Tommy Vitor
Appearances
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
His emissaries are over in Israel right now meeting with Netanyahu talking about Gaza.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
We can't tell. Yeah. Yeah. I think on the staff level, like they're just shoving money out the door from the CHIPS Act and the IRA and trying to get as much of that spent as they can. So Trump can't peel it back. They're also doing that with Ukraine. And they just pushed out a huge loan to the Ukrainians that's basically paid for by seized Russian assets, like the interest on those assets.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
So that's significant. They're pushing through a lot of judges. I think he's about to beat Trump's record from the first term, the most judges confirmed. So those are things he is doing, things he could be doing. I'd love to see him say, cut off all military support for the war in Gaza. Why not?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Trump might turn it back on, but let's stop the carnage for a couple of months and say, fuck you to Bibi Nanyahu. Similarly in Syria, there's a huge opportunity right now to shape whatever comes next. We could decide to take off some sanctions, things that are politically risky because the people in charge now have roots in terrorist organizations, but Joe Biden doesn't have to worry about that.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
politics going forward. Like maybe they could move to close Gitmo. I don't know if this is feasible given the laws that were passed by Congress, but there's 30 people left at Gitmo. Costs half a billion a year to keep it open. 16 of them have been cleared for transfer because they have not been charged and they pose no risk. Get those guys out of there.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
You have to figure out a country to send them to. You get that process going. But like there's some things you could do that would be really pretty historic.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, I mean, there's just so much space on foreign policy, like so much foreign policy is bound up with stupid politics, especially in Florida. Like Obama tried to take a bunch of steps to normalize relations with Cuba. Trump wound them all back. Biden kind of went halfway to the Obama position. Why not just get rid of that?
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
The stupid sanctions on Cuba or normalize relations in some way or allow travel or remittances at the maximum level possible. There's all these things you could do that really would be historic and important. And when you're unencumbered by politics, why not run through the tape?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Well, I think they pardoned all the people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the pandemic under the CARES Act. Right. Which was Trump. Which was this was the remaining like fifteen hundred or so. So they just did a blanket pardon. I guess they didn't.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
individually vet all the people on that list or commutation commutation commutation yeah sorry um and so i don't know i guess like to take the other side of this argument i think stories like this examples like this are why pardons and clemency are really really hard to do politically because by definition you are releasing someone who did something illegal and or untoward
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And the argument is that they have changed. Now, I'm not like defending these people on the merits. The kids for cash people sound awful. As is this woman who stole like, what, $54 million from the city of Dixon, the comptroller. But I think both of them were due to be released between two to four years from now and were on home confinement anyway.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
So maybe they figured rather than pluck out exceptions and start that process, you just kind of do the blanket 1500 and get it over with.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I mean, if I were her and I really wanted to stay in public service, I would run for governor. I think you are almost guaranteed to win that primary. It's a huge job.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
you know what's California like the fifth biggest economy in the world if it were a country on its own I mean it's an enormous an enormous task and then we're trying to run for president again like nothing is guaranteed this may sound quaint maybe a little naive
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, I thought that was like the dumb media prism. Yes. I assume she's doing exactly what you're saying, which is figure out. But I think if you were to ask her, what is she most passionate about? It has been domestic issues. It has been law enforcement. It has been criminal justice, things that she can do as governor.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
He also truth. Let the public know and now otherwise shoot them down. So these are unmanned. I mean, I think this phenomenon is I think the reality is there's a lot of stuff in our airspace at all times. And if you start looking up, you're going to start seeing things. And people don't know what they're looking at from the ground because none of us are experts.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
But then you've had the highest security clearance of all three of us. What?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah, it was aliens. And so people get worried. They start talking about it. Then everyone else starts looking. And then stuff starts going around social media. And the craziest shit gets shared the most. Like I saw a video alleging that it was drones searching for a lost Ukrainian nuclear weapon. I saw that too. And I saw that because Joe Rogan returned. And I believe it. And I believe it.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Shoot them down. Liberal Joe Rogan, whatever. And then that was compounded by wildly irresponsible members of Congress, like New Jersey Rep Chris Smith said, the elusive maneuvering of these drones suggests a major military power sophistication that begs the question whether they've been deployed to test our defense capabilities or worse, by violent dictatorships, perhaps maybe Russia, China, Iran.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
or North Korea. Richard Blumenthal called for the drones to be shot down. Again, we want to use live missiles over U.S. territory to blow up things in the sky. They're harming no one, not remembering that that metal will then fall on the ground. Wow. Also, I think- Maybe kill people. Wow, that's some fucking beta fag shit. Shoot them down.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
He's like a national security spokesperson. Right, there you go. Something like that.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
And especially in a defamation suit against a public figure, not just a public figure, maybe the highest public figure when it comes to sort of like the political milieu. No, obviously the highest, the president of the United States, the incoming president. You were supposed to have a lot more wiggle room when you're talking about that person.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Andy's tweets were great. He's the newly elected New Jersey senator. He's out there doing... you know, constituent services and communicating well and clearly in this thread. I think it's fair to say that to date, the U.S. government's communication wasn't great. They weren't necessarily answering the mail on people's anxieties.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
But in their defense, it's nearly impossible to comment when some like member of Congress calls the White House and is like, hey, Biden, what's floating over Menden, New Jersey right now? You know, that's not like...
