0:00

Today's episode of Pod Save America is sponsored

0:02

by Simply Safe Home Security. They say

0:04

spring is the season of new beginnings, and that's

0:06

especially true if you're one of the millions of Americans

0:08

moving into a new home this moving season. Moving

0:11

season? Okay. What's one of the first

0:13

things people should do when moving into a new home?

0:15

Set up Simply Safe. Let's cut right to the chase. Yeah,

0:18

set up your security system. That's a good point, John. You

0:20

know, Do one of those things like Nancy Reagan did to

0:22

clear the house of spirits. Sage it. Sage

0:24

it.

0:25

Sage it. In New York,

0:27

everyone used to move on the same day. What

0:29

day was that? I'm not sure. Maybe May 1st,

0:31

but I couldn't, I don't want to swear by it. So

0:34

you're a Simply Safe user. You bet I am. And

0:37

set it up with one of the first things you did when you moved into your

0:39

home. I set up a Simply Safe, and

0:41

it's a great system, and the app is great, and

0:43

it works great, and it looks great, and it's reliable

0:45

completely, and I highly recommend it. Simply

0:48

Safe is designed with cutting edge technology and

0:50

backed by 24-7 professional monitoring. In

0:52

an emergency, agents use FastProtect technology

0:55

only from Simply Safe to capture critical evidence and verify

0:57

the threat is real so you can get priority police

0:59

dispatch.

1:00

24-7 professional monitoring service costs

1:02

under a dollar a day, less than half

1:04

the price of traditional home security systems. You

1:07

can lock and unlock your doors, access your cameras,

1:09

and arm and disarm your systems from anywhere. CNET

1:12

named Simply Safe Editor's Choice

1:14

for 2023. Customize the perfect

1:17

system for your home in just a few minutes at simplysafe.com.

1:20

Go today and claim a free indoor security camera

1:23

plus 20% off your order with interactive monitoring. That's

1:25

simplysafe.com. There's

1:27

no safe like Simply Safe.

1:50

Welcome

1:50

to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm

1:53

Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Fox lies

1:55

cost the network three quarters of a billion dollars. House

1:57

Republicans settle on a $8 billion deal.

2:00

wildly unpopular debt ceiling ransom,

2:02

Ron DeSantis lets a wave of

2:04

home state endorsements slip through his pudding

2:07

fingers and later strict scrutiny's

2:09

Leah Litman stops by to break down the legal

2:11

implications of the Dominion settlement and

2:13

talk about new Supreme Court developments in

2:16

the fight to keep abortion medication legal.

2:19

But first

2:19

we are extremely

2:22

excited to release the trailer for

2:24

Pod Save the UK hosted

2:26

by comedian Nish Kumar and journalist

2:28

Coco Khan. This hilarious

2:31

and brilliant podcast will be your go-to source

2:33

for all the political developments across

2:35

the pond and the first episode

2:37

will be out just in time for

2:39

the coronation of King Charles. Perfect.

2:43

We're producing this with our friends at Reduce Listening.

2:46

They are such pros, they are so smart.

2:48

Love It and Tommy and I recorded

2:50

an episode with Nish

2:52

and Coco last week. Could not stop

2:54

laughing the whole time. I think Love

2:56

It made a lot of you know 1776

2:58

jokes. There's some real you

3:00

know it's everything you'd expect but

3:03

the good thing is they are

3:05

brilliant, they are funny

3:07

and we are very very excited about the podcast.

3:10

Can't wait for you to hear the show.

3:11

Listen to the trailer now wherever you

3:13

get your podcasts and don't forget to subscribe. Also

3:16

if you're looking for a binge-worthy podcast and still haven't

3:19

checked out Stiffed, now is the time.

3:21

This is the eight-part series from Crooked Media and iHeartRadio

3:24

about the rise and fall of Viva, the

3:26

erotic magazine for women that rocked

3:28

the publishing world in 1973 with a team of feminist

3:32

writers and editors behind it. Viva had everything

3:34

from full frontal nudity. How

3:37

many times can I say full frontal nudity in the housekeeping

3:39

for Pods Save America? That's the test.

3:42

At least twice a week is basically where we

3:44

are. With Porn King,

3:47

I see now I lost my place, I'm just too

3:49

much full

3:49

frontal nudity. With

3:51

Porn King publisher Bob Guccione at the

3:53

helm were they always destined for failure?

3:56

Find out now by listening to the first half of Stiffed

3:59

available for free on your phone.

3:59

favorite podcast platform, don't

4:02

miss out on this podcast. All

4:04

right, let's get to the news.

4:06

The media trial of the century

4:08

ended before it began this week as Fox

4:11

News paid Dominion voting systems $787.5 million

4:13

in a last minute settlement that

4:17

denies libs like us the satisfaction

4:19

of six weeks in court where Rupert

4:21

Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo

4:24

and other Fox bozos would finally be exposed

4:26

as lying grifters who treat their

4:28

viewers like morons.

4:30

But alas,

4:31

Dominion gets the largest media settlement

4:34

in history worth 10 times the value of

4:36

their company

4:37

and we get nothing.

4:38

No squirming under oath, no admissions of

4:40

guilt, no on-air apologies,

4:43

just a statement from Fox that says

4:45

they, quote,

4:46

acknowledge the court's rulings finding

4:49

certain claims about Dominion to be

4:51

false. Dan,

4:54

why did Dominion and its lawyers rob us

4:56

of this joy? Do they hate content?

4:59

It's our fault for getting our hopes up. As

5:02

we do all the time, we never learn our lesson.

5:05

We get excited and we just

5:07

have them crushed. That

5:08

is what happened here. I mean, look, it

5:11

was probably naive on our part to choose

5:14

as our fighter in the battle for democracy a

5:17

voting software

5:19

company owned by a private equity firm represented

5:23

by major trial lawyers to be the ones who were gonna fight

5:26

for this in some sort of Aaron Sorkin-esque battle

5:28

for the truth. But of course they settled.

5:30

Why wouldn't they settle? Fox had every incentive to settle.

5:33

Dominion, as you said, it was a company that was worth $80

5:36

million a few years ago. A private

5:38

equity firm has majority stake in the company. It's

5:40

being represented by lawyers who get a cut of the settlement.

5:42

Why would they not take the largest

5:45

settlement in media defamation

5:47

history right there without having to go through any

5:49

risk of losing that at trial?

5:52

Yeah, I mean, I also

5:54

let myself get too hopeful about this one because

5:58

way back when when it started, I was like, of course, Of course they're

6:00

going to end up settling. Why would Fox go to trial? And

6:03

then there's a lot of reporting like Dominion

6:05

doesn't want to settle, Dominion doesn't want to settle. But

6:07

look, even if one of their goals,

6:09

one of their big goals, Dominions, was

6:12

to prevent Fox News from

6:14

doing more damage and help save democracy,

6:18

their primary goal is to make money. They are a business.

6:21

And

6:22

even though they had a very high chance

6:24

of winning, it wasn't certain,

6:26

it wasn't certain at all that they would

6:28

get that much money, the

6:30

amount of money they did. And like

6:32

you suggested, it probably would have taken years

6:36

to go through the

6:37

appeals process to

6:39

get

6:40

all this money or less, or

6:42

an apology from them based on like

6:45

just all the different, they could have gone to, they

6:47

probably would have ended up at the Supreme Court

6:49

and who knows what they would have done.

6:51

So, you know, they took the money,

6:53

which is, again, it's a business, what are you going to

6:55

do? Yeah, and let's just, before

6:57

we get all depressed about this, because

6:59

of this suit, we got to learn a lot

7:02

of really fun, really important, and

7:04

quite embarrassing information about Fox and its personalities.

7:07

Yes. They cannot take that, we had that

7:09

content. They cannot take it away from us. Yeah,

7:14

I mean, look, has Fox's ratings suffered at

7:16

all? No, but you know, there's been

7:18

a couple of polls, there was a poll from last month, it

7:21

found that like 20% of Fox viewers

7:24

trust the network less because of the

7:26

revelations over the last several months. That

7:28

is a very small percentage, but it's something.

7:31

Do you think this settlement will impact

7:33

Fox's business,

7:35

and will it at all

7:37

impact Fox's behavior?

7:40

It's going to be tough for their business.

7:43

They're going to have to make some real cuts.

7:45

The five is going to become the four. Oh

7:48

my God. I'm so sorry. You

7:51

tested out your White House correspondence in the material

7:53

here? Yes. You

7:56

know, you got, Lovett's basically a professional comedian.

7:58

Tommy's out here just bringing.

7:59

and songs and AI stuff. I'm just trying

8:02

to bring something to the table here. I can't just all be data

8:04

for progress cross tabs I got. Do

8:10

you have a eulogy for this trial? Like

8:13

Tommy did for Mike Pompeo's campaign? Cause it's

8:15

going viral. Oh,

8:17

I know. I helped that. I participated in its

8:19

reality. I retweeted it repeatedly cause it was good stuff.

