votes were counted. And they're not wrong.
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That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.
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It sounds like, oh, maybe someone started it to target them. That was my takeaway in the moment.
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He also said that in the overflow of speech that maybe Nancy Pelosi wanted January 6th to happen. And that's why she turned down the 10,000 troops he says he offered and noted that she's guilty as hell. So that was said in the Capitol where the insurrection happened four years ago.
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No, the Panama Canal Authority. It's a semi-autonomous government entity controlled by Panama operates the canal. There are ports and infrastructure getting built by the Chinese on either side of the canal. Panama is one of the countries that signed a deal with China for the Bell and Rove initiative. So maybe he's referring to that.
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But there were a lot of factual errors in this part of the speech. He says the United States lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal. Most of the deaths happened during the French construction portion. Such a good fact check. They quit on. But also, well, also the people who did the work were from the Caribbean. They were not American citizens.
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They were people who were basically indentured servants doing this work. Several thousand Americans died, but it's not 38,000. Yeah, not 38,000. Not even close.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
I kind of doubt it, though. I mean, I do think they're going to walk away. I mean, Marco Rubio has been saying this for a couple of days. It's like they won't get serious and start these talks and we're just going to move on to things that are more important. Well, have you tried pressuring both sides and not just the Ukrainian side? That might work. help things.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Standard & Poor's is the third one. Thank you, Tommy.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Yeah, I mean, I'm personally a Fitch guy. He's a Fitch guy. I mean, what Moody's is doing is they're looking at the credit worthiness of the U.S. government to pay back debt. And I guess Scott Besson doesn't think the slide from AAA to AA1 is a big deal. But in practice, riskier bonds have to pay higher yields, which means they cost us more to issue.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And I think the 30-year treasury is now over 5%. So it'll cost the United States more to borrow money. And that also pushes up the benchmark that is used for banks when they issue mortgages or car loans, which is going to make everything more expensive for everyone. And certain financial institutions or pension funds can only invest in the lowest risk assets, and that can have a ripple effect.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And I think right now, the annual cost of servicing the U.S. debt, like the interest payments we pay on our debt, is $952 billion in 2025. Like, our debt is really expensive right now.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
It just seems completely impractical. I mean, you can't do this every time someone has to increase the price of something because of tariff. Like, what are you talking about? Also, I saw people suggesting that what Trump is doing here is the same as what Democrats were saying during COVID about companies' price gouging.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
I hadn't seen that. I saw it everywhere. I was waiting for that. Except, guys, in this case, the government took an action. in this case tariffs, that is causing prices to go up. And Trump is saying, okay, you eat the costs, Walmart or whatever. Whereas during COVID, prices went up because of supply chain disruptions. And then the supply chain disruptions went away, but the prices stayed up.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
So Democrats said, you're price gouging. They're very different things.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
But also, I think this became public because the CEO or someone at the company said it during an earnings call. Yeah, CEO did. Right? So the CEO has to disclose this on a quarterly earnings call. Donald Trump calls, yells at him. He says, oh, yes, sir. Of course, sir. No problem, sir. And then a week or two later, he just quietly raised prices.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
They should remain worried. I mean, there's a CNN poll the other day that 76% oppose major spending cuts in Medicaid. That includes 79% of independents and 55% of Republicans. And the reason is 62% of Democrats and Republicans were on Medicaid or knew someone close to them who were on Medicaid. It's a very personal thing for people.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
I mean, if I was betting, I bet on them passing something because I just the risk of catastrophic failure of getting nothing done legislatively of Donald Trump being on the hook for the tax breaks expiring and thus everyone getting a tax increase. I don't I just I he seemed a little bit disengaged so far. I would imagine he will go ham on these guys at some point in the near future.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
That's fucking nuts. The CBO says by 2034, it could kick between 9.7 and 14.4 million people off of their healthcare. So that's pretty terrible. And also this bill, like these guys, when they get a tax bill in front of them, they just can't help larding it up with whatever special interest bullshit came before them, right? So
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Only 10% of tax filers actually itemize their deductions, but they're loading this thing up with new deductions, including a billion dollar tax break for gun silencers. Very important. There's an up to $10,000 deduction for car loan interest payments available to people who buy cars, vans, campers, RVs, ATVs, and motorcycles. And then there's a- Gotta get the ATVs in there.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
This was a Trump campaign promise, I remember. And then there's a multinational corporations could get an $800 million tax cut on income in the Virgin Islands. So lots of good stuff in here for everybody.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
So the Cato Institute, not a bunch of squishy libs over there, pretty conservative organization. They published a review of the 240 or so Venezuelans the US sent to prison in El Salvador. They found 50 of them came to the US legally, never violated any immigration law, but were sent there anyway.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And I think that speaks to the reality of the MAGA immigration project, which is to get rid of legal immigrants. People welcomed here as refugees, people seeking asylum, People granted TPS because it's not about gangs. It's not about bad apples. It's not about people who broke the law. The policy is that white people from South Africa can come and be refugees and everyone else has to go home.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And all of this rhetoric is an extension of that.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
It's as if they just sit around and they think, what is the cruelest thing we could possibly do? What's the scary? I mean, I think a lot of it is that this is their idea of a deterrent. I was going to send people to Libya. But Libya is not really a nation governed by any political entity right now. It's like split in half. There's competing warlords. There's weapons everywhere.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
There's extremist groups. Like these people would all get killed.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And he's right about that, by the way. There's zero border crossings happening, basically.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
These prisons, by the way, like that people are tortured, beaten, sexually assaulted. It's like it's horrific. Also, remember that we're also apparently the Trump administration's plan is to send one million Palestinians in Gaza to Libya.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
in terms of like population proportion, that would be like relocating 40 or 45 million people to the United States. Like it's completely unworkable. There's no infrastructure. There's no way to take care of that number of people. But this is a serious plan that's being considered.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Now it's been rejected by, there's like a Western government in Tripoli and then there's an Eastern government run by this warlord. They're both like, no, this is crazy. We're rejecting this idea. But The Israelis seem down to do it.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Yeah, and this is some of those brazen politicization interference in the intelligence community since the Iraq war. I mean, remember, the Iraq was Dick Cheney and his goons cherry-picking intelligence that fit the narrative they wanted to sell about Iraq having WMD or whatever.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And that meant elevating intelligence that we believe with low confidence and presenting it as dispositive while downplaying dissenting opinions. This is her having her person be like, hey, I know you said you think this, but what if you thought that? And when they disagreed, they fired them? Like, that is, I don't know. It's like a new level of shocking.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And also, Laura Loomer was behind this one. Laura Loomer tweeted on April 20th, the NIC senior official should be fired. And then it happened. Remember, Laura Loomer is this right-wing freak who chained herself to the Twitter offices in New York City and was wearing a Star of David because she said she was being persecuted like the Jews during the Holocaust.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Also, like in the near term, this means it justifies the deportations of these Venezuelan migrants. What if Trump decides, you know what, we got to take the fight to Maduro? This invasion, we got to cut it off, you know, we're at the head and invade them, right?
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Because remember, in the first Trump term, John Bolton famously went to the press briefing room with like a little note that was visible on his folder that said 5,000 US troops to Colombia, where he was trying to like beat the drum of war with the Venezuelans. Marco Rubio is very much on board with this sort of hard line, anti-Maduro, anti-Venezuela worldview. I don't know.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
It could get so much worse than this. And it's setting a precedent that no one in Congress seems to care about on the Republican side.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Yeah, obviously, it's scary and awful for his family, and I hope the treatment's effective. And I also hope the story pushes other men to get prostate exams because it's very important. I think... Days like this are when you wish social media never existed and didn't currently exist, right?
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And as with the US government policy in Venezuela, destroy their economy with as many sanctions that we can possibly layer on. So we're sending people back. There's no life you can build for yourself in Venezuela if you're trying to get a job. If you're an asylum seeker, if you're seen as a political dissident, you will face persecution, violence, or just economic destitution.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
You get the narcissist sort of saying the shittiest things they can imagine to make it about themselves and then argue with people. You have the instant experts. We got half of Twitter. We have the amateur oncologists. who are certain they know how to interpret the diagnosis.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Yeah. Someone tweeted the other day, why does Kash Patel always look like he just shit his pants? It's really spot on.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And then you have the conspiracy folks, who I would include our president, I guess, who are trying to decide if the diagnosis was covering up the Her report or the Tapper book. But they're positive it's a cover-up of something. And obviously, the lack of trust here around the diagnosis and with President Biden talking about his health is
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
We're two hours into an eight-hour drive, and you're like, I can't believe there's no traffic. This is going to end in disaster, man. I would also point out, these are clearly guys who went from being right-wing podcasters who would just spew conspiracy theories in service of building an audience, Like, January 6th was an inside job. Kash Patel played footsie with QAnon.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
He did – he was, you know, threatened to prosecute the media for reporting on January 6th. He talked about selling supplements that can detoxify you from the COVID vaccine. So, like, every conspiracy theory was – was just an opportunity to grift and build an audience. Now they have responsibility. They're getting attacked for not, you know, releasing the Epstein files.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And I think clearly they're like flailing a bit. But what is remarkable from that interview is like, this is the shit they're spending most of their time on. You can just tell. They are like managing right wing fever dreams. And you have to wonder, what does the opportunity cost here? What is the FBI not doing?
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
What are we like, what like espionage case are the Chinese just like fulfilling to their wildest dreams? Yeah, they can't believe their luck.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Yeah, I just think the nature of the job. I mean, like when do you hear from the deputy FBI director normally? Never. It's weird that they're doing these interviews in the first place. And they're also kind of mopping up shit that Pam Bondi spilled on the ground. She went out there and gave all these right-wing influencers these folders.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Isn't that right, Tommy? I couldn't have said it better myself. He also has siloed communication channels where he's allowed to just chum the water over on Tooth Social and then be like semi-normal and public. Yeah.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
self-inflicted because people feel like there was a lack of candor around his health going into the reelection. One good that could come from this, I was trying to think of something good that could come from this, would be if there was some sort of reform or law that was passed that mandates some sort of independent disclosure from the president's position,
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Well, I mean, they do have a workforce, right? They have to go wake up the next day and work with a bunch of FBI officials and look them in the eye in meetings.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Yeah, and you know, I think everyone kind of gets captured by the building you work in to some extent. You go a little bit native in these jobs. And so what I think they're setting up is the fact that there were probably people in the crowd on January 6th who had been FBI sources.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And the right-wing conspiracy theory has always been that the FBI sent those people out into the crowd and they told them, like, let's go do it. Let's storm the Capitol. And they were kind of like fomenting the violent part of the day. And the FBI is directly responsible for it in some way. And that's obviously not true. And it's never been the case. But they're kind of clearly alluding to that.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And what they're trying to tell the audience is be satisfied when what we tell you is that there were FBI sources in the crowd that day and not necessarily undercover agents.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
It's a joke that we are relying on these letters from Trump's doctor that say he is the height and weight of an NFL wide receiver, right? I know that there's a lot of sensitivity here about a president's relationship with their physician. Would that create disincentives to get care if you thought it had to be released? But I don't know.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Yeah, I suspect this will be similar to the Epstein case in that a lot of this information is in the public domain already and they're going to repackage it. If you talk to really the smart journalists who have really
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
who covered Jeffrey Epstein and his various horrific crimes and prosecutions, et cetera, over the decades, they'll tell you, like, there's not a little black book waiting to be released by the FBI. Like, a lot of this information has been in the public domain. It's been in court filings. It's been reported out by journalists. And people are waiting for a smoking gun that probably does not exist.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
There should be a form that is standardized, that it goes out, that tells us the health of our president, or maybe even major party nominees. Yeah.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Good question. I wish I knew that before we did the Kash Patel segment.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
I like that he says Taylor Swift is no longer hot after she just wrapped up a $2 billion tour and had people turning into the Super Bowl to see her. That doesn't seem like it tracks.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
My view on all the discussion of the diagnosis is I'll pass. I don't know. And I'm not going to judge. And I'm not asking you to take the White House's word for it. And I'm not asking you to – I'm not trying to disabuse anyone. I just think like if Biden was trying to spin away damaging reports about his health, I'm not sure releasing a cancer diagnosis would be the most effective tactic.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
I think people should just investigate that theory of the case.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Yeah, we want treatment. It also sounds like the White House is trying to use this as a pretext to invalidate things that Joe Biden did, because they're suggesting that having undiagnosed or diagnosed prostate cancer means you thus use the auto pen more often. He's just using it as a hook.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Yeah, I have no, like, why are we talking about this when we should be talking about that takes driving me crazy. It's like, we can do both. There's unlimited tweets. It doesn't come with a cap, a governor. But also, it does bring out the performative edgelords like you were referencing there. I love it.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And it's usually from people who are trying to build an audience on the back of their self-righteous preening about a cause. that is very important, but will in no way be advanced by whatever it is they're actually saying in that moment. And I'm not trying to tone police anyone, like say what you want about politicians. We certainly do.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
But like the people who live on the internet, I think get used to speaking about other human beings in a way that is dehumanizing and detached from reality and that they would never say in person. And you end up saying things that I think chip away at your soul and your humanity. And I would just ask, Like, look inward. Say whatever the fuck you want. I don't care. You do you. But, like, come on.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
I mean, my takeaway was that he was just kind of wiping his hands of the whole thing, being like, all right, you guys, he's gone from I'll end the war in 24 hours to you guys figure it out. Maybe the Vatican can help. Maybe JD will come over again. I don't really care what he's up to, but do you?
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
Then if you read the Putin readout, he is talking about the need to, quote, eliminate the root causes of this crisis, which is code for him regurgitating all his maximalist demands, like denazification of the Ukrainian government territorial demands. I mean, he wants the Russians attended at a much lower level a set of peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul last week.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
And basically, they're saying we want to continue to occupy and fully control 20% of Ukrainian territory. So, you know, it's just we're noting that, like, Trump has not ended the war in Ukraine. Things are actually worse because we've not sent them additional military funding. The Russians are launching these barrages of missiles and drones every single night.
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D.C. Reacts to Biden's Cancer News
They're killing civilians every single night. When you look at Gaza, things are as bad there, if not worse than they've ever been. Gaza has been under siege for two months. The airstrikes are relentless. The IDF is now starting a ground invasion. So he solved none of the international problems he told us he would solve within hours of taking office.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what advice to give people, but I understand the fear and I empathize with the fear. And also Tom Homan, I think specifically threatened Boston as part of their attempt to intimidate so-called sanctuary cities. It also seems like there could be a bit of a split on policy in the White House.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Like there's part of the White House that doesn't want to completely give the finger to the lower courts. because they know that can piss off the Supreme Court. And therefore they're making these legalistic arguments. Oh, we're in compliance with the law because technically speaking, if you look at the timeline of the flights, we were over international waters when the written order came down.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And this is just a good faith agreement of whether a verbal order came to the security is the same force as a written one, blah, blah, blah. Right. And then there's another part of the White House, probably like the Stephen Miller wing. That's like, Fuck this. Let's get to the Supreme Court. Let's have this fight.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And what we want is a ruling that says lower courts cannot issue nationwide injunctions anymore. And then they are off to the races. And that is scary. And it seems like Pam Bondi is in the Stephen Miller camp. Otherwise, it's hard to understand why you'd call a judge a terrorist sympathizer, because that's pretty crazy if you care about what like judges in the legal process thinks of you.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
They have a different standard. What they say in the courtroom is Caroline Leavitt at the White House briefing, I think, made exactly that point, which is that a verbal order is different than a written order.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Like all of this, the specific timelines for when these planes took off and landed have been published in a number of news outlets. Like I'm not sure what the play is here by the government lawyers that they think they can hide this data from the judge.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah, I actually think Scott Jennings, well, he's an insufferable idiot. Anyone who's watching CNN knows that. But I don't think he's right here because that's a question of framing. I think the Democratic Party's position should be, of course, we should deport terrorists and murderers, full stop. But there has to be a legal process to make those determinations.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And creating a system where any White House can just say, you're a terrorist, you're a terrorist, you're a gang member, and then deport you, that's un-American. And this is not like an unfamiliar argument because our country has lost its mind before. It was called the War on Terror.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Before that, it was called the Red Scare and efforts to prevent people with so-called communist ties or sympathies from coming back to the United States. So I think it's an argument we have to make. And I feel far better about the due process argument than holding up some specific scary individual that did something awful, which is what the White House is going to do.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
There was a great piece in Politico, I believe, about the Immigration Nationality Act of 1952, which is the law that's currently being used to expel Mahmoud Khalil for alleged Hamas sympathies or whatever, anti-Semitism. And if you look at the history of how that law came to be and whom it was written by, it was written by a senator named Pat McCarran, who was just a virulent anti-Semite.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And the law was used to keep Jews out of the United States, even after the Holocaust. So it's just a good reminder that the history of these kind of tactics and legal strategies will come back to bite everybody in the ass. You should not support them.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Well, we had a triple uplift desk set up now in the C-suite. What do we call our office?
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Our disgusting little office here at Crooked Media.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I will say you've taken to the uplift desk, to the standing desk, like a fish to water.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And our listeners stand to lose increased blood flow and all these other health benefits if they don't get an Uplift Desk.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
There's an OLC opinion sitting on justice.gov from 2005 that says the president doesn't actually have to sign a bill for it to become law. They can instead direct a subordinate to, quote, affix the president's signature to such a bill, for example, by auto pen. Couldn't be more clear. U.S. government. Thomas Jefferson.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah, apparently, according to something I was reading, Thomas Jefferson used something called a polygraph, an auto pen-like device as far back as 1804. You can visit it if you go to Monticello. And the idea that these pardons were done in secret when they were like the biggest story in the U.S. political media at the time, so Biden didn't know about them, it's like self-evidently Stupid.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And no one knows what Biden did or didn't sign. The point of a signature is it looks the same. That's why we use them.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
They're just chum in the water for the mega media.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
An extension of the Patriot Act, unfortunately. I don't remember that.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
This is one of those moments where if any other president in history had done this, it would be a five alarm fire. It would be the only thing anyone is talking about because it's incredibly dangerous and frightening sign that Trump is primarily motivated by the desire to punish his enemies. And it's not just this speech.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
He's doing this in the context of having a completely pliant attorney general, Pam Bondi, who like pays fealty to him. We got Kash Patel and Dan Bongino now installed at the FBI. The Wall Street Journal reported that Patel was trying to get a direct line into the Oval Office so he could talk to Trump more easily. Like the deputy FBI director is a right wing podcaster with
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
anger management problems. Trump's floating alien cannon. Talking about her, she's gonna be on the Supreme Court soon. We're threatening the media as all these corporations are preemptively caving and cutting settlements with Trump to pay him off so that their corporate mergers can go through. Things are dark.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
What we've learned in the last few weeks is that the executive branch has a tremendous amount of authority to deport people under current law, including ways that seem capricious and cruel. We've all been talking about the Immigration Nationality Act of 1952.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
What do you think that will help? We'll just cut that.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Here's the pro Schumer straw man, which is the big picture is realistically speaking, Chuck Schumer's choice was vote for this bill or force what could likely be an indefinite government shutdown. Now, during a shutdown, what would happen is Trump would get to unilaterally decide what staff is essential or not essential. He could furlough people. and essentially de facto fire them.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
So if you think Doge is bad, this is Doge on steroids. And we know that the Doge gang liked this because the Wired reported that Elon Musk wanted to shut down for exactly this reason, to supercharge Doge. Now, if we had a shutdown, what would have happened was there would be huge cuts to services people need, like veterans benefits.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Republicans in Congress would then get to force a bunch of very politically difficult votes on reopening some parts of the government, but not others. You need Democrats to hang together on all of those. And voters would almost certainly blame Democrats for this whole disaster until they finally caved.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
So this would have ended up being like Ted Cruz's disastrous government shutdown temper tantrum in 2013, which did real harm to the Republican Party. And in this case, it was even worse because at least Ted Cruz had like a point. He was trying to get rid of Obamacare. Democrats hadn't decided on a clear policy goal or outcome or message. And so what ultimately happened is Democrats vote for a bill.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
That is basically a continuation of the government funding for another six months. There are some cuts, like you said, but they're not drastic. And the alternative was letting people who want to destroy the government destroy it a lot faster.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And for those who say Chuck Schumer screwed up the messaging by saying he was for a filibuster before voting to keep the government open, his public posture had to be that he was shut down the government because in cards, sometimes you got to bluff a even when you know you're going to fold or else you don't have any leverage there.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
So what people are really mad about is not what Chuck Schumer did or even this votes. It's the fact that Democrats have no power. And going forward, the worst thing we can do is convince our base that we've got magical powers to fight Republicans that we don't actually have.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And that what the problem is, is the will is lacking, not the leverage, because then we could get into an endless cycle of shutdowns like Republicans once did.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
That's what Marco Rubio used to declare that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia student, was a threat to the United States and have ICE pick him up. But what they're trying to do here with the Alien Enemies Act is far scarier to me, which is create a process that is essentially outside of all existing immigration law and procedures.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I was talking to a very smart immigration expert who compared it to what Trump did with Title 42 during the pandemic. Which was basically you just expel people from the country. You didn't give them a case to talk to an immigration judge or have any due process. You just said that because of this old, you know, health related authority, everyone's just immediately out. And so.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
So if the courts uphold what Trump is doing here with the Alien Enemies Act, you could see something similar happen, which is the administration can just say that any Venezuelan man over the age of 16 who isn't a citizen or legal resident, they can just say, OK, you're actually a member of Trend de Aragua. You're kicked out of the country.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah. So like what I really I mean, my honest opinion here is there's no good options by the time we got to last week. But Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries created a huge expectations management problem. Like I'm looking at a political story with a photo of the two of them with the headline Democrats are serious about a shutdown. And they also had a lack of strategy.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And that could include people with visas or people here under temporary protected status. And just play that out in your head for a second. You're a Venezuelan kid. You grew up in a neighborhood in Venezuela with a lot of gangs. You fled them because they threatened to harm you. You tried to get asylum in the U.S. And you later get picked up by the U.S.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
We didn't know what we wanted. We didn't have a core demand. We didn't have a legislative imperative or a thing we were fighting for. This is where they totally deserve the blame, I think. And also we have a responsibility gene. We care about government. We believe it does good things and helps people, which means Republicans know we will always fold.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And if not now, well, then, you know, we're certainly not going to vote against a debt ceiling increase. And so what I found particularly frustrating was Schumer's New York Times interview where he suggested that Republicans will eventually come around. Should we play a clip of that? Yeah, let's play a clip of that.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah. I almost threw my phone out of the window of an Uber as I was riding home from the airport. Yeah, I mean, if that's our strategy is hoping the Republicans come around, we are donezo.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And so again, I don't know that this is a good strategy, but here's an alternative, which is basically an accelerationist approach, which is to say, Doge is going to destroy the government in the long term, so let's speed it up. Let's shut down the government. Let's do it at a time when the markets are freaking out about tariffs. It's maximize the impact, maximize the pain.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Now, that's a totally irresponsible, destructive thing to do, but maybe a 20% drop in the S&P, 30% drop in the S&P wakes people the fuck up. and leads to a political course correction by Trump. I actually, I do think he cares about headlines and markets and what business people say to him. And I don't know, I think the markets were flat today, but I think you could feel some weakness for a minute.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
and deported back to Venezuela because you sort of had associations with gangs because of where you were from and get sent back to the place where you were threatened in the first place. I mean, it is really dangerous. dark, authoritarian, scary stuff.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I mean, judging by the commentary you've heard from his Senate colleagues so far, it does seem like he's safe. I don't like to make predictions. Regardless, we're not a perfect Senate minority leader away from success. I don't think he handled this well. I actually think he handled it quite badly, but there have been other situations he handled well. He got a lot of legislation passed.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
In the past, he's done some good things. There were moments in the New York Times interview that made me cringe really hard when he was talking about inviting influencers to the State of the Union and getting reports about social media impressions that he didn't really understand, but he reads them.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And you're like, okay, it's good that he's outsourcing that to Brian Schatz and Chris Murphy and Cory Booker and younger members. We need more of that. We need more younger members out being the lead messengers. But they did not have a strategy. And I think that's inexcusable for a leader.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah, look, I agree with that. I do think the challenge was probably that they were bluffing a little bit in trying to get this other track going, trying to get a one-month CR extension, trying to help Patty Murray negotiate whatever with Republicans. We just all have to assume that no Republican is going to work with a Democrat for a very long time.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
There's a long profile in Politico people should read about John Thune, who sounds like a pretty decent guy who is just kind of caved at every step along the way to Donald Trump and changed who he is pretty fundamentally.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Real quick, just saw the tweet that Donald Trump has pulled Secret Service details from Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden. So something to know. Effective immediately, apparently. It even says Hunter Biden. It mentions that Hunter Biden is currently vacationing in South Africa. So he's pulling his Secret Service detail while telling the world that Hunter is abroad. Seems pretty dark.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Yeah, we're talking about massive 40,000 person super prisons. So Nayib Bekele is the president of Venezuela. He is a dictator. He's very popular because he made El Salvador much safer. But the way he did that, though, was through mass incarceration. They put 2% of the population of the country in jail.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And many of them were arrested after Bukele declared something called a state of exception, which was there was this horrible spate of gang violence in 2022. They declared a state of exception, which suspended due process rights, constitutional rights. And so what happened was Bukele sent his thugs into towns.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
They swept up all men of a certain age, threw them in jail without any evidence, and just declared that they were somehow associated with a gang. And human rights groups have documented torture, execution, horrific things in these massive prisons. And the United States is now going to pay Nayib Bukele's government, I think, $6 million to take more people and throw them into this...
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
this nightmare of a system. And in so doing further prop up the Bukele dictatorship. And to your point earlier, like Bukele literally mocked our courts, literally mocked our system of justice. And the Trump administration's response was to laugh along with him. And he made this like fascist hype video out of the whole thing.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Quite a housekeeping riddle there. My God. Yeah. It'll be embedded within the secret show on this time.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Just a little bit of media criticism. I think people are doing a good job covering this, but I've seen a lot of stories just state as fact that the people deported were Venezuelan gang members when there's just absolutely no evidence of it. There's literally no evidence. None has been presented.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
I'm not in favor of deporting her, but I wouldn't attend.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
Very much so. And with this German green card holder who was detained at Logan Airport, like whether or not he had missed a hearing and his green card should have been revoked, his treatment was indefensible. I mean, they tortured him. This guy was just tortured.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And I think what's happening in practice is you have a lot of green card holders who are scared to death about whether they should travel. Like, should I travel internationally? Should I travel within the country? Well, in some cases, yes. I mean, there are capricious, like awful sects of ICE.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And apparently this person I was talking to was saying that the CBP office at Logan is a bit notorious and people were not that surprised that it happened there. But I think, you know, what you could imagine happening is Trump came in pledging mass deportation. Things are going slower than he thought.
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A Lawless Trump and Aimless Dems
And in a weird way, the people who have tried to go through the process, tried to get green cards, had visas are easier to pick up because they're less nervous and they're willing to travel and they're willing to like leave the country and come back. And now those people are getting swept up and they're scared to death.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And then I know hypocrisy is irrelevant now, but JD Vance didn't have anything to say about Victor Orban, their buddy, who is the dictator leading Hungary, who's like swallowed up all independent media.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Long prison sentence. Even the dead ones?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Well, there's another like Germany specific piece to this. Just allow me to geek out for a second. Germany's got an election on the 23rd. So in like a week, they're going to elect representatives to the Bundestag, their parliament, and then they'll choose the next chancellor. The most likely outcome is that the CDU wins the most votes.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
That's Angela Merkel's party, the conservative party, and that they go into a coalition with the Social Democrats and that'll be what happens. But but right now, the AFD, the far right party, is it like 20 or 22 percent? And that is scary because most Germans are repulsed and terrified by the AFD because they are viewed as dangerously close to being neo-Nazis.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Members of the AFD downplay the Holocaust. They kind of wink and nod and like accidentally, in air quotes, use Nazi slogans. German intelligence has said some factions of the AFD are actually extremist groups. And because of Germany's history with the Holocaust and World War II and, you know, I'm sure everyone's familiar with that.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
They take this stuff very seriously and all the other major political parties have ruled out working with the AFD. And in his speech, JD Vance said, quote, there's no room for firewalls. And that's referencing specifically the firewall that these other political parties have between themselves and the AFD. And he also, JD Vance also met with the leader of the AFD while in Germany.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And this comes after Elon Musk has been propping them up on Twitter over and over again and doing like Twitter spaces stuff. So- Like this meddling, it might have backfired, but they are openly boosting this far right, some would say neo-Nazi party in Germany.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It's like... Anti-Muslim, anti-refugee, immigration, fringy, fringy stuff. I think JD Vance is smart enough to know this is wrong and pretty dangerous, but this is the program and he's going with it.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
They were strong. Very strong.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Yeah, it's a big body of water. Why are we talking about this? Yeah. Shout out Eugene Daniels and the Correspondents Association. This is not an easy one. I mean, no. Well, initially, this seemed stupid and childish, and I kind of thought the Trump people would like be dicks for a couple of days and then let it go.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But then Axios had this report this morning where some White House staffer I'd never heard of, like unloaded the clip of anger, things they're mad about in the AP style book. And it was like truly Orwellian. And it just read to me like a literally unconstitutional assault on free speech.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I know the Constitution singles out no law written by Congress shall abridge free speech, but that has been applied to the executive branch as well. And you're right. There's been a lot of strongly worded, high minded statements, but no one's doing anything. Yeah.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
And it made me think about in 2009 when we were in the White House, the Treasury Department offered up a series of interviews with this guy, Ken Feinberg. Was he the Pazar? Yeah, he was the Pazar. He was the Pazar. And Fox News was left out. And all the other outlets came together and they said, we're going to boycott this interview unless you include Fox. So we included Fox.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
That kind of action is what's necessary.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Right. And it was a huge story. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary at the time, was getting hammered about it. Reporters are doing tons of stories about it. And there's been coverage of this. And Jake Tapper, who was hammered as hard at the time, was incredibly sanctimonious about it. I've seen him do some commentaries and things on his shows. I'm not seeing that from any other people.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I say that as a compliment to Jake, by the way. You stood up for the principal there in a strong way.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It's really hard. The reporters, when they would take up issues like this with us, knew we cared. And we cared about what they thought. And they knew the Democrats cared about what these reporters said about how we were treating them. Trump views them as a foil. They want this fight. They love going after the media. So it is hard.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Good. Good for him. He's honoring it. He's not here. Maybe he'll come in at some point. He's not on Survivor again, everyone.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But there's got to be some sort of collective action that leads to... a reduction in coverage somehow like something Trump doesn't like. And I don't know what it looks like, but they got to find it.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
We do in our guest room. It's super comfortable.
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I know what you're thinking. Good disclaimer. He's not on an island. He's not doing the traders or whatever the other stuff is.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
How do you wake up and look at yourself in the mirror and then go to work and be like, I gotta do, I gotta read this today. It's just the lethal weapon.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Like our guy, Jesse Waters, he says the absurd thing with like enough of a wink that you know he knows he's full of shit, but enough of his audience takes it literally that he can like, he doesn't pull it off, but like, Kill Me did not pull that off. Nope. That was just like, is this guy to get hit in the head with a hammer before this part? Like what happened here? What is he talking about?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
No, it's just regime media. That's what it is now. Did you see all the Twitter sleuths who found that Elon is a big Napoleon fan and has tweeted about it all the time? Oh, I did see that. I think that's where this came from. I mean, it's fucking nuts. They're trolling, right? They want us to react. They want us to freak out. But we should.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I feel the same way, man. I don't have any of your flying anxiety, but how many plane crashes do we have to watch on TV?
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That's so crazy. What are we doing?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
We love SimpliSafe here at Crooked Media, as you guys all know. John Lovett set one up himself, kept him safe for years. He could turn it on and off on his phone at top-of-the-line sensors. Even pundit. Had the SimpliSafe app on her phone. Even pundit. I think. Traditional security systems only take action after someone has already broken in and that it's too late.
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Yeah. I mean, these are not people working on silly sounding USAID projects overseas. The NSA, that's a serious organization. I mean, also firing FAA officials in the wake of all of these plane crashes just seem nuts. And it does feel like Trump is kind of playing with fire here. And the question is, do these stories get to people before something bad happens?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Is this Delta crash in Toronto going to change the TikTok algorithm so that the Chinese think we all want to be fed FAA news and maybe people will hear about this and be like, what are you doing? Or does something really bad have to happen? I hope it's not the latter.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
How does it get upside down?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Can I give you my really pessimistic version of how this would go? And one that makes me scared is there's a worst case scenario, something catastrophic happens. And then there's the thing I worry about is, government services just get shittier and shittier and shittier. And in some cases it's small.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Like you go to a national park and the bathroom is disgusting because they fired all the people who maintained it.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
and then there's really really really bad things but won't be like national news like a veteran will call the va suicide hotline and it won't be sufficiently staffed that happened right or like the bird flu explodes and we're not monitoring it but my fear is people have such little faith in government that it might fold into those pre-existing feelings and angers at the government that trump kind of exploited in the first place rather than lead them to think oh actually this guy's making it worse let's course correct that's my my pessimistic fear
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Doge first, ask questions later. They also they talk about government employees like they're subhuman.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It's illegal and unconstitutional. No, look, everyone just pause and think about what it means long-term when you make every U.S. government job miserable, and no one wants to do it, and they hate working there. You're going to get bad people to provide crucial services, and we're just losing decades, centuries of expertise and experience in complicated matters, and it's
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I mean, for those who don't watch sports or ESPN or listen to sports talk radio, like Stephen is a legend in the game of winning arguments and shouting down opponents in the most entertaining way possible. And there's been all this chatter about him potentially running for office is sort of like the reason I wanted to reach out.
