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1:01

[♪ music ♪

1:21

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

1:23

Tommy Vitor. Love It is off today,

1:25

but we do have a great interview

1:27

for you all a little later with our old friend

1:30

and White House colleague, Cal Pent. Love It's

1:32

a-toning. Love It is a-toning. Did you get

1:34

a call? What's that? Did you get

1:36

a call? You just gonna repent? I don't know.

1:39

He has a lot to repent of. Voicemail, yeah. Right.

1:42

Oh my God.

1:42

On today's show, we got

1:45

a big week in politics, Tommy. Joe Biden

1:47

will become the first president in a century to join

1:49

a picket line when he visits Detroit in support of

1:51

the UAW. On Wednesday, the second

1:53

Republican debate is here in California. On Thursday,

1:56

House Republicans will hold their first Biden impeachment

1:58

hearing. And on Saturday... There's

2:00

a high probability that they'll shut down the federal

2:02

government, but first at the center of all these

2:04

events per usual is Donald Trump.

2:07

He'll be skipping the debate again and instead will

2:09

also speak to auto workers in Detroit. He's

2:12

pressuring House Republicans to impeach Biden and

2:14

demand it again on Truth Social this weekend, that

2:16

they shut down the government unless they can somehow force

2:18

the Justice Department to drop their cases against

2:20

him, which they can't. Just a few

2:23

other notable posts from Trump in the last 72 hours. He

2:26

suggested that America's top general, outgoing

2:28

chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, deserves

2:30

to be executed. He called on all

2:33

Senate Democrats to resign because New

2:35

Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was indicted. He

2:37

promised that if he wins, he'll order

2:39

investigations into media outlets like NBC

2:42

that have criticized him. And then he

2:44

held a rally in South Carolina.

2:47

He was really on one. He's having a good time out there.

2:50

Let's look at that. Beauty was when I came here,

2:52

everyone thought Bush was going to win. And

2:54

then they took a poll and they found out Trump was up

2:56

by about 50 points. Everyone said, what's going

2:58

on right here? They thought Bush because Bush supposedly

3:01

was a military person. Great. You know what? He was

3:03

a miller. He got us into the he

3:05

got us into the Middle East. How did that work out? Right.

3:08

But they all thought that Bush might

3:10

win. Jeb, remember, Jeb. But

3:12

you have a better chance of being struck by

3:14

lightning than hitting a whale with your boat. But

3:17

on the other hand, their windmills are causing

3:19

whales to die in numbers never seen before.

3:22

The windmills are driving them

3:24

crazy. They're driving. They're

3:26

driving

3:27

the whales, I think a little batty.

3:29

I didn't know that Jeb did

3:32

rock. Jeb did rock. Yeah. And

3:34

the windmills are driving the whales a little batty. Those

3:36

are the headlines from the South Carolina

3:38

rally. The the whale thing. It's

3:42

like a big right wing lie now.

3:44

Is it? I didn't know there was a backstory to it. There

3:46

has been an increased number of

3:49

whale deaths over the last seven years. And

3:52

the a bunch of people are trying to say it's because

3:54

of offshore wind farms. But

3:56

there's no evidence of that. Most of the dead whales

3:59

were hit by boats or. cotton nets or something, but why

4:01

not blame windmills if you're Donald Trump? The

4:03

man is deteriorating, Tommy. The

4:06

Jeb thing is now the set, remember we played

4:08

a couple weeks ago, I think, the clip where he

4:10

confused Obama and Biden

4:13

and Hillary. He had them all mixed up. Now

4:15

he's got Jeb and George W mixed up. It's

4:17

sad to see him like that. It's sad to see him like this. So

4:20

then there's his truths. He's

4:24

saying that Millie should have been executed.

4:28

In another time, he would have been executed for treason.

4:31

He was saying this because Mark

4:33

Millie called the Chinese government

4:36

after January 6 to let them know that

4:38

everything was okay. He was just trying to prevent a war.

4:40

Trying to prevent a war. Eventually. Right.

4:43

Then of course, he said on the NBC

4:46

thing, I say upfront, openly

4:48

and proudly that when I win the presidency, they

4:50

and others of the lamestream media will be thoroughly

4:52

scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt

4:55

coverage. They are a true threat to democracy

4:57

and they should pay a big price for what they've done.