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Some of it is like, yeah, right. Even like Larry Hogan was filming stars and, you know, and just was completely wrong about what he was seeing. Oh, those were just stars from Larry Hogan? I think so.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
You have to prove there was actual malice in what you said. And George made a mistake. He said that Trump had been found liable for rape when it was actually sexual abuse. Do you offer context?
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Could we get the drones involved with little mirrors? For sure, for sure. To make more sun.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
What's the thing called that you build around the sun for permanent unlimited energy?
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah. And also with a public figure, this should not be a hard case. It signals it's very chilling. It signals that there's some momentum behind all these cases. It signals that there is this, I don't know, there's this evidence, like we're seeing all these pieces of evidence that CEOs and corporations are preemptively bowing down to Trump.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
It's Mark Zuckerberg cutting a million dollar check to the inauguration of Tim Cook having dinner with Donald Trump.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Yeah. And look, I think, you know, I think this is probably gonna have a lot of news outlets worried. And this would be unthinkable outside of this context that a news outlet would settle for $15 million, given the context we just talked about how what Stephanopoulos said was completely defensible and how Trump is a public figure. It's very worrisome.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
The question is why? And was it because they did their own kind of internal digging and they found something in a discovery process in an email or in a document or somewhere that they thought, okay, we do not want this to go to a deposition and have George sit down and have this come out in a court filing? Is it because...
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
ABC or Disney is thinking, let's just patch this up and fix our relationship with Trump now and not get iced out for the next few years. We don't know.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Want to go for the Pulitzer Organization? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. What are we talking about here?
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I would like to sue the New York Times needle. I would like to sue Steve Kornacki's khakis. I'd love one of the Nates.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
So the SoftBank thing is funny. The Wall Street Journal pointed out that SoftBank only has $30 billion on hand. So it's not clear how they're going to invest $100 billion. I guess they're going to go to the Saudis hat in hand again and try to raise another round.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
That's not going to be easy because the SoftBank Vision Fund, too, included WeWork and a bunch of other companies that basically went bust.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I was shocked. Biden has never been in the Army Navy game as president. That really surprised me because it's very fun. I went to one. It was a blast. We went to one and Joe Biden was there. Yeah, Joe Biden. It also was just down the road in Maryland. As the vice president. Obama, yeah. He won his VP with Obama in 2011, but not as president.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
I mean, I think Trump generally is very good at using social events to show off this kind of pageantry and trappings of the presidency. He does it better than I think any president in our lifetime, better than Obama, better than Biden. Sports are sometimes part of it. There was the ultimate fighting thing. He did recently with like Elon and the goon squad of like Speaker Johnson and those guys.
Pod Save America
Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
He went to college football games. But like Army, Navy, it's like football wrapped in the military. And it just it's like an obvious winner for him, which is why it's so odd that Biden wouldn't go for his last one when it's just down the road. But I get like you said, they did it in a smart way. They brought Pete Hegseth, which kind of showed the world that he's still behind that nomination.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
He brought together congressional leaders like they had Speaker Johnson and John Thune in the same box with Trump, I think.
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Is Biden Quiet Quitting?
Well, it's also really funny. Remember 2016 when people were all worked up about the Logan Act and unauthorized diplomacy by American citizens? And now you got Trump. Trump went to Paris. He went to Notre Dame. He met with Zelensky. He's taken calls from foreign leaders. Justin Trudeau flew down to Mar-a-Lago for dinner.