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I mean, they're saying waste, fraud, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long. It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it. So does this mean that this one dude is going to be like...
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inspector of the entire country's tax information and go through all our personal stuff and compare it to other records and i guess somehow find waste fraud and abuse that they will then highlight and i'm sure a very fair honest way is that what's happening here because what what is one person gonna do with all this access
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But also he's a guy who understands the digital economy and attention and how to get it and drive a narrative and keep it better than almost anyone else. And so, look, listeners, there's going to be a lot of criticism of the Democratic Party. Some I agreed with, lots I didn't. You will repeatedly think, why isn't Tommy interrupting him and pushing back on this? And to you, I say two things.
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We just know Elon Musk has just been tweeting lie after lie, misleading information. He's pretending like, you know, the Doge people are finding all sorts of line items and government spending that seems silly when it's all just been sitting on a public website. Yes. They're just mining public data and using it to further their Doge agenda, which is not about transparency or efficiency.
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Yeah, I don't know what the tactic is, but I do think this area is eye-catching and scary. I mean, personal tax information, why does this goober need to have that? Why does this little white nationalist-loving Doge employee need to know my bank account and routing number? I think that's very scary. I think it's also, you can tell a broader story about firing all these IRS people that are just
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
there to audit the richest people in the country and make them pay their taxes. So I'd really lean into this one because I think it will land in a way that I wish this weren't the case, but like talking about USAID cuts just does not.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
They're just making it up. They're just firing people. Remember when it was a national story that the Obama administration suspended White House tours during a big budget fight? You can make people care about this stuff.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
One, Stephen A. is legendarily difficult to interrupt. There's bodies littered across ESPN of people who have tried. And two, that's not what I wanted to do. Like, it sometimes... It's good to hear criticisms that are wrong, but like a widely held perspective and not everything he said was wrong.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Be louder. Maybe like, like the protest and attempt to enter the USAID building was, I think a good idea. Maybe,
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Yeah, I think everyone saw this play coming, this pardon coming, because Eric Adams started kissing Trump's ass, flew down to Mar-a-Lago, just made a fool of himself. But the way this was structured so that Trump can essentially rescind the pardon if Adams gets out of line is brazen, even for Trump, I think.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Even if it makes you mad, like it's good to hear where people are coming from and what they're mad at the Democratic Party about. And you can learn something.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
So now Trump owns the mayor of the largest city in the country. You can say parrot my talking points or you're going to jail because it sounds like Eric Adams, the DOJ, the U.S. attorney's office, they have him dead to rights. Yep. You know, they'd spell out some of the their feelings on the evidence in these resignation letters. And I do think it's worth emphasizing, no one is defending this.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Right. No. You have all these conservatives at the U.S. Attorney's Office, at DOJ. These resignations for these people could be career-ending. This is like the pinnacle of achievement for them. Being the U.S. Attorney in some of these New York offices is a huge deal. You see huge cases. You try huge cases, and they're walking away from it. And on top of that, I mean...
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Four New York City deputy mayors are resigning. In the short term, that is going to severely impact the management of the biggest city in the country. There's eight total deputy mayors. Four of them are now gone. And this is coming after a wave of disruption and resignations and dysfunction during the investigation of Adams.
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So it is really, it's like a disaster for New York City, like one on top of the other.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
They are NPCs, yeah. I mean, Bill Cassidy put out a statement about Tulsi Gabbard's nomination, why he was voting for her. They basically said, Donald Trump nominated her, thus I will vote for her. Just giving up his power. But yeah, this is an area where I agree with you. I'd like to see Republicans doing more, but I think Democrats do have some power here. Like, Hochul should... Remove Adams.
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Yeah. Hopefully that happens in the near term. That might be mean that Andrew Cuomo is back in our lives. And that's tough from another perspective. But someone else. Right. It's a big city. You guys don't have more people in New York to run for office. There's a scenario here where this is such an overreach that it weakens Trump. And I think Democrats in New York have to help us get to that.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It's nonsense. It's an obvious quid pro quo. Can I read you a headline that you might like? Jan 6 rioters argue pardons apply to charges including murder plot, child porn. Defendants argue that Trump pardons should absolve them of additional crimes some discovered during investigations of the Capitol riot.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I'll tell everybody this was everything I wanted and more out of the Stephen A. experience. I felt like I got yelled at for 30 minutes in a good way. Yeah. And about 10 words in and that was all I wanted.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
My guest today is a commentator at ESPN, the host of the Stephen A. Smith Show, and arguably the greatest sports debater of all time, Stephen A. Smith.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It's good. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm a big fan, have been for a very long time, so this is exciting and fun for me. Let's just get right into it. There's been a lot of chatter about you potentially running for president in 2028, and you've had to kind of tell folks to pump the brakes a bit.
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If I could briefly sum up what I think your position is, it's that you know the process of running sucks, you don't want to go through it, but if drafted to serve, you would be open to it. Is that fair? Yeah.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I love that you're talking about politics all the time now because you are a blunt, candid guy. You tell it how it is. And especially when it comes to the Democratic Party, because we're all trying to figure out what happened, why we lost to Trump a second time. Sometimes I think the Democrats, like myself, we're too close to the issue. We overthink shit.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
We read too many polls and focus groups and miss the big picture. So big picture in your mind, like what is the simplest explanation for why Democrats lost? You forgot about you.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I feel like there's two parts to the criticism. Part of it I agree with, which is there were some issues like the border where it wasn't just Republicans talking about concerns. It was a broader set of voters and Democrats tried to be like, oh, that's a distraction. Actually, we should be talking about this thing. It didn't speak to those fears.
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I think Joe Biden got there late when he did what he supported, this bipartisan bill in the Senate that got killed by Trump and then did a bunch of executive orders to try to shut down the border. But he got there late and people were pissed and it didn't change the perception. But the other half of this, I think, is that
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Donald Trump captures attention and keeps it on himself in a way that no other precedent in history has for better, for worse. And I think this is where I wanted your advice, because you're someone you are incredible at crafting a narrative, making news, breaking through on social media.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You've created your own like sports media empire at a time when people were like, oh, you can't leave ESPN or like do something on your own. Right. Because you'll it's all about the mothership. Right. What advice do you have for Democrats about how to get heard and reach people in this digital age?
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And you're right. I mean, his message is burn it all down. And he somehow gets a pass for having been in charge for four years when all the problems he's complaining about now still existed. But Democrats were boring. We're the NBA skills competition where Wemby's cheating while Trump is the USA Canada hockey game where there's three fights in 10 seconds and you can't look away.
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And like, I just I don't know how to compete with that. We don't have a leader who can compete with that. We don't have a party that can compete with that. We don't have a message.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Doing it in Saudi Arabia is a nice touch. It's kind of like an autocratic human centipede. You know what I mean? Hopefully you don't know what I mean. There was a lot of activity on Ukraine last week. It started, it kicked off when Trump called Putin for 90 minutes and they set up this series of peace talks between the US and Russia on the future of Ukraine.
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We're cleaning house. Look, I think Joe Biden running for reelection was a catastrophic mistake. We will not recover from it for a long time. And I completely agree with you there. But I mean, I want your thoughts on this. Donald Trump is using sports in a really smart way politically. I think he went to college football games and UFC fights are in the campaign. He went to the Super Bowl.
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He did a loop around the track of the Daytona 500 in his limo over the weekend. It feels like he's creating a bond with these audiences that that Democrats don't have. But how do you think Democrats can be a part of that conversation? I can't think of anyone who would go to a to a game like except for Barack Obama going to NBA games because he genuinely loved the sport. But like who else?
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This is why I'm a candidate.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But let me tell you, if Obama went to the Super Bowl, Fox News would be like, how dare he? This cost $10 million. He put Secret Service there like they would go after him.
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Not a part of those talks is Ukraine or the Ukrainians or Zelensky. Zelensky got a call after the Putin call. where Trump informed him that this was going down.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Hey, man, heads up. 20% of your territory is being occupied by the Russians. We're going to figure out who gets it.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Who do you like? You like Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro? You talked to them both recently, right? Who's on your top five?
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Basically, this effectively ended three years of trying to isolate the Russians by the West, basically, this call. And, you know, the Europeans are also not invited to these talks, which again is nuts because the EU and its member states have given something like $145 billion worth of support to Ukraine over the past few years.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It makes sense to me. I like it.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Listen, I hear on one level. Sure. But also, I think I'm with you. I think primaries are good. I think the rubber meets the road in primaries and that, you know, you could do polling all you want. But until you actually ask people to vote for someone, then you don't really know who they support. But let me talk about Trump's action so far. I mean, I saw you say Elon Musk is a problem.
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Do you think he's Trump is overreaching? Is he doing things that might offend those moderates or are those moderates just not even hearing about the details? Of course, he's overreaching.
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And they're obviously more threatened by a Russian military operation than we are because we have an ocean in between. So it was really messy. And then on top of that, Pete Hexeth, the Secretary of Defense slash America's designate if there's ever a case race to decide the future. But not to get home. Yeah. Not good at flip cup, though. Surprisingly bad. You and I can take them.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
You're right. I mean, well, the reason he said that, though, look, you're making a lot of points I agree with. I actually think Democrats have done better more recently in the midterms.
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And I have confidence that we can because we're we're we're now the nerds that read the newspaper and we're highly informed and we knock on doors and we go out and we vote in midterms, whereas sort of the broader electorate that Trump brings in, which is why he kicks our ass in these presidential elections. They're more sporadic voters.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But but to your point about the mandate, like, of course, he has a mandate. He won the election. He won by a bigger margin than he did last time. Of course, he has a mandate. I think that doesn't give you a mandate to do everything you want to do. Obama won in 2008 with 52.9% of the vote and 365 electoral votes, and Republicans tried to block literally everything he did.
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So I do think there's space between, yes, Trump has a mandate, but the suggestion you see sometimes that Democrats shouldn't be fighting back or that we're the problem for fighting back, that it's the wrong optics or messaging, if you know what I'm saying.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
This is bad, bro. 2004 was bad. We got our asses handed to us by Bush. Lost seats in Congress.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But so, Hegseth announced at a meeting in Brussels, a NATO meeting, that it was unrealistic for Ukraine to join NATO or get back all the territory it lost since 2014, which is like... maybe true and a fair thing for like an analyst to say, but everyone was like, hey, man, you're part of the team now negotiating with Putin and you just gave him massive concessions before these talks even started.
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Whoa, whoa. Yes, I am. Knocking on doors is good during midterm, Stephen A. No, no.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
I personally knocked on doors. It was great. I had good conversations. I got people to give me their ballots. We delivered them. Listen to what I'm saying to you.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
That's not true. I had conversations with people who were not going to vote unless I was there at their door getting them.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Get out there. Do make some content. Well, listen, Stephen, this was a lot of tough love for our audience who doesn't always hear it. I really appreciate this. It was also it was fun and entertaining and good to talk to you. And I think like we need to emulate some of this in Democratic Party. We need like you guys in sports radio talk about the goat debate like MJ versus LeBron.
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We need our own version of that. Like Lincoln, Washington, Obama, Reagan. Maybe you can help me workshop this. We get something fun. Make this interesting. Make this more accessible to people. But I'm very grateful you came on. Let me end it by saying this to you.
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And then he walked it back and then they kind of walked back the walk back. So there's like amateur hour left and right from Hexeth.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
It's good. It's good. Tough love. We got to step up. Stephen A., thank you so much for doing the show. I really appreciate it. All right, man.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Never says. Callback to the first term. Yeah, never says Russia invaded.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
No, it all happened after we recorded.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Yeah, I forget who handed this sort of proposal to Zelensky, but it basically said Ukraine gives the United States half of its deposits of rare earth minerals in exchange for nothing. There was no security guarantee. There was nothing. Zelensky was like, what do I do with this?
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Well, you know what they're very important for is electric vehicle batteries. And I wonder who might be talking about that in his ear.
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Well, I mean, as you mentioned the topic, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed or wounded or missing because of the war. The war led to inflation, energy prices skyrocketed across Europe, and all those impacts rippled out across Europe and destabilized all these governments. And Biden gave all this direct support to Ukraine.
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rallied the world behind Ukraine, and now Trump is just selling Ukraine out and selling Europe out. And so there's this enormous fear that division within NATO, weakness within NATO will lead Putin to do more, to go into a NATO country like Poland. I mean, think of the Danish intelligence services recently said that if Putin perceives NATO as weak,
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Russia could launch another large scale war in Europe in as few as five years. And the whole point of NATO is to deter these things. So this is this is like a seismic shift in U.S. foreign policy.
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I think what happened was Hegseth went to Brussels, then he went to the Munich Security Conference, whatever, some mouth breather thing that Rhodes would attend or did attend. And probably has. And I think he suggested in some of those meetings that they might pull tens of thousands of U.S. troops out of Europe.
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Yeah, there's sort of two really bad, look, this war's awful. I'd love it to be over. I'd love for Putin to take his troops and go home, but it's going to require sacrifices from both sides, I think, to get to a peace deal. And some of the things Hegsatz was saying are true.
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I mean, basically the Bush administration in 2008 set up this construct where they kind of floated Ukraine for NATO membership, but they didn't get into NATO, which left them very vulnerable, sort of the worst case scenario. And I agree, it is unlikely that Ukraine will be a part of NATO. And it is unlikely that Ukraine will get Crimea back.
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But I think the worst case outcome here is a negotiation where Putin keeps a lot of territory. Ukraine is forced to basically demilitarize and gets no security guarantees. And Putin uses this period of time to reconstitute his forces and then just roll tanks into Kyiv. And then after that, maybe he rolls tanks into Poland or somewhere, you know, a Balkan country.
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And then, you know, there is like a hot war happening in Europe between the Russians and NATO and NATO is weakened. And like that is the long term nightmare.
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That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.
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Putting the eunuch in Munich. Thanks, J.D.
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I have three thoughts. The first big picture, I think JD is cut out of all the big boy meetings. And he saw Pete Hexeth go over to Brussels and screw up these Ukraine negotiations and then get slapped around because Trump didn't like the coverage because he looked like a bad negotiator. Everyone's like, oh, art of the deal guy. You just gave up all these things to Putin.
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So JD decided, I'm not touching the hot stove. I'm not going to talk about the hot war that's happening in Ukraine that matters. I'm going to talk about social media.
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He's attacking the most random people on social media all day long. Yeah, he's just a professional poster and he's mad about it and he wants to go talk to the entire world about it.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
But seriously, can you imagine like the White House comms meeting where you're like, yes, let's send the vice president to this Munich security conference, first overseas trip, huge deal, and then not talk about the single biggest issue facing Europe.
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Well, it's going great over here with no rules.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
Yes, they are complaining about kind of routine censorship. And remember, this was kind of Mark Zuckerberg's thing that he cried about in his Joe Rogan interview is he wants the American president to be a champion for American companies and just let us do whatever we want. Then there's this question of this Romanian election where there were two rounds. The first round went off.
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Trump's Shocking Cuts to Air Safety and Nuke Inspection
They figured out there was all this Russian interference. So they canceled the second round. which is a more controversial thing. But again, talking about that, let's JD say Russian interference in elections. What a ridiculous thing to care about, you know, likes that.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Well, the Washington Post reported that the goal for one year is a million people. Stephen Miller is like the guy driving the organization every single day to deport one million people this year.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
So ProPublica has this piece up about her detention that's worth reading. And it sounds like what happened was Ozturk was doxed by this group called Canary Mission. This is a right-wing pro-Israel group. They have this anonymously run website. They dox students. They dox teachers and organizations that are ostensibly or they claim are hostile to Israel.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
There's even reports that Canary Mission has ties to Israeli intelligence. But her sin here, as you said, was she was one of four co-signers of an op-ed in the tough student newspaper. It criticized the school for refusing to, quote, divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel and, quote, being dismissive of the Senate, the collective voice of the student body.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Like the whole thing was pretty. It was just a bunch of policy demands. So I don't think they are bringing purposefully weak cases. I think the overwhelming majority of cases are weak because we are talking about completely reasonable free speech that has been demonized by groups like Canary Mission because they want to scare people out of criticizing Israel.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And then broadly, the administration is now undergoing this effort to strip student visas from these kids. Because they want to terrify people into leaving the country, never coming here at all, not speaking up at the first place, and just intimidating.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And also non-citizens have the right to due process, period, paragraph.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
I would say I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised. I think the White House Correspondents Association never really figured out an effective way to respond to Trump during the first term, and things have gotten exponentially worse.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And I think in fairness to them, it's a very difficult task because the biggest problem is getting reporters from different news outlets with different incentives to take collective action that might harm their interests or their ability to report. And the second challenge is the White House loves the fight. They want to fight with the press. They want to use them as the foil.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
They want to twist what they do and say in defense of press freedom to make them look biased. And so it's just a lose-lose proposition for these reporters in a lot of ways. And you end up seeing the White House Correspondents Association being like, oh, we're fighting back by wearing a fucking pin. You know, and it just looks so feckless.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
the truth post about punishing cbs trump specifically praised fcc chairman brendan carr saying basically i sure hope he does the right thing here what do we know about carr and what he uh what he might do or can do i guess well he's the chairman of the fcc uh he's a right-wing activist he wrote the project 2025 chapter on the fcc he's known for playing hardball and using all the tools at his disposal to go after media organizations that trump
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
decides are biased in some way. For example, he's currently or has demanded that CBS turn over all these internal documents about an interview they did with Kamala Harris that Trump was not a part of because Trump says is unfairly edited. It was utterly ridiculous. But Carr did Trump's bidding there. Carr was also, I believe, spotted recently wearing a golden Trump pin. Did you guys all see this?
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Yes, I did see that. He was wearing a
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
So the broach is obviously the real problem. But the other challenge is that there's a lot of concern that CBS is going to cave to everything Trump wants because they're worried about their parent company, Paramount Global, getting FCC approval to merge with Skydance Media. And Trump has lodged this, I think, $20 billion lawsuit against CBS News. So there's just a lot of lawfare happening.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And just, it's worth pointing out that this started with no one facing any threat. It was just a bunch of tech CEOs being like, oh yeah, here's a million dollars for your inauguration. And it was Jeff Bezos. According to the story, someone at Warner Brothers Discovery reached out to someone in the quote Trump orbit to get advice.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And one of the things they pointed to was Jeff Bezos and Amazon buying a Melania Trump documentary for $40 million. which is about $40 million more than it's worth. And what did Bezos get? A bunch of tariffs. A bunch of tariffs. You could look at that sourcing and think, Trump orbit, what does that mean? That's a little thin.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
But also, you just got to remember, Trump runs his extended universe like a mafia don. Because the Wall Street Journal reported today that the guy negotiating all the deals between the Trump White House and law firms that they're pressuring to give what is up to $1 billion worth of pro bono services at this point is Boris Epstein, who doesn't work at the White House.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
He has set up his own little whatever MAGA consulting shop. And so you'll end up having... Boris Epstein working one side of this deal, companies, law firms hiring like Trump-aligned lobbyists to negotiate on their behalf. Everyone's getting paid off of this. And it's just, it's mob shit.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
the law firms too it's like this is you're a law firm this is a clearly unconstitutional yes exactly what who wants who wants a fucking lawyer from a law firm who doesn't think that who isn't willing to fight an unconstitutional order here the the levels of irony they are just so great it's like law firms refusing to pursue legal avenues to do the right thing and protect the constitution outrageous colleges refusing to stand up for the principles on which they are
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
I was reading Rumeza Ozturk's op-ed that got her slapped on a list by the Canary Mission and swept up by ICE. It talks about, according to the Student Code of Conduct at Tufts, quote, active citizenship, including exercising free speech and engaging in protest gatherings and demonstrations, is a vital part of the Tufts community. Really? Yeah. Really? You think so?
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
A couple of days. When was the last time you think Trump touched his toes, speaking of flexibility, or saw them? He goes under, around, over.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Yeah, that's right. I think that jumped out of me, too, I think. Big picture, he still has North Korea numbers among Republicans. Whatever economic pain they're feeling when they look at their 401ks, they're not blaming him. They're at least moving away from him. I do think there's some real warning signs when you've only got 40% approval of Trump's handling of inflation.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
65% think the tariffs will make the economy worse in the short term. There are big majorities that think that the tariffs, like I said, over 70% think tariffs will primarily benefit corporations and the wealthy. It doesn't seem like they've done the best branding there. However, the voters are more forgiving when you ask them about the long term prospects of terrorists.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And as you mentioned, if you ask them about kind of Trump's goals versus how he's executing on it, basically, I think about 60 percent of the country thinks he's going to use tariffs to negotiate and then he's going to remove them later. And I assume, therefore, they think things will be OK.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Well, economically, what's happening right now is businesses aren't making decisions because they can't predict what's going to happening. So they are not hiring or adding or spending or doing capex, etc. Yeah. At some point soon, businesses will start firing.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Um, and you know, I was talking to someone I know here in LA who was working on a merchandise deal with a athlete and now it's completely on hold in perpetuity because the socks were going to come from China. There's a billion stories like that. There's a great story of the daily today about a small business owner who basically, uh, she imports a baby product from China right now.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
It will be more expensive for this woman to import things she's already paid to have produced and to just leave them there.
Pod Save America
Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
A few thoughts. I mean, I thought it was notable that Trump himself doesn't seem all that comfortable talking about the details. He deferred to Pam Bondi. He deferred to Stephen Miller. Even sad little Marco Rubio decided to weigh in because he couldn't bear being left out.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
I mean, it's just think about what's happening. It's not just that the Wall Street Journal reported that the Binance folks were meeting with the Treasury Department to talk about loosening oversight of their company while exploring this deal with the Trump administration. The Trump administration has also talked about taking a stake in the Binance U.S. operations.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And the crime that Binance was accused of was like money laundering by Iran on its platform, terrorist organizations using it, other criminal organizations. It was a massive amount of money laundering happening. And the fine they paid was $4.3 billion. The CEO went to jail for four months. And now CZ, the founder of Binance- Not in El Salvador.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
The US. So the CZ, the founder, wants a pardon. They want to get rid of restrictions on Binance from the US government. And according to a bunch of news reports, Binance looked at the treatment of another crypto founder named Justin Sun, who, quote unquote, invested about $75 million into World Liberty Financial, which is the Trump family's crypto company. And then, wow, who would you thunk it?
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
The SEC paused their fraud investigation to Justin Sun. So there's just this very clear way you can work with the Trump family organization to get not only regulatory relief, but even personal legal relief for the leaders of these companies. And all of that's on top of the Trump family launching the meme coin right before the inauguration, which basically allows anyone
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
But yeah, I mean, your point that their general strategy is to lie about what's happening in the courts, lie about what the courts are saying. The craziest new one, I think it's over the weekend, was Stephen Miller now arguing that the administration didn't make a mistake when it sent Abrego Garcia del Salvador. The Solicitor General said it was a mistake.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
funnel money into his pocket because every time you buy a Trump coin or a Melania coin, fees go to the Trump organization and they're collecting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fees. So there's this whole set of crypto-specific deregulation that's happening. The SEC is dropping investigations into crypto companies.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
DOJ announced it wouldn't be enforcing certain money laundering cases on crypto. It's just a very, it's like something we should all be watching, both in terms of how people can funnel money to Trump, but also future consumer harm, because a lot of these companies are pretty fucking shady.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Marjorie and I have that in common. That's a bipartisan problem. They need to ban stock trading. He did tweet it. He did tweet it. Well, did she buy day of? Yeah. The day of the rip. Yeah. I mean, like him tweeting 15 minutes before, like it's a good time to buy probably gives everyone who was insider trading because of information from the administration cover to do whatever they did. Yeah.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Well, some people just had a feeling. Yeah, it's just like the whataboutism of like imagine if Hunter Biden did this is so tired and so boring. But this is just so much worse than any of the things that we read about him doing. Like, yes, it was gross to get a retainer from a Burisma or whatever. But like we're talking about billion dollar purchases in industries.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
The Supreme Court wrote in its opinion that it was a mistake. DOJ has admitted it was a mistake at every single hearing. but Miller is now just gaslighting. Miller also said, I think it was on Fox News, that the gang that was threatening Garcia no longer exists, therefore it's not a problem to send him to El Salvador.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And these are not like long held Trump family organization businesses. These are crypto companies they started right before the administration so that they could capitalize in moments like this. Yeah.
Pod Save America
Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
I think what the problem with pointing to the Hunter stuff is it sounds like a defense of him, which no one's intending it to be. It's just pointing out their hypocrisy.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Yeah, I mean, that one, none of them should be able to trade stocks. I mean, Liberation Day, everyone knows is coming, you know, right? So it's a little more defensible. But if you're all of a sudden buying a bunch of options. Oh, it was the day before the pause.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
I don't know if that's true, but if it is true, it's because all those gang members are now in the prison where they sent this man to rot wrongly based on a mistake. So they're also just looking to find every loophole or technicality to avoid doing what the court says, like We're debating what the meaning of effectuate or facilitate means.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And then finally, I mean, watching Trump and his team, watching Bukele sit there sneering, smugly, laughing, enjoying it all, made me feel like...
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
I talked to a very smart immigration lawyer today who said something similar that it seems very unlikely the courts are going to be able to get abrigo garcia back because ultimately the courts will say the u.s government can't order bukele to do something they can't order el salvador to do something
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And I think that what that says is that the only thing that we can do is keep up the public pressure, keep talking about this, keep this story in the news, because Bukele's line is like, oh, I'm not gonna smuggle a man back into the United States. That's not what has to happen. Bukele needs to let Abrego Garcia out of prison. Then he can buy a plane ticket and fly to the United States.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
It's just that simple. But he's content holding a man in prison. who is not even accused of committing a crime in El Salvador because he left the country when he was 16 years old.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Yeah, I think we should take Trump at his word, which is that he would love to deport American citizens to El Salvador to rot in hell in this gulag. And I think Trump will claim, of course, that it's only the worst of the worst. It's dangerous people. It's terrorists. But remember, Trump can just declare that a group is a terrorist organization.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
Pam Bondi called vandalism of Tesla's domestic terrorism.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
So it's not at all difficult to imagine the White House declaring that protesters or political enemies are terrorists who thus need to be sent to El Salvador because we can't possibly have them here, especially if it is in the wake of some kind of domestic terrorist attack or major incident, because there's always a crackdown on civil liberties in those moments.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
And so we might be a long way from this happening. It might sound hyperbolic. Of course, the courts would have a word. They would probably declare it unconstitutional or illegal. I'm sure it would be very unpopular, but it's a serious concern. And man, fucking Eric Prince, like that guy, every idea he pitches is terrible. He floated privatizing the war in Afghanistan.
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Will Trump Send Americans to Foreign Prisons?
There's discussions about him taking over rare earth mineral mines in the DRC on behalf of the United States. Like I get them deciding that part of this prison in El Salvador is actually U.S. territory and therefore it's legal to send U.S. citizens there. That is made up legal thinking. It will never fly in a court of law or public opinion, I don't think. But it doesn't mean that they won't do it.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
on social media, people sharing videos of a helicopter or plane dropping water and missing a building and being like, here it is, their perfect example of California and why liberal government has failed, right? Here we have it once again. These liberals can't do it. You need private firefighters. You need a Rick Caruso, whatever it is. And it's like, these are people doing their best.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And from where we were a few days ago to where we are today, they did an extraordinary job.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And by the way, yeah, I just done that too. Like, yes, false alarms, very scary. You do enough false alarms, people aren't going to take the real one seriously. That's the huge, of course.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Well, like I think Newsom said this to you, some version of like the truth requires some patience and requires some time. We're in the middle of it. We're in the middle of it. And the fact, look, pre-deployment problems. Surely we will learn ways to do this better. Some of it will be personalities, individuals who made mistake.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Some of it will be structural, which is much less interesting and people don't give a shit about, which is probably ultimately have been even more important. But just the fact that these terrible fires raged is not in and of itself a sign that the government, that failed just because it looks bad on TV. So much of this is about what looks bad on TV. I don't want to defend Karen Bass.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I found it shocking that she went to France for the Olympics three times, which I learned from that article. Yeah. Three times.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It's for the most part, though. A climate change hero. Elon Musk. It is like sort of the mirror image of the kind of conspiratorial mindset like that. Whatever. That's fucking nuts. But like, no, most people do not believe that the government is responding as a conspiracy to hurt California. Right.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
But I think like the the mirror image of people assuming that there is some kind of conspiracy that explains everything is in a crisis like this. It can't just be bad. It has to be because people have failed us. There has to be individuals who are responsible.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
There has to be someone to blame right now because I can't handle the uncertainty of just knowing that people are doing their best and it's not working. It has to be something else. It has to be more about a human failure.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It was sort of striking that you could imagine Joe Biden giving a very, very similar version of the speech had Kamala Harris won. And like I came away from it, like he says, overall, we have reinvigorated people's faith in the United States as a true, true partner. Is that true? Have you done that?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Do you think that's where people are right now as they watch you hand the keys over to Donald Trump? Even if there is some truth to the fact that you have reestablished relationships and had the achievements that you're describing, you live in a world where your presidency will be bookended by Donald Trump and all the damage and policy changes that that brings.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And you can try to pretend otherwise and you can subtly or not so subtly kind of hint at trying to create kind of like political leverage opportunities. on Trump about the position he'll enter the office in, the changes that Joe Biden has made.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
But the speech largely seems to ignore the fact that we're about to transition to someone who is going to do great damage to our policies internationally and our reputation.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah. It's also, you know, okay, you're describing your accomplishments, but we're seeing Donald Trump take office here. We're seeing right-wing movements rising around the world. What have you learned about that? Like, I don't need you to take on your critics. I understand not wanting to engage with them. But like, what have you learned about being president? What have you learned about America?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And maybe, you know, you don't go to the hardware store for milk. And like, I guess I'm not going to get anything from Joe Biden beyond America's best days are ahead. And maybe that's all we can really expect from him at this point. But it's like this is a dark moment for this country. It will be a dark few years for this country. Pretending otherwise just makes you irrelevant.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah. I'm being very harsh. I also think that's like, this is not a moment where we like, no speech can resolve our frustrations, hope, anger, fear for what's about to come. And that's an impossible position.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It's just like, yeah, it's just sort of like, we're going backwards, man. We're going to face it, whether you can or not.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Can I make the nerdiest analogy I've ever made in this show? You just set the bar pretty high. So in Star Trek Next Generation, every once in a while, there's an episode where they go to the battle bridge. And basically, the bridge is where they have their kind of highfalutin conversations. There's a conference room off the bridge where you sit and you talk about the nature of...
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
of life and what it means to be a space-faring people. But every once in a while, the ship gets so fucked up and so many people are dead and something is so broken that they gotta go to the battle bridge. I just think we need a battle bridge mindset.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
We've been defeated every which way. A bridge-surrection? Yeah, exactly. A bridge-surrection. We're in the battle bridge. The shit is at the fan. The saucer is separated. That's the energy. Pods of America brought to you by Helix. I love my Helix mattress. I have a Dawn Lux, very comfortable. I took the Helix sleep quiz. That's what they matched me with because I'm a stomach sleeper.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
When you take the Helix sleep quiz, you'll find the perfect mattress in under two minutes. But as I mentioned, I got the Dawn Lux and I really like it. Not sure you could take my word for it. Helix has been awarded the number one mattress picked by GQ and Wired Magazine.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It's even recommended by multiple leading chiropractors and doctors of sleep medicine as a go-to solution for improving your sleep. It's definitely improved my sleep, made life a little better, made me feel better in the morning. I'm just a huge fan. And it was a huge upgrade over my previous mattress.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So go to helixsleep.com slash crooked for 20% off site-wide plus two free dream pillows with mattress purchase. That's helixsleep.com slash crooked for 20% off site-wide plus two free dream pillows with mattress purchase. helixsleep.com slash crooked.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Keep beating it. Dear diary, you'll never believe it. We were just in the studio and it felt like a normal day.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
maybe it was maybe it was what was happening in our city just look just just it's nice we can beat each other um whoa what what is that so it's starting to me it's like so obvious and transparent that it's just it's like sloppy so yeah no first of all love love advice on masculinity from someone dressed by a stylish to look like east brunswick's coolest bar mitzvah dj
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, I mean, I was trying to figure out what this even really means, like the corporate culture has been neutered. And I think it means yelling at employees is actually I think it's a lot like less like because there's a sort of I think like kind of corporate.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So Mike Johnson, actually, the next sentence that he says, because he's walking on the Capitol, he says their conditions and he throws out their forest management, water management. It's like, OK, this is a disaster, an emergency right now. California needs money right now. I don't even know what it means to put conditions on California. Nor does Mike Johnson.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
idea, right, that like feminine structures are more flat and collaborative and male structures are more hierarchical and aggressive, right? And I think they, like, they feel like, this is like all me too,
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
yeah it's also like it's such a silly thing but like you know it's it really reminds you of 1984 in the slippery slope no slippery slope in 1984 you're right there in it in 1984 in books and other books the clock strikes 13 like that yeah looks like 1984 but you're 1984 you're never there's no before you're in it you're just in it you'd actually never get the slope you're at the bottom of it who set the corporate culture at facebook mark
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, there's a freedom that comes from being like Trump or wanting to be in Trump's good graces. And people talk about the ways in which it's sort of that you just have to kind of basically agree with Trump and then you're in his favor. But there's a subtle way in which I think what you also get to do is pretend that there are no hard choices in life.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And Zuckerberg does that a bit in this interview where he acknowledges that there are difficult decisions and some filters have more false positives and more false negatives. But what he's doing here when he talks about COVID, when he talks about misinformation in 2016, he's not acknowledging the trade-off. There was a ton of misinformation on Facebook.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
whether it helped or hurt or mattered, I don't know. There was a ton of dangerous misinformation on COVID, right? Maybe some things got swept up in that net that now in hindsight, they think maybe went too far and maybe it was not correct, but didn't need to be taken down, whatever. But there was dangerous misinformation. That was a very real issue.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And if you're gonna do less of that, as you said in your own video, that there will be worse and terrible things you now see on Facebook as a result. There are trade-offs here. You built this platform. And Tommy, to your point about him not thinking about content moderation,
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I think it actually is like a kind of more damning thing to say to believe him, because I do think whether it was Twitter, Twitter did not start as a platform for people to share their political views. It wasn't about what you thought. It was about what was happening. It was supposed to be about sharing where you are. Facebook was about a post.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I mean, obviously, it was about ranking hot faces, but but like it was not about politics. It was about politics. posting about your life and your community. They have all been continuously over and over again, caught off guard by what happens when politics and celebrity intercede until they're into their platforms. And then they built something so big, they couldn't control it.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
If you build a building and you're like, sorry, it's too big to make sure it's safe. Nobody gives you credit for it, but they built something too big to be made safe.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It's like no more woke. You got to ban. You got to ban woke. And you better stop doing those things we're making up about you doing all those things that aren't happening. They better stop right now.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, we're just relearning the same things over and over again. Well, that was interesting, too, because I remember he was criticized from the left because he wasn't taking posts down. He was just going to demonetize them or lower them in the rankings. I can't remember.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
There's a part in the interview where he said that, you know, that he that they felt in some way kind of attacked by the Biden administration. And he thought that like, hey, like. you're supposed to be on our team, we're in a world here and we're supposed to be fighting other countries and other countries tech platforms and that at least Donald Trump wants America to win, right?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Which it feel like a kind of something, it reminded me of what I heard over the years from various, like kind of high up tech people, which is that like, yeah, our companies are making mistakes, but you don't want to regulate them. You don't want to break them up because we're actually in a fight with China. We're actually in a fight with these other countries.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And I think that that is sincerely, sincerely. Yeah, he doesn't like content moderation policies from other countries.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah. Somebody's got to pay the, pay the credit card fee. This was like over the weekend, it was just a, we were just facing this tiny insignificant example of like how anything that is happening in the world gets fed into this like meat grinder of information, because it's just like, everyone asks us, where should we donate? How should we help?