5:00

There have been many times in my life where I did want to punish

5:02

Comcast. It was

5:04

not often for MSNBC though. I

5:07

mean, somehow none of this is leading the news. We

5:10

are at a moment right now where Trump's political

5:12

standing is arguably stronger than ever.

5:15

What do you think is going on? Should Democrats

5:18

and Biden be focusing more on Trump? What's

5:20

the best way to respond to all this lunacy

5:22

that I just mentioned? It's just like all our new

5:24

problems are the old ones, right? I mean, obviously

5:27

they're like unacceptable and scary and in normal

5:29

times blockbuster news but I think kind

5:31

of par for the course and the modern Republican Party. You see Paul

5:33

Gosar said, quote, in a better society,

5:36

quisplings like the strange sodomy promoting

5:38

General Milley would be hung. Members of

5:40

Congress tweeting things like this. That

5:42

was in his taxpayer funded newsletter

5:45

to constituents, Paul Gosar. Of

5:47

course, that did come after, of course, Trump's

5:50

truth. Just in case no

5:52

one was sure if any lunatics would take their

5:54

cues from Trump's post, that's

5:56

happened. We got one dentist out in Arizona. I

5:59

think if you're the Biden. Biden campaign, it would

6:01

be a good time to have your military surrogates talking

6:03

to press about the disrespect to

6:05

Milley and the military. The other thing in that Milley piece

6:08

is that General Milley talks about an

6:11

event he did with Trump and wounded veterans

6:13

where Trump said basically, no one wants to

6:16

see people who are grievously wounded like that, keep

6:18

them away from me in the future. That came out at the time,

6:20

I think, but hearing it come from Milley is again shocking

6:23

all over. I think we learned in 2016

6:25

and 2020 that chasing the Trump outrage of the

6:27

day is not a

6:32

message, it's not an effective message. I

6:34

think that's even harder now for Biden as president.

6:36

So he's got this dual track job, right?

6:39

Like you got to do the things you have to do. You have to

6:41

solve inflation, keep the government

6:43

open, deal with climate change, whatever. But

6:45

also I think fold what Trump

6:47

is saying into a broader narrative about

6:49

the extremism of the Republican Party that

6:52

also includes our next topic, which is this government

6:54

shutdown that will probably happen. I think

6:57

that it is time for

7:00

Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to start

7:02

painting a very clear vision

7:05

of what a second Trump term could look

7:07

like. And I think that has to include

7:09

the threats of extremism and violence that Trump

7:12

is once again voicing. You're totally

7:14

right that like outrage of the day Trump says something crazy,

7:16

whatever, it's fun to he's confusing Jeb

7:19

and talking about fucking whales, right? That's

7:21

all fun. But like New York Times had a story today

7:23

too over the weekend. Trump

7:26

supporters are threatening the lives and

7:28

families of the judges overseeing the cases.

7:30

The prosecutors are now requiring around

7:33

the clock protection. The FBI has

7:35

created a special unit just to deal with the increased

7:37

threats, increased by 300% against FBI

7:40

agents, the Grand jury in Atlanta. They

7:42

were doxxed. We've talked about this like a couple

7:44

of months ago and it happened, but there was the guy charged

7:46

with storming the Capitol who was then arrested with

7:49

two guns and 400 rounds of ammo trying to get

7:51

to Obama's house because Trump fucking

7:54

re-truthed a post that supposedly

7:56

had Obama's home address. So I do

7:58

think that like We've talked

8:00

about this before. Biden has to walk this line. He

8:02

can't comment on the prosecutions, right? All that

8:05

kind of stuff. But I know he's going to, he's

8:07

supposed to give a speech, I think in Arizona about democracy

8:09

somewhat soon, Biden is. And I do

8:11

think he has to paint a picture of what

8:14

Trump wants to do in a second term, right? Which

8:16

is clear out the federal bureaucracy, have

8:19

all loyalists there, make the

8:21

Justice Department not independent at all, order

8:23

prosecutions of all his enemies. It's

8:25

pretty scary. It is scary. And,

8:28

you know, yeah, when you say it like that,

8:30

it's not

8:33

good. Yeah, I just think we're not doing

8:35

enough, you know, and I get

8:37

when you poll and it's like, we

8:39

got to talk about the economy

8:42

and people worried about inflation. Like I'm always

8:44

on that, that's for sure. But

8:46

there's a lot of scary shit that Trump wants to do.

8:49

And he's basically promising retribution

8:52

and revenge and he's going to have nothing to lose if he wins again.