8:22

All right. This hurts their business

8:25

for sure, but

8:26

they were going to get the right sub of this off in

8:29

their taxes. Their insurance may cover

8:31

some of it. The Fox corporation carries around

8:33

about $4 billion in cash at any one time. They

8:35

make over a billion dollars a year in

8:37

net

8:38

revenue. So they can afford

8:40

this, but it's bad. You just

8:42

much like the conversation about Donald Trump

8:44

getting indicted. No one's ever

8:46

a winner when they're paying it or a million dollars

8:48

to someone else. In terms of their behavior,

8:51

hard to say. They do not want this to happen

8:54

again. The, they're

8:56

going to be more careful. They're certainly going to stop texting

8:58

about all of their crimes. I imagine that will be the case.

9:00

Yeah. Maybe get some burner phones, you know? I

9:04

don't know. Maybe do your, maybe do your crimes in person.

9:08

Don't take notes on a criminal conspiracy. That is the rule.

9:11

And I think about it, like put yourself

9:13

in this position. They're not going to become fair and balanced.

9:15

They're not going to,

9:17

you know, they're not going to get rid of the conspiracy

9:19

theorists, blowhards and primetime and

9:21

the media. And they're not going to, the

9:23

propagandists are not going to become mediocre journalists

9:26

in the

9:26

daytime. It's going to say basically the same, but imagine

9:29

a situation where Donald Trump, we are in

9:33

October and November of 2024 and Donald Trump

9:35

is pushing more conspiracy theories about

9:37

the election. Fox is going to be this

9:40

much more careful about that because

9:43

this costs them a, almost

9:45

a billion dollars. They're facing another, they're facing

9:47

more lawsuits. The price tag of

9:50

the, of the lies around the election is going to be

9:52

quite high for them. And there may be just a wee

9:54

bit of hesitancy before they do it again.

9:57

Yeah. I mean, I think that they'll, they'll

9:59

be hesitant.

9:59

around potentially defaming

10:03

a big corporation that could sue them. And

10:05

so if Trump is pushing a big lie again,

10:08

as opposed to targeting Dominion voting

10:10

systems or Smartmatic or any of the other voting

10:13

systems, they could just, they could

10:15

have pushed the big lie without specifically

10:17

targeting Dominion, right? They could have just said

10:19

plenty of questions. They could have

10:21

aired the conspiracy theories and they

10:24

could have, like there's a whole,

10:25

I mean, Donald Trump does this all the time, you

10:28

know, where he's like, oh, I would, who knows,

10:30

a lot of people are saying that there's some stuffed

10:33

ballots somewhere and I don't know. And

10:35

like, they're gonna do all that. And they're just gonna be a

10:37

little bit more careful about how they lie because

10:39

they don't wanna actually defame specific corporations.

10:41

Or specific people, because let's not forget a few years

10:44

ago, they had to settle a case with

10:46

the family of Seth Rich, the murdered DNC

10:48

staffer, who they slandered

10:51

and claimed that he was murdered because he

10:53

leaked documents to WikiLeaks, which was obviously

10:55

completely

10:55

not true. Let me just put it this way. The

10:58

legal risk of being

11:00

in the lying business has gone

11:03

up. And because of this settlement, there are

11:05

gonna be more

11:06

lawyers and more potential plaintiffs looking

11:08

to bring suits. And so it's very possible

11:10

that if Fox continues its business as it

11:12

has been doing, it's gonna get more expensive to do so.

11:15

And that is not cost-free. They are in a dying

11:18

business. Every day, more

11:20

people come to court. Yeah, literally. It'd be

11:22

their audience, yes, demographically, but the

11:24

number, but they make their money

11:27

from carriage fees based on the number

11:29

of people who have cable.

11:31

The number of people who have cable is going down every day. And

11:33

so they are already managing a very

11:37

profitable, but a decline nonetheless. And that's

11:39

gonna get more expensive as more

11:41

lawsuits come. Because you know, there are a whole bunch

11:43

of people who just watched the Dominion lawyers get quite

11:45

rich and lawyers are gonna be out looking for plaintiffs

11:47

to do the same thing. This is what happened to Big Tobacco.

11:50

Yes, and look, we're gonna talk about Smartmatic

11:52

in a minute, which is another defamation

11:54

lawsuit that Fox faces. There are also potentially

11:57

gonna be shareholder lawsuits. what

12:00

happens with shareholder lawsuits is oftentimes

12:03

the Fox shareholders who might

12:06

sue the company for this might demand some

12:08

kind of management change. And

12:11

so you might get, there's been some reporting

12:13

that

12:14

Fox clearly doesn't want to admit

12:17

that they're gonna get rid of people because

12:19

of this lawsuit, but you could start

12:21

seeing a few heads roll. Not

12:23

any of the big stars, like maybe a Sid,

12:26

a Jerry, maybe even a Tom. I mean, they

12:28

already essentially fired

12:30

Lou Dobbs

12:31

for

12:34

his role in spreading the smartmatic

12:37

conspiracy theories. They've already in

12:39

one way admitted some culpability

12:41

there and we'll probably be looking to settle that lawsuit as well.

12:44

I do wonder about other MAGA

12:46

media outlets like

12:47

OAN Newsmax

12:49

told the exact same lies about Dominion

12:52

don't have as much money as Fox.

12:54

Like could they get sued? Yeah,

12:56

absolutely they could get sued. People

12:59

were maybe less likely to sue them because their

13:01

pockets are less steep.

13:02

It's only worth the time and energy for

13:05

the attorneys if the potential

13:07

payout is sufficient to cover the costs of

13:10

the case. And that may not be the case with these middling

13:14

third tier propaganda networks like OAN

13:17

and Newsmax.

13:19

What I was hoping for more than anything was

13:21

an outcome that required prime

13:24

time Fox hosts to deliver on-air apologies.

13:27

I wanted like five minutes of groveling

13:29

at the top of every hour, right before

13:31

they go back to yelling about trans kids and immigrants.

13:34

That first five minutes prime

13:36

time, just making an apology. That's

13:39

clearly a fantasy that will not be

13:41

coming true. Do you think that would have had

13:44

any effect whatsoever beyond

13:47

our own enjoyment?

13:48

I don't wanna diminish our own enjoyment

13:50

as a value here. Like

13:54

we've heard that, not just you and I, but everyone

13:56

listening here, we deserve that. No,

13:59

I don't think it would have made it. a

14:00

bit of difference because we all

14:02

have these fantasies that Fox is

14:05

like has this cult like power over its viewers

14:07

and it may be the reverse is true because they

14:09

did tell the truth once and it was in 2020

14:12

after the election when they said that Joe Biden won Arizona

14:14

and it was a legitimate win and did

14:17

a whole bunch of Fox News viewers come around

14:19

to the idea that Joe Biden was a legitimate president? No, they

14:21

didn't change their mind. They changed the channel to Newsmax

14:23

or OAN to go find someone who would tell them

14:25

what they want to believe. And I think we underestimate

14:28

the power of motivated reasoning and

14:30

why people believe some of the things they believe and it's

14:32

not. And in some ways Fox is

14:35

just reflecting back what its viewers want them

14:37

to say. And so would it have been

14:39

fun? Yes. Would any amount of embarrassment

14:41

for Tucker Carlson be a net benefit for society?

14:44

Yes. Would it have would have changed

14:46

the

14:46

calculus or and you know, reverse

14:49

the radicalization of Republican voters? I don't think so.

14:52

Yeah, I keep going back and forth on this

14:54

one because,

14:56

you know,

14:57

one thing we do know is that more than anything else,

14:59

Fox really didn't want their audience

15:02

exposed to the truth. I mean, that's why they

15:04

settled. That's why they refused to apologize. Like

15:06

they clearly were

15:09

afraid of what would happen if those

15:11

audiences were exposed to the truth. But

15:14

as you point out, they're

15:16

probably not afraid

15:17

of that because they think that the audience's

15:20

minds would change.

15:21

They thought that the audiences would just leave

15:24

them for somewhere else. That's

15:26

the fear. That's probably why they didn't want all

15:28

the hosts on the stand and they didn't

15:30

want to do the on-air apologies. Not because

15:32

they think they're going to create a bunch of libs, but

15:34

because those people are just going to go to

15:36

Newsmax or OAN or somewhere else. Yeah.

15:39

So yeah.

15:41

I think liberals like sometimes

15:43

have this fantasy that they've just

15:45

saw, you know, Michael Bloomberg or someone bought

15:47

Fox News and shut it down that the world would be saved

15:49

and that all these people would turn off Hannity and put on PBS

15:51

News Hour. And that's not how it's going to work, right? It's just

15:54

they're going to go find another source

15:56

of confirmation bias in their cable

15:58

news programming. Have

16:00

you seen this study by David

16:02

Brookman and Joshua Calla? And it was,

16:05

they did one last year in 2022 where

16:08

they paid Fox viewers to watch CNN

16:10

shortly before the 2020 election. And

16:13

they found large effects on

16:15

attitudes and policy preferences about COVID-19,

16:18

about evaluations of Trump. And then

16:20

I guess they just did one recently. And

16:23

they found that one in seven

16:25

Americans consume over eight hours of partisan

16:28

media per month, which is like a lot more than I would

16:30

have expected. And most partisan media

16:32

voters, they found, are not aligned strong

16:34

partisans and do not have especially

16:36

strong prior attitudes and

16:39

that they also rarely consume cross-cutting

16:41

partisan content or meaningful quantities of national

16:43

broadcast media. I bring this up because

16:45

I do wonder if there's more

16:48

give there with these audiences than

16:51

we assume. Like sometimes we assume

16:53

that everyone who watches Fox, their mind

16:55

is made up forever. They're gonna only

16:57

go further right if

16:59

they leave Fox to OAN or Newsmax. But I

17:01

wonder if we are estimating some people who are more

17:04

casual Fox viewers who aren't

17:06

as strong partisans. What do you make of that?