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And so the team vets organizations puts them in an easy place and you can donate the money and the money gets sent to those groups.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And then it's like, no, you're stealing the money. No, we're not. We're not taking a cent from these donations. But then it's like, you're actually doing it to get the email addresses. It's like, hey, guys, we ask people for their email addresses when we want people's email addresses. You think we like we watched our city catch fire.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
We're like, this is a great opportunity to set up a charitable fund so that we can harvest email addresses for future political campaigns.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, that was what I was hoping. That was how I reassured myself. I was unfolding. I was like, oh, this is generating attention for the fund. And maybe people in our audience or outside of our audience that would understand that this is fucking bullshit will see this. It's like, oh, these are great organizations that are helping on the ground.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
But you should feel very happy to do it through votesaveamerica.com slash relief.
Pod Save America
Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah. I mean, look, there are Republican members of Congress in California.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
It is especially galling when you see there have been people like DeSantis, but a bunch of them that have called for conditioning aid to Democratic areas on either side of their state desperately needing aid after a disaster. We have had disasters in Florida, in Texas. We just went through these terrible floods in North Carolina.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Republicans understand the need for aid in an emergency and are completely for it on either side of crises that affect Democratic states.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, it's also like the ideological part of it is just beside the point, obviously. But like disasters, a big disaster in California, it affects the whole country. This is a huge port. This is a huge part of the American economy. A disaster in North Carolina affects the whole country. The whole idea is we help parts of the country rebuild because it helps all of us.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
We are all better off when we know that in a disaster, if there's something that happens to our town, our community, our state, that the resources will come in that come over the top of what you could do locally because that protects all of us.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So I think that's pretty galling about this too. So the reason Johnson's wasn't there is that this was a specific meeting. This was a meeting with Republicans from New York, New Jersey, California, who are specifically interested in raising the cap on state and local tax deductions.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.
Pod Save America
Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
The reasons that that's interesting is that was one of the ways they helped get the cost down on the original Trump tax cuts. There's a state and local deduction that helps people from high tax states like California, New York. and New Jersey. And Trump is in this meeting with these guys and they're like, this cap affected our people. And Trump was like, I didn't know that. Nobody told me that.
Pod Save America
Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
So this is a meeting of a group of House Republicans trying to figure out a way to make the debt problem worse. That's the goal of this meeting.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And in order to make the debt problem worse, which is what this group of people wants to do, they need either Democratic votes or they need the votes of people that have not been opposed some of the time, a group of people that have never in their time in Congress voted to raise the debt limit.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
And so fundamentally what that meeting is and what a lot of this is, is an admission that Republicans are fucking stuck, that they have to raise the debt limit. They don't have the votes to do it. And they're trying to figure out some way out of it.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Mike Johnson also talked about the possibility of the condition for California tying it to raising the debt limit, which is just a way of saying they don't think they can do it, as Tommy was saying, without Democratic votes.
Pod Save America
Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah, it's like the aid is conditioned on opening up a pipe between Fresno and Laguna that doesn't exist.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Right, well, it's hard to even like, this is an emergency. The disaster relief needs to come quickly. And so it's like, what is it, a condition on California doing some reforms? That seems impossible. How is that even going to be enforced? So it seems more about like some kind of restriction on the money that everybody can declare victory on. That would be the hope.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
Yeah. So. whether or not the mayor should have gone on the trip. I think it's pretty clear that she should have come back once the warning started coming in Sunday. They were pretty grim.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I do not think she should have been away during this time. What I think is like, what I was like trying to, it's so hard to understand what's going on now. There's so much noise and you sort of step back from it. And there's this debate about Karen Bass.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
There's this, I think very reasonable and important debate to have about how we manage fires in California, water management in California, building policies in California. All valid, all important.
Pod Save America
Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
I think there's an important debate to be had after this crisis about the way in which accountability is broken up and divided between Los Angeles as a city and Los Angeles as a county that I find quite stupid and anti-democratic and makes it very hard to figure out who is responsible and allows a lot of people to pass the buck.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
But I also think like the kind of right-wing propaganda, blaming everything on woke, plus some of these debates that are ultimately, I think, incidental to what unfolded, also obscure that this has been an extraordinary response. There has been an amazing success of local government in the face of unprecedented wildfires to get resources there.
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
These people on the lines for days without end getting in face of climate-worsening
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Will the GOP Hold Disaster Relief Hostage?
uh fires they're not responsible for people building houses on the hills they're not responsible for 30 years of forest mismanagement they're not responsible for long-term water policies they're there trying to figure out how to put this out and like the utility companies getting power back in a bunch of different places all at once like there's a lot of good in the response to that i feel like has been completely obscured like i saw
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Mile High Bribe Club
They provided support for Hamas at times because Bibi Netanyahu wanted them to. They also hosted a Taliban office, which sounds terrible, but was useful because it gave us a place to negotiate during the Obama years. Their neighbors hate them because of the role they played in the Arab Spring and Al Jazeera.
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Mile High Bribe Club
But, you know, in Trump's first term, the Saudis, Emiratis, Egypt and Bahrain imposed a economic blockade on Qatar that Trump initially supported. And he went out to the Rose Garden and said, the nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level. And now he's taking their plane and going there on his first trip.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah, the idiot sons are just either a couple of days ahead of him on these trips or a couple of weeks behind just mopping up cash. I do think it's so hard to keep a handle on all the different facets of the corruption.
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Mile High Bribe Club
You got to win, man. I've known Rob since 2004. He's a very good guy. I think he's got a shot. Off year. Governor's race. He's won statewide. Pretty good. We can do it. Fingers crossed. Come on, Iowa.
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Mile High Bribe Club
A lot of it's happening in these Gulf countries where he happens to be going on his first trip. What a surprise. But I do think it would be smart for Democrats to, they're setting up shadow ministers and shadow hearings. Have a full-time operation just focused on corruption. Make this digestible. Make it understandable. Crank out content on it. I think it would matter.
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Mile High Bribe Club
People don't want a corrupt president of the United States. The challenge is there is this very stupid thing. People, I think, genuinely believe that billionaires... don't want more money because they don't need it when the reality is like billionaires are billionaires because they're Selfish and venal and want it all which is what Donald Trump is but I think we can sell this one
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Mile High Bribe Club
No. I mean, remember that Trump blew this up the first time, but like historically speaking, the first official trip by a president was Canada or Mexico, literal neighbors, literal allies. In 2017, Trump changed that because he went to Saudi Arabia first, famously gripped the orb. But then he went to Israel, Vatican City, Belgium for NATO in Italy for the G7. So it was kind of like.
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Mile High Bribe Club
the weird Saudi thing tacked onto a normal trip. This time he's just skipping all the democracies. He's just doing all the hereditary monarchies.
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Mile High Bribe Club
It is interesting. He's blowing off BB on this trip. You're seeing a lot of background quotes with people being like, what's the point of visiting Israel? Netanyahu has been to DC 700 times. I think that was in the Washington Post on background. Trump has also cut Netanyahu out of the Iran talks that Steve Witkoff, his golf slash real estate buddy is conducting. Trump cut
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Mile High Bribe Club
Israel out of the deal that the administration cut with the Houthi rebels that gets the Houthi rebels to stop firing missiles and drones at US ships, but not at Israel. So maybe he's still pissed at Bibi over the whole acknowledging Joe Biden won the election thing. That seems to be where the problem stems from. But yeah, it's a weird trip. Interesting.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah, no, it's, by the way, it's just, it's great news that Adon Alexander is out of Gaza. I think there's 23 more live hostages in the Gaza Strip. I think this probably creates political challenges for Netanyahu that, you know, the U.S. unilaterally seems to have gotten out the one American hostage and a bunch of Israelis are left behind, which is controversial to begin with.
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Mile High Bribe Club
The majority of Israelis want to cut a deal to end the war to get the hostages out. They don't support Netanyahu's plan for endless war. But yeah, I mean, I think it's fascinating to watch. I don't know.
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Mile High Bribe Club
You know who's about to get a new place is Mike Waltz because he's apparently moving from D.C. where he was the National Security Advisor to the U.N. in New York.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah, I mean, Trump and Besson both had the same line, which was like, they kept saying tariffs at 145% or whatever would lead to a decoupling of the two economies. We don't want that. And it's like, well, OK, then why did you put them in place? This is entirely your choice. So I'm with you of it. Time will tell. But this seems like full capitulation.
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Mile High Bribe Club
I mean, he's basically blinked on every tariff he's put in place since Liberation Day, except for the 10% universal tariff. My guess is Trump thought he'd come out swinging, do his like madman theory bit, get China to blink or make some concessions and then pocket that as a win. And instead, the Chinese fought back hard.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Trump slowly figured out that this fight was going to be politically untenable for him. And then he used these talks to climb down. And now we see arsonists who wants credit for putting out the fire he started. But.
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Mile High Bribe Club
And if you're like MBS, if you're the Saudis, you'd be like, oh, yes, sir, we're going to spend $100 billion trillion in the U.S. Do you know it's not going to happen?
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Mile High Bribe Club
And the biggest fight is still with China, and there's still a 30% tariff in place, which will have a monster impact.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah, I mean, sir, compliment sandwich. You're good at identifying problems. Yeah. You just got to work on the solution part. And as far as I can tell, Congress is working on a pretty big bill. There's a bunch of healthcare stuff in there. You could talk to them about putting into law things that bring down drug prices if you want to actually do it.
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Mile High Bribe Club
It's a terrible policy, but we have to be very careful. It can be sneaky popular. The work requirements were surprisingly popular there. and a challenge around the child tax credit, which did not have work requirements. So it's just a thing I think Democrats would be mindful of, which is just frame this as exactly what you said, big picture.
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Mile High Bribe Club
It's a cut, throwing people off Medicaid to pay for a tax cut for the richest people in the world and not get into a fight about work requirements, I don't think.
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Mile High Bribe Club
He wants the headline. He wants someone to report. Just like the drug pricing thing. Yeah. And he's never actually going to do it in a million years. And he knows that. And like he also is smart enough to know politically that all of these Republicans have signed pledges to various interest groups to never raise taxes. Yeah. And so it's dead on arrival. But he looks like the reasonable guy.
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Mile High Bribe Club
It's a very topical reference to a golfer who died in 2002 at 89.
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Mile High Bribe Club
The white genocide line used to be like stuff you'd see on the Daily Stormer, like the most far right, super racist agitprop. And now it's just coming out of the mouth of the president of the United States, who seems to think it's real.
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Mile High Bribe Club
I mean, these white South Africans we're talking about are primarily descendants of Dutch colonial era settlers who then put in place the apartheid system in 1948. And Trump seems to think that these people are the real victims. And now in January, he put forward an executive order that halted pending and future refugee entries into the United States. So the refugee program is just...
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Mile High Bribe Club
completely stopped except for white South Africans who, uh, I think 50 of them just arrived at Dulles and were greeted by the deputy secretary of state who will then, uh, then they will then get to go meet with Trump at the white house. So like literally red carpet getting rolled out for this group of people.
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Mile High Bribe Club
authoritarian rise the same day that there's a headline that they are repealing temporary protected status for afghans like people who were our allies in afghanistan against the taliban yeah yeah it's it's uh it's insane i mean white people make up seven percent of the population of south africa and they own something like two-thirds to 75 percent of the land uh and according to the world bank white south africans earn nearly three times the average wage
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Mile High Bribe Club
of black workers in South Africa. So the proximate thing that seems to have set off Trump is the South African government passed a law that could allow the government to take land away from people, including without compensation. But most experts you see say it's either never used or rarely used and really just kind of clarifies powers the government already had.
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Mile High Bribe Club
it is quite obvious that Elon Musk is like in his ear whispering about this stuff, uh, and has been for a while, but also this got on Trump's radar in the first term. I remember Tucker Carlson did a segment on it and then Trump tweeted something and he like demanded that Mike Pompeo launched some investigation. And it's, I remember that.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah. Is it weird that Elon Musk has just kind of gone away? Yeah, I was thinking about that. He was omnipresent for what, two months? And now he's just gone. I think he said that.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah, but he's lied on every earnings call for like a decade now. He'd be like, self-driving cars are coming tomorrow. Self-driving robot car, helicopter cars. He's just full of shit. But I wonder if Trump or somebody slapped him down and told him to stop being so publicly out there because his – unfavorabilities had gone up so much.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah, I mean, on the merits, Trump keeps telling us that border crossings are down 99%. So the invasion is not going so good. This isn't D-Day. We're not landing on the beaches here. Our intelligence community, Trump's intelligence community, said that the Maduro government does not, in fact, direct or control Trinidad and Aragua. So the entire pretext for the Alien Enemies Act has been
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Mile High Bribe Club
Which was confirmed by a Trump appointed judge in Texas already. Yeah. And it was, you know, they declassified the assessment. So, yeah, I can't tell if this is like Stephen Miller doing his fascist dirty talk. You know, he's just kind of getting revved up for a big night out on the town. But if they suspended habeas corpus, it would be the end of our democracy as we know it.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah, they want to fight with Democrats. Liberals, they want to fight with sanctuary cities. They want to fight with Democrats. I do feel like this was quite an overreach. I mean, Trump might want this fight. It does seem like they're leaning into it, suggesting you're going to arrest even more members of Congress reflects that fact.
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Mile High Bribe Club
But just like the mayor, he was just on the sidewalk, wasn't in the facility.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Everything she says is a lie. Like, it's relentless. It's constant. She is just... It's out of control. I mean, I think Ice... This seems like it's going to result in a lawsuit. I hope Baraka sues the hell out of them for this. Hopefully, we'll get to the bottom of who made the phone call or the decision to arrest him, why, and what email or text traffic there might have been.
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Mile High Bribe Club
But I agree with you that this is incredibly racialized, especially the way it's being aired in the kind of Fox News media, the sort of mega media. But I don't think anyone wants to set a precedent of arresting members of Congress or elected officials for just doing like lawful oversight. It seems like a real problem.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Also, yes, it is an essential service in the Trump trade war economy and also in the post cable unbundling. So we all have like a trillion apps. And like the other day, Hannah was like, do we have one of the ones? And I was like, I don't even remember anymore. Yeah.
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Mile High Bribe Club
My guest today is the only Democrat currently holding statewide office in Iowa. He is also, as of today, officially running for the governor of Iowa in 2026. Rob Sand, great to see you. Good to see you too, Tommy. Thanks for having me. It's a blast to have you. And we'll We'll talk about how long we've known each other and how exciting this is.
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Mile High Bribe Club
But so Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, she's decided to not run for reelection. She had a long career in politics. She leaves office, though, with the highest disapproval rating of any governor in the country. At the same time, Democrats haven't won a governor's race in Iowa since 2006. We haven't won a Senate race since 2008. Why are you the guy who can change all that?
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Mile High Bribe Club
He says he's not going to use it, though. It's funny. I think ever since Trump got in the crypto business, we've all been like, what stuff's happening behind the scenes that we don't know about? And I'm sure there's a lot of it, but turns out there's a whole lot happening right in front of our faces.
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Mile High Bribe Club
And then I want to talk about your job currently. So you're the state auditor. That means you're the only Democrat who's managed to win a statewide race in Iowa in a while. I want to talk about how you did that, how you won. But also just start with – give us a quick overview of what an auditor does. Like is it – are you doging your way through the statehouse? What does this mean?
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Mile High Bribe Club
Do you create as much chaos as possible for a few months and then disappear? I think that's what doging does.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Like I was talking to a guy named Casey Michelle who runs an anti-kleptocracy program at the Human Rights Foundation. And he said, basically, you should think about this as a starter gun for a corruption arms race. And part of that is because the Qataris and the UAE and the Saudis don't get along. The Qataris we can talk about later, but they play this. They piss everybody off in their region.
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Mile High Bribe Club
So you don't just like storm into government buildings with a bunch of like 19-year-old coders, take over everything, maybe fire some people, kick them out. That's not how it goes? Not yet. I haven't done that yet. Okay. Sorry, big balls. You're not moving to Des Moines. Okay. So, Rob, the change in Iowa politics from when we met in 2004 or even 2008 when Barack Obama won statewide, 2012 we won.
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Mile High Bribe Club
We beat Mitt Romney in Iowa too. Obama did. To sort of the political landscape now, it's kind of hard to wrap your head around. What do you think changed that shifted Iowa from blue to red? And how have you managed to buck that trend and how will you do it again in 2026? Sure.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah, I mean, I'll never forget waking up the morning of the 2016 election and looking at a map of Iowa and the counties that shifted. And you're right, the counties you're describing sort of Eastern edge of the state, the river counties that were pretty reliably democratic, completely switched to being Republicans. And you're right.
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Mile High Bribe Club
It's not like everybody moved and they were replaced with more conservative alternative versions of themselves. They were persuaded to vote a different direction. I think you're right. That's an opportunity there that we can get them back. I do also agree that the people constantly talk about politics in terms of kind of like an ideological left right continuum.
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Mile High Bribe Club
I agree with you that like Barack Obama, even though we think of him now as a two term president. He is someone who ran against the traditional politics of Washington against Hillary Clinton, by the way. And Donald Trump, you're right. He was like the consummate outsider. He was someone who was seen as so outside the system that people actually mocked it.
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Mile High Bribe Club
And then voters said to us, actually, we hate the system as much as he does. So we're going to vote for him now.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Right, he's my guy. So let's talk about Trump for a minute. So his entire economic policy in Trump 2.0 is tariffs. The size of the tariffs, the countries he's tariffing, like that changes by the hour, but it is his primary focus is to put in place trade barriers. What do you think the impact of a protracted trade war with China or, I don't know, name your country, would be for Iowa in particular?
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Mile High Bribe Club
We'll pick one for this. Sure. Let's say Qatar. I just think that they are likely to... They put this giant deal on the table. They put this plan on the table for Trump. And now I imagine the Emiratis are going to feel like we're going to match this. Or Trump will sit down with Mohammed bin Salman when he gets to Saudi Arabia and be like, you know, the Emir just gave me...
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Mile High Bribe Club
The other broad economic challenge I hear a lot about Iowa is that a lot of Iowa businesses are really struggling to hire workers and then retain those workers. Why is that? And what do you think the governor's role is in kind of fixing that problem?
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Mile High Bribe Club
A couple more political questions and I'll let you go. Forever, not forever, for several years, decades, the Iowa caucuses kicked off the presidential primary process. Then the Biden team made a bunch of changes. They switched things up. South Carolina went first last cycle. We don't know what exactly the schedule is going to look like in 2028.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Do you think there's any chance that on the Democratic side, Iowa might get back to its cherished form? first place in the process? Or is that something that people are moving on from?
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Mile High Bribe Club
747, what have you done for me lately? How do you top that gift? I mean, part of this, well, I mean, you know, the $5 billion real estate development deal in Qatar is probably ultimately more lucrative.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah, well, I definitely think, I'm not sure, maybe they'll do some sort of rotation, you know, get a first four, maybe move stuff around. But I agree, like, you know, my experience in Iowa was people took it very seriously and it was fun to go there and watch the process happen. And I hope it's a part of that process in some way.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Rob, people have been confusing us, making jokes about us looking alike. I was wondering if we were going to go there. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to have to because people are going to go there for us. I've been tagged in your announcement video about six trillion times today alone.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Listen, here's my question. Given that fact, if you win, can I be governor for one full day? We could announce it or we could do like the movie Dave and you just get a day off.
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Mile High Bribe Club
That works for me. Is that an offer? Am I your running mate now?
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Mile High Bribe Club
Rob, now you're cooking with gas here, buddy. Final question for you. What's your plan to win this thing? How can listeners help? What can we do? We've got a bunch of people who care a lot about politics, the state of the country. Some of them might live in Iowa. A lot of them don't. What can they do to help out?
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Mile High Bribe Club
I think it'll work too. Just a final point of personal privilege here. Not everything about getting older is cool, but it is very fun now that I've known you literally since 2004. We've worked together. We've been friends. We've hung out. It's great to know that there's people in politics that are genuinely good and decent and in it for the right reasons and care a lot about the job.
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Mile High Bribe Club
And you just know that they would do an incredible job. So that's just my way of saying to people listening, if you want to get involved in a campaign and you want to back someone who will make you proud, check out Rob's campaign.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Absolutely. Well, I'm hoping that crushing, crippling weight remains on your shoulders for many, many years to come. And thank you for coming on the show.
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Mile High Bribe Club
He's ordering a giant entree and putting most of it into a go bag. Yeah.
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Mile High Bribe Club
We're going to mothball this thing and leave it at the presidential library. That's what you're trying to tell us, Donald. Give me a break. This is going to be your plane for life.
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Mile High Bribe Club
And also, we are well aware that you're aware that the Supreme Court has said that you have immunity for all official acts and that the DOJ is no longer going after people for corruption, whether it's the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, where they've basically given up on prosecuting people for illegal foreign lobbying. So he just doesn't care. It's also such bullshit.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Having a pretend lawyer as our Attorney General is not great. She was a registered lobbyist for a DC-based firm called Ballard Partners. In that capacity, she represented more than 30 different clients, including Amazon, Uber, a private prison company, nice, and the government of Qatar. What? Which paid her $115,000 per month.
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Mile High Bribe Club
A lot of that work was PR stuff ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
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Mile High Bribe Club
i'm going interchangeable now but in particular i think she's trying to deflect criticism of their workers rights and humor human rights violations but also for those who are worried that there's no one watching the watchers remember that fbi director kash patel also provided consulting services for the government of qatar which he did not disclose to the senate during his confirmation process nor did he register under farah they were a client of his until november of 2024.
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Mile High Bribe Club
The palace in the sky, yeah. That's what he calls his toilet. The floating palace. The last time I flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., I was sitting next to Washington Post columnist George Will and Travis Helwig, formerly of Crooked Media and Love It or Leave It, was sitting in front of us. And as we were coming in for a landing, Travis just kept saying,
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Mile High Bribe Club
texting me things about what it might feel like to run into a helicopter, and then things like, George will, comma, 80 others die in a horrific plane crash at DCA. I was like, thank you, Travis. I needed this right now. I needed to read this.
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Mile High Bribe Club
Yeah, I think they just forget about it conveniently. I mean, first of all, Laura Loomer kind of played an interesting role in the administration thus far, right?
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Mile High Bribe Club
She had a personal relationship with Trump. She got like five or six top national security staffers fired, including the head of the NSA. Hmm. Maybe Mike Waltz too. We don't know about that one. But she's also regularly criticizing them. It was this. She went after the – Pam Bondi particularly about the fake Epstein files release.
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Mile High Bribe Club
She's been going after the surgeon general pic on Twitter all weekend. In this case, I think we're just seeing her Islamophobia shining through. Qatar does play kind of a controversial and interesting place in foreign policy.
Pod Save America
Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I don't know. Historically speaking, this country has not always been sympathetic to protesters. I always think about how after Kent State, 58% of the country blamed the students, 11% of the country blamed the National Guard troops who shot them. The sentiment was they got what they deserved. So I do worry that, I don't know, maybe the Trump people think that
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
you know, going after a bunch of Gaza protesters will be good politics for them and that they might know something we don't. It makes me very nervous.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think they also think that they can make it about the specifics of the case or what someone said or did versus the principle. And we have to focus on the principle. Yes, exactly.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
When you shoot it from your zone all the way into the other zone without someone touching it after two lines or something like that. Yeah. Thank you. It's a very boring penalty.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Correction. Icing is when you shoot it from your side of the center line all the way past the opposing team's goal line.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I know it's a different story. You had to get them the puck before they crossed. Anyway, my buddy Dan Nathan is a very smart finance guy. He made this point to me. In 2017, Trump did his tax cut first. So that juices the market. It juices the economy. Then he started going with the tariffs. Now they've got it all back assward. He started the trade war.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
He's tanking the markets, weakening the economy, weakening his political standing. And then he's going to try to ram through this massive tax cut that no one actually thinks will be paid for. It feels like a mistake.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Like Bitcoin is like basically correlated with the Nasdaq in the market. Like it's tanking right now.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think he's still just worried about it. He's just like very mad that his in-house interviewer is not asking him the right questions.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
He still thinks of Frasier as a spinoff. Catching strays. Poor Dan's getting a shout out here. Yeah.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
A six-foot guy talks with his 5'4 buddy. His 5'10 friend. Wow.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Also, I just want to point out that Trump has single-handedly resuscitated the Liberal Party in Canada. I'm trying to move us on. Oh, yeah. And we're reigniting nationalism all through North America. Claudia Sheinbaum down in Mexico has an 85% approval rating.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I know this is in Card Save the World. Mark Carney, a former Bank of Canada head, kind of came out of nowhere. He wasn't in politics. Is he the hero we've been looking for? I don't know. It could just be another neolib. But like Trudeau was head of the party for 11 years. He was prime minister for nine years. He stepped down when was that? January. So they do an intra-party process.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
150,000 people decide the next head of the party. So then you become the de facto prime minister. And so the election is supposed to be in October. But everyone figured they would call a snap election because the conservatives, this guy, Pierre Polyev, who's sort of like the Trump of Canada, was up 20 points.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And then fucking Trump put in place all these tariffs and they're booing the national anthem and hockey games. And now the Liberal Party is back and it's like not really clear how it's all going to shake out.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
One of his recent demands was he was telling leaders in Mexico and Canada that they have to send factories to the U.S. Like what political leader can make that choice to shut down a bunch of jobs in your own country?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
That question, how are you running your businesses on a day when the Tesla stock is down 15% in Twitter at like a multi-hour outage is actually very funny.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And so it was a cabinet meeting, but then there's a whole bunch of people who sit in this sort of outer ring around the cabinet table. So I don't know if that staff from the agency, like does the secretary of defense get one staffer or is it all White House staff?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think I just wanted to briefly remark upon how Marco Rubio continuing to be like the saddest, smallest man in government because he desperately wanted to be president. It's not sure, not clear why. He doesn't have like big ideas he's trying to put forward, but he wanted to be president. Now he has like the big time cabinet job, right? It's like top three, state, treasury, defense.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And yet he's still getting kicked around by Elon Musk and then even his own team. Remember a couple of months ago, we learned that his spokeswoman had talked shit about him on Twitter and he had to hire her anyway. Then there was a story over the weekend, CNN reported that the undersecretary for public diplomacy,
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
deleted a bunch of tweets where he called Marco Rubio a low IQ individual and accused him of going to gay foam parties. You guys see this?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Regardless, whether or not he was at a phone party, then he gets attacked in this meeting in front of the entire cabinet by Elon, accused of not doing anything. And then Monday morning, he has to send out the tweets like, I'm a good boy and I did what I'm told. And I canceled 83 percent of the programs at USAID.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But the remaining 18 percent get transferred to state, which that math does not add up.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah, no, the need for rare earth minerals has prevented conflicts in the Congo for decades now. There's never been a war in the Congo because of rare earths that we mine there.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
There's this clip of Rubio from 2016 going around. We should just insert it right here.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
How great was that, everyone? Also, I don't know that people realize Tesla's stock is down 50%, 5.0% in the last three months. By the dip? And it's because Elon's like, he's a master at manipulating the stock market. It is all smoke and mirrors. It is not revenue. It's him trying to convince investors that he's going to sell the next fleet of robo-taxis and autonomous robots and stuff.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Oh, you digging in and doing a well actually? I just want to say that we've been together longer than the Beatles.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah, I mean, we're tariffing Canada, one of our closest allies, over a completely made up fentanyl trafficking problem. Someone at the White House has to just be like, what are we doing here? Because as you pointed out, I mean, he does need the political capital to get these things, this tax cut through Congress. And it just doesn't look good right now.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
The deal was like, we'll give you money. You give us a tax cut for all his donors. They can't be happier now.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Pazzi of America is brought to you by Aura Frames. Love, who do you think has the most aura here at Crooked Media? Oh, wow.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I got to say, I think it's Dan Pfeiffer. Damn right. Dan Pfeiffer. That's what I was going to say, too. Riz Machine. Riz Central. We all know someone who loves taking photos. Hard pivot here. But all of those photos are just wasting away on their phone or on the cloud. Start putting them to good use with the unique, stylish digital picture frame from Aura Frames.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I mean, I think Love's point is an important one. Congress's position sort of has to be, if you want to cut spending, we will write a bill. Otherwise, we shouldn't exist anymore.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
So I don't like I also think I think Democrats should approach this with some confidence because Trump does not want a shutdown right now. The economy is very shaky. People are wondering what he's doing. Like the people, the voters know Republicans control everything. I don't like shutdown politics are complicated.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
It's especially complicated when you have Elon Musk controlling the most powerful piece of social media with X and the ability to blame Democrats. It'll get rocky, but. i don't know like i would demand something at the very least and i think saying yeah you have to follow the law and actually appropriate money where we say is pretty important
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yeah. Don't be scared about the midterms now. For God's sake. No, that I would not. Do something.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Yep. Look, most protests aren't popular in the moment, so you can disagree with Al Green's tactic. But at least he had a focus message that was about Medicaid cuts. I like that better than like holding a silly like kind of cutie sign. I think that was always destined to look silly. I think if you look at the Senate, Cory Booker, Brian Schatz, Chris Murphy, there's a lot of people just like.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Putting shots on goal, making a lot of content, putting stuff on TikTok, putting up videos. I think that's the right way to go. Tim Walz is right. They did play too safe. I mean, I remember when he was named as vice president, everyone was really excited to hear him do a bunch of interviews. And then he was bottled up for half the campaign. And that was obviously a mistake.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think individually, all these stories are a huge deal. And collectively, it's like it's an assault on free speech like we haven't seen in a very long time. It should worry everybody. Starting with Columbia, I mean, sometimes when Trump does something that's so far over the line, conservatives react honestly for about 24 hours. You notice this? That happened in this case.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Box is a vertical video. Yeah, you don't have to do, like, a trending meme. That's silly. Just talk. But I do think it's good to get out there. I mean, apparently House members were mad that they were told not to applaud at the State of the Union. And if that's the case, that was bad advice because, like, every president ever who delivers to the State of the Union –
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Creates a trap for you if you do that by, you know, introducing some really emotional story where clearly everyone should be applauding. And if you're sitting on your hands, you look bad. But I don't, it doesn't matter.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Ann Coulter tweeted, there's almost no one I don't want to deport, but unless they've committed a crime, isn't this a violation of the First Amendment? Yes, Ann. Yes, it is. And I think with free speech issues, in the abstract, we should be agnostic about the topic, the people involved, whether you agree or disagree with what they said, whether you find it offensive or not.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
People who are early into a band who scold you if you come to it later.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Some of my sometimes our leftist friends don't build the biggest tent and we all should just welcome people into the Bernie club. I think there's like two competing things that are in my mind. Like, first of all, in Congress, obstruction works. Mitch McConnell built a whole career off it. So let's just obstruct everything Trump does and try to prevent harm.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And then there's the other piece of this, which is like people are looking for something to be for and some sort of inspiration. And when I talked to Alistair Campbell for the Sunday pod, he was Tony Blair's guy. And one thing they did before Tony Blair became prime minister was they like They literally had a big contentious debate about the constitution of the Labor Party, like the DNA of it.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
They had a huge contentious fight, like ripped it down to the studs and tried to reimagine it. And I think the Democrats were missing that process. And it probably won't come until we have a nominee ahead of the 2028 primaries, because, you know, whoever is the top of the ticket kind of reshapes the party around him or herself. But I think we're missing some of that.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
We're missing a process to kind of like Reimagine who we are and our brand and our values and then project it outwards.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
If a lawful permanent resident can be rounded up by ICE agents or the Department of Homeland Security, thrown into jail without charges, without even being charged or accused of a crime, that should worry everybody.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
But also good for Bernie for filling a space and giving people a place to go to get excited and fired up.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think most terrorism prosecutions are providing material support. So if they had any evidence of that, they would have charged this kid with a crime. Exactly, exactly.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I made the general point about free speech. I also think in this specific instance, like as someone who's talked publicly about Gaza and Israel and the two-state solution for a very long time, there is a long-term sustained effort to police speech on this specific topic, especially to define criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic or activism that protests Israel like the BDS movement as anti-Semitic.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And so Trump is building off of not just those efforts to punish protesters, but now they're going to use this as a pretext to punish universities. And just to do a little bit of whataboutism, Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister of Israel, was giving a speech at Harvard Business School. The moderator made a point about how, hey, if you disrupt this, you're going to get kicked out.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
And he goes, I think we'll give them a pager. referring to the operation that blew up thousands of Hezbollah operatives. Just imagine if a pro-Palestinian, I don't like that speech. I don't like that speech very much, but it's clearly a joke. Imagine if a pro-Palestinian protester said, if you protest, we'll come after you with our hang gliders or we'll put a bomb on your bus.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
Like now, is that kind of comment going to get you deported? Is that material support for Hamas? How are we thinking about that?