8:54

I hear you and I agree with you on some level.

8:57

The sort of political strategy as part of my brain

8:59

sometimes thinks everyone watched January 6

9:01

happen and everyone has memory hold it. None

9:04

of the things he's tweeting or truthing or posting

9:06

or saying of these speeches is going

9:09

to impact people more than that. So I

9:11

wonder how effective it will be as a political

9:14

argument. But I do think there is, I mean,

9:16

clearly the White House has settled on the

9:18

kind of ultra magga extremism

9:20

narrative as being the thing they're running

9:23

against. I think that's good and it certainly

9:25

encompasses the actual overt

9:28

threats to people's lives and security that you're

9:30

referencing, but also the extreme

9:32

policy views, shutting down the government, six

9:35

week abortion bans, all the things they're trying

9:37

to do. And you know, it's a little complicated,

9:39

but it's important. The memory

9:41

hold issue is a real problem.

9:45

I just go back to, you know, I was worried

9:47

that the argument about democracy would work

9:50

in 2022 and then the January 6

9:52

hearings happened. They were primetime

9:55

and Joe Biden made a lot of speeches about democracy.

9:57

And you know what, that did have an effect, not because

9:59

it. convinced people who weren't convinced before, but it reminded

10:02

people of how scared it was. And I think reminding

10:04

people about Trump and what he's going

10:06

to do and what could happen. And not just that

10:09

he's saying bad things, but that it will lead

10:11

to actions that could tangibly

10:13

impact our lives, I think is going to be really important.

10:16

So the rest of the Republican field will debate on Wednesday.

10:19

They're all polling further behind Trump than ever before,

10:21

both nationally and in the early states. Ron

10:24

DeSantis has probably lost the most ground with

10:26

candidates like Nikki Haley and Vivek

10:29

Ramaswamy nipping at his heels in some polls,

10:31

but none of them are even close to Trump at this

10:34

point. Tommy, you're heading up to

10:36

the debate on Wednesday. I'm excited.

10:39

What are you going to be watching for there? What you going to

10:41

be doing up there? I've always wanted to go to the Reagan

10:43

Library. I've heard there's

10:45

an exhibit, there's an Oval Office up there. No, we're going to go

10:48

see what kind of crowds they got, maybe

10:50

talk to some supporters. I get to go into

10:52

the spin room, I hope. Fun. Maybe

10:54

some of the candidates will be in there, get to talk

10:56

to them. You're going to talk to your friend Jeff Rowe? That

10:59

would be interesting. Maybe Jason

11:01

Miller from the Trump campaign? Look, sometimes

11:05

in the one-on-one general election

11:07

debates, usually it's surrogates that go

11:09

into the spin room. In the primary debate, sometimes

11:11

the candidates go in. Oh, yeah. But who

11:13

knows? I mean, Vivek is so

11:15

thirsty, I'm sure that guy will go in. But

11:18

it will be fun to tell people, unironically, that I'm

11:20

from the crooked media. I think that's something

11:22

I'm looking forward to. I think, as anyone

11:24

with eyeballs knows, my

11:28

face screams Republican. I

11:30

want to see if I can infiltrate,

11:33

get them to tell me their secrets. I want to see what Gavin

11:35

Newsom's up to. He's apparently going to be up there. I

11:37

hear he's got a debate set with Ron

11:40

DeSantis for November 30th, live on Fox.

11:42

In Georgia, right? I didn't know it was in Georgia,

11:44

yeah, I guess. Do you think that's what they were talking about? Yeah, ask him

11:46

about that. You're going to have to have a question ready for

11:48

Vivek, because you're right. He's thirsty

11:50

and he'll talk to anyone, and might

11:53

think that you're a Republican, so that's pretty good. Yeah,

11:55

I mean, odds are. But, you know, look, I think in terms of strategy,

11:58

they, all these candidates who are not debating,

12:01

which is folks not named Trump, need

12:03

to decide, are we trying

12:05

to win or are we trying to get a job in

12:07

Trump's cabinet? And it's not clear to me where

12:09

everybody stands on this question. If

12:12

you're trying to win, you're going to have to run against Donald

12:14

Trump and make an argument against him that peels

12:16

away voters. For a long time, I thought that

12:18

was an electability argument. Some of the polls

12:20

you referenced earlier that shows him

12:22

doing better head to head against Biden

12:24

is going to make that electability argument very hard.