17:08

I have read the summary of the

17:10

study. I haven't read the whole thing, obviously,

17:13

for a lot of reasons. It's 60

17:16

pages. But I had,

17:19

and there's some interesting points in there that are worth

17:22

flagging. One is we always say Fox's

17:24

audience is small, right? They're getting at most

17:26

four and a half million viewers at a time.

17:29

And that is a fraction of it. That's not a

17:31

number that is electorally significant

17:34

in a national, in terms of the overall

17:36

national electorate. But their

17:39

point is that you have to look at the overall audience,

17:41

not how many people are watching it at any given

17:43

time. How many different people watch it over

17:45

a period of days. And then that number is

17:48

actually quite large. Now, some questions

17:50

I have with that study is as

17:52

I understood the summary, CNN

17:54

is included in the partisan audience.

17:57

And I'd like to understand that the reason-

17:59

for that is that Republicans have been told that

18:02

CNN is a partisan audience. We

18:04

can have a lot of debate about what life was like at

18:06

CNN under Jeff Zucker, under new

18:08

leadership, etc. But I think that

18:12

isn't even apples to oranges. That's like apples

18:14

to, I don't know,

18:16

lug nuts or something. Like, they're just very different

18:18

things that are hard to compare. The

18:21

one thing I think we also sort of underestimate

18:23

with Fox is the osmotic effect of

18:25

it because it is on, it's

18:27

not just people tuning in at home. Like, if

18:29

you go to rural America, it's on

18:31

when

18:32

you're getting your oil changed in the waiting room.

18:34

It's on in the doctor's office. It's on everywhere.

18:37

And it's also just the people who watch it

18:39

are then talking about what they see on there.

18:41

I've seen other studies

18:45

that are older than this one that raised some

18:47

real questions about the number of persuadable voters

18:50

who were there. There's a difference between persuadable voters

18:52

and not strongly aligned partisans. Like,

18:54

there are people who identify as, who identify

18:57

as indi-, and this may be adjusted in the, in

18:59

the other 59 pages of the study that I did not read,

19:01

but there

19:02

are, but you know, you can be, you can call

19:04

yourself a Democrat or an

19:06

independent and vote with Republicans 100% of

19:09

the time. And so you have

19:11

to look not at their party registration or their self-identified

19:13

party identification, but their

19:16

actual voting habits and their beliefs

19:18

to know if there are actually, if there's many movable voters

19:21

there is, we think.

19:23

And one thing we do know both from research

19:25

and anecdotal data is that like

19:28

Fox does radicalize people. I mean, I don't know if

19:30

you saw that horrific shooting

19:33

of Ralph Yarl, the,

19:35

the black teenager in Missouri, and

19:39

they did an interview with the grandson

19:42

of the 84 year old guy who shot him. And

19:44

the grandson's like, yeah, I mean, I actually

19:46

wasn't really surprised because over

19:49

the last several years, my grandfather's always been conservative,

19:52

but

19:52

he's gone down the Fox, OAN

19:55

rabbit hole. He's become angrier,

19:57

listening to the NRA stand your ground stuff.

19:59

like he has been going down that rabbit

20:02

hole and getting more radicalized over the years. So like

20:04

we know it happens, you know, we know that they have the power

20:06

to do that. If you have powerful media entities

20:09

who see it as their business model

20:11

and their political incentive to scare

20:13

the living shit

20:15

out of a certain set of people, about other sets of people,

20:17

and you live in a society that has easy access

20:19

to weapons, you're gonna

20:21

end up with things like this happening all the time. So

20:24

Fox still faces a $2.7 billion

20:27

lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting

20:29

technology company, whose lawyer

20:31

released a statement right after the settlement

20:34

that promised the company will expose

20:36

more of Fox's misconduct and quote, hold

20:38

them accountable for undermining democracy.

20:41

You getting your hopes up again?

20:42

And we all go, it's Smartmatic, the new media

20:45

trial of this century that's gonna finally take down Fox

20:47

and save democracy? I think that statement,

20:50

if you were to like, hold it up to a mirror,

20:52

play it backwards on a record player would say, please call me

20:54

about settlement terms. I

20:57

mean, both Fox's response

20:59

and Smartmatic's is to posture. Fox

21:02

is like, see, we're not scared

21:04

of this. Dominion

21:06

validates us, so we're not gonna settle. And Smartmatic

21:08

is saying, we're gonna make this as painful

21:10

for you as Dominion did so, so far. So it'll be interesting to see

21:13

how this one plays out, taking place in New York

21:15

instead of Delaware, because Delaware has a

21:18

very specific corporate court system there.

21:21

New York will be taking place in the regular

21:23

court system there. That's potentially a very bad

21:26

jury pool for Fox. But also

21:28

Smartmatic is a much smaller business

21:30

than Dominion, so their legitimate

21:33

claims of amount of damages, if they were to go to court,

21:36

are potentially smaller than Dominion's. Yeah,

21:40

but we should, again, we should not be expecting Smartmatic,

21:43

this company, to save democracy. Adam

21:45

Serwer wrote a great piece in The

21:47

Atlantic about why this

21:50

was never going to save democracy. And

21:52

it ended, I just wanna read the paragraph at the end,

21:55

no lawsuit, no investigation, no

21:58

state intervention can prevent people from believing.

21:59

leaving falsehoods they want to be true. The

22:02

only real solution is to prevent those operating

22:04

under such delusions or the politicians beholden

22:06

to them from wielding power. And that

22:08

is not the work

22:10

of corporations like Dominion, that

22:12

is not the work of the courts, that unfortunately is

22:14

the work of politics and a democracy, it

22:17

is work that never ends. Whether

22:19

it's

22:20

Bob Mueller, Trump indictments,

22:24

none of this shit's going to save us. We shouldn't expect the

22:26

New York Times to save us, the mainstream

22:28

media, like

22:29

we have to do the hard work of persuading people,

22:32

you know? And I do think just to end

22:34

this media conversation, you have written about this

22:36

in all of your books that

22:39

the real solution is to build progressive

22:41

media. And this is why we started Crooked,

22:44

right? Because instead of just spending all our time

22:46

trying to take Fox down, you know, like we have

22:48

to go out there and actually persuade people

22:51

and we are competing with the right wing

22:54

media ecosystem to make sure that more

22:56

people aren't, you know, radicalized

22:59

by those media outlets and simply

23:01

trying to shut them down

23:03

is not going to work. We actually have to

23:06

do the hard work of persuading people ourselves. The

23:08

urgency of building up progressive

23:10

media, I think, was brought even more to

23:12

the forefront today with the news that BuzzFeed

23:15

News was shutting down, which just shows

23:17

that the media economics and the changes in people's

23:19

information consumption habits mean

23:21

that the days in which a

23:24

objective, non-ideological,

23:27

traditional press could serve as a bulwark against

23:29

disinformation like what comes from Fox are over.

23:31

And you're going to have to beat it by competing

23:34

with it as opposed to hoping someone's going to do it for you. All

23:37

right. Let's talk about the debt ceiling since House Republicans

23:39

finally revealed their ransom demands. They

23:42

will blow up the economy unless Joe Biden

23:44

agrees to repeal most of the Inflation

23:47

Reduction Act, cancel student debt relief,

23:49

and cut everything from education and childcare

23:52

to veterans' benefits and health care. President

23:54

said no deal during a speech at a union hall

23:57

in Maryland on Wednesday.

23:58

dangerous. The

24:01

Niagara Republican Congress has threatened to default

24:03

on the national debt. The debt that took 230

24:06

years to accumulate overall. Overall.

24:10

Unless we do what they say. They say

24:12

they're going to default unless I agree

24:14

to all these wacko notions they have. Wacko

24:17

notions. There's so much awful shit in this

24:19

plan, it's hard to know what

24:21

to focus on.

24:22

Does Kevin McCarthy really think that making

24:24

it easier for rich people to cheat

24:26

on their taxes and jacking up the cost of prescription

24:29

drugs as a political winner? What's going on

24:31

here?

24:32

Kevin McCarthy is not trying to

24:34

remain Speaker of the House. He's

24:36

trying to remain leader of the Republican caucus. None

24:39

of this is big picture politics.

24:41

It's not about trying to persuade voters. It

24:44

is about continuing to stitch together the 218

24:46

votes he needs to remain Speaker

24:49

and that that is forcing his hand to do something

24:51

the public has no appetite for.