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I enjoy the irony of this all happening right as we're learning that the White House has been holding direct talks with Hamas about getting hostages out of Gaza, which I support, by the way. I think it's the right thing to do. I think it's ridiculous that we have to go through Qatar or some other carve-out of conversations with a group holding an American citizen. I don't know.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I mean, if Joe Biden did this, Lindsey Graham would have filed articles of impeachment on the spot.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
I think it's just a chilling effect on these law firms. I mean, they want these lawyers to not want to take cases where they sue the Trump administration or oppose them in any way. And then in some instances, it's just an act of vengeance, like going after Jack Smith.
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Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
There were reports early on that the Trump people were telling big firms do not hire people out of the Biden DOJ, especially the Jack Smith team. So this is sort of part of a longer process of just trying to keep really good lawyers from opposing them in any way.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Important correction. Big Balls, Mr. Balls, got a job at the State Department, so he's no longer at Treasury. This is the Doge 19-year-old.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Let's all get together. Let's get on a Zoom. Yeah, it's a negotiating position, but it is real. You know, I think it's just both. Like, Trump has just shown us that he wants to tariff first, ask questions later. I mean, interestingly... That's good, Tommy. The U.S. stock market was up on Monday, so Wall Street is kind of brushing it off. They were, like, European steel producers that took a hit.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But, like, I don't know. It's just weird how the economic system is just kind of, like, taking this in.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But even domestic steel producers, they didn't really increase their output that much the first time around in the first administration after the tariffs were put in place on imports. So it's not benefiting anybody.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I mean, I think it reflects a lot of what Lava was getting at earlier, which is, first of all, presidents tend to have a honeymoon period. And that's just kind of a tough political reality for all of us Democrats as we're trying to figure out how to fight this.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And also, as much as I want to throw all of Trump's campaign promises in his face, like the price of eggs is not down, you've not ended the war in Ukraine, etc., etc., you said he'd do it in 24 hours.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
i think most voters get that it was a shtick and they're going to give him some time to actually get things done but moreover like they just see him doing stuff he's active they might not like all of it but he's doing things he's taking action he looks decisive he's on the tv he's signing and holding it up no one can read what it says but you know they i guess seem to like that so far and you know the for to feel the pain on this stuff it's going to take some time like
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
The response on should the US annex and occupy Gaza was like 13% in favor, like 47 something opposed, 41% were like, huh? Most people were like, what? And I think over time, if we slap terrorists on Europe and Canada, if we really do have a military occupation in the Middle East again, people will not like that.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Like the Elon stuff also, I think, will not wear that well over time, but it will take time.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And even the people not paying attention, I agree, that's the majority. What they're seeing is Trump at the Super Bowl, Trump doing stuff. And they're like, oh, that's cool. That looks fun.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And it's like, is it salient? Like, that's always the question.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It's stupid, obviously. But like, do they care? Are they like, that's fine. I'm sure they don't. I'm sure they don't care, but they don't like it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, I think we just wanted to get away from calling everyone bros. Yes, that's right.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You know where he finds the time? Not parenting. You gotta have a lot of kids and you see them as little as possible. That's how you free up all your time for doging.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
The slightly optimistic version of this, and I don't share this view really, is that there was sort of a willful or maybe accidental misreading of what the judge said because it was a little bit sloppily worded or confusingly worded.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And some people were interpreting his ruling as saying even the secretary of the treasury did not have access to the treasury payment system, which is like kind of self-evidently ridiculous. I think what he actually meant was the treasury secretary could not give access unauthorized people access to this payment system within treasury. And you're right, like fight it out in court.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But I think my takeaway from this, which drove me nuts, is that Trump, JD Vance, Elon Musk, even like the far right fringe, like Alex Jones, It doesn't matter how much power they have. They can have the White House, the Congress, the courts, the media, social media.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
They are always the victims and they're always whining about how they're being attacked and it's unfair and like going after these judges. And it just, it drives me crazy. And I'm just hoping, hoping that they will rub voters the wrong way just to hear them bitching and moaning all the time.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
God, so annoying. It's just so annoying. Just give me my Super Bowl. By the way, was that the Air Force One pilot doing that announcement? So we're getting a uniform member of the U.S. military in on your political announcement about the Gulf of America?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I think it's the right messaging. I know. Me too. I'm not. It's my own. This is my own. Ro Khanna was doing this earlier. I know. It's like you don't want to seem like you're opposed to government efficiency, but obviously now they're just rampaging through the government Venmo and shutting shit off left and right.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You just got to talk Gen Z to them. You're like, I can dig these Doja Cats. Oh my God. That was horrible.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Pick this fight. I am shocked by how stupid this is. I mean, what NIH is saying is that grant recipients can spend only 15% of their grant money on so-called indirect costs. But indirect costs are... the building where you work, maintenance for your lab, the microscope, support staff that help you comply with safety regulations.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And like the big, you know, like evil DEI institutions like Harvard, they could probably eat that 15%. They can deal with this. But the smaller research institutions at smaller schools, they're just going to get forced to shut down. And that's why you're hearing Katie Britt weighing on this, although that fucking moron Tommy Tuberville is like, I support the doge cuts and everything they're doing.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
He doesn't know where he is. He also hated the halftime show. That's also from that same interview, I believe. It's not just the long-term impact on medical research and finding cures and all the things we want medical research to do. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is the largest employer in the state. So this is going to ripple out into their economy in a big way.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And also, it's not like the NIH budget is some runaway fiscal disaster. The Bulwark reported that the NIH budget adjusted for inflation is about what it was at the beginning of the Obama administration.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, we got to get that person and the guy who told Seal to become an anthropomorphic singing seal singing about Mountain Dew, and we send them both to Gitmo.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah. Doing all this under the guise of that DEI attack is so pathetic. This also, it is entirely out of the Project 2025 playbook, and I do think it helps to remind people of this.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, Benny Johnson, the TPUSA plagiarist, tweeted, Hey NFL, it's Trump was elected. We're not going to pretend we like bad halftime shows anymore. And I was like, what? Yes, people famously never complain about the halftime show. That's what Twitter was invented for. It is to go back to your point, though. They're the victims all the time.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It is funny. Elon's just raging about these small sums of money and little changes, and he gets 15 billion in contracts from the U.S. government. I'll tell you something. Here's the mistake I made.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, I mean, there was a report over the weekend in the New York Times. Let me back up. You guys might remember just before the inauguration when Donald Trump announced the sale of a meme coin, Trump coin. I think it was the next day. Melania announced the sale of her Melania coin. So the price skyrocketed, then it fell. People accused him of a rug pull.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It was this whole kind of weird grifting thing that was happening on the sidelines.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, you own most of it, you market it heavily, and then you sell a bunch of your shares of whatever the thing is. And the people who bought in late get screwed and the people who own them early make a lot of money. Kind of like the Hawk Tua coin for those who are big fans of the Hawk Tua podcast.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
The New York Times over the weekend reported that as of last week, at least 810,000 people have lost money on the Trump coin. But the Trump family and its partners have made nearly $109 million in fees because they get paid every time you buy and sell it. Also, a Trump-owned business owns 80% of the supply. So if they wanted to sell a bunch of their coins, they could make a lot of money.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Also, there's all this shady shit that was happening. There was some mystery account that bought millions of Trump coins just minutes after they were offered for like, you know, 19 cents or whatever, and then flip them for a profit of what they think is about $109 million. So it is just this massive grift happening in plain sight.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And it kind of ties into our CFPB conversation earlier, because getting rid of the CFPB means you're going to have small community banks regulated by a different set of regulators. Big banks no longer have a regulator because they're all regulated by the CFPB. And then you have this proliferation of bank-like companies that provide bank-like services, but are not backed by the FDIC.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
There's no deposit insurance and aren't regulated well. So it's just like the wild, wild west of like blockchain, you know, mumbo jumbo bullshit.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
They are, but Dodd-Frank pushed all the regulatory authority to the CFPB. It's not like this zombie set of laws without an agency to enforce it.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But even in just sort of normal year, the CFPB would modify rules to account for inflation or when the pandemic hit, they made a bunch of changes just to account for the economic shock that was happening. And now there isn't a agency to exist to do that. Well, the other thing too is these banks, like...
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Well, it's like little stuff. Just like one example is like overdraft protection.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Like I remember, I remember standing outside the Iowa Obama for America office and screaming at Bank of America because they had let me buy like seven coffees and overdraw my account every single time and then charge me a courtesy fee of like 25 then escalated to $35 each time rather than just being like, bro, you have no money. and cutting off the transaction, not letting it through.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
And apparently the CFPB, when it was created, there was someone who worked at a bank talking about how their institution kind of reformed their ways of charging those fees because they were worried the CFPB was going to come after them. So the mere existence of this agency was protecting consumers, and now it will just be gone.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You know what? Unpopular opinion. Fuck plastic straws. It's stuck in turtles' noses. Come on. Suck it up. Use the paper.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
So like- Let's talk about a comparison with Obama for a second though. I watched this and I thought, why couldn't we have gone to stuff? Every time Obama wanted to do something cool, we were told it was a security risk or it was going to be inconvenience people. And I would just ask everyone to Google Obama and date night. Remember that?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
2009, Obama and Michelle, they get on the plane, they fly to New York, they go to dinner and they go to a show. Fox News and all the conservative media outlets went insane for weeks about what they did, whether it was out of touch, the cost to taxpayers. I would love to know how much it costs to pack up Air Force One, fly to New Orleans, rename a gulf a body of water and then leave at halftime.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
You know, but like that's not part of the conversation because of this massive conservative bias that, you know, Fox put on the game and they interviewed Trump before.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
But they booed her because she's dating Travis Kelsey and it's half Eagles fan. You know what I mean? Everyone making the comparison. It's like, come on, guys. Yeah. It's just bitter, bitter Eagles fans. They're everywhere. They've done way worse to like Santa Claus. They throw batteries everywhere. Yeah. I mean, he used to get booed more. Yeah.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
What is he, is he in Mexico invading them? What is he talking about?
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
They don't like it. There was a YouGov poll. 77% of Canadians oppose Canada becoming a part of the United States. Trump also keeps claiming that the US is subsidizing Canada, which he just doesn't understand what a trade imbalance is. We buy a lot of oil from Canada. Thus, we buy more of their stuff than they buy of our stuff. But it is really pissing people off up there.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
I mean, there was a sketch on a sketch comedy show in Canada where you had two guys at a grocery store and they were talking about what products to buy and one guy keeps scolding the other for buying American things and replacing it with the joke is that they're shittier, inferior Canadian versions of whatever it is, even maple syrup. And it's pretty funny, but it went super viral.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Yeah, but on top of that, like there was that one clip of Canadians booing the national anthem at like a hockey game that went viral. Apparently that's happening over and over and over again at NBA games and NHL games, et cetera. So I don't know. I do also think you have to view this in the context of like,
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
Last week, he announced that we're going to annex, ethnically cleanse, and then occupy Gaza. We're picking fights with Denmark over Greenland. There's the Panama thing. So whether or not he's serious, he's pissing everybody off. And we didn't play it because there was just too much sound to play.
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Will Trump Defy the Courts?
It is ethnic cleansing. Two million people live there. He wants to push them out and steal their land. That is illegal.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah, that's really cool. I definitely emulate that.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah, we need him to have a Katrina level approval ratings. Yeah, I think these things start as outrage bait. It's just like chum for media attention. It's chum to get MSNBC fired up like Steve Bannon being intimately involved in this, I think is a real clue.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
But over time, I do think the outrage bait evolves into something real in a lot of cases like Greenland invading Greenland, for example, overturning the election. Yeah.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And once Democrats get really worked up about literally anything, negative polarization can take over and Republicans in Congress, for example, decide that politically they would rather be opposed to what the annoying Democrats say than in favor of what the constitution says. And so I do think there's like a real risk here and there's, it's part of a very rapid authoritarian slide, but I agree.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Like, I just don't want to take the bait on it. I don't think we need to have members of Congress putting forward bills to focus on it. Like focus on the here and now.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah. That'd be fun. We should mop the floor with this piece of shit. Great. Run it back, sir.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah, I think the mere act of asking him about it suggests we're taking it seriously and their response will be like, chill out, libs. But yeah, I'm with you.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Much like a wedding, it matters. It sounds silly. We're literally talking about where reporters sit in the White House briefing room, which sounds silly, but it matters for a couple of reasons. Because the seating is supposed to reflect a pecking order in terms of which outlets get to ask questions and when. Traditionally, it has gone.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
The Associated Press, major TV networks, other wire services up in the front two rows, followed by big newspapers and so on. The press secretary gets to jump around, but that's how it's supposed to go. So the most influential outlets that are the most serious traditionally get to ask a question. The Trump people want Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend, whose name I can never remember.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah, they want to stack the briefing room full of right-wing propaganda sycophants and make sure that more of the briefing room is eaten up by sycophantic questions. And that like lets them get off, you know, get out of the briefing without making a mistake, but also lets them own the media.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And I do think like the things you mentioned at the top, the bigger picture is they just want to control the press. And when you combine this step with kicking the AP out of the pooled press rotation, which for folks who don't know, the press pool is the group of reporters who go with the president into smaller venues or rooms into the Oval Office, etc.,
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And then the White House dictating which non-wire service news outlets rotate as part of the print pool. So instead of the Washington Post, you have some right-wing YouTuber shouting questions at Trump. That really matters. It's a significant erosion of press freedom. And I will say at the same time, Trump is taking way more questions from the press than Biden did or past president has.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
So I don't want to sound hyperbolic here, but, you know, the press core writ large is dealing with industry disruption and a collective action problem that we're seeing everywhere else. And they just do not know how to fight back. They're fighting back by like wearing a pin and they're doing it individually. Yeah.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah, just fully kicked out of the White House complex.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Also, the trip started as Usha Vance going, doing a bunch of cultural stops and it evolved to JD Vance, like big footing the trip. And then they never left the US military base because everyone hates them.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I would like to just quickly start with the dumb part, which is hysterical is the right way to describe that Stephen Miller tweet. The guys are such drama queens. Like we were invaded and occupied. Entire neighborhoods were conquered. Entire towns were subjugated. Our treasury was plundered. What are you talking about?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
So the only way I can make sense of what Trump is doing with tariffs as a policy matter is it's got to be part of a negotiating strategy where he's just trying to convince these other countries that he's so crazy that he's going to tank the global economy so they come to the table and cut a deal.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Because the stated rationale for all these tariffs are self-evidently ridiculous, like cutting off fentanyl flows from Canada, right? It doesn't make any sense. And that's because tariffs are a tool. They're not a strategy. They're designed to protect existing industries against unfair trade practices by other countries like China dumping a bunch of steel or aluminum into the U.S. market.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
, . . . . .. a, P P P P P P P P P P 100實 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , a in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in and.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
But they're not designed to grow a U.S. industry on its own like the CHIPS Act was, which Trump says he wants to get rid of. And so even like in the most charitable scenario where Trump tariffs the auto industry, so Mexico, it becomes more expensive to create, assemble vehicles in Mexico, so GM and Ford rev up some plants here, that's gonna increase prices for everybody.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Base versus base turnout election. Maybe Elon going there will help motivate some significant number of people to turn out who wouldn't otherwise have known about the election and voted. So we'll see. I do think Elon, he claims the spending is about free speech. It's a disgusting perversion of democracy. So I don't know. Like,
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Ben Wickler was saying he might have spent up to 26 million at this point. He has made himself the face of this campaign. If they win, that sucks. And I'll be very sad.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And if they lose, we need to tie it around Elon Musk's neck, make this an argument that there's a political cost to everything he does of being associated with him of even his money, because that's a pretty significant check on his political strength early on.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And I know Trump doesn't care, But the companies can't eat that hit. So labor costs are much higher in the U.S. than in Mexico. So it's going to raise prices for everyone. So just like none of it makes sense. You know, it's like tariffs when used effectively, they're targeted. But we're talking about a broad based 20 to 25 percent tariff on every country, maybe.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
That makes me so happy. It makes me so sure to get her farewell tour. She had so many meetings. It's awesome. With so many boring, boring briefings.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
She went apartment. I guess they have an apartment for you, but she went shopping for furniture in New York. Nope.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Also, just bigger picture. Eighty one million dollars have been spent on a Wisconsin Supreme Court race. That is disgusting. Citizens United was such a disaster. Our campaign finance system is such a disaster. I don't know how we can fix it at this point with this Congress, with these courts, with these judges, but this is just a terrible way to run a railroad.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And if China is the real threat and the real problem, why are we starting by tariffing the EU and Canada and Mexico and all the allies that we actually need? Or all the countries, as he sort of hinted at.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
You still got to record them, guys. Bad news for you.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Very comfortable. I know you have a guest Helix mattress. Yeah, our guest room's got a Helix mattress. Everybody raves about it.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I think what the markets think is that what will happen this time is what will happen last time, which is Trump will threaten this universal tariff and then he'll delay it. And then an army of lobbyists will storm into the White House and they'll carve out special deals for big companies like Apple or or GM or whichever foreign leader buys enough Trump coin will get an exception.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Half kidding there. And so I also think that these countries that cut a deal with Trump, they know that Trump only cares about the day one headline. The Chinese in the first term said they were going to buy billions and billions of dollars of American exports. And Trump trumpeted that and took a huge win. And then they bought None. They bought zero additional exports. They just didn't care.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
I mean, Jesus, you'd sit in an office with somebody and they'd tell you.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
So you can give Trump the win on the negotiation and then win for real in the implementation.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
Yeah, I mean, there's another school of thought that some economists think that the Trump plan is to, long story short, like weaken the American dollar by cutting a bunch of deals with other countries and forcing them to stop currency manipulation to make it cheaper to export American goods and thus resuscitate American manufacturing. That too sounds a little far-fetched to me.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
It's just worth quickly pointing out that there's no legal authority to do this. Trump is claiming he's going to do it, or some of his team is suggesting they're going to use a law called AIPA, which allows the president to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency overseas.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
So we're going to declare there's a national emergency in every single country, and therefore we're slapping a 20% tariff.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
There was a great story in the journal about Harley-Davidson and tariffs. Harley-Davidson, great American company. They could face a 50% retaliatory tariff on selling Harleys abroad. So they did the math on a Harley Davidson sale in Denmark. It would go from $28,000 to purchase here in the United States to $124,000 all in with all the VAT tax and everything else over there.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
So it's just going to decimate Harley Davidson. And they dealt with this in the first Trump term. And in response, they actually moved some production from the U.S. to Thailand. So there's like effects you cannot anticipate.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And these materials cross the border like three, four or five times. Are we going to tariff them every single time?
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
He, you know, there was hardly said as much. Yeah, right. Exactly.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
But we can try. Yeah, I agree with you though. I mean, I do think the big caveat is always like if implemented as currently described, I think these tariffs would be disastrous. And we're already seeing polls where you have people saying Trump is too focused on tariffs. Only 23% of people think Trump's policies are making them feel better off financially in the CBS poll.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And to the point on the stock market, like there's been a 10% correction so far, which basically means like the stock market has given up the gains it had from election day until now. But if these tariffs really go into place as described, that could lead to another 10%, 20%, 30%, like a serious hit to the stock market.
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Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term
And that's when all of his donors are going to be calling him and be like, what the fuck are you doing? This is not what we bought you for.
Pod Save America
How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
But yeah, I mean, you made so many good points there. I think I love this idea of don't wait for your opponent to make a mistake, help them make a mistake and then pour gas on the flames once it happens. I think that's very important. I totally agree with you that there is no singular leader of the Democratic Party.
Pod Save America
How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
There probably won't be until someone emerges in a Democratic primary, you know, which would be after the midterms, which is far too late. We're waiting for that.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
I think there's not a singular post-mortem. There's not like a DNC run post-mortem that I know of. I mean, the new DNC chair is, I think, going around the country, talking to people, thinking about what happened. We on this show are having a series of conversations about what happened. I mean, frankly, this is one of them and thinking about ways to kind of rise from the ashes.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
But to your point about the kind of images at the State of the Union, it was lots of different groups of Democrats with different forms of protests. And I know something you were famous for in government was message discipline, enforcing message discipline, trying not to let you know, other members of the Labour Party undercut what Tony was doing.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Do you think that that that idea is quaint in an era of, you know, everyone can make a public statement from their phone in the bathroom whenever they want?
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
No, you're actually anti-woke. You think we need to, I remember hearing you say this, you felt like you need to focus more on social justice issues in response to some of this bullshit coming out of Trump and et cetera.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor. I don't have to tell you guys this, things feel pretty bleak out there for Democrats right now. Republicans control the White House, the Congress, the courts, the right-wing media feels more influential than ever. And I think it can be easy to lose hope and worry that we might not ever be back in power.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Yeah, I think that's really well said. Now, let me just say, critics listening to this would say, the biggest mistakes Tony Blair made, the biggest mistakes the Democratic Party made was getting away from our roots as a pro-union, pro-worker party, and instead embracing globalization, free trade. They'll sort of sum it up as neoliberalism generally, and they believe that's what led us to Trump.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
What's your response to that argument?
Pod Save America
How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
But I want you to imagine for a second that you're a member of the Labor Party, the British equivalent of the Democratic Party, in 1997. You would have been out of power for 18 years, enduring election after election, of devastating defeats and Margaret Thatcher and this historic period of Tory rule. And so that experience is why I wanted to talk with today's guest, Alistair Campbell.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Let's talk about the US and the UK. I mean, we famously have this special relationship, meaning that we are the closest of allies in the world. There's rarely daylight between the two countries on major issues. After that, the US is historically really close with Canada, democracies in Europe, NATO allies, et cetera.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
But in just the past few weeks, I mean, Donald Trump has upended 75 years of US foreign policy. He's voted with Russia at the United Nations. He sided with Putin against Ukraine and all of Europe. Interestingly, Keir Starmer, despite being from the Labor Party, has gotten along better with Trump than most leaders.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
But is there a concern you're hearing in sort of British political circles that the transatlantic alliance is broken for at least the next four years, if not irreparably changed?
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
He was one of Tony Blair's most trusted advisors during his time as prime minister. You should think of Alistair as the British David Axelrod. But most importantly for this conversation, Alistair was with Blair in the years before the Labor Party finally won back power. And he was one of the key architects of Labor's rebranding and media strategy that ultimately led them to a landslide victory.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Well, and just so folks know, I mean, the people who think Putin's the richest man in the world believe he is. He got there by telling all the Russian oligarchs, you now owe me 50% of what's yours and you don't have it. There will be no debate.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Alistair is considered a master of driving a media narrative and was sometimes even referred to as the king of spin, although I don't think he liked that. We'll talk about how Alistair and Tony Blair helped pull the UK out of the iron grip of Thatcherism and what lessons, strategies, and tactics Democrats can steal from that experience to win back power here.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
I was just about to ask. Tell me about J.D. Vance.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Basically, yes. I mean, JD, to his credit, will go in more hostile places, but they love Fox News. It's state TV.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
I will. I'll let him know. We text often, yes.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
We also cover what Alistair makes of Donald Trump generally, and also what he makes of Trump just upending 75 years of US foreign policy by turning away from our traditional allies in Europe and aligning with Russia. And finally, we talk about what we can learn from right-wing populist parties all over Europe about the MAGA movement and how to defeat them.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
yeah and look i don't want to go on some whiny tangent about conservative media but i'm very glad to hear that you and many of your friends are exercised about these comments by jd vance because the man insulted hundreds if not thousands of dead british troops and french troops by the way because it's the french uh uk proposal for this peacekeeping force and like when barack obama dared to move the churchill bust out of the oval office it was this goddamn scandal that
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
tailed us for weeks and weeks and weeks because, you know, the Murdoch press, the right wing tabloids, especially in the UK, just, you know, pumped oxygen on the fire and fed the flames over and over again. And like, this seems like, you know, now we have this legitimate breach that I think we should actually be kind of concerned about.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
it did but you know the steve bannon adage of uh flood the zone with is highly effective and we're all just kind of waking up to the next outrage um every day we are going to take a quick break but before we do i want to tell you some exciting news from our book imprint crooked media reads Woodworking, the brand new novel by Yellowjackets writer and culture commentator Emily St.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
James, is now out wherever you get your books. Woodworking is an unforgettable and heartwarming debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows, one of her students. The five-star Goodreads reviews are pouring in, and Woodworking is featured on them and AV Club's most anticipated books of 2025 lists.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Publishers Weekly says St. James enthralls with her depiction of what it's like to be trans in a conservative and insular community and the courage it takes for people to be openly themselves. Get your copy of Woodworking right now at crookedmedia.com slash books.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
And if you want to hear more from Alistair, you should check out his excellent podcast, The Rest Is Politics. He and former Tory party MP Rory Stewart cover what's happening in the UK. They also cover US politics, global events all around the world.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
One other thing I love about The Restless Politics is that you and Rory, you talk a lot about international issues, and you guys focus a lot on right-wing populist parties, especially in Europe, leaders like Marine Le Pen in France. We got Elon Musk's buddies over at the AFD in Germany, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Nigel Farage in the UK. Unfortunately, the list goes on and on.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Here in America, we are now dealing with the kind of MAGA version of right-wing populism. Are there common threads you see among these right-wing populist parties that are worth kind of highlighting and then successful tactics to combat them?
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
It is a weekly listen for me, as is Crooked Media's own Pod Save the UK, which covers British politics more from the left like we do on Pod Save America here. And it is also just consistently hilarious and worth your time. So with that set up, here's my conversation with Alistair Campbell. Alistair Campbell, welcome to Pod Save America. Absolute pleasure to be here, Tommy.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Yeah, I mean, you know, the interesting story to me about this recent election in Germany, I do love that it seems like J.D. Vance and Elon Musk turned off voters and harmed the AFD. There was this interesting split at the end where you saw this surge in support for left wing parties that I think mostly came from young women, whereas younger men went to the AFD.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
And what you're seeing, though, is just a lack of faith in these sort of traditional parties, be them sort of social Democrats or conservative. and a look for alternatives because younger people are pissed off and they feel like the system has not worked for them and they're turning away. And I think that's a big lesson.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Yeah. And I saw in 2019, you were doing an interview with the garden where you said the populism of the right would not be defeated by the populism of the left. Can you unpack that a bit and tell me if you still think it's true?
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
So Alistair, the Labour Party over in the UK was on its ass for 18 years, 1979 until 1997, including the majority of that under Margaret Thatcher, who is this towering figure in British and global history, frankly. In 1994, you leave a job in journalism to help Tony Blair and the Labor Party right the ship and finally win back power.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
From reading your diaries and listening to your excellent podcast, I get the sense there were times when you and Tony Blair felt like the Labor Party was as hopeless and divided as a lot of Democrats feel now. How did you guys approach this monumental task of rebranding the party and preparing to get to an election where you could finally win back power?
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Oh, it doesn't sound crazy at all to me. I was sitting in an interview with Barack Obama in Iowa in 2007 when a reporter asked him why I wasn't wearing a flag pin, and he answered it honestly, and it became a thing for four more years or however long it followed us around. Final question for you, and thank you for giving me so much time. I was looking last night at this –
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Pew Research does polling asking Americans, do you trust the government? And they've been doing it for decades. And the average peaks at like 77% in 1964, in the beginning of LBJ's administration. Trust levels plummet through the Vietnam War. all the way through the Carter administration down to about 27%.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
It kind of bounces up into the 40s during Reagan, then spikes after 9-11 as people rally together after the attacks, and then bottoms out again after Iraq and the financial crisis and never really recovers. And I think some of the drivers of this loss of trust were Vietnam, Watergate, the Iraq war, and the financial crisis.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
And just for listeners, you know, if listeners want to hear you dig deeper into all things Iraq, you and Rory did an amazing two part series on the Iraq war from different perspectives around the 20th anniversary. And it was just like riveting listening. And I highly recommend it. But I'm wondering, I mean, Democrats have now. We used to be the party that didn't trust institutions.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
We didn't trust the intelligence community. We didn't trust the government. We accused Bush of lying us into war. Now we're the ones defending institutions. Now we're telling people to trust the CDC about the COVID vaccine or trust the FBI. And I'm wondering how you think about
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
this loss of trust in government and institutions and how to get it back, but also if we need to change our posture as a Democrat and not be so trusting of the government and maybe not worry about the lack of trust in government.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
I think we got it. I think we got there.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
I like that. That's right. You never win an argument that you don't join. I think that's important advice. Well, Alistair, thank you so much for your time. Here's to hoping for a Labor 1997 style victory at the midterms in 2026.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
I'm here for it. I know. Yeah. So if we don't win that, I'm going to be talking to you about the passport again. So let me know. Hopefully you have someone in the foreign office. Thank you again for your time. I really appreciate it.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
And so I think we are getting an important point, which is that this wasn't just cosmetic changes. You were signaling to voters that the Labor Party was now different. In fact, you started calling it New Labor.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
One of the things I really like about your podcast is you guys talk a lot about the importance of a political party not just having a day-to-day message, but a 30,000-foot narrative and a story that ties it all together. And as simplistic as it might sound to you and to me, if you ask people what Donald Trump wants to do as president, they'll say make America great again.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
And that is a framework for everything he does. Whereas I feel like Democrats often feel like they have a laundry list of policy ideas, but it doesn't feel like a coherent story. How did you think about developing and staying true to that 30,000 foot narrative?
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
You talked about this question of is something too bold. I mean, when you guys won in 1997, it came after this long period of conservative rule that we talked about that included major economic challenges, some intra-Tory party scandals, I assume some exhaustion with the incumbent. And please tell me if I have this story wrong, but the...
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
Before the election, there was a politician named Roy Jenkins who said, Tony Blair took such care not to make any mistakes that he resembled a man carrying a priceless Ming vase across a highly polished floor. And I love that metaphor because it gets at the balancing act you have to make in politics between appealing to voters with big, bold ideas and not making a mistake.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
And a version of that debate is playing out in the Democratic Party right now. James Carville said Democrats should take a strategic pause, let Trump self-immolate. Many others, myself included, thinks that we Democrats need to much more aggressively present an alternative. I know Democrats are far from holding a Ming vase right now. We're holding a plate of shit.
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How a Political Party Can Rise from the Dead
But how do you think about the balance between big old... Yes, full of it. But that balance between big, bold ideas versus kind of running against your opponent or not screwing up. How did you think about that?
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, doing a town hall. To his great credit, Ro Khanna is going to Republican districts where the elected officials refuse to talk to their constituents. But all of this is a topper for our Sunday episode this week. Which I did. Who did you talk to? Congressman Adam Smith. He represents Washington's ninth congressional district. He's been there for about 30 years.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I want some shrubs delivered to my door. Uber for shrubs. That's what this is.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Gavin Newsom's taking some shit right now. And I think that the idea in principle is a good one. Maybe the execution hasn't been perfect or great so far, but I support that. I mean, I'd Glenn Greenwald on Pod Save the World, my foreign policy show the other day.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I got a lot of shit from people that just didn't want to hear from him, but I actually thought it was interesting to talk to him about the First Amendment.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
That's not what we need. I completely agree. There is a fundamental threshold issue about human rights and humanity, and we need to give no quarter on those issues ever. If you want to have a separate issue about sports fairness at the high school level, fine. But I think that should be handled by local leaders. And we don't need to demagogue people. And that's clearly what's happening.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
You're a foreign policy expert. Can I ask you some international stuff? Absolutely. So on Tuesday, President Trump spoke to Vladimir Putin for an hour and a half or so. Putin says he will agree to a 30-day pause on bombing Ukrainian energy infrastructure. I have no confidence that he will follow through on that. He's already broken it.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, it sounds like there's already been some ceasefire violations. But basically, Putin held his maximalist positions on basically every other part of the negotiation, at least if you read the Russian language readout of his side of the call. What's your level of confidence that Trump can broker some sort of peace agreement?