12:27

Maybe they missed their window, but these

12:31

other candidates aren't really trying. They're running

12:33

against each other, not against Trump.

12:36

It is hard for me to get

12:39

myself to believe that this debate matters

12:42

at all. It doesn't. Because I don't

12:44

think it will. I do think the window has ...

12:48

Take a couple of the candidates, right? If you're Nikki Haley,

12:51

you can probably still make

12:53

an electability case against Trump because she's got a bunch of

12:56

polls. The NBC poll shows her doing

12:58

better than any other candidate against Joe Biden. She's

13:00

in a couple of polls like that now. She could probably make that case.

13:03

She's got some donor money coming in. She's got some donor money. She

13:05

had a little momentum if I were her. But again,

13:08

if she doesn't spend the whole time making a case against Donald Trump,

13:11

forget it. Then you ask yourself,

13:13

is she going for VP or Secretary of State? Right.

13:17

They're both great jobs. I'll just walk to you. Yeah,

13:19

now, I wonder if she's screwed herself on that because

13:21

now she's criticized Trump just enough that she might

13:24

have pissed him off. I don't know what you do if you're Ron

13:26

DeSantis because he can't make the electability argument

13:28

anymore. He's cratered in a lot of polls.

13:30

I don't know what he does in this debate. He's at

13:32

the point where you start to wonder

13:35

if he's going to be told by

13:37

people around him, advisors, donors,

13:39

friends, that he's harming himself

13:42

by staying in and that he might need to drop

13:44

out and refocus on Florida and think about

13:46

running some other time. Yeah, no,

13:48

I think we could get pretty close to that. If

13:50

I were Chris Christie ... Look, I don't think Chris

13:52

Christie's going anywhere in this primary. You

13:55

can't even say. But I would turn every single

13:58

answer into an opportunity to make ... the case

14:00

why Donald Trump is, you know, horrible

14:03

for the country, a threat to democracy. And not

14:05

only that case, I'd go after the other people on that

14:07

stage for not saying that. What else does he got to

14:09

lose? He's not winning at this point. And

14:11

he didn't take all those opportunities in the last debate.

14:13

Yeah, no. Did you see the Wall Street

14:15

Journal editorial gave them all an

14:18

argument to use about Donald Trump.

14:20

A couple days ago, they had an editorial that said, why

14:23

is Mr. Trump afraid to confront other Republicans

14:25

without the aid of a teleprompter? Is he

14:27

worried he'd look his age at 77 next

14:29

to younger candidates? That's good. I like that. Well,

14:31

you know, Trump was so enthused

14:34

about skipping the first and second debate that he's now going

14:36

to skip the third. So I don't know that they're doing

14:38

a good job baiting him into these things. Yeah. I mean,

14:40

they just don't. The name of the game here is like someone's

14:43

got to get attention for themselves. If they go up there

14:45

and they just talk about how bad Joe Biden is and how bad

14:47

the Democrats are and take a glancing

14:50

shot at Trump about like, you know, adding to the dead

14:52

or this or that, like, it's just not it's not going to

14:54

work. Yeah. And they're all going to get drawn into the day.

14:57

They're going to get pulled into conversations about the government shutdown

14:59

and things that might not necessarily create the headlines

15:01

they want. So it'll be tough. It'll be

15:03

fun to see how pissed Mike Pence

15:05

gets at. I forgot about Mike Pence. Yeah.

15:08

So did a lot of people. Yeah.

15:10

Who else is going to be up there? Tim Scott's telling people

15:13

that it's important to start drawing contrast

15:15

with the other candidates. So maybe Tim Scott's learned

15:17

that he's going to have to get a little feisty. Girlfriend

15:20

in the spin room. Well, that's what

15:22

I would do if I were him.

15:25

He just like, we think she'll pull off a shoot like, ah,

15:27

this is him. All right.

15:29

Well, have fun up there. Thank you. I'm excited to

15:31

go. You can also join us live in the discord.

15:34

Sign up for to be a friend of the pod. You can sign

15:36

up to cricket dot com slash friends. We'll be having live reaction.

15:39

And then right after the debate, love it.