24:53

Because voters have no appetite for. In the long history

24:55

of dumb, dangerous shit Republicans

24:57

have done, this is near the top of the list because at least

25:00

in previous debt ceiling battles in the Obama

25:03

era, the congressional leaders

25:05

were responding to a fervor in

25:07

the base, a real reaction

25:09

to government. Particularly in

25:11

the wake of the bank bailouts and the

25:13

recovery act and the Affordable Care Act that there

25:16

was this spending, and

25:19

I use that in the most generic air quotes sense

25:21

possible, but government really was a driving

25:23

motivating force. The Republican voters do

25:26

not give a shit about that. Nate Cohen has this amazing

25:28

stat that he said he wrote a few months ago about how in

25:30

all they did open ended questions to ask

25:32

people what they cared about in the

25:35

seat in the seat in New York Times, Santa College

25:37

polls. And I think it was two people out

25:39

of 1500 respondents mentioned government

25:41

spending as a

25:42

top concern. It's not about that.

25:45

And so this is about keeping his

25:47

caucus, not his voters, but his caucus

25:49

aligned with him.

25:52

I mean, it is, the White House has

25:54

been, I think, doing a great job over the last 24, 48 hours

25:57

on this, really letting people know

25:59

what this would mean.

25:59

because the dance that the Republicans have been trying to do

26:02

is, oh, we just want to cut spending. We want

26:04

to, you know, get our deficit in order.

26:07

And people are notionally supportive

26:10

of that. But when you dig into

26:12

what these cuts would mean,

26:14

education, veterans' health care, cancer

26:16

research, food safety, law enforcement, the

26:19

repeal of the clean energy tax credits

26:22

in the Inflation Reduction Act could

26:24

put 100,000 clean energy jobs at risk, most

26:29

of them

26:29

in red states

26:31

and, you know, increase energy bills,

26:34

take away food assistance for older people. And

26:36

then of course, you know, the IRS thing, which

26:39

is just I've always thought is the most ridiculous

26:41

hobby horse of the Republican side. It's like it's

26:44

literally more IRS enforcement to stop

26:46

rich people from cheating on their taxes.

26:49

Also, we're going through tax season right now.

26:52

People have been like, because there's more IRS

26:54

agents, people found it easier to do taxes.

26:57

It's been like a better process for people. You repeal

27:00

this, it's going to increase the

27:02

deficit and let more rich people cheat

27:05

on their taxes. This is what they're going to the mat for.

27:07

I just it's it's

27:08

wild to me. It's wild. You

27:11

think this passes the house? Probably.

27:15

It's I mean, I guess they can only lose

27:17

four. There's two Goobers

27:19

who said, no, I'm never raising

27:21

the debt ceiling ever. I guess like George

27:23

Santos says he's a no right now, but that

27:25

he could

27:26

be open to coming around to yes. From

27:29

his from you got to trust what he says. Yeah,

27:32

you got to trust what he says. But then they like

27:34

they've interviewed some House Freedom Caucus,

27:37

Yahoo's plus some of the more

27:39

establishment Republicans and they all

27:41

seem supportive, which makes me think. Yeah,

27:44

I mean, what

27:45

like will this exact 320

27:48

page bill pass? I have no idea. Yeah. But

27:50

in general, we know that Kevin

27:52

McCarthy will do anything across

27:55

any line, I'll take on any policy, no matter how politically

27:57

toxic to get the votes of Marjorie Taylor

27:59

Greene. Matt Gaetz, et cetera. And

28:02

also just historically, the

28:05

rest of the caucus, even the ones who are in the Biden states,

28:08

tend to vote with the leadership, particularly

28:10

this early in the fight. Like to, it would

28:13

be, it would be a, they

28:14

don't also don't want to hobble Kevin McCarthy right

28:17

away. And so you can see that if they're going

28:19

to break, they will break at the end, not the beginning

28:21

of the fight.

28:23

If it does pass the House, do you think

28:26

Biden and the Senate Democrats should still

28:28

hold the line on

28:30

no negotiations over the debt ceiling?

28:32

Because obviously there's going to be incredible

28:35

pressure,

28:36

not just from Republicans, but

28:38

from the media is going to say, okay,

28:40

now, you know, we're getting close

28:42

to the,

28:43

close to the debt ceiling. Why isn't Biden negotiating?

28:46

And we're already getting that

28:48

from Joe Manchin, you know, the

28:50

president should sit down, he should negotiate.

28:52

So should they hold the line? And how

28:55

hard is that going to be? And I think they should hold the line

28:57

for as long as possible and put as much pressure

28:59

on the Republicans to do their job.

29:02

Now, everyone needs to be looking for

29:04

a way out of the situation that

29:07

ends in something other than default. And

29:09

it's very possible Biden's hand, Biden's

29:12

hand will be forced

29:13

by some, I

29:16

can already see, imagine like Joe Manchin,

29:18

Kyrsten Sinema, Mitt Romney, or all of a sudden having

29:20

lunch. And now

29:22

there's a,

29:23

there's a gang of some kind getting together trying

29:25

to come up with some sort of plan. And

29:27

so like those things may happen, but Biden

29:30

should not, should do what he continued doing, what he's been doing, put

29:32

as much, hold his ground. He is subsequently

29:34

correct. He is politically correct. Force

29:36

their hand. Certainly you don't do anything until the Republicans,

29:38

let's see if they can actually pass this thing, but

29:41

do not, do not, the

29:43

problem here is to begin

29:45

negotiations is to accept the

29:47

faulty premise of the argument that the

29:49

debt ceiling is something you should negotiate on. So I think

29:52

Biden should continue to hold the ground.

29:54

I don't know if you've heard, but the bipartisan

29:57

problem solvers caucus is trying

29:59

to save the day here.

29:59

They are proposing a plan

30:02

that would lift the debt ceiling in exchange

30:05

for an independent commission we love

30:07

an independent commission that would come

30:09

up with a plan to reduce the debt and deficit and That

30:12

that plan would just be guaranteed

30:14

a vote in Congress. Nothing more.

30:16

Do you think this is a feasible solution? Do

30:18

you see any other way out? We just fucked what's

30:21

going on? likely fucked I

30:24

mean, I am deeply deeply

30:27

worried about this because previous

30:31

debt ceiling battles have come

30:34

have ended because the Republicans

30:36

were responsive to the massive amounts of political

30:38

pressure being put on them. That is not

30:40

the game McCarthy is playing

30:42

He is only responsive to his

30:45

caucus

30:46

and that is very different and that his caucus is

30:48

much This is one of the dangerous

30:50

consequences of gerrymandering is

30:52

that the vast majority of these people of these Republicans? Have

30:55

much greater fear of a primary than a general election

30:57

So they're from their political point of view

30:59

put aside the idea that they might care about the country

31:02

or the economy from their own personal

31:04

point of view Voting to lift the debt

31:06

ceiling is more dangerous than crashing the economy

31:09

And that's a bad place to be if

31:11

the end result was a

31:14

fake commission They got one vote in Congress

31:16

and the economy stayed on track Great

31:19

job, Josh got Hymer. I'm for it. Like

31:21

who cares as long as there's no teeth

31:23

right,

31:24

that's why I'm sorry, I mean I I keep looking

31:26

at the plan because like What's

31:29

the what's the catch here, you know,

31:32

and it seems like a great

31:34

outcome If we could get there and

31:36

I'm wondering if I'm the Biden

31:38

White House how long until I? Try

31:41

to endorse that plan probably right at

31:43

the end Yeah But if there's if look if there's a

31:45

bunch of Republicans in the house who are

31:48

in the problem solvers caucus who will actually get

31:50

behind That plan now, I don't

31:52

McCarthy still might decide not

31:54

to bring it to a vote a discharge petition

31:57

at that point Towards the end will

31:59

probably take

31:59

too long.

32:01

So I don't know how that works. I

32:04

mean, just to put some perspective here, we are in the

32:06

third week of April right now, and Goldman Sachs

32:08

estimated that the middle of June is when extraordinary

32:10

measures will run out. So there's also,

32:12

I think, several congressional recesses in the middle

32:14

of that. So there is some work to do. The

32:17

danger of the problem solver's

32:19

caucus solution is that

32:21

it's coming out too soon.

32:23

These are the kind of things you want to come out in the last minute when everyone's

32:25

desperately looking for a face-saving exit. But now that

32:27

it's out here now, everyone's going to say no and then they

32:29

can't back off. So then we will need another different,

32:32

hopefully toothless escape hatch at the end.

32:35

A toothless escape hatch. That's

32:37

what we're looking for. All right, if the Dominion

32:39

settlement and the debt ceiling shenanigans have you down, one

32:42

thing that's sure to bring a smile to your face

32:44

is the continued trials and tribulations

32:47

of little Ronnie Puddingfingers. So

32:50

Tiny D had a big day planned on Capitol

32:52

Hill this week where he spoke to dozens

32:54

of Republican House members hoping to

32:57

win some support for his not yet

32:59

announced but already failing presidential campaign.