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And I would imagine you talk with people at the White House and the State Department, Republicans in Congress. What do they say when you ask them, why is Donald Trump giving every concession to Putin preemptively while hammering Zelensky?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Congressman Smith, he was not a big fan of that performance either. And then we've stayed in touch since. And in December, I started talking to him. And he wanted to come on the show to talk about what happened in 2024, his vision going forward, and so on and so forth. And so he was in LA. When was that, Wednesday? Yeah.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, there is a world where Trump, I mean, I think we sort of see it in his demeanor and the words he says, where he is more comfortable with, he feels more connected to, more aligned with autocrats, including Putin. And by the way, Putin's like religiosity is a pretty recent, it's bullshit.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, I've been reading this book about Steve Bannon and his connection to this kind of small group of right-wing literal fascists who are also kind of occultists called traditionalists. And it gets into his ties with this guy, Alexander Dugin, who's this very scary, genocidal Russian thinker. And it's very weird that Steve Bannon met with Dugin and he's kind of Putin's guy.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And honestly, we had planned to talk for 15 or 20 minutes, but it was just such an interesting conversation that we went and went and went. And all of a sudden it had been 45 minutes. That's great. It's rare for a politician. I know. I was like, this is fascinating. This guy has a lot of big ideas. He's a national security expert. He's been in politics for a long time.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Fascism is very hot right now, especially with young white men. Look at Germany. Look at the AFD party. It's also driving me insane that Trump primarily talks about alliances as some sort of financial burden and rather than understanding that we created NATO ourselves. We constructed it as it is because it a ton of control and power.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
We didn't want the French and everybody, you know, we don't want a massive amounts of nuclear nonproliferation. Some of it happened, but we wanted to fold them into our system. And he just doesn't seem to get that.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And economic inequality is a completely fixable problem by government through taxation, through redistribution. We could do this. Trump and Pete Hegseth, who somehow became Secretary of Defense, they're conducting this purge of senior military leaders along strictly racist and sexist lines. I mean, I'm not being hyperbolic here. They call it DEI. But C.Q.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Brown, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he was fired for talking about being a black man in America in one five-minute video after George Floyd was murdered. Similarly, senior leaders at the Navy and at the Coast Guard have been fired because they are women. How do you think these moves are impacting the armed forces, their ability to recruit readiness?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
He has thoughts about how to build the biggest coalition possible for the party. So we thought, all right. Sunday episode. Cool. Let's do it. And so we're going to listen to Congressman Adam Smith. And then afterwards, John and I are going to do some Q&A from our Discord subscribers. So stick around for that. So without further ado, here is Congressman Adam Smith.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah. I mean, the only good I have a sliver of good news and then some more bad news sliver of good news. I think a judge indefinitely blocked Trump's ban on transgender service members. It's just an insane decision to tell, I think, 13,000 American citizens that they cannot serve their country because of who they are.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But I did also notice that earlier this week, Trump named a bunch of right-wing activists and allies to boards that oversee U.S. military service academies. So I'll give you a couple names. Mike Flynn, he's now named to the West Point Oversight Board. I'm sure you know him well.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Unfortunately, I did too, because he worked for Obama. Pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Once posted a video where he pledged allegiance to QAnon. Walt Nauta was appointed to oversee the Naval Academy. He's Trump's former military aide who was charged with obstructing the government in the classified documents case.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Charlie Kirk, who we talked about earlier, was named to the board overseeing the Air Force. Charlie has zero military experience. He's just a right-wing propagandist. These are almost like comically terrible picks, but what do these boards do? What is the impact here?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Congressman Adam Smith, great to see you. Thanks for coming to the LA studio.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
So we're talking Wednesday morning over the last week. A lot of progressives, including many of your colleagues at the House, have voiced displeasure with Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats about their handling of the Republican continuing resolution that kept the government open.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I couldn't tell you to this day. Also, that's like an hour. Yeah.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I was wondering what you made of Schumer's vote, rationale, leadership, and if you disagreed with it, what you think Democrats should be doing differently in this moment.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And that's not helpful. We shouldn't resign ourselves to being silent when people do unproductive things, but we can never control the furthest fringe.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
You have to listen before you can persuade. And I think you're reflecting back frustration that I feel profoundly that I think a lot comes from the Internet and the amplification of the worst voices on Twitter or other platforms. But Congressman Smith, thank you so much for coming in and talking with us.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
All right, John, so we got some great questions from the Discord. I'm going to ask you a few of them. We can talk them through. Andrew wants to know, assuming we make it through the next four years and we're still holding elections at that time, are you afraid that the next Democrat to get elected president will be hamstrung into keeping a lot of the government dismantling happening right now?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
He's trying to rebuild basic functionality will be viewed as too expensive or intrusive outreach.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, I think about this a lot. I mean, I don't want the next Democrat to feel like they need to just go back to the status quo before Trump. We shouldn't just go back to USAID as it was and spend a ton of political capital trying to just run it back. We need to reimagine what these agencies can look like. How can we do it smarter? How can we be more efficient?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I think there will be some challenges, though, because Trump is just... Throwing all Democrats out of what are supposed to be nonpartisan boards or agencies or leadership positions. And I think it is going to start a tit for tat that is going to be hard to put back in the tube, you know, but we have to do it.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
We can't let like these right wing mega zealots run the, you know, I don't care about the Kennedy Center, but that's an example.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
You're going to have to clean house. And it's going to be hard because you're going to have to give up some power because there are independent agencies that Trump has now taken over. And I think we should restore their independence to a lot of these places. We're going to have better governance, right?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
And our responsibility gene is going to bite us in the ass once again, but it's the right thing to do. We might've said this, but
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah. Janice C37 asks, how concerned should we be about the conservative lean of Gen Z voters? I'll be honest, I'm quite concerned. Me too. Because I think your brain can get hardwired for your political views for the rest of your life when you're younger. The issue isn't really Gen Z voters, it's Gen Z men.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
We're seeing that in data here in the United States, the gender divide is massive among people under 30. The German elections that just happened, there was a huge split among young people where you had younger men going to the AFD, which is the crazy far right party, and young women going to these leftist parties, whether it was the BSW or sort of like traditional communist adjacent parties.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
None of them wanted the traditional social Democrats or the traditional conservatives. They all kind of hated the establishment and the status quo. So it's worrisome insofar as we are Democrats and we want the Democratic Party to get support from young people. But also this young men problem is a real thing that needs to be addressed.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
deliver for them. Uh, super skink asks, are we pro Dem T party or against it right now with all the shit we are seeing? I am super pro. I feel like Dem T party has become a shorthand for just upending the status quo within the party and new leaders. Um, not, you know, voicing the kind of traditional democratic shibboleths, not necessarily, um, Gerontocracy is a big piece of this.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I mean, just know that the Republican Tea Party movement, there was grassroots energy and enthusiasm behind it that helped the Republicans in the near term and the 2010 midterms, but was ultimately very destructive for the party and the country.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah. Morgan L0975 asks, are you finding yourself censoring some of the stuff you want to say or how far you want to go, given the wider crackdown on media and honestly, even for your own safety and that of your family's? Interesting question. I will say one of the great things about doing a podcast is you have to opt into it. So we don't have a lot of like as many rage listeners. Yeah.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
It's when you go on Fox News or something goes viral thanks to some right wing person on social media clip or whatever. That's when you get attacked, threatened, cursed at, etc. So I think that's All people in media need to be aware that this is a very scary time in terms of defamation lawsuits. Trump has said he wants to open up libel law, make it easier to sue people.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
We're seeing major corporations caving to Trump. Facebook cut him a big check. There's a report today about a major law firm that went into the Oval Office and groveled and offered, what is it, $40 million in pro bono services. Insane. Was it Paul Weiss? Paul Weiss. Don't know that guy.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
You haven't censored anything? I don't sell censor, but some of this stuff is in the back of my mind.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Much like knowing your email could be hacked at any time, I'm still a moron.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But we will. And it's also a good reminder that, you know, for public figures or elected officials, the standard is far higher than commentary about individual citizens. And I think. We focus on elected officials anyway. John, Nish Coleslaw00 wants to know, what are your favorite podcasts, let's say non-crooked media, and newsletters that you look forward to consuming each week?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Ezra's on a one name basis for you, like Madonna. Everyone knows Ezra. Okay.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I really like Hard Fork, Casey Newton, and Kevin Roos over at the New York Times. I'm happy to say that we talked about us having that show on our network, and then they jilted us and dumped us and went for the New York Times.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Great writer, too. I love this show, Pardon My Take. It's a Barstool sports show. Newsletters, I don't know. Besides Message Box, I'm not a huge... newsletter consumer? They go to my inbox and I forget to get to them.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, it is hard. There's a lot to read. Final question from That's Nick. Can you share some thoughts on Gavin Newsom's podcast, Good, Bad, or Anything in Between? First of all, work in progress. He's had, what, two or three episodes? Yeah. I've listened to two. I've not listened to Tim Walz. I have no problem with him interviewing people on the right, even the far right.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I think the execution could use a lot of work. We don't need a kind of wonky conversation with Steve Bannon about tariffs. We need to mix it up a little more, push back. call him out on some of his shit. And again, I'm not saying this cause like our liberal ears are offended by Steve talking.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
It's well, I think what Gavin was really good at in the last couple of years is going on Fox and mixing it up and punching and counter-punching and the same as his debate with DeSantis. And I just want to see a little more of that energy and less kind of interview podcast energy.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, and both of us have spent a bunch of time with Gavin Newsom off the record. And he's like a super engaging, funny, competitive. Very smart. Smart guy. Like facts and figures just fly out of his mouth all the time. And so he's someone who actually I think could be really good at this format and probably will be. um, we sucked at this job when we started. Yeah.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah. Steve, Steve Bannon, who I, I full disclosure, I've texted to try to get him to come on the show. I'm still thinking about whether it would work. He's a professional propagandist, so he's going to be someone who's very difficult to debate. Yeah. And it's challenging, but I think it's a good skill to learn. It is a good skill to learn and it's good to mix it up. I will say I, um,
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I'm looking for a venue for what you were just describing, which is conversations with people you disagree. I hate debates. I don't like the debate format, like the Jubilee stuff. It's interesting. Like Sam Cedar did a great job. He did a great job. It was compelling. He's super smart. He's got all these facts like at the ready, but I don't,
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Like, I feel no desire to own someone, let alone 30 people. I'd like to talk to someone who disagrees with me in a reasonable way and try to find some common ground. Like, I had Glenn Greenwald on Pod Save the World the other day, and I felt like the reaction from the audience was like, you guys agreed too much. I was like, well, I don't know. Glenn's smart on the First Amendment. Yeah.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, I mean, I think you're getting at something important, which is I think the Times had an analysis week where they said, actually, the real split in the Democratic Party right now isn't really even on policy. It's about how hard should we fight or not fight. And they juxtapose Gavin Newsom talking to conservatives on his podcast with like J.B.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
It's also really hard to do. Look at our phone. Yeah, it's really hard to do. Imagine you're in a conversation with your kid, with your friend, with a political opponent. In real time, you're taking in the information, you're cataloging it, you're finding in your mind why it's wrong and you're spitting back out. It's difficult to do.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, it's valuable. All right. That is it for the Q&A. Thank you again to all the Discord folks. Great questions. Great questions. It's always super fun to pop into the Discord and talk to the folks there because there's really great, well-meaning people sharing interesting information and articles, people from all over the world. So love our Discord.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Crooked.com slash friends if you want to join. Also, John, if you're only listening to our podcasts, you're missing out. Oh, yeah. Because we got full video episodes and tons of exclusive content on YouTube. Yesterday, I recorded- We have a new look here at the studio that we're experimenting with. We got a new look. We got a look in progress. Yeah. I kind of like it. Let us know what you think.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah, tell us what you think, at John Lovett. But yesterday, I recorded, me and Ben recorded a bonus Pod Save the World exclusively for YouTube with Nish Kumar from Pod Save the UK. It's great to see Nish here. He's so funny. He's so funny. He said some things about Nigel Farage that I'm not going to repeat because they're his jokes, but it's worth listening to. We talked about-
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Elon Musk banging around and screwing with British politics. It's not just Keir Starmer. He's now messing with the Reform UK party, which has four MPs in their parliament out of 650 seats. And this is what he's focused on? We're getting real niche here. Wow. Real niche. So check that out. Subscribe to the Pod Save the World YouTube. Subscribe to the Pod Save America YouTube.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Talk to you guys on Tuesday. Yeah. See you Tuesday.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Pritzker using harsh words, which I don't I don't really think there's that much of a tension there. But I think what you're getting at, let's just name a specific Gaza. There are a lot of protests of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Gaza. I understand why those protesters were there. I thought the Biden policy on Gaza was awful and immoral and indefensible, and I said as much publicly at the time.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
But I've been thinking a lot about how we should reconstitute a pro-Palestinian rights, anti-war coalition in the Trump era. And it has to be like red rose socialists to Rand Paul conservatives. Everyone is welcome under that coalition or effort to stop the war. And I think the only way you can keep it together is if we do not – tell people how to oppose the war.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
You don't have to use the word genocide to oppose this war. You don't have to be anti-Zionist to oppose this war. You can just think, I support the state of Israel, but I think this is a horrific humanitarian disaster that's not making any of us safer, that's gonna redound against the US, right?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Right, I agree with that. And so, I mean, since the election, there has been this kind of messy debate about why we lost in 2024, but also what to do going forward. This week, this Democratic data firm called Blue Rose Research released their analysis of why Democrats lost in 2024. It was based on both, I think, like 24 million pieces of survey data and precinct level voter data.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
So like, you know, a lot of inputs here. Some of the core findings are. Hispanic, Asian, and young voters and politically disengaged voters all swung towards Trump. Democrats are losing very badly with young men, especially young white men. The gender gap is massive among young men. Democrats did not lose because of a turnout problem in 2024.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Far more difficult question, I guess, is what course corrections do we make to fix those impressions or, you know, losing young men, for example?
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Drug decriminalization efforts. It seems like there's been a body of research that it's not going well.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Welcome back to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Jon Favreau. Is this weird for you? Me with the sticks? Honestly? Love it. Jon and I are in the studio today. Love It is on its way to Wisconsin where he's doing some campaigning for a very important judicial race. Yeah. That's cool. You and I are going to be out with Ro Khanna on Sunday. When you're hearing this, probably.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Yeah. I mean I – respect and support everyone's right to protest however they want. I also respect and support my right to tell you when you're being an idiot and making things worse. And I think if you look at efforts to defeat authoritarian movements around the world, it only works when there is the broadest possible coalition.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Most recently, there's a damn near neo-Nazi who almost became the chancellor of Austria. And only because three different parties came together to finally form a government did he get blocked from taking power.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
I did know that. There's a bunch of those customers here in this very office.
Pod Save America
A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Same. Also, I feel like shrubs really got a raw deal. It's just not an appealing name. I know. You want this shrub.
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A Democrat’s Tough Love for His Party
Protects your data. Fruit trees? Yeah. I love a fruit tree. Living in California really opens your eyes to fruit trees. It's unheard of in New England. We got a kumquat tree.
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Bill Maher on Hating Donald Trump, the Far Left and 69ing
Boundless enthusiasm. Sure. Hilarious. Wow. Whip smart. This sucks. Sick body. Oh, wow. Great hair.
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Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. What's the best piece of money advice you ever got? Put it in the mattress.
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I got good advice when I was working in the Senate. You know how we had those accounts?
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The TSP savings. Yeah. And I wasn't doing the maximum. And our pal Tommy Vitor and Robert Gibbs were like, you're an idiot. Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing? And I was like, well, it seems like a lot of money now. And then, but you know what? It's good to do that.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And it was truly a meeting unlike anything I've ever seen before. So what you're about to hear is a quick reaction episode that Ben Rhodes and I recorded for Pod Save the World. We'll be covering this again next week on Wednesday. Subscribe to Pod Save the World wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. And here is that episode. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
I'm Ben Rhodes. And we are doing a little YouTube exclusive episode today based off of President Zelensky's meeting with Donald Trump just now. We were going to plan to do this regardless. But Ben, I didn't expect it to be. the worst meeting ever in the Oval Office. I'm trying to think of an example of a meeting that went worse.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
It's worth noting, like, the meeting didn't start terribly. Again, like we said, there was, like, a 30-minute pool spray. There was actually some, like, kind of chummy moments. Let's just play a quick clip of that. Because Europe really helped.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
So right there, Zelensky is talking about contributions from the Europeans to Ukraine. This is like the third time in a week that Trump has been corrected in the Oval Office about the European contribution to the Ukrainian side. Remember in the meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Macron grabs his arm and is like, actually, no. 60% of what we gave them was a grant, not a loan.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Keir Starmer made the same point yesterday, I believe, Thursday. And then Zelensky today. But, you know, it was kind of like, look, Zelensky had a look on his face where, as you said, Ben, he looked exhausted. By the end of this conversation, he looks like he wants to cry. But it didn't start terribly. Like things just escalated and got worse and worse.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah, then Obama was weak because he didn't give enough support to the Ukrainians.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah. So, again, this was supposed to be the pool spray before the lunch meeting, before the press conference. The Trump people ended up canceling the rest of the itinerary.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And, you know, according to the readouts they're giving to Fox News or whoever else, it sounds like the Rubio and Mike Waltz basically kicked Zelensky out of the White House and said, come back when you're ready to cut a peace deal. They were supposed to sign some sort of rare earths agreement. The text of this agreement has evolved so much over time.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
I mean, there was the infamous Bibi Netanyahu Obama meeting that you and I were both in the room for, but it was nothing even close to what just happened.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Initially, it was reported as just like an extortion, the US demanding half of Ukraine's rare earths or up to $500 billion worth of rare earths. Now it seemed like there would just be some sort of joint effort to mine these rare earths and put it into a fund that would then be used for Ukrainian reconstruction. But the U.S.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
would have some sort of oversight over it and maybe get some of the profits. I don't know. I'm not sure that we'll ever know. Caitlin Collins from CNN asked a very smart question during this press conference, which is that something like 40% of Ukraine's rare earths are in the Far East. So in Russian occupied areas, she was like, Are you going to be able to get access to those?
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Who will protect those? There's been a lot of reporting today about how the mining process for these rare earth elements is unbelievably energy and labor intensive and incredibly dirty. And setting up a giant lithium mine, for example, can take a decade. So the idea that this is some sort of
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
immediate us ukrainian cooperation on the ground that serves as a de facto deterrent from the russians invading is just like sort of nonsensical on its face if you actually understand the details but uh ben i don't know that we'll ever need to know the details of this one because it doesn't seem like it's happening
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah. I mean, there is a national security challenge for the US, which is that I think China has something like 70% of the rare earth element supply. They also have something like 90% of the refining capacity. So there could be a scenario where the US really needs access to these rare earth minerals. But like you just said, I mean, this is like a decade long process.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And Ben, I remember having a very similar conversation about... You know, people saying there are massive deposits like trillion dollar deposits in Afghanistan that none of those have been mined even as of today. So all of this just seems like very vaporware.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah, purely for show. OK, well, like we mentioned earlier, Zelensky wasn't just insulted by J.D. Vance and Rubio and Waltz and Trump. There were a bunch of moron reporters in the Oval Office because, as you might have heard. The White House is taking over control of the White House press pool.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And instead of having like real serious journalists in there from places like Reuters or Bloomberg, they're swapping in right wing zealots who are just their little propagandists. So let's hear an example of what kind of questions those people ask.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
OK, well, we'll cut to the chase and start to play you some of that. We have a very long clip and we're going to play some excerpts, pause and talk about them and play some more, because honestly, it was just impossible to cut it down. It was that. Much of a fucking train wreck. So with that, here is a clip from Zelensky and Trump's meeting in the Oval Office today, Friday, February 28th.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
one maybe something like yours yes maybe some something better i don't know we will see maybe something cheaper than yeah thank you thank you uh that was a reporter named brian glenn he's the chief white house correspondent for real america's voice uh there was a reporter from one america which is another right-wing outlet then that asked what gave you the moral courage and conviction to lead on a peace agreement
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Apparently, a reporter from TASS snuck into the Oval Office pool spray. For those who don't know, TASS is a Russian state owned news agency founded in the 1900s. So interesting move to let the Russian state owned media, you know, the country bombing TASS. the country you're meeting with into the Oval Office, right? Apparently, the White House staff said he snuck in there somehow.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
It doesn't give me a lot of confidence in their security. I'm not sure how you sneak into the Oval Office, but I don't know, man. This is bleak shit.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah, I know like American politics are so unserious. It's so frustrating. But this moment really drove home for me. I just I can imagine, you know, this is an existential meeting for the people of Ukraine and for Zelensky, literally. And, you know, suddenly he's getting berated about his appearance. I mean, it's just like truly outrageous.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
So, Ben, I mean, the big picture question is like, where do we go from here? because this meeting was a disaster. I mean, I'm sure Zelensky will try to kind of mop it up. He's doing a TV appearance with Brett Baer on Fox News later tonight that I think he knows will be a sort of a direct line back into the Oval Office to communicate with Trump. It's been interesting to watch this week.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
You had Macron, Keir Starmer and Zelensky all have White House meetings and then all go on Brett Baer's show. It's become kind of the the car wash equivalent. Like when you go to ESPN, you do like a bunch of shows. Now, Brett bears the car wash, but yesterday Putin was speaking.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
He was praising the new minute us administration for quote pragmatism, a realistic worldview, discarding many of stereotypes, so-called rules and messianic ideological cliches of their predecessors. You had Dimitri Medvedev cheering and tweeting in English about how great it was to see the Lenski treated like shit.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And then yesterday, when Trump was meeting with Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, Trump refused to say that the U.S. would backstop a European peacekeeping force if one were to be put in Ukraine after some sort of peace deal. He also seemed to once again suggest the U.S. wasn't fully committed to Article 5 when he was asked about it. He was like, oh, the Brits, they don't need much help.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
They can take care of themselves. And then at one point he said to Keir Starmer, Could you take on Russia by yourselves? You know, like kind of joking, but not really. So I don't know. Pretty dark, man. Like, where do you think we go from here?
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah. I mean, look, the more we learned about the rare earths agreement, the more it just seemed like nothing, you know, like initially just sounded like complete extortion. And now I don't even know what it was. I do think, you know, to your question, we should ask, like, did Zelensky screw up?
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
I think I give him like all like I have so much sympathy for him, but I think the answer is kind of, of course, he did. I mean, challenging J.D. Vance. getting into that pissing match. Like it, like we, we can look at inputs in DC. People look at inputs too much and they don't look at outputs.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Like the end result of that meeting was a fucking disaster for Zelensky personally, politically, and for his country. So obviously he should have approached it differently. I think the challenge is he's got politics. Trump's got politics, right?
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Like he's not going to walk in there and make a bunch of sort of rhetorical concessions to Putin, uh, before negotiations actually begun a negotiation that he's not part of, by the way. And again, Trump just wouldn't broke any dissent or, you know, actually, like he mocked Zelensky at one point for saying, I don't want to ceasefire.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
But Zelensky's point was like, not that I don't want the fighting to stop. He was like, I don't want to ceasefire where Putin then breaks it over and over again and reinvades my country. So, I mean, look, we'd be, like, I think, dishonest if we said that Zelensky had played that thing perfectly or even remotely well. But I do think it was a setup for domestic consumption here in the U.S.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
You're right, though. This is really tough for Zelensky because he showed unbelievable, incredibly inspiring courage in the very early days of that war. And by just sort of like force of personality, brought the entire world to his side, helped rally support in the US, in Europe, everywhere, like public opinion, in capitals, everywhere.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And if he is seen now as having kind of lost that touch, I mean, I'm sure the shine faded during the Biden administration when a lot of Ukrainians felt like they were getting some of what they wanted, but getting it late and getting it slow and not getting enough of it.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
But this meeting, I think, is probably going to... I mean, maybe it'll rally people to his side, but it might also make them wonder whether... he's the right person to be the interlocutor with the United States when they're so reliant on us. So a very challenging political moment for him personally, as well as for the country.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah. OK, stop. This is the worst OK, stop episode in history. So what you can hear there is Zelensky does this wind up where he's talking about how we can't trust Putin to implement a ceasefire because he breaks every agreement he's ever signed.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah. One of many we've been covering recently. Well, I'm very glad that we decided to do this. I had no idea how horrendous it was going to be, but great to get to talk to you, Ben.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
I know. I did too. Trying to explain why that was important. All right. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. Subscribe to Pod Save the World if you're not already. I'd really appreciate it. And we'll be out with a new Pod Save America on Tuesday.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And actually, I was just watching Mike Pompeo on Fox News talking about how the United States pulled out of all these arms control agreements during the first Trump administration because Trump because Putin was breaking the terms of the deal. But, you know, it was hard to tell exactly what kind of sets the meeting off here, Ben. But I do think J.D.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Vance is kind of the chief arsonist because Zelensky pretty quickly calls him out and is like, OK, you seem to know a lot about my country. Have you ever been there? And obviously, obviously, J.D. Vance has not. And he flips out about it and just, I guess, says that any visit to Ukraine is a propaganda tour now.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
But just to be clear, this meeting was ostensibly about signing some sort of deal between the U.S. and Ukrainians about rare earth minerals. In reality, it seems like it was a setup to get to exactly this moment. So J.D. Vance and Donald Trump could harangue Zelensky in front of the cameras and show what a tough guy they are and, you know, beat their chest on Fox News later.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
But Ben, I'm glad you mentioned this. uh, Bucha because, you know, that's another triggering thing for me because you often hear these same conservatives, actually Democrats to talk about how there were some early peace talks between the Ukrainians and the Russians, but they blew up and they often blame Zelensky for pulling out of those talks.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
In fact, those talks blew up because the atrocities that occurred at Bucha were revealed and it became impossible for anyone in Ukraine to imagine cutting a deal with Putin and the Russians in that moment.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah, I mean, look, you're you're Trump being offended by reality and people insulting Zelensky is going to be a theme of this thing. The press corps even gets in on the action. But we'll get to that in a minute. But let's keep rolling that clip.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
just gave up the whole game there. They are offended by a campaign period visit by Zelensky to Pennsylvania, which was perceived as an endorsement or support for Joe Biden.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Geez, Ben, I wonder why Zelensky might have thought he'd be better off if Joe Biden was president or Kamala Harris was president and not Donald Trump as he's lecturing him in the Oval Office about how he's gambling and about to start World War III.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And Trump is pulling out support for NATO, which has prevented World War Three.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Go to sundays4dogs.com slash world or use code world at checkout. That's sundays4dogs.com slash world, code world. Hey guys, it's Tommy Vitor. By now you've probably all seen footage of the disastrous meeting between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Friday.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Trump is mad. It's earlier on in this Oval Office meeting because this was a very, very long pool spray. And just to give folks a little context, what usually happens is the two leaders go into the Oval Office. They sit down. You bring the pool, the White House press pool in for like a minute or two. Sometimes there's a shadow question.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
They take photos and then they get them the hell out of there. They have the real meeting. There was supposed to be a lunch and then there was supposed to be a press conference. Trump has started doing this thing where he takes like 45 minutes worth of questions during the pool spray, and then they do the press conference just because he needs to be on TV all the time.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
So what you didn't hear that happened earlier was, you know, Trump's entire shtick about Ukraine is the war never would have happened if he was president. But Zelensky, when he was walking through all the times the Russians...
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
broke ceasefire agreements, talks about how the Russians were occupying Ukraine throughout the duration of the Trump presidency and people were getting killed during the Trump presidency.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And Trump really didn't like that because it undercut his whole fucking argument that none of this would have happened if I were in charge because he acts like he wasn't actually the president for four years and isn't responsible for anything.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
JD Vance is like sitting on the edge of his seat. He's the happiest little boy in town because he was allowed to go to the big boy meeting and say something. And Marco Rubio.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
They were supposed to do a quick pool spray, which is when the press comes in, shots a question and leaves, and then have a meeting about rare earth minerals, hold a press conference, and then figure out the future of the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship. But instead, Trump and J.D. Vance erupted on Zelensky. They ended up throwing the Ukrainian delegation out of the White House.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
every photo of marco rubio that i've seen in the context of these these russia ukraine talks he looks like his soul is is drifting out of his body in that moment he looks like he's dead inside he knows what is happening is so profoundly wrong but he just sits there silently and then afterwards tweets an attaboy at the boss and look there's all these reports that uh rubio is like the secretary of state in name only and actually has a bunch of little
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
kind of nag a supplicant to who work for him on the org chart, but are actually running the show over at State. So who knows?
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Well, let's listen to the rest of this clip.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Trump ends the meeting later and says, this is going to be great television. So again, giving up the game. This is all about politics for them. They don't care about Ukraine. They don't actually care about anything Zelensky said. This is just domestic politics.