33:02

Instead, he picked up one endorsement,

33:04

one house endorsement. The person was

33:07

his former Secretary of State in Florida, now

33:10

a House Republican from Florida. And

33:12

he lost, at this count, it's

33:14

Thursday morning, who knows, by the time you

33:16

hear this, could be more, lost seven House

33:19

members to Trump from the Florida delegation, including

33:22

one Yahoo who literally walked out of a meeting

33:24

with DeSantis and announced

33:26

that he's endorsing Trump.

33:28

I saw this morning he lost another one. This

33:30

guy currently represents the district

33:33

that DeSantis used to represent in Congress. Lost

33:35

that guy too. Why

33:37

is DeSantis getting his ass handed to him

33:40

by a twice impeached criminal

33:42

defendant who lost the last three

33:44

elections for the Republican party? Well,

33:47

I'd like to read you a quote from someone in DeSantis'

33:49

orbit to, I think it was Politico this morning.

33:52

I love the orbit quotes. Yes, he doesn't

33:54

like talking to people and it's showing. Seems

33:57

like a tough line of work. like

34:00

you might have picked the wrong business.

34:04

I mean, it is still early

34:07

and there is still going to be a place

34:09

for one person not

34:11

named Trump to make

34:14

a real go of this because Trump is incredibly vulnerable.

34:17

And everyone has assumed that that was going to be Rhonda

34:19

Santas,

34:20

but the first few months of this campaign

34:22

have offered some real, I would say,

34:25

warning signs that he doesn't have

34:27

what it takes to play that role. And that's worrisome

34:30

if you don't want Trump to be the nominee because

34:33

the rest of these people running definitely don't have

34:35

it. So absent a better candidate, like

34:37

there was a, was it

34:38

playbook today that said somewhere,

34:41

somewhere I read this story that was like DeSantis's

34:44

Stumbles give an opening to Christie. I was

34:46

like, really does it? So

34:50

I don't know. When you say, when you talk about DeSantis's

34:52

Stumbles, are you talking about his press

34:55

conference where he continued his

34:57

attack on Disney by threatening

35:00

Disney worlds? Can we play a clip of that? Now people are

35:02

like, well, there's, what should we do with this land?

35:05

You know, maybe, maybe have another,

35:07

maybe create a state park, maybe try to

35:10

do more amusement parks.

35:12

Someone even said like, maybe you need another

35:15

state prison. Who knows? Do

35:17

you think that threatening to put

35:19

a state prison or a, a

35:22

competitive amusement park next

35:25

to your state's biggest employer

35:29

is the smart move? What?

35:31

I actually, after listening to that clip, take back

35:33

what I said about that quote from the person

35:35

in the orbit, which is if my voice sounded like that, I wouldn't

35:37

like talking to people either. It's

35:40

pretty, it's pretty grating. Every

35:42

time is the first time

35:43

you're, no matter how many times you hear it, you are shocked to hear

35:45

it again. I honestly, I don't know what

35:48

he's doing. There is just, he

35:50

is reeking of desperation. That was

35:52

a,

35:53

the way he handled the Disney thing

35:55

suggests he doesn't really understand what his

35:57

rise was in the first place.

35:59

He didn't even have a plan going into it. I just held an angry

36:02

press conference that where he was like pretending

36:04

to be angry, but not really without any real solutions. It

36:06

seemed real.

36:08

If he is, the idea was

36:10

that he was Trump without the chaos, that he was a smarter,

36:12

more effective version of Trump. And it turns out that

36:14

he is

36:15

none of those thus far this can be. Not

36:19

smarter, not more effective. We got to have

36:21

one more clip because I just, this is my favorite.

36:23

So because the woke represents

36:26

a war on truth, we

36:28

have no other recourse, but to wage

36:30

a war on woke.

36:32

We fight the woke in the schools. We

36:34

fight the woke in the legislature. We

36:37

fight the woke in the corporations. We will

36:39

never, ever surrender to the

36:41

woke mob. Florida is

36:43

where woke goes to die. I

36:47

mean, that's

36:47

his 2004 convention speech right there.

36:51

Remember during the 08 Republican

36:54

primary when

36:56

Joe Biden, now president of the United States, had

36:59

that quip about Rudy Giuliani, that everything

37:01

he said was a noun of urban 9-11. That's

37:04

like DeSantis and woke. He's just

37:07

fucking woke mad libs. Like

37:09

I said, he has a very simplistic

37:12

understanding of his own political strengths

37:14

and his own political rise. And it is not just saying

37:16

woke over and over again.

37:18

And he is diverted from that. Obviously

37:21

we're not making predictions. I know nothing. But if

37:24

it were to come out in the next two weeks that

37:26

he was deciding against running, I

37:28

would not be surprised. Yeah,

37:31

look, I also think

37:33

I probably come down on the side that it's too early

37:35

because you know, I'm a huge run to Santa's fan. Yeah,

37:38

you have been pushing him. Yeah,

37:40

but pushing him. No, I

37:42

still think it's a little early just because,

37:44

you know, there's like a million lifetimes

37:47

and a billion new

37:49

cycles between now and

37:51

Iowa. This is also

37:54

like

37:55

we are focusing on the national media

37:57

narrative. We don't know what's going

37:59

on in Iowa.

37:59

Iowa. We do know that evangelicals

38:02

in Iowa aren't thrilled about Donald Trump.

38:04

Donald Trump didn't win the Iowa caucus last time.

38:06

You could imagine a path for DeSantis where

38:09

he

38:10

wins over evangelicals plus

38:13

the college educated set in Iowa.

38:15

That's enough to propel him to win

38:18

the Iowa caucuses. New Hampshire is a much better

38:20

state for DeSantis because heavily

38:23

college educated there. He does better with college

38:25

educated Republicans. And then it sets him

38:27

up better for South Carolina. So you could imagine this, but

38:30

like, I don't know all the stuff he's trying

38:32

to do go harder at Disney. The

38:34

endorsements are you can't talk to people. He's trying to mingle

38:36

more to me. Like

38:38

the only thing that matters is how he

38:40

handles Donald Trump because Donald Trump is

38:43

just the elephant in there. He's the only thing in

38:45

the Republican party, right? He's the biggest thing in the Republican

38:48

party. And

38:49

the idea that DeSantis is

38:52

not going to take him

38:54

on, not going to make his electability

38:56

argument about Donald Trump in an explicit

38:58

way. It's all these like oblique comments

39:01

about electability or Trump's

39:03

indictment, or he's trying to be subtle here and there.

39:05

And like, again, I get that

39:08

DeSantis can't piss off

39:10

a lot of these voters who love Donald Trump,

39:13

but I don't even think he's trying to make

39:15

a case against Trump right now. Well, he's not in the

39:17

race yet. So I think that

39:20

is likely to turn out to if he

39:22

loses, which

39:25

seems like the most likely scenario at this point, it was probably

39:27

always the most likely scenario. Trump is the front runner, but

39:30

his decision to delay

39:32

his announcement

39:34

until after his momentum had passed, seems

39:36

like a fatal, a big fatal error.

39:38

I mean, just take Obama for instance,

39:40

right? Which you and I obviously are intimately familiar with, but he

39:43

announced his exploratory committee

39:45

essentially 17 days after he made his

39:48

final decision.

39:50

I mean, I had been on the, I, my, he

39:52

hired me for that campaign and I was one of the,

39:55

the earlier groups of people hired on like you were

39:57

coming from a Senate office

39:58

10 days before that. that announcement because

40:01

he knew and we as a team knew that we

40:03

had momentum. There were donors who wanted to

40:05

be for

40:07

Obama. There were thousands, tens of thousands of people

40:09

all over the country who wanted to go work for

40:11

Obama, who wanted to volunteer for him. And he, we had to give them a

40:13

place to go. DeSantis had that in November.

40:16

He has a lot less of that now. And that might

40:19

be a mistake and could he

40:21

change it? Maybe, but it is very

40:23

hard to get the stink

40:25

of being a loser off

40:28

of you, especially if you're argument is that you're a winner.

40:30

And Trump is very effective. Donald Trump seems to have done a pretty

40:32

good job of that. Well, Donald Trump has won, right?

40:35

And he, I

40:36

mean, Donald Trump has a lot of skills

40:38

as a

40:40

understander of a manipulator of Republican

40:42

political sentiment and Republican media that Ron

40:44

DeSantis currently does not. Yeah.

40:47

All right. When we come back,

40:49

Dan talks to strict scrutiny's Leah Litman

40:52

about the latest Supreme Court developments and

40:54

the Dominion settlement.

41:01

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. What's

41:03

one thing you'd tell your 20 year old self that you

41:05

wish you'd known about yourself then and why? What would

41:07

I tell me at 20?

41:10

Like I've said this, stretch, got to stretch.

41:12

Got to stretch. Because

41:15

now everything's hurting these days, 20

41:17

years later. Oh man.

41:18

Oh man. Wish I had paid more attention to stretching.

41:20

Enjoy sitting in a chair for two hours and then not thinking about

41:22

it. Yeah. You tell yourself

41:25

it gets worse. Therapy is all about

41:27

deepening your self-awareness and understanding because sometimes

41:30

we don't know what we want or why we react the way

41:32

we do until we talk through things. BetterHelp

41:34

connects you with a licensed therapist who can take you on

41:36

that journey of self discovery from wherever you

41:39

are. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give

41:41

BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online

41:43

designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your

41:45

schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get

41:48

matched with a licensed therapist and switch

41:50

therapists anytime for no additional charge.

41:53

Therapy's great. We love therapy.

41:54

We gotta get therapy. Listen

41:57

to it. Listen to love it. I mean, you need any sound

41:59

like someone. whose well had been well adjusted. You

42:01

don't even know what I would sound like if I wasn't in therapy, because

42:03

I wouldn't be here. I know what I'd

42:05

be doing. Discover your potential with BetterHelp.

42:08

Visit betterhelp.com slash PSA today

42:10

to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp,

42:12

H-E-L-P dot com slash P-S-A.

42:16

Pots of America is brought to you by SleepMe. Science proves

42:18

cold sleep creates better sleep. Temperature controlled

42:21

sleep prepares muscle and improves cognitive

42:23

function. So you always start your day feeling sharp,

42:25

confident, and energized.

42:27

That's where SleepMe comes in. SleepMe is the new home

42:29

for chili sleep. They're bringing you the same great sleep that

42:31

chili sleep offered, but

42:33

under a new name. New name. New name. SleepMe

42:35

makes the coldest sleep systems available. They

42:38

create the environment that meets the body's natural need

42:40

for lower core temperatures, promoting deeper restorative

42:42

sleep. These sleep systems are water-based

42:44

temperature controlled mattress pads that fit over your existing

42:47

mattress to provide your ideal sleep

42:49

environment. They keep your bed at the perfect temperature

42:51

for deep cold sleep. And SleepMe just

42:53

launched the Doc Pro sleep system with new hybrid

42:56

AI.

42:57

Experience ultimate cooling power with the Doc Pro

42:59

sleep system.

43:00

Pair it with the new SleepMe app and get real-time temperature

43:03

adjustments based on your current sleep activity

43:05

from the new hybrid AI technology.

43:07

It's the industry's first sleep tech that tracks and optimizes

43:10

your sleep temperature for you in real

43:12

time.

43:13

Get the best sleep of your life with AI-driven

43:15

technology.

43:17

I always sleep hot.

43:18

Me too. The SleepMe is just

43:20

a godsend. So comfortable. Wake up feeling cool,

43:23

refreshed. It's a dream. I sleep well. It's great.

43:25

Head over to sleep.me slash crooked to learn

43:27

more and save 25% off the purchase of any new

43:30

Doc Pro, Oolr, or Cube sleep

43:32

system.

43:33

This offer is available exclusively for PODSave

43:35

America listeners and only for a limited time. That's

43:37

sleep, S-L-E-E-P dot

43:40

M-E slash crooked to take advantage of our exclusive

43:42

discounts and wake up refreshed every day.

43:45

PODSave America is brought to you by the Diplomat, now

43:47

streaming on Netflix. Well, I'm excited about the Diplomat.

43:50

Kate Weiler, played by Kerry Russell, is a

43:52

seasoned US ambassador. Giving the people

43:54

what they want. On her way to an influential

43:56

post in Afghanistan, when she is abruptly appointed

43:59

as the ambassador of the US.

43:59

United Kingdom.

44:01

While being a brilliant crisis manager in her past

44:03

stations, Kate has little affection to be

44:05

in the spotlight but finds herself in the most coveted

44:08

and decorated diplomatic role. She'll

44:10

have to diffuse international crises, forge strategic

44:12

alliances in London, and adjust to her new

44:15

place in the spotlight all while trying to survive her

44:17

marriage to her fellow career diplomat and

44:19

political star

44:21

Hal Weiler, played by Rufus Sewell.

44:23

From showrunner Deborah Khan of the West Wing and Homeland,

44:25

the diplomat is a high stakes contemporary political

44:28

drama about the transcendence and torture

44:30

of long-term relationships between countries and

44:32

people.

44:33

Also starring David Giazzi, Ali

44:35

Ann, Rory Kanier,

44:37

and Otto Asando with executive producers

44:39

Deborah Khan, Janice Williams, and Carrie Russell. Along

44:42

with handling the international stage, Kate

44:44

is navigating her own marriage to Hal Weiler, a

44:46

star ambassador who's now taking backseat to Kate's

44:48

rise in the global political arena.

44:51

The

44:51

diplomat now streaming on Netflix.

44:57

Yesterday, Supreme Court once again did

44:59

something confusing, chaotic, and potentially evil.

45:01

Here to tell us more about the case is our resonant

45:04

legal expert and co-host of Strix Grootny,

45:06

Leah Litman. Leah, welcome back to the pod. Thanks

45:08

for having me. Okay, so

45:11

help us understand what's happening here. So yesterday,

45:13

your favorite, Justice Samuel Lito

45:16

issued an extension of

45:18

a previous stay he had issued, extending

45:21

the stay on the court-ordered

45:24

ban on the abortion drug, Mifapristone,

45:26

until 1159 on Friday. I want you to

45:29

help us understand this, but just let's begin with

45:31

where is that case right

45:34

now in terms of how it's progressing and access

45:36

to the drug in this country?

45:39

So right now, because of all

45:41

of the stays slash extended

45:43

stays, Mifapristone remains

45:45

legal and can be prescribed

45:48

and distributed according to, you know, the Biden administration's

45:50

current guidelines. But that could all

45:53

end depending what the Supreme Court does, you

45:55

know, after its next deadline, which is

45:57

Friday at midnight. So basically what happened

45:59

is is the district judge said, Mivapristone

46:02

is an unauthorized drug. No one

46:05

can distribute it. And then the court of appeals

46:07

said, well, maybe it's not technically

46:09

an unauthorized drug, but they can't distribute

46:11

it in the way they currently have been.

46:14

And basically, you need to relabel all the drugs,

46:16

so no one's going to be able to access this drug for

46:18

at least several months while the FDA figures it

46:20

out. And now the Supreme Court is figuring out

46:22

what they are going to do. So it's kind of

46:25

technically in the Supreme Court while

46:27

there is still litigation ongoing in

46:29

the

46:29

court of appeals. Is an extension

46:32

like this unusual? This seems like it should

46:34

be a pretty easy decision

46:36

for the court, since everything you guys have said on strict scrutiny,

46:39

everything I've read, is that the legal reasoning behind the

46:41

original

46:42

ruling was something my daughter would call cuckoo

46:44

bananas. Like, what is happening here? Yeah,

46:48

so it's unusual to have to extend

46:50

an administrative stay that had an initial

46:52

deadline. That's partially because most of the

46:54

justices don't place time limits on

46:57

their administrative stays, so that

46:59

itself is unusual. But this particular

47:01

case, it should take two seconds

47:03

to realize this is all cuckoo

47:06

bananas or just straight up bananas,

47:09

whatever you want to call it, and say, of

47:11

course, this lower court ruling should be stayed

47:14

in its entirety. But what

47:16

is happening is these justices don't

47:18

much care for the law when it gets in the way

47:21

of forcing women to

47:23

undergo childbirth when they don't

47:25

want to. And so I think

47:28

you probably have some of the justices thinking,

47:30

can I put lipstick on this pig to make it

47:32

a little bit more palatable while still restricting

47:35

access to medication abortion? And

47:37

there's probably some negotiations going on

47:40

with justices wanting to get more justices

47:42

on board in either direction. And

47:44

so they couldn't work it out before Wednesday. And

47:47

it's just so ridiculous

47:49

and laughable that it is taking them more

47:52

than two seconds to just say, this

47:54

entire thing made us all dumber while

47:57

we had to engage with it just for a little.

48:00

What are the court's options

48:02

here and how could this potentially play

48:05

out? There are a bunch of different

48:07

options. One thing that they could do

48:10

is just stay the district

48:12

court ruling in its entirety.

48:15

That would prevent the district courts,

48:18

various restrictions on

48:20

Mifepristone, including the Court of

48:22

Appeals, take on the restrictions

48:25

from going into effect at any point

48:27

in the litigation before the

48:31

litigation ultimately reaches the

48:33

Supreme Court, which usually takes several years.

48:35

So that's one option. Another option

48:37

is they say, well, we'll stay this,

48:40

but we're going to put this case on our

48:42

calendar in order for us to

48:44

hear oral arguments and decide what to

48:46

do. Another option is they

48:49

don't stay the Court of Appeals

48:52

or district court ruling, and they add the case to

48:54

their calendar so they reserve the possibility that

48:56

they might actually put it on pause, but they let it

48:58

go into effect in the interim. Then another

49:00

option is they let either the district court

49:02

or the Court of Appeals ruling into effect and they

49:04

just don't really do anything other

49:07

than that and those

49:09

are just some of the options, but there's a

49:12

lot of wiggle room as far as whether they let either

49:14

of the rulings go into effect as well as

49:16

whether they add this case to their calendar

49:19

and therefore preserve the possibility that they would

49:21

change their initial action sometime

49:23

in the next few months.