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I don't make decisions on legal status here in the United States. The Department of State does that.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
So if the rise of China is like the big agreed upon bipartisan risk to the United States over the next century, this seems like the dumbest possible way to tackle it.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, if the tariffs are successful, prices will go up no matter what prices are going to go up. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And then you're going to hear my conversation with James Surowiecki about the substance of Trump's tariffs announcement and why basically every economist seems to think that the way these tariffs were calculated was just complete nonsense. We'll also talk a bit about the stock market reaction.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
James has written about economics for outlets like Fast Company, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and is the author of the book, The Wisdom of Crowds. So stick around for that. And then after the interview with James, Emma and I are going to talk about how a fringe right wing conspiracy theorist is making personnel changes on Trump's national security team.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And then the Democrats big win in Wisconsin, the state of the party and progressive media.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
James Surowiecki, welcome to Pod Save America. Thanks for having me on. So let's just start with the basics. What did President Trump announce yesterday?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor. Both John and Dan are away this week. Happy Liberation Day to them. So we thought we'd take the opportunity to mix things up a little bit in what has turned into a wild news week, thanks to President Trump's announcement about tariffs and subsequent stock market crash. So joining me today as my co-host is the excellent Emma Vigeland.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah. Can you explain that? I mean, I think the math was basically the US trade deficit with each country divided by the imports from that country. And they declared that the resulting percentage was, quote, tariff charge to the USA, including currency manipulation and trade barriers. This was described by former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers on Twitter,
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
As quote, this is to economics, what creationism is to biology, astrology is to astronomy, or RFK thought is to vaccine science. As I mentioned to you before we started recording, I basically failed the last econ class I took. So could you just explain this to a dumb person?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
She's the co-host of The Majority Report with Sam Seder and one of the smartest political analysts out there. Emma, great to see you. Welcome to the show.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Just a quick question on trade deficits. First of all, what is the 30-second explanation of what a trade deficit is? And why do you think Trump thinks it's bad? And what is the reality of the nature of a trade deficit?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
I'm very excited to have you on. We are going to talk about the politics of Trump's tariffs, the Democratic Party's big win in Wisconsin, some signs of hope about how Democrats are fighting back and how to fix some of these lingering divisions between the moderate and more progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Do you think we can heal the wounds from 2016 today? Can we finally do it?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, and there was a suggestion that they may have done this math using chat GPT. Have you seen this? I did see this.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
JP Morgan wrote that Trump's announcement would raise just under $400 billion in revenue or 1.3% of GDP, which would be the largest tax increase since the Revenue Act of 1968, which was used to pay for the Vietnam War, a bunch of great society programs, like a lot of spending. Who is going to bear that cost?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And is there a credible argument in your view that this could bring back manufacturing jobs?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
We're going to move the needle. I mean, jokes aside, I'm really excited to talk to you about this. Because I know you come from more of the DSA, Bernie wing of the party, but you are also pragmatic and constructive and smart and thoughtful. So I just appreciate that about you. And I think... It's a good balance in the show and a good conversation to have and a timely one.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
I think that is the key point, which is that all these companies just want to know what the rules of the road are going to be one years, two years, five years down the road so they can make massive CapEx investments. We're recording this. It's now 1126 a.m. Pacific on Thursday. The S&P 500 is down, holy shit, 4.28%.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
That suggests, wow, that suggests that Wall Street analysts were very, very wrong in their predictions about what Trump was going to announce because, you know, they were trading flat for a while. It seemed like they thought Trump would delay the tariffs or announce something more minimal or have a bunch of carve outs like he did last time for big companies or sectors.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Did that whiff by Wall Street surprise you?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, he just fundamentally doesn't seem to believe in the fact that there can be win-win transactions where I give you money for a thing and I'm happy that I have the thing and not sad that you took my money.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
So you guys are also going to hear my conversation with a longtime economics writer named James Surowiecki about the details of Trump's tariffs and why the White House's tariff math just made no sense. Then you're going to hear my interview with Susan Rice. We recorded that on Wednesday. She's the former National Security Advisor, Ambassador to the U.N., White House Domestic Policy Council Chair.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
James Sirwicki, thank you so much for doing the show. I really appreciate it.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
We talk about Signalgate, Trump appeasing Russia, RFK's assault on our public health, and a lot more. And then finally, at the end of the show, you're going to hear just a brief interview of a conversation I had with my friend Ashley Parker. She's a staff writer at The Atlantic.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And Ashley wrote this beautiful, funny, tearjerker of an essay about miscarriage and pregnancy loss, which longtime listeners of the show might know is something that unfortunately my wife Hannah and I have also experienced. So that full conversation is available on the Pod Save America YouTube. I hope you'll give it a listen, but you can hear an excerpt of it at the end of this episode.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
So like I said, a packed show, but a great one. So let's start with the tariffs. On Wednesday, President Trump made an appearance in the Rose Garden. He announced his long awaited tariffs on basically every country he says treats America poorly on trade. The specifics here were a big mystery until the moment he announced them with his big stupid charts, and they were far worse than expected.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
No matter where you live or who your landlord is, your rent now works for you. Second, gain access to exclusive neighborhood benefits in your city. Built neighborhood benefits are things like extra points on dining out, complimentary post-workout shakes, free mats or towels at your favorite fitness studios and unique experiences that only Built members can access.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Trump announced a baseline 10% tariff on all U.S. imports, far steeper tariffs on countries Trump declared were the worst offenders, including some of our closest allies like the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and others. China got hit with a 54% tariff. They're vowing retaliation.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Back to Congress. So good. It makes me so happy.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
That's all we got. That's all we got. Well, let's talk about the Democratic Party, because ever since November, the Democratic Party, we've been engaged in some recriminations, some infighting. Yes. But also, I think a pretty good faith bit of soul searching about who we are and how to run going forward.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And more recently, the debate has been less about policy or ideological lines and more about how hard to fight. So I assume you're on you're on team fight and team fight very hard. Of course. If so, what are you seeing out there that feels smart tactically or, I don't know, is just genuinely inspiring you?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And to make matters worse and more confusing, Trump's 25% tariffs on foreign-made cars also went into effect on Thursday. So in total, about 90 countries will be affected, including a number of uninhabited islands. So we're going to stick it to those fucking penguins. So we're recording this on Thursday afternoon Pacific time. Markets have closed for the day. The S&P dropped nearly 5%.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Trump got asked about the stock market dip at the White House today next to the roaring helicopter engines, as always, and responded with some new spin. Let's listen.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And we had a candidate for a long time who was just self-evidently too old. But to your point about resting on his laurels, one person who was not resting on his laurels this week was Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey. He delivered a marathon 25-hour speech on the Senate floor.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Booker broke the record for the longest floor speech in history, which had been held by a horrible racist senator named Strom Thurmond when he was trying to block civil rights legislation. Here's a clip of what Cory Booker had to say during part of this long speech.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
So my view on Cory Booker, on Bernie and AOC doing the town halls, Ro Khanna's town halls, all the members of Congress and in the Senate who are filming vertical video and clearly not comfortable with it and don't want to be doing anymore. It's like, good for you. Keep putting up shots. I'm proud of you guys. More is more. I think the point you made earlier is the most important one, which is
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
We worry way too much about what we say and not about whether what we say is reaching people and breaking through is the hardest part. So we just got to keep putting shots on goal.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
To your point about a simple message, my constructive criticism for Cory Booker would be, again, I'm really glad he did this, but my one note to him would be like, it was not always clear to me what he was filibustering about, like what the core simple message was or purpose of the filibuster.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
A lot of the messaging I saw was about the fact that he did it, which of course is cool and I'm proud of him and I think it's awesome. But it's you know, I think we need to be like, look, the State of the Union protest was you don't have a mandate to cut Medicare. Right. Right. Standing up there shaking his what's his name? God, I'm forgetting his name.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Jesus Christ. Al Green. Al Green. You don't have a mandate to cut Medicare. Booker's. Booker's was less clear to your point earlier, too. I mean. I think Democrats do worry a bit about expectations management. I know you heard that a lot early on. We have no power. We don't have the Senate. We don't have the House.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Even the Tim Walz comments you mentioned earlier about how voters are going to be expecting universal Medicare. On the part of me, the angel on my shoulder, that makes me excited because I would love to see us move to a universal system.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
The anxious political operative on my shoulder thinks back to, you know, the 2020, 2019 debates where we were all fighting about how fast we were going to implement Medicare for all, right? And like, ultimately, the votes were just not there. The political will wasn't necessarily there.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
So I don't want to like raise people's expectations and then let them down and have another generation of people feeling like, oh, the fucking Democrats, you know, they promised so much. and they don't deliver. But I guess right now in this moment, all I want to see is people fighting and doing things and like putting their hearts out there and making the case.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And I think that's why I thought what Cory Booker did was good.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
What pristine audio. Emma, Trump has clearly made inroads with blue collar voters in the last couple of elections, especially in communities that were hit hard by NAFTA or other free trade agreements. He believes that tariffs are how he can convince those communities that he cares about them and that he's fighting for them. How do you think Democrats should respond to that?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, he was self-evidently too old. And there was a suggestion in 2019 in a Politico story that he would be a one-term president and viewed himself as a bridge to the next generation. I think all of us bought into that and believed it. And I think the 2022 midterms happened. The White House started to believe its own spin and decided that only Joe Biden could win again.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And then, you know, you're reading... don't want to belabor these books, but there's all these Biden books coming out. And you're starting to read anecdotes about top aides in the Biden campaign talking about how disastrous the debate prep was and how Biden had no second term agenda and couldn't articulate what he wanted to do.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And then also at the same time saying that it was wrong for him to have dropped out or to have gotten pushed out. And I'm just like, how can you possibly believe that? It's like it was not only Joe Biden. I mean, the the the sin was Joe Biden running for reelection. But then the month between the fucking debate and him dropping out just absolutely screwed.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Kamala Harris foreclosed any chance of doing some sort of mini primary type thing. that made her, I think she ultimately would have been the nominee no matter what, but that would have made it look like it came through a legitimate process and not this coronation via a Joe Biden statement. He just sort of screwed us throughout that whole time period.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And, you know, frankly, they kind of kneecapped her publicly in the days following the debate performance by releasing that memo that crapped on a lot of people, including me. Congrats. But, you know, talked about how all the polling showed that Joe Biden was beating all of his rivals, including Kamala Harris. I was like, guys, you're shitting on your own vice president. What are you doing here?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
But anyway, so the final question for you, like the flip side of our mostly happy, mostly constructive talk is there are some corners of the Internet, mostly Twitter, where it feels like 2016 never ended. It's like 2016 Groundhog Day. You see, you know, moderates pointing the finger at leftists and blaming them for election losses.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
You see the kind of more red rose DSA crew angry that liberals are punching left or suggesting that anyone who doesn't hold, you know, the kind of like the maximalist policy position is a sellout or a corporate stooge or whatever. How do you think we get past this?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Like, can we heal these divides or is it just the reality that intra-party fighting always feels and is the worst because it's your friends fighting with your friends?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, I'm with you. Like a shared vision of boldness, candidates that look like they're fighting. Barack Obama ran on, you know, not taking PAC money and a whole bunch of efforts to clean up Washington in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandals of 2006, which old heads might remember.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
I totally agree with you that economic inequality is completely out of control and figuring out some just clear, simple formulation for how you're going to get it in line, whether it's a billionaire's tax, whether it's Elizabeth Warren, you know, two percent of assets, whatever it might be. And then I do think like for the next four years, we just have to go about.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
coalition building where we're all mindful of the need to build the biggest possible tent. The coalition to end the war in Gaza in the Trump era has to include the isolationist, Rand Paul, Republican types, and then the far left. And those of us who care about the people in Gaza can't be purists. We can't say that you have to say the word genocide to be a part of this coalition.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
You can't say you have to believe exactly what I believe because that's just bad politics, right? The lesson-
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Look, no, I'm not arguing that. I've been opposed to this war from the very beginning. I'm talking about the way we talk about issues, the way we decide who can be part of a coalition or a movement and just making sure it's as broad as possible because authoritarian movements everywhere, they do well when the opposition, the left usually, is divided.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
That's how they succeed because they rarely get 50% of the vote. They're like, winning with pluralities at like 43, 44%, you know, sort of Trumpian numbers. And I think it's just a good lesson to learn. But we covered a lot of ground, Emma. Thank you so much for doing the show today. It was great talking with you. I really appreciate it and hope to do it again soon.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
So thanks so much. Thank you. Okay. We're going to take a quick break before we get to my interview with Susan Rice. But before we do, I just wanted to say that we would be really grateful if you subscribed to the Pod Save America YouTube channel. You guys are probably seeing all these reports and studies about how Democrats are getting crushed by conservatives on YouTube.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
That is a real problem because a lot of people, especially young people, use YouTube primarily as a search engine. And what they find is right wing garbage. So please subscribe to Pod Save America. Help us grow. Help us get good information pushed into the YouTube algorithm. And also, as long as I have the mic here and Dan and John can't stop me, subscribe to Pod Save the World.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
my foreign policy show with Ben Rhodes. We talk about the biggest stories in the world every week and how they intersect with policy in Washington. New episodes of Pod Save the World drop every Wednesday. Okay, when we come back, you're going to hear my interview with Susan Rice.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
My guest today served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, National Security Advisor to President Obama, and as Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council. Susan Rice, great to see you.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
All right, Susan, we're talking on Wednesday, April 2nd, which is Liberation Day, according to Donald Trump. Speaking of liberation, though, last night, Democrats finally got a win both electorally and spiritually, thanks to the good people of Wisconsin. Susan Crawford crushed her Republican opponent in the state Supreme Court race there.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
How are you feeling about how the Democrats are fighting back now that we're a few months into Trump 2.0?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
How do you not pee for 25 hours? How do you not pee for 25 hours? I don't mean to focus on the stupid shit, but come on.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
You know, credit to him. Like, I like I love seeing people trying like fight in your own way.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah. Speaking of physical vigor, what territory do you think will annex in Trump's third term? Will it be like Mexico to make it easy logistically? Are we going to go for a nice island like New Zealand or Tasmania? How are you thinking about this?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And when you're ready to travel, Built points can be converted to your favorite miles and hotel points around the world, meaning your rent can literally take you places. So if you're not earning points on rent, my question is, what are you waiting for? Start paying rent through Built and take advantage of your neighborhood benefits by going to joinbuilt.com slash crooked.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, it always starts as trolling. Then he starts to believe his own trolling. And so I take it seriously. But mostly it just pisses me off. Like, hey, buddy, I don't think your approval rating is going to be at a place where you're going to be able to win a third term. But that's just me.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, I mean, it really is remarkable. I mean, Mark Carney, the new prime minister of Canada, gave a speech last week where he basically was like, the old cooperation, the old relationship with the United States is now dead. I think a lot of the reaction you're seeing, which I'm hearing from people too, Canadians are genuinely really pissed and angry. And a lot of that is the 51st state
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
But there is the economic piece. I mean, we're recording this before we learn what Liberation Day actually means in practice in terms of the tariffs. But Donald Trump is talking about crushing their economy. And we should just be clear that if we crush the Canadian economy, that will irreparably harm our economy, too.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
No, no, we were not signing up for a fight with Canada. It's just crazy. So as I said at the top, you were President Obama's National Security Advisor for several years.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
In the last week or two, we learned that Mike Waltz, who's Donald Trump's national security advisor, he's been holding principal committee meetings about bombing Yemen on Signal, which is a commercially available communications app.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
The Washington Post reported that Waltz and his staff have also been using Gmail for government work, including sharing, quote, highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict, end quote.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And we learned that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been bringing his spouse to meetings with his foreign counterparts. Susan, what the fuck? What are the national security implications of this just like reckless behavior?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, I mean, McKinley's so hot right now. I mean, I wish he wasn't, but there's just a lot of McKinley emulation happening in the Republican Party. You're right, though. I was just watching a speech by Rand Paul, who was like, hey, this is a massive tax increase, and you're trying to do it through this bizarre tariff authority that has never been used before, and you're going around Congress.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
to over 2.39 million people over the coming three years. Does that sound like a man who's preparing for peace? No, this is a guy dramatically escalating and growing his military and preparing for conflict.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, who just don't seem to care. Last question for you. The Trump administration just pulled Elise Stefanik's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N. There's some reporting today in Politico and other places that the Trump administration has reached out to a bunch of people about taking the job and they've sort of said thanks, but no thanks. It seems like
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Like, none of this is acceptable by the book or how it's supposed to go. And to your point about... the timeline of revving up American manufacturing, you're hearing some people say, well, you know, there's auto plants in the Midwest that are operating at 60% capacity and those could go up to 80 or 90 or 100. You're hearing that even from Sean Fain from the UAW. Right.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
given the names have been floated, that this role will primarily be focused on running interference for Israel and kind of browbeating countries Trump doesn't like. But you were the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Can you just make the case for why this role is important, why it's still important under the Trump administration, how bizarre it is that they can't seem to fill the billet?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, you're probably going to get sent up there to destroy the organization from within to the extent that you can. Maybe you'll get invited to the Signal Chat, though. That could be cool. Susan, great to see you. Thank you so much for coming on the show and really appreciate this tour of the world we just did.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And finally, here's a quick excerpt of my conversation with Ashley Parker about pregnancy loss. You can listen to the rest of this conversation on the Pod Save America YouTube channel and read her essay at The Atlantic. So one thing I also want to talk about in the piece that is really important
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
is you talk about how after miscarriage, one thing that often happens involves a procedure called the DNC. A lot of people probably don't know what a DNC is, but I won't get into all the detail. You can if you want, but it's essentially indistinguishable from an abortion. And knowing that, having sat through
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
multiple DNCs with Hannah was part of what made like the recent abortion political debate so infuriating to me because very often, you know, women who desperately want to have kids can't and they have to have an abortion. They have to have a DNC to protect their own health, to preserve their ability to have children in the future. But some of the more draconian laws that were passed in states are
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
But I was talking to an expert on Monday. He was like, I'm not so sure that that capacity is going to be filled by human beings as opposed to robots. And also like retooling and revving back up these factories, even if they exist already, can take a really long time. So I'm with you. It feels like it's pie in the sky to me.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
essentially require women to be literally near death before doctors are allowed to treat them. And Ashley, I couldn't help but imagine like if Hannah and I went through the pain of the pregnancy loss and then we went to a doctor and the doctor was like, hey man, sorry, I can't help you until her organs are failing. Like I would have been in jail for homicide.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
You know, that was kind of my reaction.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
I had not even thought about it that way. Like if you are pregnant, should you travel to Texas? I mean, that is Jesus Christ was happening in this country. Yeah. And just in your defense, I mean, I don't think you depend. I didn't I didn't know what a DNC was until I learned about it after we we needed one. I didn't know that there was I think people think miscarriage.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Like they think the movies, right? Like blood in a toilet. Right. That's not what it is. It's a really painful and at times it can be a scarring procedure that can prevent you from having kids in the future.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash crooked. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Joinbuilt.com slash crooked to sign up for Built today.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
That's our show for today. Thanks again to Emma for coming in. Thanks to Susan Rice for coming by. Thank you, Ashley Parker, for talking with me for YouTube.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Love It will be back in the feed on Sunday with a special interview with Michael Lewis, the culture-changing author of Moneyball, The Big Short, and countless other great books about his new book on the people that make the government work and why he thinks Elon Musk has no idea what he's doing. You don't want to miss it.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, I was just watching Fox News and there was a host named Will Kane who was doing a segment who was like, look, today the markets are down, the S&P is down, the NASDAQ, the Dow. But what do we mean by down? And then he threw up a zoomed out chart of the market that went back like one year or five years.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
And boy, you know, the cope is strong when these guys are doing a five year chart of the S&P 500 and be like. We're doing like a what's the definition of is kind of conversation a la Bill Clinton in the 90s. It didn't feel like they're on their strongest footing.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
But on the Democratic Party piece of this, do you think it's enough to make the argument that you're making, which I find very compelling, by the way, because it's true, against tariffs that there are regressive backdoor way to raise taxes on people? Or does that need to be married up with some sort of positive agenda, even if we have no power at the federal level for four years?
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Yeah, it's worth noting. I mean, on Thursday, Senator Chuck Grassley, who's a senior Republican, and Maria Cantwell, who's a very senior Democrat, introduced a bill that would require approval from Congress for all tariffs within 60 days. Congress also passed a more limited measure regarding tariffs on Canada.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
Now, pretty big open question of whether the House of Representatives would ever call up a bill like this, even if it passed the Senate. I consider me skeptical. But the other piece of this that I just wanted to hit on quickly is, What's so kind of bizarre about this tariff announcement is Trump ran on the threat from China.
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Trump's "Liberation Day" Crashes the Stock Market
But instead of focusing on China with his tariffs, we are taking this broad based approach. We're tariffing all of our closest allies. And then earlier this week, we're reading reports that Countries like Japan, South Korea were meeting with China trilaterally for the first time in five years to discuss how to coordinate their response to US tariffs. That was according to Chinese state media.
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Will Elon Find the Epstein Files Before It's Too Late?
Beam Dream is good. Tastes really good. Yeah.
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Trump's Indefensible Pardons
How many genders are there, Tommy? The honest answer, Jesse, I don't care. I'm a libertarian. I don't care.
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Trump's Indefensible Pardons
Well, I'm not a Democrat, and that we know. I haven't seen this enemies list. Can you show me this list? Yeah, read Kash Patel's book, The New FBI Director. You should check it out.
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Trump's Indefensible Pardons
I know there was FBI agents on the ground on January 6th, and then they destroyed evidence in the committee, and then everybody gets preemptive pardons? What's that all about? Just doing kind of a greatest hits of conspiracy. We can do lab leak now.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
a take so bad it might get you in thrown in jail uh in sarah longwell's defense she was right there i mean seltzer has historically been right she has been someone who's been willing to put out polls that did not match the herded class but yeah it ended up being very very wrong look we we all saw we were getting on a plane to uh to vegas from phoenix and we were uh we were cheering
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I love making up your own system. It's like a it's like a degenerate gambler. It's like I always hit on red sevens.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I mean, it wasn't an original thought. It was sort of the dumbest thing you could pull for in the moment.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
That guy's, I think, I believe, fully red-pilled now. Oh, that checks out. That checks.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah. Yeah. Pretty white. That one wins for me because it's when you when you think of the most ridiculous theory, Joe Biden should not run for reelection as racist. I think is number one.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Right. The Commission on Presidential Debates was formed in 1987. This wasn't like the founding fathers. What are we talking about here?
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think if Travis had just left out that one clause about the makeup of the consultant class, he had a great point, which is we didn't do great with young men this cycle.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
My favorite part is when Vivek pretends he's an equal partner in this Doge thing. Yeah. Yeah, just like he's like, you know, Elon walks around with his kid on his shoulders at all times. That's a little silly guy.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You'll be on the lawsuit. I don't like your collective tone.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Look, Joe Biden shouldn't have run again. The hard part about this was what people don't remember is in the 2020 primary, there was also a conversation about Joe Biden's age. I think we all were on the side that he was probably too old to be running then. Said as much on the show. He won the primary. That made them very angry. They didn't speak to us for four years.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And so in the midterms happened, I think Joe Biden took the wrong message from in 2022 that Democratic success in a midterm when a bunch of completely. Outside the mainstream, crazy Republicans ran for Senate seats and lost like Dr. Oz, that it meant that the White House was strong, that he should run for election. And that was some sort of indication of his political strength.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Obviously, it was not. But I felt like from my position, like I was wrong in 2020. Who am I going to tell the incumbent president not to run for president? in that moment outside some sort of like major event or indication.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
We talked a thousand times about the polling about his age, concerns about it. We would constantly ask the question, how do you fix this? And I think almost every one of those conversations started with, I don't know that it is fixable, but if it is, here are the things I would try to do. They didn't really try to do any of those things because obviously there's been all this reporting now that
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Keeping a full schedule was challenging for the president, et cetera, et cetera. So we don't have to belabor all of this, but that's kind of the backstory that people don't remember.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, it's funny that Elon Musk does a lot of business in China, a lot of factories, a lot of Teslas would want restrictions on U.S. outbound investment in China to get knocked out of the bill.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, the only problem with it is it's got to be some percentage performance art, right? They know what they're doing. They know this is so crazy and ridiculous it's going to get me clicks.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Right. That's that's like the tour. I know this is new to you, but yeah, it's not new. Right.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Not anti-vaccine, I just think it will kill you, which I will repeat to everyone I see. Boy, do I feel safe.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
This is- This is a good example of where we need members of Congress to for once be really disciplined at his confirmation hearing and not give speeches and just be like prosecutors narrowing in, asking him question after question to try to get him to say what he really thinks. Because he's also said that he thinks the polio vaccine killed many, many more people than polio ever did.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You know, he says things like he has this veneer of just asking questions or I'm, you know, I just want more data or research. But underneath that are really radical views and they just got to tease him out of them.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Oh, that would be great. He'll be good. He'll be very good on this. By the way, if the J6 committee goes to jail, we should produce a song with them.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think vaccines for me. No. Oh, well, not to the fun. Take this. Not dogs and cats.
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No, that's fine. I imagine more of a rusted root, Dan, if we're being honest.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
For love it. I mean. Selling nitrous balloons and.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Oh, no. I think Kristi Noem is a potential favorite to be the vice presidential nominee. Electoral benefits of South Dakota? There are none. But I do think the Trump campaign knows that abortion is likely to be the single biggest headwind for their campaign. They want diversity on the ticket. That could be gender based. That could also be racial diversity.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think they'll ultimately decide that Donald Trump is going to need to peel off some of the suburban women that he has lost to Joe Biden. They're going to need to try to push back on concerns about stripping away abortion access. She's terrible on the policy, but I do think they're going to view it as an identity. This is a great take. This is a totally fine take.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
This was before the puppy killing thing came out. Key context. The puppy murder. And this was me and Brian Tyler Cohen ranking 10 different candidates. So we had to make a case for everyone we chose.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Well, the adrenochrome was really flying around at that point.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Squeeze their nuts while you judge them so they don't move.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
All of us are really taking this well and not at all getting defensive about our taste. I didn't go off for five minutes about how I was on a different show.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Political science isn't science. And I think you have to allow for uncertainty. And when you speak in such definitive ways, I think you really leave yourself open to being punched down or up. Yeah.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Maybe the one from the live stream he did that night where he was like, ah.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Next year, I want to skip this recording again so that I cannot be held accountable once again. I somehow got on a list that has led me to get dozens of cold emails from random tech consultants. I want to find that list. destroy it and destroy whoever created it.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
I think what happened is I decided to come in just being a jackass with jokes and you guys were serious and it kind of changed the vibe.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
The irony of you saying this, Dan, is you write books. I wrote books.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Unbelievable. We thought we'd get a little more mileage out of them, but it turns out it's short but sweet. Like the Viagra of Etsy purchases, you know, one-time deal.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
You know it doesn't make you feel good. What's the goal? Talk to me.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Who are the big CRM managers? Salesforce. Salesforce. Coming for them, coming for your tower. I want to talk to more smart people off air, experts. Talk to a really smart guy about Sudan and Somaliland today. I could elaborate if you guys want to hear more about it. I love it. Classic Tommy resolution.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
It's really helpful to talk to these very smart, nerdy, nice people and just do it to get smarter on background. That's the thing I like doing. I want to get good at using AI tools. I tried to use ChatGPT to write me a list of resolutions and I failed. So I want to get better at that.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
So Tommy, experts and AI. Experts. Maybe there's some overlap there.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Yeah, we'll see who wins. Let us know. Pick your fighter. Finally, I've been reading a book about mindfulness meditation, but I haven't been doing it. I think it'd be good to do it. It's good for you. Okay.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
And beautiful performances. And the performances. Incredible.
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Well, that's just premature. If only, if only. You got the top right, you're just wrong. Not the primary, the general.
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The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024
Who was the first one? The first one was the worst, right?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
As you mentioned, you met with the vice president yesterday. What did the vice president say when you requested that they return Kilmar to the United States?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
And it also seems clear that the Trump administration has not asked- for him to be returned? You know, it sort of felt in the meeting with Bukele that, well, we can't, it's up to him. He doesn't want to do it. So, you know, that's the end of the matter. But they also haven't asked, right? There's no evidence that they have done anything to facilitate, correct?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Obviously, in clear violation of the Supreme Court, the Fourth Circuit just weighed in on this. Have you had a chance to see that opinion?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
One of the theories, other than just pure cruelty about why the Trump administration is so unwilling to address what is their own admitted error, is that if Kilmar were to come home, he could talk about what he saw in that prison, which is notorious for torture, starvation, absolute violations of human rights. Do you assume that to be the case as well?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
I know you're focused on getting Kilmar freed, but over the last 36 hours here, the Trump administration has engaged in a full-throated effort to try to smear his character, putting out evidence that claims he's a domestic abuser, comparing him to Osama bin Laden in one case, saying he's a proven gang member. What's your response to that effort?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
So what happens now? You know, what realistically can be done? What are you going to do next? What leverage do Democrats or others back home have in this matter, do you think?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Senator Van Hollen, thank you for joining us. Thank you for what you're doing and safe travels home. Thanks so much. Thank you.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
First, good for Van Hollen for going, right? We need people to draw public attention to this. Just as you heard in his interview, like what a surreal authoritarian experience. He can't get to the prison. He can't get information. No one in the embassy has heard anything. Just the fact that it is very clear that Trump has done – as I said to Senator Van Hollen, like in the Oval Office meeting –
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It's like, we asked. He said no. What do you want us to do? But what's very clear from Van Hollen's visit is no one asked. Right. They've done nothing to try to bring him home and seem to be trying very hard to keep him from getting any information. I mean, just as Van Hollen noted, no one has spoken to Kilmar since he went into the prison.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Not his lawyer, not his family, not Senator Van Hollen, no one. And that is, as Senator Van Hollen said to me, a violation of international law.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
No, I agree. I think people should keep going. The second public attention moves to the next thing, we've lost this. And this is not just about Kilmar. This is for everyone who's already been sent and everyone who's going to be sent. And so people should keep going. The only weapon that we have in this environment is public attention and public scrutiny.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
And we got to keep it focused on this for as long as we possibly can.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
First, I will stipulate happily that all the public opinion research says that the best way to drive down Trump's approval rating is to talk about the economy. Tariffs, inflation, economic chaos, market drops, tax cuts for billionaires, cuts to Medicaid. That is without a doubt the most persuasive message in all the polling. I'm not arguing that.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
I do, however, think that Democrats look cowardly, calculating, and fucking ridiculous if our response to the father and husband of a US citizen being sent illegally in defiance of a Supreme Court order to a foreign gulag is to vomit up some poll test at talking points about tariffs, to turn our back to it. That is absurd. Who are we and what do we stand for if we do that?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
We don't always get to pick the fights. Trump gets to pick them most of the time. The fights come to us, and we have to decide how to win them. And at this moment, with so much on the line, not just for Kilmer, Obrego, Garcia, but for democracy, for the rule of law, for due process, this is an important fight.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
And the idea that Democrats lose every time we talk about immigration is such learned helplessness, it drives me bananas. Yes, it is a strong issue for Trump. Yes, people want a stronger border. Yes, people want gang members and violent criminals out of this country.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Yes, they want less chaos at the border, and they want, frankly, a lot of the migrants who came here in the last few years to go home. But – but –
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
The people they do not want deported, the people who have, like Kilmer, who have been here for 10 years, who are married to a US citizen, who have US citizen children in this country, people who are gainfully employed, people who are paying taxes, abiding by the law, those are the people that majorities of Americans, including large swaths of Republicans, believe should be given an opportunity
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
for a path to citizenship, to find a way to have them stay here. Pay taxes, follow the law, go to the back of the line, whatever else. But that is what people believe. When they think about mass deportation, they don't think about people like Kilmer, Obrego, Garcia. And if we turned our blind eye here, we are seeding the ground. I think Democrats are learning the wrong lesson from 2024.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
We did not lose on immigration because we talked about people like Kilmer, Obrego, Garcia too much. We lost because we seeded the issue to Donald Trump. We allowed him to decide that immigration was about border security and border security only. And we tried to out-tough him on who would be tougher on transnational gangs. Of course, he's going to win that fight.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
But when you brought in the issue to talk about who is actually going to solve the problem The complex problem of immigration in this country, if you talk about what mass deportation means for people who have been in this country for a long time, for our communities, for the workforce, that is a fight we can win. And we just never tried to win it.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
So this idea that this is some sort of trap is idiocy. But it also – it's a fight we can win. We have a lot of public opinion on our side here. And so I just – It is so frustrating that our party, in the face of something so serious, so dangerous, so real, would be such prisoners to polls for an election that's happening in 16 months is exactly why people hate politics.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
I'm so pulsing with rage right now over this. It's like if we are not willing to stand up here, then I don't know what we are fighting for or what we stand for or who we are.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
You know where people find out what the egg prices are? It's not from a press release from a Democratic member of Congress. It's when they go to the grocery store.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Yeah. If we wanted to have a debate about what the ad traffic should be in New York 17 or wherever in October of 2026... That's a real debate. We are not there. This is happening.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
And if Democrats don't speak out about it, and this has been my argument that I've been making in recent weeks, is we know the media just doesn't have the reach or the power to make people know about these things right now. And the only thing we can do, the only power we have right now is our voice. We don't have the ability to pass legislation to stop him.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
We don't have the ability to stop him from confirming these judges. We just don't. We have no tools other than our voice. So we should use that right now. Because if we don't do it, no one else is going to do it. And then Trump is going to get away with all of this.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Obviously, Chris Murphy's been talking about this stuff. Cory Booker's been talking about it. AOC and Bernie talked about it at the rallies over the weekend. More and more people are talking about it. But there is still this instinctual... reticence to take Trump on on these issues that I think is going to be very damaging to the party in the long run, not to mention the country itself.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
I mean, there's individual political benefit for someone who wants to be president. There's also collective political benefit for the party to be seen as people who will fight for something.
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I think we should take them deadly seriously. It was just this time last week that you and I were talking about the President of the United States sitting in the Oval Office and signing two executive orders to target two specific individuals for the crime of criticizing the regime to instruct the Department of Justice to investigate them. So...
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Like Seb Gorka and Brendan Carr, frankly, are deeply unserious people. But the Trump era is about unserious people having deadly serious power. And so we should expect them to wield that in ways that could be quite dangerous.
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Yeah, the foreign students pay full freight. They are not eligible for financial aid in the way that US students are. Oftentimes, they are children of wealthy people abroad, or their education is being funded by nonprofits or organizations from abroad. So the students who are paying full tuition are subsidizing the tuitions of the kids who are getting financial aid.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
So if you were to get rid of all the foreign students, what that would mean is that tuition for everyone else would go up. Which would be just the pitch-perfect addition to the Trump agenda to raise prices on every American in every facet of their lives. We're going to do it for smartphones. We're going to do it for car seats. We're going to do it for eggs.
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We're going to do it for college tuition, too.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
That would be a massive deal for Harvard because it would mean they would all of a sudden owe taxes on everything, including their $60 billion, whatever it is, endowment, property taxes, state taxes. It also would reduce their ability to raise money because donations to a university – are tax deductible. There's often part of the charitable giving plans of foundations or individuals.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
So for example, when Jared Kushner's dad bought that building so that Jared Kushner could go to Harvard, he got to write that off on his taxes. And so they would owe more money and they'd be able to raise less money. And now the question is, can they actually do that? The president does not have unilateral authority to do it, although the IRS are the ones who
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decide whether someone has tax-exempt status, there is a pretty narrow statutory definition for what you cannot do to retain your tax-exempt status. And it's a certain amount of political lobbying and becoming a private, you know, profiteering.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
And so theoretically, in a world where there were rules and norms and court decisions abided by, they would have to prove that Harvard did something to violate their tax status on those very narrow statutory grounds. And so the second one happened, which I would find it hard to imagine that Harvard did anything like that. It can't be we didn't like their response to the Gaza protests.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
It cannot be a broad, unsubstantiated allegation of anti-Semitism. It cannot be political speech. It cannot be bias.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
But none of those things – you cannot do this on First Amendment grounds. That is very clear in case law that you cannot take away their tax status because you do not like what they say in a world where there are norms and laws and people – in court decisions, people abide by them.
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Well, I mean, Columbia had learned the lesson pretty quickly since they caved and then Trump immediately demanded more from them.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
I think we have to stop trying to litigate this on each individual data point and make a broader argument about abuse of power. Yeah. There's a very interesting Navigator poll out today which talks about how people are feeling about Trump and one of their big concerns is abuse of power and thinking he's above the law. And I think these are examples of that.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
We need to tell a story, not just respond, not play whack-a-mole with every single thing Trump does.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
I mean, this one is... Alarming and fascinating on a whole host of levels. I mean, the market chaos of firing Powell would be devastating and be somewhat akin to the freak out in the bond market that caused Trump to back off the reciprocal tariffs. Because it would do two things.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
One, replacing Powell with a Trump goon like Kevin Hassett, the goober at the NEC, which is what was speculated in some of the reporting today, would raise questions about the independence of U.S. monetary policy, obviously, which would ring into question the idea that the U.S. is the world's reserve currency, which is the foundation of economic strength.
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So that would – real fears of financial crisis is sparking global recession there. But then also – The reason he wants to fire him, as he said on True Social, is because he wants Powell to cut rates. The reason Powell is not cutting rates more is because he's worried about inflation, sparked in part because of Trump's policies like tariffs. And so if you bring someone in –
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And during a time of possibly growing inflation and have them cut rates, you're going to lead to more inflation and to be deeply damaging to our economy and the world. And so that's what happens. It puts there. The interesting question here is like Trump obviously wants to bully him out. Like that's the easiest path.
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Just force him to resign like he did Christopher Wray and some other people within the government. If he wants to fire him, it is believed he does not have the power to do that. that the Fed has independence.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
But what not just Trump, but the right has wanted forever is to test the idea of the unitary executive theory, the idea that Trump has control over the entire executive branch, including independent agencies, including the Fed. And so this would be, if he fired him, probably be stopped. It would go to the Supreme Court.
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And then we would test this big case, which would have massive implications for the balance of power in this country.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Yeah. That was my reaction. It's like, wow, we are here. We could scream about it because she could do more, although her power is certainly limited within that caucus. But I think it's just, it's a real statement from where we are that a Republican senator, one with an independent base of political power, right?