49:24

If they were to allow it to go,

49:26

take that last option you said, allow it to go

49:29

into place and not add it to the calendar, are we

49:31

at a point of no recourse then?

49:32

No, we are at a point of no

49:34

recourse, at least until

49:37

the case finishes up in

49:39

the district court and Court of Appeals,

49:42

but that again usually takes years.

49:44

And so in that event, we would be kind

49:47

of at a point of no recourse

49:49

in the sense that there would be a bunch of additional restrictions

49:52

on Nifepristone that would suddenly go into effect. It

49:54

would be much more limited access for the drug,

49:57

which there's a possibility it couldn't be marketed

49:59

at all for some period.

49:59

of time, and that would all

50:02

be playing out while

50:04

the case finishes its way through the courts.

50:07

Do you have any, I guess I will ask you,

50:09

but do you have a sense, a prediction of

50:11

where you think this is going based on

50:13

your close watching of the court over the years?

50:15

I have

50:17

extremely lowest, low

50:20

opinions of this court, and

50:23

I honestly still think the most

50:25

likely option is they

50:27

stay the lower court's ruling

50:30

in its entirety while

50:34

maybe adding the case to their argument

50:36

calendar or not. But I have,

50:39

however, a pretty

50:41

low degree of confidence in that

50:43

prediction, even though I think it's the most likely

50:45

outcome. And the

50:47

reason you think it's the most likely outcome is that because

50:49

generally the court will try to avoid chaos

50:52

while waiting for a decision, because it does create tremendous

50:54

chaos in the marketplace and people's health care decisions,

50:56

et cetera. Is

50:57

that right? So it's a combination of reasons. One

50:59

is I think there are some number of justices

51:02

who don't like the extent of chaos

51:04

that either the district court or court of appeals

51:06

ruling would inflict on the country.

51:09

I think it's also that the underlying legal claims

51:11

are so appallingly

51:13

bad that you

51:16

can just poke holes in them and

51:18

make fun of them

51:20

for endless time periods on

51:23

end. And then there's also

51:25

some sense that I think some of the justices

51:27

who care about preserving their

51:29

own authority have a sense that

51:33

people are really reacting to the Dobbs

51:35

ruling and the consequences that that has had

51:37

on people's lives. You see the results in the

51:39

Wisconsin Supreme Court election. You saw the results

51:41

in the midterms. And so I

51:43

think there is some hesitation

51:46

about basically going full

51:48

speed ahead on judges effectively

51:50

ordering nationwide abortion

51:52

bands out of some concern

51:54

that maybe that will finally be the

51:56

thing that pisses people off enough to do

51:59

something about the federal.

51:59

courts, and that might cause Brett

52:02

Kavanaugh, the Chief Justice, to say, whoa, we need

52:04

to slow this train down. Pivoting

52:07

to the

52:09

settlement reach earlier this week in the Fox

52:11

Dominion case, last time you and I spoke on

52:13

the show, I feel guilty about this, but

52:16

I asked you to pretend to be Donald Trump's lawyer. I will not

52:18

ask you to be the Murdoch's lawyer this time around,

52:20

out of guilt. But

52:23

are you surprised that settlement reach? What's your reaction

52:25

to how that case played itself out?

52:27

I'm not that surprised that it settled.

52:29

I mean, most cases settle. On some level,

52:31

it was a little surprising that it settled this late in the game,

52:34

just because a bunch of really negative

52:36

information had already come out at this point.

52:38

And so it's not like settling avoided all of the

52:41

embarrassing emails and text messages coming out,

52:43

in which it was clear that Fox executives knew that

52:45

these were lies. On the other hand, it did

52:47

avoid probably pretty embarrassing cross-examinations,

52:50

where you confront, say, the Murdochs

52:52

with these emails and texts and ask them why

52:54

they allowed this to go on, as well as what was

52:56

likely to be a pretty grueling trial.

53:00

And you also avoid the possibility of punitive damages.

53:03

So it's not that surprising.

53:06

And I think on the other side, Dominion, their

53:08

interest was always kind of recovering the

53:11

harm done to them. And that

53:13

is a harm that can be quantified in

53:15

money. And so the

53:17

incentives on both sides are really to

53:19

settle. So it wasn't that surprising, a little

53:21

bit surprising, that there was that amount of brinksmanship

53:24

and delay that led to the settlement

53:26

happening really

53:27

last minute. Will

53:29

this settlement, do you think, have any impact

53:31

on how Fox operates as

53:33

a media entity?

53:35

I mean, initial science point to know, right? They're

53:37

not really covering this. Their initial

53:39

kind of statement about the settlement is, this

53:42

confirms our highest standards of journalistic

53:44

integrity. So it's not like they really took

53:46

the path of, oh, now we need to tell

53:48

the truth. So it's a little

53:51

bit unclear. I mean, on some

53:54

level, obviously, this has to affect their financial

53:56

calculus about what the most rational business

53:58

model is for them. They obviously have to.

53:59

concluded that it was in their interest

54:02

to have a business model, you know, basically facilitating

54:04

these lies and that would keep their viewership.

54:07

On the other hand, they now have some

54:10

costs, right, that they have to incur when

54:12

they engage in these kinds of lies that they think

54:14

will secure and preserve their

54:16

viewers. So it's a little bit difficult to

54:18

know. I mean, maybe they try to lie better and

54:20

a little bit less amazingly going forward. But

54:23

at least initially, it doesn't seem like this is

54:25

going to cause any sort of major changes.

54:28

Do

54:28

you think they'll stop texting each other to just admit

54:31

they're meeting the actual malice threshold set by

54:33

the Supreme Court? There will be company

54:35

wide emails on how to use signal and

54:38

that's deleting messages. But

54:41

yeah, fewer emails, less text messages

54:44

and the like. Do

54:45

you think the attorneys will be more

54:48

empowered to at least raise some concerns

54:50

to the Tucker Carlson's of the world? You know,

54:52

again, maybe, but only in the sense that Fox will

54:54

have to decide how

55:00

much they're willing to pay in order

55:02

to keep their viewers and grow

55:04

their audience. So this is really

55:07

just assessing them,

55:09

a financial penalty for lying.

55:12

And if this is their

55:14

business model, then they will just decide

55:16

like how much of the lies worth.

55:18

And this could get more expensive, correct? Because they are

55:20

also facing another lawsuit. This

55:23

one, $2.7 billion from Smartmatic, another

55:25

voting company. And I believe there's a handful

55:28

of shareholder lawsuits as well,

55:31

who are suing the company because the company

55:33

has lost value because of this irresponsible

55:36

behavior on that part. Is that correct?

55:37

Yes, that's right. Although I also saw that

55:40

they have concluded that they can basically write off

55:42

the settlement for tax purposes. So it's

55:46

not like they are just going to have to pay

55:48

this all out from their net profits.

55:51

You know, we've had a number of they're

55:53

all they're all they can, I mean, you can speak

55:55

this better, I can, but they're, they're not all of

55:57

the sort of the same ilk legally, but there is there.

55:59

There has been a number of cases over the recent years

56:02

that have gone at meeting entities

56:04

or media personalities who are spreading conspiracy

56:07

theories.

56:08

Fox itself had to settle a case with

56:10

Seth Rich's family a few years ago, the DNC

56:12

staffer, who they falsely accused

56:15

of

56:16

leaking documents to WikiLeaks.

56:19

The Alex Jones has over

56:21

a billion dollars in damages

56:24

he has to pay. Is this specific to what's

56:26

happening here or is there any, do you see any sort of change

56:28

in the environment, legal environment or

56:30

the legal risk profile for

56:33

media entities and personalities who push these

56:35

lies or push disinformation as part of their business plan?

56:37

You know, again, I don't really see any

56:40

of these cases as really altering the legal

56:42

standard just because it was clear

56:44

what these companies were doing were lies.

56:47

And any person with any remote

56:49

connection to reality would understand

56:52

that they were lies. So they were knowingly

56:55

lying or at least acting with reckless disregard

56:57

for the truth. I think to the extent there are

57:00

changes, they're likely to be changes

57:02

that kind of cut in the opposite

57:04

direction as far as like the political ideological

57:07

valence of

57:07

the entities being sued and who is doing

57:09

the suing, which is, you

57:12

might have, let's say more

57:14

conservative leaning plaintiffs attacking

57:17

news organizations for criticizing

57:20

or making statements about conservative

57:23

Republican leaning figures and in

57:25

those lawsuits seeking to change the

57:27

legal standard that's represented by New York times

57:29

versus Sullivan that requires plaintiffs to show

57:31

that these companies were acting with actual

57:33

malice that is like intentionally lying or

57:35

they knew that they were lying. And

57:38

so it's possible that we will see some additional

57:40

movement on that front with these plaintiffs

57:43

trying to encourage more judges to

57:45

speak out against New York times versus Sullivan

57:47

and make it easier to criticize or make

57:50

it easier to sue entities that are criticizing public

57:53

officials. Um, you know, and Clarence Thomas

57:55

has already signaled that he wants to revisit that standard,

57:57

you know, with the additional negative media coverage.

57:59

of him, you know, he might be additionally motivated,

58:02

you know, to visit New York times versus Sullivan.

58:04

So I was going to say, but it seems like

58:06

he, I mean, he would probably recuse himself from

58:09

that case because we know that Clarence Thomas holds his

58:12

independence in highest regard and would never

58:15

rule in a case in which you could possibly have a stake in

58:17

it. Is that right?

58:17

Just like Fox has the highest standards of journalistic

58:20

integrity, Clarence Thomas has the highest standards

58:22

of ethical integrity. Um, and he definitely would

58:24

not participate in any case in which he or his wife

58:26

have any potential

58:27

interest. Leah Lippman,

58:29

thank you so much for joining us. And once

58:31

again, helping to explain all the crazy and bad

58:33

things happening in the Supreme court.

58:35

Thanks for having me.

58:42

Pods of America is brought to you by Rocket Money.

58:44

Do you know how much your subscriptions really cost? Millions.

58:47

Whoa. What have you been, what have you been subscribing to? Most

58:49

Americans think they spend around $80

58:52

a month on subscriptions. Nope.

58:54

Actual total is closer to $200. Cost

58:57

more than you think. If you don't know exactly how much

58:59

you're spending every month, you need Rocket Money. Rocket

59:01

Money is a personal finance app that finds and

59:03

cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors

59:05

your spending, and helps you lower

59:07

your bills all in one place. Over 80% of

59:09

people have subscriptions they forgot about and chances are

59:12

you're one of them. You've got so many, you don't know, you don't know what

59:14

you're subscribed to right now. Like that stars app,

59:16

just to watch one show.

59:18

Could be a stars app. Or that free

59:20

gaming trial you never actually used. Yeah,

59:22

using that gaming trial? No. Rocket

59:26

Money will quickly and easily find your subscriptions for

59:28

you and for any you don't want to pay for anymore,

59:30

you just hit cancel and Rocket Money will

59:33

cancel it for you. It's that easy. It's

59:35

that simple.

59:36

Rocket Money also helps you manage all your finances

59:38

in one place and automatically categorizes your expenses

59:41

so you can easily track your budget in real time and also

59:43

get alerted if anything looks off.

59:45

Over 3 million people have used Rocket Money

59:47

saving the average person up to $720 a year. Stop throwing your money away,

59:50

cancel unwanted subscriptions,

59:53

and manage your expenses the easy way by

59:55

going to rocketmoney.com slash crooked. That's rocketmoney.com

59:58

slash crooked.

59:59

Rocket Money.

1:00:03

Pots of America is brought to you by Real Paper.

1:00:05

It's April.

1:00:06

That means the Earth Month is here. We're in it.

1:00:08

We're more than halfway through Earth Month already. Can

1:00:10

see the other side of Earth Month. This is the time

1:00:13

to consider the products that you buy and the impact they make

1:00:15

on our planet. So if you're

1:00:17

still using conventional toilet paper in your

1:00:19

home, there's no better time to dump

1:00:21

the stuff that contributes to deforestation

1:00:24

and switch to real 100% bamboo toilet

1:00:27

paper. Start dumping bamboo. When

1:00:30

you use real, it doesn't feel like you're sacrificing something

1:00:33

to help the Earth. In fact, it feels like an upgrade.

1:00:36

It's always shipped free to your door in plastic free

1:00:38

packaging, and you can schedule it on a subscription so that

1:00:40

it comes exactly when you need it, and you never

1:00:42

have to worry about forgetting to buy any at the

1:00:44

store. Gamboo toilet paper, that shoots for your shits.

1:00:48

I like that one. That's good.

1:00:50

Wow. Real is now partnered

1:00:52

with One Tree Planted and with every box of real that

1:00:54

you buy. They're funding reforestation efforts across

1:00:57

the country. So unlike other TP that cuts down

1:00:59

trees, the real is helping to actively plant

1:01:01

them. My own personalization and endorsement,

1:01:04

love wiping my butt with this stuff. Well, what

1:01:06

else you got? That's great. That's to

1:01:08

the point. Love the bamboo.

1:01:11

It's great. Love it. It's helping the

1:01:13

planet. It's comfortable, and it shows up

1:01:15

at your door so you don't like lugging big

1:01:18

packages of toilet paper. Yeah, you have to carry it. So put

1:01:20

them under the cart, hope for the best. No one

1:01:22

wants to get to the register. You realize it fell off a couple

1:01:24

of rows back. Lost it in the dairy aisle.

1:01:27

Real Paper is available in easy hassle-free

1:01:29

subscriptions or for one-time purchases on their

1:01:31

website. All orders are conveniently delivered

1:01:33

to your door with free shipping and 100% recyclable

1:01:36

plastic-free packaging. If you head to realpaper.com

1:01:38

slash Cricut and sign up for a subscription using our code

1:01:40

Cricut at checkout, you'll automatically get 30% off

1:01:43

your first order and free shipping. That's R-E-E-L-P-A-P-E-R.com

1:01:48

slash Cricut or into promo code Cricut to get 30% off your

1:01:50

first order plus free shipping. Let's make

1:01:52

a change for good this year and switch to Real Paper.

1:01:54

Real is paper for

1:01:56

the planet.

1:01:58

Hmm.

1:01:59

All right, before we go, like many

1:02:02

media organizations, we had all

1:02:04

kinds of plans

1:02:06

for the trial of the century

1:02:07

that never actually happened.

1:02:10

And we had Max Fisher, he was gonna follow the trial and

1:02:16

contribute, and we had all these plans. And

1:02:18

of course, it all fell apart.

1:02:21

One of the funniest

1:02:23

plans we had,

1:02:24

which wasn't really a plan, was

1:02:28

our fearless senior producer, Andy

1:02:30

Gardner Bernstein, who's here with me now.

1:02:32

Hi, Andy. Hey, John. Andy

1:02:35

took it upon herself to

1:02:40

make some puppets. Yeah, and

1:02:42

made sock puppets. To make sock puppets of

1:02:46

Fox personalities, because of course, we weren't

1:02:48

gonna be able to see the trial, there was no cameras in the courtroom.

1:02:51

Yeah, and they weren't gonna let us, they

1:02:53

weren't letting any reporters use the audio

1:02:55

from the trial. Correct, so what we

1:02:57

were gonna do is use Andy's puppets

1:03:00

to say the text

1:03:02

and testimony. Yeah, so we could read back

1:03:04

the testimony and reenact

1:03:07

Tucker on the stand or whoever.

1:03:09

So I figured

1:03:12

we kind of have to show you all the puppets.

1:03:14

I realize this is an audio format, but this

1:03:16

is another plug to subscribe to the Pods of America

1:03:19

YouTube channel.

1:03:20

Yeah, go to the YouTube. Go to the YouTube right

1:03:22

now and you can see

1:03:24

the puppets. Andy, show us what you made here.

1:03:27

Okay, so I made three

1:03:29

puppets. And

1:03:31

the first one I made, I'm gonna put this on my

1:03:34

little stand for those of you watching on the YouTube.

1:03:36

This is a picture of Tucker.

1:03:39

And I was thinking how to

1:03:42

make a Tucker Carlson sock

1:03:44

puppet, and you have to always

1:03:46

go with their most obvious

1:03:49

feature. So here

1:03:51

we go, I don't know if the camera can get it. Look at that.

1:03:54

So Tucker's feature to me was his eyebrows.

1:03:57

So we got it right there.

1:03:59

And then he always wears, you know, the

1:04:02

gingham shirt. And luckily my

1:04:04

kids had graph paper from math. So

1:04:06

I use that for, this

1:04:09

is a craft podcast now. And

1:04:11

my husband let me use the end of his tie

1:04:14

to make a tiny tie for Tucker.

1:04:17

If you want to do a DIY Tucker Carlson sock puppet, you're

1:04:23

gonna want to

1:04:24

take inspiration from Andes. Yeah,

1:04:26

so anyway, everyone just has to imagine what

1:04:29

it would have been like to have him falling

1:04:31

apart on the stand.

1:04:32

Had you thought through

1:04:34

the voice part, were you gonna do the voice? No,

1:04:37

no, no, no. Is there someone who can do great replacement

1:04:40

theory through that sock puppet? I

1:04:43

think Olivia was practicing her Murdoch accent.

1:04:46

Yeah, she was working on her

1:04:46

accent. We had big plans,

1:04:48

guys. We have such great,

1:04:52

you know, comedic

1:04:54

friends here at Crooked that we're gonna

1:04:56

try, but sadly, the

1:04:58

settlement. Can we see the other two too? Yeah,

1:05:00

yeah, yeah, okay. So the next one I did was

1:05:04

Rupert Murdoch. And as

1:05:06

I'm sure you can imagine, his greatest,

1:05:11

you know, physical attribute are

1:05:14

the glasses. And

1:05:17

so- And the wrinkles. So

1:05:19

I made this little guy. I don't know if you can see him

1:05:22

quite right, but we used

1:05:24

cotton for his hair and

1:05:26

we used a

1:05:29

pipe cleaner to make his glasses.