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Trump really can't, of all the Republican senators, she's the hardest one for him to do something to.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
You're right. It's all we have. And you have to believe it. Maybe it's a naive hope, but that it can matter. We still have elections coming up. We still have the ability to... shape what is going to happen in this country. And we have to take advantage of that. But it begins with, we're only going to do well in those elections if everyone understands the stakes.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
And what we can do right now is help people understand the stakes of that election. Yes. Yes.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
You're exactly right. This is the moment. We are not 100 days into the Trump presidency yet, and we are headed towards a massive collision between the judicial and executive branches of our country, the results of which will, I think, affect our democracy for generations to come.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Here's where I'm going to have to admit something to you. I think I sent you this story the night it came out.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
I had not read the whole thing at the time because I had to stop reading it. And then this morning in our editorial meeting, you suggested we add this to the podcast. I sure did. I argued against it. I was outvoted two to one by you and Reed. And I tried to read it all the way through again, and I could not. It's so fucking weird and so gross.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
And the grossness and weirdness of it is – like if he was just Elon Musk, head of Tesla and SpaceX and whatever else, it would be weird and gross and disgusting. The fact that he is now the second most powerful person in our government who is making decisions about what government programs exist and which do not, who has access to all of our –
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Data or health data, tax data, financial data is so concerning. This person has just an insane level of apocalyptic narcissism. Just imagine this in yourself. The world's coming to an end, and the only solution is more me. And for more me, I'm going to start DMing random women to have babies with them and then pay them. According to the Wall Street Journal, to be clear.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Is that like the opening line, do you think? Yeah.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Just the idea the judicial branch exists as a check and a balance on executive to ensure that the president is not king. And if we lose that at a time in which the Congress is controlled all by the president's party, all of whom seem to have never read a constitution and don't care either way, then Trump has unlimited power. This is where we're heading. Will Trump step back from the brink?
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Joining us now in studio is the congressman from Maryland's 8th congressional district and the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin. Great to see you.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Thank you for being here in person in Los Angeles. Sorry it's not warmer out.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Well said. So Dan Pfeiffer just spoke with your fellow Maryland delegation member, Senator Chris Van Hollen. He is in El Salvador right now trying to meet with Kilmar Obrego-Garcia, the Maryland man who even the Trump administration has admitted was wrongly sent to El Salvador. The Supreme Court has ordered the administration to facilitate his return, but the White House so far has refused.
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I think it's notable he said that you have to talk to his lawyers. But if he doesn't step back from the brink, will anyone speak up? who's not an elected Democratic member of Congress? Will any Republicans speak up? Will any Republicans not employed by the bulwark speak up? Will business leaders speak up?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
If that continues, what can Congress do to put pressure on the White House or the government of El Salvador to bring him back?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Right, due process. Yeah, and Trump has now repeatedly said that he is interested in sending American citizens to this very same prison, potentially other foreign prisons. You're a former constitutional law professor. Where does that idea land on the range from unconstitutional to constitutional?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Will anyone in American society speak up if he operates in pure defiance of these court orders? Because this is where it comes to. Ultimately, if Judge Boasberg decides that someone has to be put in jail because they're held in contempt, the U.S. Marshals have to put that person in jail. Who controls the U.S. Marshals? Donald Trump.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Do you see these reports that Eric Prince, who folks might recall, was the head of Blackwater, which is this private mercenary group that was responsible for a horrific massacre in Iraq in 2007 that I think irreparably damaged the U.S. relationship with the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people and was horrific in its own right.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
But apparently Eric Prince and some defense contractors are pitching the White House on the idea of building more prisons in El Salvador and maybe declaring some of the territory down there to be U.S. soil to get around some of the legal provisions you're talking about? Does any of that strike you as potentially legal?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Into a prison where it's well known that people are tortured and killed. I'm interested in ways that Democrats can push back now. I realize that we do not have majorities in either the House or the Senate. It's very challenging. But I was talking to a very smart Latin America policy expert earlier this week who suggested to me.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
that Democrats should threaten to take action against any foreign government that participates in the extraordinary rendition of American citizens. The idea being, we say to them, look, if you mess with American citizens, we will cut off future assistance. We will seek to prosecute foreign officials involved in these illegal actions. Basically, we publicly warn these leaders,
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Trump's in power now. We're going to be back at some point, maybe in the midterms. We're keeping score. Thoughts on that idea?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Yeah, we can effectuate that outcome. You talked about some nerdy jokes there. An anonymous House Democrat told Axios that Democrats are falling into a trap set by Trump by talking about these deportations. This is a quote from that story, an anonymous quote, but a quote. Rather than talking about the tariff policy and the economy, we're going to take the bait for one day. hairdresser.
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That's a reference, I believe, to Andri Hernandez-Ramiro, a gay Venezuelan makeup artist who the White House baselessly called a member of Trend de Aragua and sent to El Salvador. Your response to this anonymous political advice.
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Yeah. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, kind of, is busy revoking the valid green cards and visas of students who express views the administration disagrees with.
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People like Rumesa Ozturk, who's the Tufts University student, who a bunch of masked ICE agents grabbed off the street, sent to a detention center in Louisiana for signing an op-ed that was pretty banal, frankly, and critical of the university's stance on Israel or the war in Gaza. I've seen reports that as many as a thousand students have had foreign students have had their visas revoked.
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Obviously, we're talking about foreign nationals in that case. But what do you think the impact on free speech in this country is when you're seeing these kind of roundup and attacks on, you know?
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Yeah. It feels like there's a real frightening weaponization of the charge of anti-Semitism happening. I mean, one recent example I saw was, do you know Miss Rachelis? No, anyone with a three year old or younger currently knows Miss Rachel because she she's a former teacher. She makes educational content for kids, puts it up on YouTube.
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Her her episodes have gotten over 10 billion views, half of them on my house. But so last week, this group, they call themselves Stop Antisemitism. They're known for doxing students, accusing them for being anti-Israel. They sent a letter to the attorney general, to Pam Bondi, asking her to investigate whether Ms.
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Rachel was getting, quote, paid to disseminate Hamas-aligned propaganda to her millions of followers as this may violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Now, that sentence is stupid on so many levels. She's not posting pro-Hamas content. You know, she's posting, like, love and care for all kids, including Israeli kids, including the Bibas family that was being held hostage.
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Also, you can't register under Farah for Hamas. This is self-evidently ridiculous. But there are these organizations that are flagging foreign students, going after people like Ms. Rachel, and then asking the US government to deport them, to investigate them, to use the awesome power of the state to punish them.
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No. I'm thinking of Stephen Miller personally. The changing gears a little bit. The Trump administration, they've handed over these ransom lists to various universities, including the Harvard University. They want to dictate things like diversity, equity, inclusion policies, student discipline, admissions requirements, a lot more. Harvard, to their great credit, refused.
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And the administration has cut off $2.2 billion in federal funding. CNN reported that the Trump administration is planning to rescind Harvard's nonprofit statuses. So Harvard's fighting. You've seen other schools like Columbia cave even preemptively. What do you think is the best way to fight back? And what's required here?
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There's this rolling debate about whether this is a constitutional crisis. And I feel like part of the reason there's a rolling debate is no one's completely defined what that means. Do you have a definition and an opinion on whether we're in one?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Yeah. One way we have been fighting back, Democrats, is holding town hall meetings in Republican districts. You recently hosted one in Maryland, calling out Andy Harris, congressman from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, for being MIA. My father-in-law was there, by the way. Shout out, Chris Cook. He said it was a packed crowd. You gave a great speech, and the people were just amped.
Pod Save America
This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
But if we're being honest, Democrats have been trying and failing to defeat Andy Harris for, what, over a decade? Yeah. Why do you think this time will be different? Can we take them out this time? Can we take out these like?
Pod Save America
This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
That's right. That's great. So last question for you. So in the before times, the dividing line between Democrats was on policy, you know, moderate left. center left. Now it seems to be divided on who is fighting hard, who is saying kind of keep some powder dry. I would put you in the fight hard on everything all the time kind of side of the ledger. Why is that the right place to be?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
And can you help define for others listening, members of Congress, elected officials, average citizens, what it looks like in practice, how they can emulate that?
Pod Save America
This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Couldn't agree more. Well, Congressman, thank you so much for all you're doing to fight and push back on these monsters and for being here. We appreciate it.
Pod Save America
This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
And in particular, we're sending people accused of no crimes. Right. It'd be one thing if he was just deported to live – Understanding that a judge said he cannot be deported to El Salvador because it's dangerous, but he could be – even if they said we don't believe – we're going to get that order removed. We're going to send him to El Salvador. He's going to live in society in El Salvador.
Pod Save America
This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
What is the purpose of him being in this prison other than keeping him out of the reach of just cruelty, right? Keeping him out of the reach of the judicial system and – because if they just send him to El Salvador – in violation of the order, they can find a way to get him back.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
But because he's in this prison that no one who's not a Republican member of Congress shooting vertical video can get into, then there's no way to get to him, right? I mean, you'll hear, I talk about this with Chris Van Hollen in my conversation coming up, but if you have this case, right, like present it before a judge, just do that.
Pod Save America
This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
And then the president has broad power to deport people if they go through due process, but they are unwilling to do that. And the reason that they – and the fact that they have picked this case to – this would be such an easy one for them to solve. They admitted they made a mistake. They bring him back, bring him before the judge.
Pod Save America
This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
As you said, he gets deported elsewhere or gets deported to El Salvador, not in the fucking concentration camp. But they will not do that because in their mind to let him back somehow unravels the whole system or, as some people pointed out today, would allow him to talk about the conditions of the prison. Because everyone else who's been sent there has not been heard from again.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Reportedly, no one has left the prison in the history of the prison.
Pod Save America
This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Before we get to the interview, one note. After we recorded the episode and this interview, Senator Van Hollen tweeted that he had actually gotten a chance to meet with Kilmar Abrego-Garcia. We don't have a lot of information yet about how that meeting came to place or what Senator Van Hollen learned in that meeting.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
We do know that Senator Van Hollen has called Kilmar's wife to pass along his message of love. Later on last night, President Bukele tweeted that now that Kilmar has been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody. We hope to learn more about this today. Joining us today from El Salvador is Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen. Senator, welcome to Pod Save America.
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Senator, it's my understanding that you just tried to visit the prison where Kilmar Abrego-Garcia is being held. What happened when you tried to visit?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Now, we have seen videos, social media posts from Republican members of Congress who have been inside the prison recently. So it's pretty clear that it seems to me at least that you were being targeted because you are not a supporter of Trump's policy here. I assume that's your assumption as well?
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This Is the Fight Democrats Need To Have
Now, it's not just you. No one has spoken to Kilmar since he was taken to this prison. Is that correct? Not his wife, not his family. Has his attorney spoken to him?
Pod Save America
Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
Well, yeah, I think you make an important point at the top, which is that the Israeli government has not voted on the deal yet. And a far right member of the Netanyahu coalition just announced he might remove himself from the government. So things are pretty precarious. Tony Blinken said that should start being implemented on Sunday. That that would be good news. But let's hope it's right.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But I think there's just a lot of uncertainty in this deal currently. And a lot of it could fall apart before we get to the end of phase three, like you outlined earlier. Phase one, which is six weeks, and is the part that is the most fleshed out with this gradual release of prisoners, of hostages, I should say. And then the Israelis could release over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
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Biden’s Final Warning
The Israeli troops pull back from population centers. Palestinians get to go home, and then aid gets surged into the Strip. But... Phases two and three have not been finalized yet. Those start getting negotiated, I think, on the 16th day of phase one. So phase two is likely to include the return of all hostages by Hamas in exchange for more prisoners and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops.
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Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
And then the third phase is reconstruction. But. Joe Biden views this as a deal that will permanently end the war. I don't know that Netanyahu thinks of it in the same way. Throughout this negotiation, he has tried to reserve the right to restart fighting at the time of his choosing. And right wing lawmakers that are part of his government coalition want that to happen.
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Biden’s Final Warning
I think Netanyahu should have the votes to get it through a security cabinet and the full cabinet. But I just don't know right now. It's sort of in flux.
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Biden’s Final Warning
Yeah, there's two different votes. I think there's a security cabinet vote and then a full government cabinet vote.
Pod Save America
Biden’s Final Warning
So in a lot of the reporting on the deal, you'll see these background quotes from Israeli or Arab diplomats saying, this deal only got over the finish line because of Trump. Now, obviously, that is a very self-serving quote if you're a Netanyahu official or someone sitting in Qatar or Egypt because you want to curry favor with the incoming administration, not the outgoing.
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Biden’s Final Warning
But I do think Trump deserves some credit here. A lot of this basic framework of this deal, the three phases, the sequencing, et cetera, that was on the table eight months ago.
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Biden’s Final Warning
and this time in these last couple days it seems like trump through his you know steve whitcoff his new emissary was able to apply or willing to apply pressure on netanyahu's in ways that biden was not and i also think that if trump had said bb stick it to biden don't give him a deal let's not do this until i'm officially president that's would have happened so that part i think trump really does deserve some credit for that said
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Biden’s Final Warning
Biden's team negotiated this whole plan. And that's not a small thing because it's the phasing and the sequencing for how the hostages get released and where Israeli troops withdraw from and when. It's complicated stuff. And getting Hamas and Netanyahu on the same page on anything is going to be complicated. So Biden's team, they did the diplomatic spade work.
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Biden’s Final Warning
I think he also deserves credit for bringing Donald Trump into the talks. Biden could have said, I'm going to try to go it alone these last few weeks. I want 100% credit for this. But he didn't do that. He I think reportedly in that Oval Office meeting with Trump said to him, let's do this together. Let's try to get this done.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And that along with pressure from Trump has seems to have made the difference. It's also just worth pointing out that like. When Biden introduced this deal in May of last year to now, a lot has changed. Hamas has decimated. Hezbollah's decapitated. Iran is weakened.
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Biden’s Final Warning
And then on top of Trump putting pressure on the Israelis to do this deal, there's also just the reality that Netanyahu can say to the far right, hey, I know you hate this ceasefire, but Donald Trump's going to give us anything we want going forward.
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Biden’s Final Warning
I mean, I just think like he knows he has four years of dealing with this guy and Trump's out there tweeting there will be hell to pay apparently by both sides. And so he knows that, like, I think he knows he was not in the best graces with Trump when he. committed the mortal sin of congratulating Joe Biden for winning the election in 2020.
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Biden’s Final Warning
It took a while to crawl back from that being in the doghouse. And so I think Netanyahu was like, look, he can say to his right wing members of his coalition, look, we'll give him this one. If I decide to restart the war, Donald's not going to stop me.
Pod Save America
Biden’s Final Warning
And if we want to annex the West Bank- I was going to say, is that a- That's on the table now because a lot of Trump's biggest supporters like Miriam Adelson, who gave him- Tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars for his campaigns want the West Bank to be annexed in the next few years. So he just knows he's on better footing with Trump.
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Biden’s Final Warning
I know it's weird, right? Like in a way he kind of split the difference because they're announcing it now, but I think the release if it starts on Sunday, that's kind of timed along with the change of power. But I assumed he would do the same thing, which is just wait, try to draw the Jimmy Carter comparison directly.
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Biden’s Final Warning
no i mean yeah it's not like he's stealing his spotlight a lot no that's right and you know he is uh trump has been dispatching his many friends and surrogates to the middle east into all sorts of countries to have conversations about work that should be getting done by the current president so yeah he doesn't mind stepping on him does this make you look back at biden's record in gaza and decisions in gaza any differently
Pod Save America
Biden’s Final Warning
It makes me feel frustrated that more pressure wasn't brought to bear on the Israelis earlier. There are people who are smart, who I respect, who will argue with me that that never would have mattered, but I don't agree. Yeah. It seems like it could have tried, you know? Yeah.
Pod Save America
Biden’s Final Warning
Tech oligarchs? They're bad. Don't like them. Tech oligarchs bad. What do we think about the wobbly Statue of Liberty as an analogy, as a runner? You know, we didn't get to that, Dan.
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Biden’s Final Warning
I was going to say, yeah, somewhere outside of a wet market in D.C., someone picked up a pangolin and it evolved and morphed into an Obama cosplay. Is it too soon for fucking?
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Biden’s Final Warning
COVID joke? Fine. Okay. You can cut that if you want. Thanks, Tommy.
Pod Save America
Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
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Biden’s Final Warning
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Pod Save America
Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
If you enjoyed our discussion, Alistair also hosts the Rest Is Politics podcast, where he and former UK Cabinet Minister Rory Stewart analyze the biggest events in global politics and explain what it is like to be in the room where it happens. I love the Rest Is Politics. It's a weekly listen for me. The Rest Is Politics covers everything from the Middle East to populism in Europe.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
It's a great listen. It's become one of the biggest podcasts of any genre in Britain. If you're a fan of our show, then you should check it out. Just search for The Rest Is Politics wherever you get your podcasts.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Hey, guys, it's Tommy. This week, I interviewed Alistair Campbell on the show. You know Alistair, John. Yeah, love Alistair. He's best known as a political strategist, press secretary, director of communications and strategy to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He's like the British David Axelrod. Yeah, that's how I shorthand it. Yeah. High praise. High praise. Very high praise.
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Trump's All Pain, No Gain Economy
Our episode dug into how Alistair and Tony Blair and the Labour Party came back to power after nearly two decades of conservative rule in the UK and whether Democrats can steal some of those strategies now in 2025.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
It's everywhere. But also lots of people. It's great. It's really great. I love the peanut butter. Still my favorite to this day.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Welcome back to Pond Save America, Senator Chris Murphy. So in an interview with Greg Sargent just before the holidays, you made this point and I'll summarize it, which is basically Trump is full of shit. He has no interest in governing. It was always infrastructure week. He's at it again with this Elon Vivek government efficiency department, which isn't even a department.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And we shouldn't lend these efforts credibility, even when we as Democrats need to be the party of government reform. Can you just lay out what your argument is there?
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
I talked to Bernie and I was like, well, what do you think we should be doing differently right now? And that was one of the things he talked about. Like, we're not talking enough about money in politics. We're not talking enough about corruption. You have... Joe Biden with an op-ed this week about how we need to remember the insurrection.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Democrats were desperately trying to make this case about democracy, but people didn't either care enough or believe it or make it salient enough in their vote. And part of that is about credibility. Democrats need to make an argument about these kinds of issues. But part of it is message, part of it is messenger.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Do you believe Democrats have the credibility right now to be the party of taking on corporate interests, taking on money in politics? How can we just do a rebrand?
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
First of all, I don't think you should put yourself down. You know that both of us went to Williams College and we both did the same Oxford program.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
I did. We both went to Oxford the same year. And I just think that puts us in the perfect position to talk about populism. I think that's exactly, we're exactly right for that.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
As we're doing this, you've made this point, everyone's made this point, we're out of power. We just don't have any power for the next two years. We are critics on the outside. As we're laying out our own positive agenda, we are going to have, it seems to me, these kind of two tracks. One that's a quote-unquote...
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
normal Republican politics track where they're talking about budget reconciliation and trying to cut taxes for the wealthy and doing a border bill. And the other is the kind of even more abnormal, unhinged freaks going up for these big and important jobs ahead of national intelligence, ahead of the FBI.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
How do you think about the two sides of this coming fight, the policy battle in Congress versus fighting these terrible nominations and the threat Donald Trump poses through the Justice Department? You know, it's really funny.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Yeah. Here's what I sort of was struggling with as I was thinking about this today, which is we need to make an argument about what we stand for whether or not Republicans are able to confirm these people, right? We need to make an argument of what we stand for, whether or not we're able to stop RFK Jr. or Kash Patel or Pam Bondi or whoever it may be, Pete Hegseth.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
But the argument you might make to your Republican colleagues is probably a little bit different, right, than the argument you would want to be making to the American people. Can you talk about that? Like right now, like if you're trying to stop Kash Patel from getting the votes to be at FBI, you're not talking about reaching 200 million Americans. You're talking about reaching three human beings.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
There's there's one part of this that I feel like hasn't been getting enough attention, which is you're talking about how your Democratic colleagues maybe aren't totally honest with themselves or with the situation to understand the threat it may pose to the media, to them. But neither are Republicans. Right. Like if you're talking about a House Republican candidate.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
majority that is razor thin, a Senate majority that's pretty thin with a few people that they can lose. It is not outside the realm of possibility that a weaponized Department of Justice would go beyond Democrats to try to intimidate Republicans too, right?
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
So I want to talk about the rigging and then I want to talk about how to unrig it. So Puck reported this week that Amazon will be paying $40 million for the privilege of airing a documentary about Melania Trump, executive produced by Melania Trump. Disney and Paramount, apparently also bidders. Mark Zuckerberg announced this week
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
that Facebook will no longer be doing any fact-checking, which is just a capitulation to Donald Trump. Tim Cook of Apple donated a million dollars personally to Trump's inauguration. Are you at all surprised? I'm surprised by how quickly and with such alacrity these people have bent the knee.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Yeah, well, it's a value shift. Partly it's a kind of, I don't know, like an apathy and cynicism, right? Which is, well, that's just how the system works. That's just how the system works. And in a way, Trump preys on people's beliefs about how corrupt the government is in order to institute that very version of a corrupt government.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
So let's start from the assumption that we are not potentially going to be sliding towards some kind of autocracy, but we're mid-slide. It's happening. Where are the places right now where we still have purchase, right? Where we, you know, there are still Republicans in closely divided districts that are afraid of losing their House seats. There are still independent media.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
We're one small, tiny little part of that constellation. Talk to me about how in this we arrest this side and start to climb our way up.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Part of it does also seem to be like the kind of rhetoric, and I don't wanna just pick on Joe Biden, but he is, I think, the signal exemplar of it, which is this kind of, for lack of a better term, like kind of highfalutin language about democracy and institutions and preserving them.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Now, you've talked about how we have to attack democracy as it currently exists, which is, I think, a provocative way to make the argument you've been making just during our conversation. But what does a full-throated version of this sound like? How does it sound different than how Kamala Harris sounded in 2024, how Hillary Clinton sounded in 2016?
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
So this is going to seem like a small issue compared to what we've just been discussing. But Senator, do you know what time the sun will set in New London, Connecticut today?
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
27. 4.36 p.m. Your constituents in New London, Connecticut will be shrouded in darkness by 5 p.m. Now, I went back and I looked at your record, sir.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And you've never been a sponsor of the Sunshine Protection. I have not. Uh, but I, but I actually have a compromise that I want to propose to you. Can you just, what is your current position? Can we do like a half an hour? No, we're not doing a half hour. That'd be so confusing. No. So, so, uh, are you in favor of making daylight saving time permanent for Connecticut? Just for Connecticut? Yeah.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Well, I mean, everyone else can do it, but just would you like for your constituents to have daylight saving time run through the winter?
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Yeah. Well, I mean, when school starts too early, these kids should be sleeping later. Yeah. Right. Okay. I accept that. My compromise view is that- You were an evangelist on this? I am. I actually was. And through learning and thinking, I have I have changed my view.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And so my view is now that every state should not be forced into daylight saving time permanently. That actually what should happen is every right now, every state can choose between either staying on standard time year round, which is something Arizona and Hawaii does. Right. Or choosing to do the switch. I'm just saying add a third option.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Give every state the right to choose permanent daylight saving time if that state so chooses that if Massachusetts and Maine want it and Florida and California want it, every state can make a decision for themselves.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
Senator Chris Murphy, thank you for your time. You know, we once had a fight about Connecticut pizza, and I have apologized to you in the past about how great Connecticut pizza is. I was in a long-term relationship with someone from Connecticut, which is how I ate so much Connecticut pizza. That relationship has ended. And honestly, it's the worst part.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
But your relationship with Connecticut pizza has not ended. No, no, that has continued. That has continued.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
And that's the beginning. That's how change happens. Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much for your time. Thanks, man.
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As LA Burns, Trump Plays Politics
It's really hitting me. The other night, I had two and a half drinks. I was like, I guess tomorrow's ruined. I guess that's it for tomorrow. Yep. But not with Z Biotics.
Pod Save the UK
How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Hi, it's great to see you guys. How are you? You provide me some emotional lift and relief when I listen to you because you're past the terrible big election. And I know it's not great, but it could be a lot worse.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
I feel like I've said literally everything I have to say about this election a hundred times over and there's nothing new. You know, this is the part of the election where like there's no debates left. There's no big kind of, you know, there's no October surprise yet. There's just a relentless series of campaign events and interviews and speeches. And it's like, which ones move the needle?
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
We'll never know. How are you feeling just in of yourself at the moment? I feel horrible because the fact that it's a tied race is just hard to stomach and understand, given all that we've seen from Donald Trump over the last nine years or whatever it's been. I think with respect to sort of where the campaign is, I mean, look, I talk to smart people on the on the Harris campaign all the time.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
They, I think, all sincerely and honestly believe that this thing is tied. There are seven key battleground states and all the public polls and all the private data we're seeing has it within the margin of error. And so what's really scary is sometimes elections in the U.S. kind of break one way or the other in the last two weeks based on something that's in the news.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
You know, it could be a letter from Jim Comey scolding Hillary Clinton like 2016. It could be Bibi Netanyahu bombing a new country. Maybe we'll bomb Jordan.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
What have they been up to? You know, King Abdullah, you're up. So I don't know. But that's the stuff that makes me worried.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Yeah, I mean, it couldn't be any more clear that Bibi Netanyahu wants Donald Trump to win. Most Israeli voters want Donald Trump to win. It's profoundly frustrating, I think, that Joe Biden's Gaza policy has been terrible. Since the very first day when he flew over and hugged Bibi Netanyahu, I thought that was a mistake, just sort of knowing the character of that man.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
And if you look at what's played out over the last year, I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I think my Twitter algorithm has decided that I want to constantly be fed the most horrific images from northern Gaza imaginable. And it just like shakes you to your core every single day seeing what's happening and knowing the U.S. complicity in that.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
I think the problem for Kamala Harris is that Joe Biden is the president and she just doesn't have a ton of space to break from him, especially on foreign policy. I think having talked to people kind of in her orbit, I think she shares a lot of the frustration that you and I might have about Netanyahu and what he's doing.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
I just think it's very hard for her to break from her current boss, for lack of a better word.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Boy, that's a good question. I mean, I hadn't heard all those quotes, but I like them. They nailed it. He's going to struggle to refute a lot of these allegations. Yeah, he did say he would like to, you know, grab women by the private parts. I think what I think you're likely to see from Trump is just more kind of overt meddling in British politics.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
You know, I mean, elevating people like Farage, inviting him to the White House. Kind of getting reform on the map even more. There's this weird connective tissue in the right wing in America where we're like they have these conferences where they invite Liz Trust to speak. They're the only people inviting Liz Trust anywhere. You know, it's like it's Bolsonaro down in Brazil.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
It's Viktor Orban in Hungary. They all come together and kind of. exchange authoritarian best practices. So I imagine, you know, Trump has a long memory. He does not forget slights. I think he wants to be liked by the UK. He views you guys as one of the kind of places that I think he cares about his opinion over there. He wants, you know, the royal family to like him.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
But yeah, it would make me a little nervous.
Pod Save the UK
How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
I don't think so. I saw these reports. I mean, 100 people knocking on doors. It's nice. Thank you. Appreciate it. But it's a drop in the bucket. But you're right. Elon Musk is currently holding a contest where he's giving away a million dollars every day
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
to voters in certain key swing states who are registered to vote and who signed his dumb little petition, which pretty clearly seems to be in violation of election law, which says you cannot incentivize or pay people to register to vote, which is clearly what his plan is there.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Oh, yeah. You think the Labour Party tips were like, here's what you do. You let the other guys be in charge for 14 years. They ruin everything. They put a literal buffoon in charge of the entire party.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
They were like cicadas. They just did their time. Real quick sports question that I promise I'll answer. Okay. Do you guys follow American football at all?
Pod Save the UK
How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
We keep having a London game. Yeah, we just keep... Yeah. Are you offended by the fact that, like, this past weekend, my New England Patriots played against the Jacksonville Jaguars? Two of the worst teams in the entire NFL played some of the worst football I've ever seen. It felt worse than when Barack Obama gave the Queen an iPod. It felt insulting.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Well, the NFL is trying to expand into the European market. So there keeps being a London game every weekend. Yeah. But it's just been shit.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Oh, yeah, I think he might have gotten some old DVDs, too. We suck to giving presents. But what could a Labour and Democratic Party line? I mean, imagine if we really coordinated and tried to make this upcoming COP climate summit. Yeah, something, you know, and actually did something on climate change. That would be amazing.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Imagine if there was some sort of effort to work together, not just the US and UK, but nationally on this sort of global refugee crisis and migration and figuring out ways so we can burden share across every country.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
to help people, so you don't have these right-wing neo-Nazi parties demagoguing the issue and popping up in places like Austria, where you really don't want to see a right-wing neo-Nazi party. Germany. There's a couple of things.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Yeah, I mean, it was some sort of, you know, global minimum tax. I know that was an idea that was floated early on in the Biden administration. But you're right. I mean, it's funny when every multinational just sort of pops up and is suddenly headquartered in Ireland. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Not sure how this works.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
I love the Coco hangover stories. You have like the occasional good one and they're always funny and they're always, you always paint a picture that just feels very familiar. Thank you. I think, well, sadly, there will be relief, but that relief will only really fully set in after Kamala Harris is sworn into office, given all the shenanigans we saw from Donald Trump the last time.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
So I think there will be relief from a lot of quarters about kind of dealing with this unique threat that Trump poses and hopefully just finally being able to move on from this guy because he is starting to look really old. He's kind of losing the thread. I don't know if you guys saw – He did a town hall Q&A the other day where he just ended up doing a DJ set for 38 minutes. Yeah.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Where he's playing like cats and shit. It was crazy.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
No. Well, here's the challenge. I think that right now Republicans are on track to take the Senate, which will block sort of any legislative efforts Kamala Harris might have. It's not clear to me yet how the House of Representatives voting is going to shake out. But there's a chance that, you know, it could be Kamala Harris versus the fully Republican Congress, which is just going to suck.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Because what Republicans do is they say government is bad. They highlight the ways it has failed or has not helped you vote. And they use that cynicism to drive people away from the Democratic Party, the people who support institutions and believe in government and fair taxation and yada, yada, yada. And so, you know, we're going to be in for a rough road, I think, either way.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
I think, though, you know, the American system, like the president, is just so powerful, especially on foreign policy, that'll be an enormous relief to get rid of Trump if we can. But knock on wood.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Yes. I mean, she will have far more leeway to do things on foreign policy than in any other place. I hope that means more diplomacy. I hope that means getting back into talks with the Iranians about their nuclear program. I hope we can fix our idiotic Cuba policy in the United States. We've embargoed this island for decades now for no reason.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
And now, you know, I think they're in the midst of a multi-day blackout because there's no power there.
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
for people so there's just a lot of things we could do a prioritization of human rights trying to you know continue to build up alliances whether it's NATO or the EU or other places um and just you know keep our friends our friends yeah tell me um thank you so much for joining us on Podside of the UK we are keeping everything crossed yes we will join you on this very long dreary road ahead I think I think that I think that we can all agree that's that's what it is isn't it for all of us
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How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Thanks for having me. It was very fun.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And we are doing a little YouTube exclusive episode today based off of President Zelensky's meeting with Donald Trump just now. We were going to plan to do this regardless. But Ben, I didn't expect it to be. The worst meeting ever in the Oval Office? I'm trying to think of an example of a meeting that went worse.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
It's worth noting, like, the meeting didn't start terribly. Again, like we said, there was, like, a 30-minute pool spray. There was actually some, like, kind of chummy moments. Let's just play a quick clip of that. Because Europe really helped.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
So right there, Zelensky is talking about contributions from the Europeans to Ukraine. This is like the third time in a week that Trump has been corrected in the Oval Office about the European contribution to the Ukrainian side. Remember in the meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Macron grabs his arm and is like, actually, no. 60% of what we gave them was a grant, not a loan.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Keir Starmer made the same point yesterday, I believe, Thursday. And then Zelensky today. But, you know, it was kind of like, look, Zelensky had a look on his face where, as you said, Ben, he looked exhausted. By the end of this conversation, he looks like he wants to cry. But it didn't start terribly. Like things just escalated and got worse and worse.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
I mean, there was the infamous Bibi Netanyahu-Obama meeting that you and I were both in the room for, but it was nothing even close to what just happened.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah, then Obama was weak because he didn't give enough support to the Ukrainians.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah. So, again, this was supposed to be the pool spray before the lunch meeting, before the press conference. The Trump people ended up canceling the rest of the itinerary.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And, you know, according to the readouts they're giving to Fox News or whoever else, it sounds like Rubio and Mike Waltz basically kicked Zelensky out of the White House and said, come back when you're ready to cut a peace deal. They were supposed to sign some sort of rare earths agreement. The text of this agreement has evolved so much over time.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Initially, it was reported as just like an extortion, the US demanding half of Ukraine's rare earths or up to $500 billion worth of rare earths.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
now it seemed like there would just be some sort of joint effort to mine these rare earths and put it into a fund that would then be used for ukrainian reconstruction but the us would have some sort of oversight over it and maybe get some of the profits i don't know i'm not sure that we'll ever know caitlyn collins from cnn asked a very smart question during this press conference which is that something like 40 of ukraine's rare earths are in the far east so in russian occupied areas she was like
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Are you going to be able to get access to those? Who will protect those? There's been a lot of reporting today about how the mining process for these rare earth elements is unbelievably energy and labor intensive and incredibly dirty. And setting up a giant lithium mine, for example, can take a decade. So the idea that this is some sort of
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
immediate us ukrainian cooperation on the ground that serves as a de facto deterrent from the russians invading is just like sort of nonsensical on its face if you actually understand the details but uh ben i don't know that we'll ever need to know the details of this one because it doesn't seem like it's happening
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
OK, well, we'll cut to the chase and start to play you some of that. We have a very long clip and we're going to play some excerpts, pause and talk about them and play some more, because honestly, it was just impossible to cut it down. It was that. Much of a fucking train wreck. So with that, here is a clip from Zelensky and Trump's meeting in the Oval Office today, Friday, February 28th.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah. I mean, there is a national security challenge for the US, which is that I think China has something like 70% of the rare earth element supply. They also have something like 90% of the refining capacity. So there could be a scenario where the US really needs access to these rare earth minerals. But like you just said, I mean, this is like a decade long process.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And Ben, I remember having a very similar conversation about... You know, people saying there are massive deposits like trillion dollar deposits in Afghanistan that none of those have been mined even as of today. So all of this just seems like very vaporware.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yep, purely for show. OK, well, like we mentioned earlier, Zelensky wasn't just insulted by J.D. Vance and Rubio and Waltz and Trump. There were a bunch of moron reporters in the Oval Office because, as you might have heard, the White House is taking over control of the White House press pool.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And instead of having like real serious journalists in there from places like Reuters or Bloomberg, they're swapping in right wing zealots who are just their little propagandists. So let's hear an example of what kind of questions those people ask.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
That was a reporter named Brian Glenn. He's the chief White House correspondent for Real America's Voice. There was a reporter from One America, which is another right wing outlet, Ben, that asked, what gave you the moral courage and conviction to lead on a peace agreement? Apparently, a reporter from TASS snuck into the Oval Office pool spray.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
For those who don't know, TASS is a Russian state owned news agency founded in the 1900s. So interesting move to let the Russian state owned media, you know, the country bombing TASS. the country you're meeting with into the Oval Office, right? Apparently, the White House staff said he snuck in there somehow. It doesn't give me a lot of confidence in their security.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
I'm not sure how you sneak into the Oval Office, but I don't know, man. This is bleak shit.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah, I know, like American politics are so unserious. It's so frustrating. But this moment really drove home for me. I just I can imagine, you know, this is an existential meeting for the people of Ukraine and for Zelensky, literally. And, you know, suddenly he's getting berated about his appearance. I mean, it's just like truly outrageous.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
So, Ben, I mean, the big picture question is like, where do we go from here? because this meeting was a disaster. I mean, I'm sure Zelensky will try to kind of mop it up. He's doing a TV appearance with Brett Baer on Fox News later tonight that I think he knows will be a sort of a direct line back into the Oval Office to communicate with Trump. It's been interesting to watch this week.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
You had Macron, Keir Starmer and Zelensky all have White House meetings and then all go on Brett Baer's show. It's become kind of the the car wash equivalent. Like when you go to ESPN and you do like a bunch of shows now, Brett bears the car wash. But yesterday Putin was speaking.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
He was praising the new U S administration for quote pragmatism, a realistic worldview, discarding many of stereotypes, so-called rules and messianic ideological cliches of their predecessors. You had Dmitry Medvedev cheering and tweeting in English about how great it was to see the Lenski treated like shit.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And then yesterday, when Trump was meeting with Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, Trump refused to say that the U.S. would backstop a European peacekeeping force if one were to be put in Ukraine after some sort of peace deal. He also seemed to once again suggest the U.S. wasn't fully committed to Article 5 when he was asked about it. He was like, oh, the Brits, they don't need much help.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
They can take care of themselves. And then at one point he said to Keira Starmer, could you take on Russia by yourselves? You know, like kind of joking, but not really. So I don't know, pretty dark, man. Like, where do you think that we go from here?
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah. I mean, look, the more we learned about the rare earths agreement, the more it just seemed like nothing, you know, like initially it just sounded like complete extortion. And now I don't even know what it was. I do think, you know, to your question, we should ask, like, did Zelensky screw up?
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
I think I give him like all like I have so much sympathy for him, but I think the answer is kind of, of course he did. I mean, challenging J.D. Vance. getting into that pissing match. Like it, like we, we can look at inputs in DC. People look at inputs too much and they don't look at outputs.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Like the end result of that meeting was a fucking disaster for Zelensky personally, politically, and for his country. So obviously he should have approached it differently. I think the challenge is he's got politics. Trump's got politics, right?
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Like he's not going to walk in there and make a bunch of sort of rhetorical concessions to Putin before negotiations actually begun a negotiation that he's not part of, by the way. And again, Trump just wouldn't broke any dissent or, you know, actually, like he mocked Zelensky at one point for saying, I don't want to ceasefire.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
But Zelensky's point was like, not that I don't want the fighting to stop. He was like, I don't want to ceasefire where Putin then breaks it over and over again and reinvades my country. So, I mean, look, yeah, we'd be like, I think, dishonest if we said that Zelensky had played that thing perfectly, but or even remotely well. But I do think it was a setup for domestic consumption here in the US.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah. OK, stop. This is the worst OK, stop episode in history. So what you can hear there is Zelensky does this wind up where he's talking about how we can't trust Putin to implement a ceasefire because he breaks every agreement he's ever signed.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
You're right, though. This is really tough for Zelensky because he showed unbelievable, incredibly inspiring courage in the very early days of that war. And by just sort of like force of personality, brought the entire world to his side, helped rally support in the US, in Europe, everywhere, like public opinion, in capitals, everywhere.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And if he is seen now as having kind of lost that touch, I mean, I'm sure the shine faded during the Biden administration when a lot of Ukrainians felt like they were getting some of what they wanted, but getting it late and getting it slow and not getting enough of it.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
But this meeting, I think, is probably going to I mean, maybe it'll rally people to his side, but it might also make them wonder whether he's the right person to be the interlocutor with the United States when they're so reliant on us. So very challenging conversation. political moment for him personally as well as for the country.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And actually, I was just watching Mike Pompeo on Fox News talking about how the United States pulled out of all these arms control agreements during the first Trump administration because Trump because Putin was breaking the terms of the deal. But, you know, it was hard to tell exactly what kind of sets the meeting off here, Ben. But I do think J.D.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah. One of many we've been covering recently. Well, I'm very glad that we decided to do this. I had no idea how horrendous it was going to be, but great to get to talk to you, Ben.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
I know. I did too. Trying to explain why that was important. That's it for today. Thanks again for listening. We'll be back with our regular episode on Wednesday. And please subscribe to the Pod Save the World YouTube page. See you guys.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Vance is kind of the chief arsonist because Zelensky pretty quickly calls him out and is like, OK, you seem to know a lot about my country. Have you ever been there? And obviously, obviously, J.D. Vance has not. And he flips out about it and just, I guess, says that any visit to Ukraine is a propaganda tour now.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
But just to be clear, this meeting was ostensibly about signing some sort of deal between the U.S. and Ukrainians about rare earth minerals. In reality, it seems like it was a setup to get to exactly this moment. So J.D. Vance and Donald Trump could harangue Zelensky in front of the cameras and show what a tough guy they are and, you know, beat their chest on Fox News later.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
But Ben, I'm glad you mentioned Zelensky. uh, Bucha because, you know, that's another triggering thing for me because you often hear these same conservatives, actually Democrats to talk about how there were some early peace talks between the Ukrainians and the Russians, but they blew up and they often blame Zelensky for pulling out of those talks.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
In fact, those talks blew up because the atrocities that occurred at Bucha were revealed and it became impossible for anyone in Ukraine to imagine cutting a deal with Putin and the Russians in that moment.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Yeah, I mean, look, Trump being offended by reality and people insulting Zelensky is going to be a theme of this thing. The press corps even gets in on the action, but we'll get to that in a minute. But let's keep rolling that clip.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
just gave up the whole game there. They are offended by a campaign period visit by Zelensky to Pennsylvania, which was perceived as an endorsement or support for Joe Biden.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Geez, Ben, I wonder why Zelensky might have thought he'd be better off if Joe Biden was president or Kamala Harris was president and not Donald Trump as he's lecturing him in the Oval Office about how he's gambling and about to start World War III.
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Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And Trump is pulling out support for NATO, which has prevented World War Three.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Go to sundays4dogs.com slash world or use code world at checkout. That's sundays4dogs.com slash world, code world. Hey guys, it's Tommy Vitor. I'm recording a little voice note here on my phone to introduce an episode Ben and I recorded Friday, just after the Zelensky-Trump meeting. This was a quick reaction episode. This was not our normal Tuesday pod.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Trump is mad. It's earlier on in this Oval Office meeting because this was a very, very long pool spray. And just to give folks a little context, what usually happens is the two leaders go into the Oval Office. They sit down. You bring the pool, the White House press pool in for like a minute or two. Sometimes there's a shadow question.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
They take photos and then they get them the hell out of there. They have the real meeting. There was supposed to be a lunch and then there's supposed to be a press conference.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
trump has started doing this thing where he takes like 45 minutes worth of questions during the pool spray and then they do the press conference just because he needs to be on tv all the time so what you didn't hear that happened earlier was you know trump's entire shtick about ukraine is the war never would have happened if he was president
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
But Zelensky, when he was walking through all the times the Russians broke ceasefire agreements, talks about how the Russians were occupying Ukraine throughout the duration of the Trump presidency and people were getting killed during the Trump presidency.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
And Trump really didn't like that because it undercut his whole fucking argument that none of this would have happened if I were in charge because he acts like he wasn't actually the president for four years and isn't responsible for anything.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
JD Vance is like sitting on the edge of his seat. He's the happiest little boy in town because he was allowed to go to the big boy meeting and say something. And Marco Rubio, Every photo of Marco Rubio that I've seen in the context of these Russia-Ukraine talks, he looks like his soul is drifting out of his body in that moment. He looks like he's dead inside.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
He knows what is happening is so profoundly wrong, but he just sits there fucking silently and then afterwards tweets an attaboy at the boss. And look, there's all these reports that Rubio is like the Secretary of State in name only and actually has a bunch of little kind of nag a supplicant to who work for him on the org chart, but are actually running the show over at State. So who knows?
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Well, let's listen to the rest of this clip.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
Trump ends the meeting later and says, this is going to be great television. So again, giving up the game. This is all about politics for them. They don't care about Ukraine. They don't actually care about anything Zelensky said. This is just domestic politics.
Pod Save the World
Trump and Zelensky's Disastrous Meeting
This was just us sort of reacting in real time to what we had just seen. We put it out initially as a YouTube exclusive, but we thought given the stakes of what happened and how poorly the meeting went, that it was important to release on RSS2 as a podcast. So here's the episode and thanks for listening to Pod Save the World. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, it's not really a winner. I mean, then there's the specific stories. I mean, I don't know how much you guys have talked about the Samoa incident on the show, but I do think it is. It tells you everything you need to know about this guy.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Like the quick and dirty version, right, is in American Samoa, there was this horrible incident where two babies died because the nurses administering the vaccine mixed the measles vaccine with an expired aesthetic and it killed these two children. It was this horrible, horrific mistake.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
And it ultimately, you know, the nurses went to jail for it, but it led to Samoa stopping vaccinations for about 10 months and then starting them up again. And then obviously people were very hesitant. So into the breach jumps RFK Jr. and the anti-vax crowd and this sort of information vacuum and climate of fear.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
And according to NBC News, what he was hoping to do was basically set up a study comparing the health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated babies in Samoa. And what inevitably happens, right, someone comes from New Zealand, they have the measles, an outbreak starts, like dozens and dozens of kids die. In response, Samoa launches this vaccination campaign.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
And in the midst of that, RFK is still having his people say, no, no, no, just give them vitamin A and vitamin C. But fast forward six weeks, 95% of kids in Samoa are vaccinated, and there's no more measles related deaths. But just like the fact that what this man wanted was to run
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
This giant, you know, eugenics adjacent experiment on babies, I think kind of tells you everything you need to know about him and how he will approach overseeing the medical community. I mean, like, this is fucking deadly. completely unethical, immoral stuff that he's going to do. And like, this is his approach. This is what he believes.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, I mean, I guess going against, you know, the establishment or American royalty, that could work. But I think, I mean, you know this better than I do, like what the MAGA movement loves more than anything else is a convert. Whether you are a person of color or you're gay or you were once a liberal, like that's why they love Tulsi. That's why they love RFK Jr.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Those are the people that prove that they've been right all along over in the MAGA movement and the libs were stupid. So I think that's kind of his entire power is his last name.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, I mean, she's not remotely qualified to do the job, but I think it's just... good to remember kind of first principles here. They're like, oh, she was in the military. She had a security clearance. That doesn't mean she had access to any information. It doesn't mean she knows how the intelligence community works. It doesn't mean she knows how to manage all of these people.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
It does seem like her biggest problem is her willingness to believe bad information and discount good information, especially when the bad information is coming from like the Russians or the Syrians and the good information is coming from the US. But then the second biggest problem I seem to have with her or I see for her is that she's a liar.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
You probably talked about her trip to Syria in 2017, where she met with Assad for three hours.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
why she met with Assad, since that wasn't cleared in advance. And they left all the Google Doc changes on, so some reporter found the Google Doc and could see all their spins and lies. Long story short, she goes to Lebanon, dips over to Damascus for a meeting with Assad. and pretended that it was spontaneous. She got there.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Assad just wanted to meet with her, but actually the meeting was within one hour of her arrival. So she lied to her colleagues. She lied to her own staff. She lied to the ethics committee about all of this. And it just leads you to the question. Why is a general matter? I'm not like, offended by meeting with adversaries.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
But meeting with Assad in the middle of this brutal civil war where he's killing half a million people is bizarre and gross. And also, did you know that she brought her spouse and she went with Dennis Kucinich, who brought his wife like who brings a plus one to a civil war?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, I mean, like, ultimately, Tulsi and the agency she runs is going to be charged with putting together the PDB, the President's Daily Briefing, which is the most, you know, crown jewels of all US intelligence on all the issues happening in the world that Trump needs to know about? And is she going to bring in credible stuff? Is she going to put that document together in an ideological way?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Is she going to continue to disbelieve, you know, the CIA or other components of the intelligence community when they say Assad used chemical weapons and blame somebody else? So I think the question is like, What information is she getting?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
How is she constructing that document for Donald Trump and filtering intelligence information to the president of the United States and other top decision makers? And on top of that, like every National Security Council meeting will usually begin with a lay down from the DNI of the most relevant information on like whatever the topic is, Afghanistan, Afghanistan. you know, Yemen, whatever it is.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
So she's going to be kind of doing the PDB process and then repeating that in every national security meeting. It's like, why her? No one can answer the question. Why does this person make sense for this job other than some kind of payback for a political favor?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah. And she's also, I mean, I don't know the things that the kind of the, some parts of the MAGA movement liked about her anti-surveillance pro Snowden. She seems to have flip-flopped on a lot of that. Like it sounds like she's now in favor of section 702 intelligence collection, which is the U S government working with American technology companies to get access to stuff that,
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
It sounds like she was a huge proponent in 2019. I think she went on Rogan and said that she would drop all charges against Edward Snowden if she were president. Now it seems like she has flipped on that position. So I guess I just don't know where Tulsi stands on anything anymore.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, and I guess that's all that's required for Tom Cotton. He's just like that credulous. He's like, all right, cool. It works for me. 702 is supporting Snowden's staying in jail. I'm good.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
And all the, all the secretaries and JD, I mean, they just got up there and they just fluffed the president and said how amazing his leadership had been. It's like, I don't know. It sounds like he did a
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
like, oh, there's a bad social media perception and persona of Kash Patel out there. Whose fault is that?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Maybe him tweeting that he's going to chainsaw off the heads of various elected officials or going on every right wing podcast and talking about his enemies list and all the evil happening in the deep state and lying about his background and pretending he was, you know, the lead prosecutor in Benghazi when he was just like a
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
junior lawyer kind of helping out on the edges like yeah there's a bad sort of sentiment out there about cash patel because he's an unqualified deeply dishonest person and that seems like a bad thing for an fbi director he's a clown that had a podcast on epoch times which is a conspiracy website i didn't know that actually
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
A lot of people confuse is a good person with nice to me. You hear that with a lot of these kind of bro influencers who like, oh, Trump was great when I met him at UFC 64 or whatever. It's like, well, it doesn't mean he was a good person. The single most troubling story about Kash Patel to me, Tim, comes from his time at the Pentagon at the very end of the Trump administration.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I mean, I have two sort of buckets of thoughts, Tim. I mean, the idea of blaming this crash on DEI before there's an investigation and then handing the mic to a real-world Boston castmate turned Fox News host turned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who then hands the mic over to Fox News weekend anchor turned Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a lot. It's a lot for me to...
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Long story short, there was a hostage being held in the kind of Nigeria area. the Pentagon launched this rescue mission. They had a bunch of Navy SEALs in an airplane who are going to parachute out of that plane, land, walk a couple miles and rescue this guy. And to conduct a mission like that, you need to get permission to fly into the country's airspace, in this case, Nigerian airspace.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
And they're about to turn on this operation, green light it. Cash says the State Department got us access into Nigerian airspace. And then right as the plane with the Navy SEALs in it is about to fly into that airspace, they figure out that he had lied. And he just made that up. And so Cash Patel nearly blows up what was ultimately a successful rescue mission.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
And also, I mean, the worst case scenario is you fly a bunch of U.S. military aircraft into Nigerian airspace and it gets shot down. And to this day, no one knows why he lied about it. Like Mark Esper, the secretary of defense at the time, writes about it in his book. There were top Pentagon officials screaming at cash. And he was like, who fucking cares? Everything worked out in the end.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
And it's just the most irresponsible thing I've ever heard.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I'm very open to any facts. If Cash Patel wants to come on this show or any of the shows on Crooked Media and correct the record and correct me, I am absolutely willing to listen. This is what I read.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Just a DEI hire. What that story tells me is the degree to which Republican senators see things happen where they know a nominee that they're about to vote for just lied and just don't care. And they just think it's a game. And they think that deniability is all that matters and the truth is irrelevant. And it sucks. It's incredibly frustrating. Because what do you do there?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
It's like the worst fight in a relationship ever. It's like when you say to someone... you know, you did this and they just won't give you an inch and they give no quarter or they deny it and you know, they're lying. But where do you go from there?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, that's a good way to do it. Here is a general matter. What I think love to see every single senator at these hearings do is stop giving fucking speeches and just use your eight minutes for questions. But that's a perennial problem.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I look, I think use your time to get information, try to pin them down on things, whether it's policy or perjury. But I mean, if it's a really good speech, it's an incredibly compelling, passionate speech that goes super viral on TikTok. That's great. But like I was watching Peter Welch spend like several minutes talking about how much, you know, he was like a RFK scholar in college.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I really like Peter Welch. I think he's like good on policies and a lot of great stuff. But I was like, what are we doing here? It's like four minutes of your time.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
That's what they did at the Jan six committee, right? Like they kind of gave it to a prosecutor or gave it to one individual and let you really narrow in. It's a much better way to go.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
You've got a 44-year-old guy with no relevant experience, barely any relevant experience, who's nominated to lead the FBI for a decade. Because Trump fired the last guy he nominated to leave the FBI for a decade after firing the first one, Jim Comey. Yeah, so we should be asking the dude questions. I mean, the enemies list thing is the part of that that pisses me off the most. It's in his book.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
What would Obama have done? What would George Bush have done? What would Reagan have done in a moment like this? I think you go out and give a speech that's thoughtful and that is about the victims and mourning and this sort of like collective wound that the nation is experiencing because of this tragedy.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
He published a book with a list of enemies. If that does not bother you.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
He talked about it. It is exhausting. Yeah. Tom tells he's up in 26. I guess he must have decided that this is the one he's going to kind of go full mega on. They're never going to like you. They're not going to support you. You're not going to get like you're not going to be accepted by them.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
That's a weird one, though. Like, who is that for? It's for the building, I guess, for the FBI when you get there. But does it get you anything from the senators who vote on you, who give you the job?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, I mean, I think... They're calling it a freeze. I think we should assume that all of these programs are gone unless otherwise indicated and gone permanently, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, well, yeah, the Egypt, the Egypt money is all about Israeli security operations. So, I mean, in 2023, there was $63 billion of foreign aid. That's less than 1% of the federal budget. But as you know, Tim, when you do focus groups or polling, people think the foreign aid budget is closer to 10%. So there's political, you know, it's a political winner for sure. Yeah.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I don't think any president in history would go out and do like a freewheeling press conference, even if they did have command of the facts. But it's just this is like the Trump era. Right. It used to be you didn't want to own bad stories or disasters. And now he's just puts himself in the middle of everything. And it's just it's an interesting I guess it's just how communications is now.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
But like the money we're talking about goes to fund things like combating Ebola or Marburg virus outbreaks abroad or monitoring the avian flu or cleaning up mines and cluster munitions that didn't blow up in places like Ukraine or Laos and Cambodia.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
But it also, you know, there's also money for like, you know, education in Jordan, the country, which gives us enormous leverage in political influence in these places. And if we just turn that off, like that influence is now gone. And you mentioned, I mean, look, there is a lot of political attacks on foreign aid, but you mentioned PEPFAR. I mean, PEPFAR is George Bush's greatest accomplishment.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
It saved 25 million people. It was like universally supported. Recently, I forget which Republican senator started attacking it because like $4,000 were accidentally spent on abortion services in some country and that money was refunded. And I don't know if that got it on the chopping block, but now it sounds like there's, you know,
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
AIDS drugs on the shelf in clinics that they're not allowed to distribute. It's just, it's insane.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Totally. I mean, the China infrastructure projects often... are devastating for countries down the road because they create these debt traps that the countries can't get out of. But you know what they don't come with?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
War and Pandemic. We're on the show. We're talking about the CCP. But the Chinese money doesn't come with any strings attached around human rights. So it's a little bit easier. But you're right. I mean, it's not just that we're turning off money that gives us influence in places and China can fill the breach. It's that we're actively being dickheads
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
to people in Panama, Colombia, Denmark, for absolutely no reason. And these are like, Denmark's a NATO ally. Like, okay, let's play this out for me, Tim. The United States military sends a whole bunch more US military members to our base in Greenland. And we just decide we've annexed it and occupied it. Like what happens?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Does NATO have an Article 5 responsibility to respond to this US invasion of Greenland on behalf of Denmark? Like this whole thing is just It's like a farce in some ways. It's insane. But this is kind of the reality of what we're talking about right now. And it makes us look like clowns and unreliable.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I mean, the most interesting kind of thread I saw on this was by a guy named Atul Gawande, who got into all the public health projects that were being impacted by this, the funding freeze. And that, I think, was where people's heads instantly went, just in terms of the risk factor.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
But maybe there's value to this, right? You're commanding, you're owning every story. You have the attention on you at all times. It goes against my instincts, but I'm wondering, I don't know, is this the right instinct?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I guess where I'm struggling with this is I do think that voters want to hear about common ground and working together and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But right now we're an opposition party. with no power. So it doesn't fucking matter if we work together with them or not. They don't need us. They don't want us. They don't care.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
And so I think you have to act accordingly and raise the awareness in the cost of some of the most egregious things Trump is doing. And that gets complicated when you're talking about areas where clearly Democrats are off sides like immigration. The Lake and Riley Act got a bunch of Democratic votes. It does things that I find
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
like indefensible on a policy level, like just deporting people accused of a crime that just discards all due process rights for, for people in this country. I think mostly it's like, be fucking interesting. Talk like a human being, pick a fight, go into places that are unusual so that whatever you're doing gets shared on social media.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I mean, Tim, you and I both spend a lot of times in safe spaces with people who agree with us, like MSNBC, whatever. But you know, I went on Fox the other day with Jesse waters and, um, That interview is, I heard from more people, it got more pickup than like anything else I've done. So I don't know, maybe we need a little more, a little more combat.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I mean, it's just like the most anodyne talking point. And so whether or not those are the right words to say, who's going to hear that, right? Like, well, there's no pickup of this, of just kind of very boring comments. I've played it twice on the podcast now because it was so boring. So kudos to you for that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Listen, I like on the politics question, like, I don't know, the politics for Ruben Gallego in Arizona are probably very different than a lot of other members. Right. And Ruben was like very vocally for the Lake and Riley Act. And will people be voting on immigration in the midterms? I don't know.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I mean, the Trump's goal presumably is to lock down the border and solve all our immigration problems. And it doesn't mean he'll stop talking about it or making up caravans. But does that reduce the salience? Like, I don't know. It's interesting bet. But yeah, no, I think we're an opposition party and we have to act accordingly and talk like people and be nimble and be interesting.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, I mean, like Congressman Pat Ryan sort of been saying and doing interesting things, trying to be out there, trying to be clear cut, clear eyed. I mean, I think, I think what you're getting at and what Democrats are feeling is that there is a leadership void.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
We have, you know, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are the leaders in both houses in the Senate or the, in Congress, but there's not a democratic leader. Like there's not a nominee. I mean, Schumer talked about how aroused people are.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
That was pretty good. That was hard to watch. I'm all right. A little flaccid. A little tepid.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yes. I want a fighter. I also think obstruction works. Mitch McConnell built an entire career off of that. So the senators should find ways to bog down everything Trump does. It's also just like when Barack Obama won in 2008, he got 365 electoral votes. We had huge majorities in the House and the Senate. Did Republicans... wipe their hands and give up?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
No, they fought everything we did tooth and nail and they drove down our favorables into the midterms of 2010. And that to me is the roadmap. It's just all focused on the midterms.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I'd love to hear your, your media training. How many genders are there, Tommy? How many genders are there, Tommy? Uh, The honest answer, Jesse, I don't care. I'm a libertarian. I don't care. You can be what you want to be, Jesse.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Well, I'm not a Democrat, and that we know. What happened? I didn't know you were a libertarian. I actually run the New Hampshire Democratic Party's libertarian party speed. First of all, I don't think that anyone who goes on an unserious show should be forced to treat unserious questions like they're serious.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
The subjects I was sent in advance were like, we're going to talk about Biden's legacy, the pardons and Democrats going forward. So that just gives you some insight. Also, though, I am libertarian on most social issues. I think the role of the government should be to leave people the fuck alone. If you decide your gender is something other than male and female, good. Good for you.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Live your life however you want. If you want to have an abortion, the government should leave you the fuck alone. I very much am a libertarian on like a whole basket of issues.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, no, the substance is atrocious. And that is unequivocal. There's a stylistic and sort of process point that was interesting to me that I guess what we're going to be living with for the next four years.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Those are different approaches. And I think they all kind of worked well. The one thing I thought about after the fact that I should have done was just be like, can we talk about Dominion voting? Anything they've been sued for for various defamation cases, just try to repeatedly bring that up. That's a next time thing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I want to practice what I preach a little bit, get out some more. I really respect the fact, Tim, that you do a lot of adversarial stuff, like you're kind of at press conferences. That was not a fish for compliments. No.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I've been thinking about this a lot. I've actually taken your counsel. I'm happy to be public about this. I find Steve Bannon very interesting. I listen to his show often. I think... When you listen to Ben and talk, you're usually like a couple of weeks ahead of the curve on where the mega movement is going. I would like to better understand what he thinks Trump 2.0 is like.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I'd love to press him on whether the mega populism he's voted for is represented when you have billionaire, you know, liberal tech oligarchs sitting on stage and Elon running, you know, huge swaths of the administration. I went on a Barstool show when I was in New York and I want to do more stuff where we're just like, I hate the fucking platforming debate.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I'm done with the platforming debate where people are platformed. And I just want to go into places where there's a little more, I don't like debate. Like I hate the like, Ben Shapiro owns a 19 year old content, but a conversation with someone that disagrees with you vociferously, like that's a good thing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, we all missed a generational wealth opportunity. I lived in San Francisco in 2015. If I just listened to one nice nerd who said, hey, you should buy Ethereum or whatever it was at the time, it would have been cool. A couple thoughts on this, Tim. I think we all have to stop saying bro, tech bro, crypto bros, because it's obviously, I'm a pod bro, it's obviously pejorative and condescending.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I think they don't like it. It's no mystery why whatever comes after that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
We can say what we want, but we should probably not be surprised when people tune out everything after. I was talking to Ro Khanna about this the other day. One thing I think Democrats miss is there is a piece of the crypto story that is aspirational. It's not just like get rich quick. But there is that. It's also anti-establishment.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
It's people who felt like they were sticking it to the big banks in the system and kind of operating outside of the control of, you know, whatever they they're kind of pushing against. And I do think Democrats can sound overly negative and like assholes who are just oppositional to this stuff.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
So we have to we have to capture part of that narrative in the hopeful message, but also talk about the fact that Trump coin and meme coins and so much of this stuff is a grift. is a Ponzi scheme. It is going to hurt people. You're going to have more like kind of SBF collapses and Lunatera collapses, and there need to be like regulations that protect people.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
So that's the other part of the message.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
It's just about like... persuasion, trying to like not make them feel attacked. And I think, you know, Biden did some good things trying to regulate these tech companies. It was obviously a long past time, but in the process, it seems like we radicalized a lot of rich people who poured money into Donald Trump and Republican coffers.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Anthony Albanese in Australia. Okay. He doing anything for you?
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
That's a good project for me this weekend. Anthony Albanese. Progressive. You can Google him. The problem is right now, things are a little messy internationally. You don't say. You saw the Canadians. You said Trudeau stepped down. There's a real chance that Pierre Polyev comes to power in Canada, the conservative leader. It looks like the G7. You got South Korea.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
They just had a little martial law incident. They're trying to prosecute, impeach, and remove their president. president. That seems bad. The Germans are about to have an election. We got Elon kick it up dust for the far right party. So things are a little messy, man. I don't know. There's not a lot I'm especially hopeful.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I mean, Keir Starmer and the Labor Party, they had a rough start, but they're going to be in power for a while. They could do some good things. Does that help? David Lammy, foreign secretary. In the UK, I like him a lot. I know him a little personally.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
No. Let's just come together, Libs. We can do this. We're going to make it through this two years. I get into some doomer places like I know you do, Tim, usually around 10 p.m. at night on Sundays. And we've got to pull up. We've got to pull up the plane.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Well, I think he's speaking to a really hard reality in politics in that sometimes really bad things happen in the world, and there's no rhyme or reason to it. And it makes us feel better when we can throw a conspiracy theory around the chaos or around the pain or something to explain this to ourselves, but that's not always going to be the case.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
And this might have just been a horrible accident here. We'll figure it out, right? But I saw the same things you did, like people blaming the air traffic controller shortage or the buyout proposal, or like, you know, firing the head of the TSA. And my instinct was to find that gross. And then I saw Trump this morning, and I thought, I don't know, maybe I'm not built for politics anymore, Tim.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Like, maybe this is how it goes. Gross is what it is.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I also just want to, before we get into substance again, point out how tan he looks all of a sudden. I know he lives in California, but I, it hasn't been that nice out. So I'm wondering if there's a,
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
You know, I'm good, buddy. It's great to see you. Actually, I think in like 2018, I emailed Ben because I used to call him Baby Bannon, which honestly was kind of unfair because I think he left the Bannon world. So we agreed to not be quite as mean to each other online, but I never actually met Ben. So I should probably do that someday.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah. I mean, I don't have a lot of experience with either SSRIs or heroin. I'm not aware of them. SSRIs causing like a euphoric high or a craving or the need to take another one an hour later. I don't know. Maybe you have more experience with these things.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, I mean, certainly your body can adjust to their presence in your system and then getting off them can cause challenges, can lead to withdrawal symptoms. But to your point, I think this is kind of a few days or a few weeks long process, not an addiction that can plague people literally forever. for the rest of their lives and can ruin their lives at a moment's notice if they relapse.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
So it's an outrageous and absurd comment.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, I mean, he's such a slippery, terrible person. And it did seem like he crammed for the test, but he kind of skipped like the 101. I mean, if you're going to merge Medicare and Medicaid, which is a proposal he floated, you should probably have an idea for how that would work. But when pressed on that, he's like, I don't have a plan. I'd love to work it out with you, a member of Congress.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
At times, it didn't seem like he understood that it was Medicare, old people, Medicaid, poor people. He said Medicaid is fully paid for by the federal government. That's wrong. It's actually paid for by a combination of federal and state funds. And again, you made the point about how he was wrong about premiums and deductibles. They don't exist for the vast majority of Medicaid recipients.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
We're talking about nearly $2 trillion worth of federal spending. I think Medicare was 14% of total spending in 2023. So these are enormous programs that he doesn't understand the basics of, let alone how to administer them.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
Yeah, I mean, look, we're looking the no votes you're looking for are what Collins, Murkowski, McConnell and Cassidy, that's kind of like the four that people have ID that you need. So knowing that list, I mean, I presumably the ways to reach them would be through talking about the fact that he's clearly pro-choice and now he's pretending to be anti-abortion. Maybe they don't believe him.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
I'm curious what you think about this pitch, Tim. The problem with attacking RFK is you kind of de facto end up siding with big pharma companies The drug companies, the healthcare industry, right, which is not where I like ideologically am like, I don't like those guys either. I also don't think it's smart politics.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
So the question is like, okay, how do you pick an enemy to kind of counteract that? I've noticed that the Wall Street Journal and their editorial page have decided that the enemy is trial lawyers. And they're saying that Kennedy is just going to open up a whole bunch more litigation pathways for his trial lawyer buddies and that he might personally profit from some of those lawsuits.
The Bulwark Podcast
Tommy Vietor: Deniability Is All That Matters
And I'm just curious if you think that angle is effective. Like, I remember ATLA being an enemy from my John Edwards for president days back in 2004. People didn't love trial lawyers. I remember my dad referring to Edwards as an ambulance chaser and 24 year old me got very offended. But I don't know. Is that an effective approach?