15:41

And Dan and I will be right here in studio and be recording

15:43

the pod right after the debate. And then we'll

15:45

talk to you and find out what you're what

15:47

you're seeing up at the debate. I'll call in from the Vicks

15:50

tour bus or whatever. Love that. So

15:52

Trump's opponents, as we said, have been trying

15:54

to argue that they're more electable

15:56

against Joe Biden, but unfortunately for

15:59

them and us. the polls are telling a different

16:01

story. The averages show

16:03

that a Trump and Biden rematch would

16:05

basically be tied if the election

16:07

were held today, though there is a new Washington

16:10

Post-ABC poll that has Trump leading Biden

16:13

by 52 to 42. Now, even the

16:16

Post's own story about

16:18

the poll strongly suggests

16:20

it's an outlier. I've actually have never seen

16:22

a major media outlet be that

16:25

honest in their write-up that their own poll

16:27

is an outlier. It's pretty unusual. But

16:29

there's also a new NBC News poll

16:31

that also came out the same day as the Post poll

16:34

that shows the race tied at 46-46, which

16:37

is still pretty close for comfort. I've seen

16:39

a lot of good arguments that the Post poll is an outlier, I

16:42

believe them, but I've also heard from a lot of people

16:44

who are pretty freaked out. I'm sure you have too.

16:46

What are your thoughts on this poll and the NBC poll? I

16:49

mean, the obvious and condescending point

16:51

is that no one should worry about any poll over a year from

16:53

an election, right? But we all

16:55

do worry about the trajectory and what it means

16:58

about political standing. I do think that

17:01

the outlier arguments

17:04

that were convincing to me were

17:07

that I don't think any other poll has shown

17:09

Trump winning by that wide of a margin and

17:11

getting over 50%. Two elections

17:14

have shown he hasn't gotten... Even the election

17:16

he actually won in 2016, he didn't break 47%. And the other piece

17:18

of it was the poll that Trump

17:22

leading Biden with young voters by 20 points.

17:25

And I'm certainly... We've talked about it on the show. There's

17:28

been great write-ups by Nate Cone

17:30

at the New York Times about challenges

17:32

Biden is having with young voters, but

17:34

I've never seen Trump winning

17:37

by 20 points. Have you? No, no, no.

17:39

I think, look, it's clear it's an outlier.

17:42

And I also think it is a good

17:44

argument that polls a year

17:46

from the election, especially polls

17:48

when there's a heated Republican primary going

17:50

on, and there's an incumbent president

17:53

who's had middling

17:55

approval ratings, to say the least, are

17:58

not going to be very predictive, right? That

18:00

said, we

18:03

know this is going to be a close election. Trump's

18:05

not gonna win by 10, Biden's not gonna win by 10. It's

18:08

gonna be close and it's gonna be within

18:10

the margin in a

18:13

lot of these swing states right

18:15

now. There's some arguments that I don't

18:17

necessarily love when polls like this come out.

18:20

One argument is people try to unscue them,

18:22

right? Or they say that it's the media

18:24

trying to make a close raise or something like

18:27

that and there's all this conspiracy around it, I don't love that.

18:30

Oh, they all told us all the polls were

18:33

wrong in 2022 and it said there were red wave

18:35

coming. The polls were not wrong, not that

18:37

wrong in 2022. In fact, they were more accurate in 2022 than

18:40

in any election since 1998. The

18:42

punditry was off in 2022, got

18:45

a little ahead of itself talking about the red wave but the polls were

18:47

pretty good. Well, ABC had a really bad Wisconsin

18:49

poll. ABC had, yeah, which is again,

18:52

interesting. One huge outlier. One outlier,

18:54

one outlet, it's interesting, same one. Yeah,

18:56

I mean, look, we should also point out that a lot of Republicans

18:59

don't seem to believe this poll. So it's not

19:01

just a bunch of liberals unscuing the polls. Also,

19:03

look, there's margin of error on survey

19:06

data and it could be plus or

19:08

minus four points for both

19:10

the Biden number and the Trump margin. So that could

19:12

result in an outcome like this. I

19:14

wonder what you thought about this though. Dan Pfeiffer

19:17

was heard of him, was hard

19:20

on ABC for releasing

19:22

the poll and then criticizing it. And

19:24

I didn't agree with that because imagine a

19:26

scenario where ABC and the post

19:28

do a poll. It's really favorable for

19:30

Trump. They don't trust the data

19:33

so they don't release it and that somehow leaks. That

19:36

to me leads to the kind of conspiracy theory,

19:39

mega fever dream stuff. Yeah, then they're

19:41

getting subpoenaed by Jim Jordan and hauled before Congress.

19:43

Like they're fucking Twitter or something. Suppressing the votes.

19:45

No, I don't, look, Dan's not here to defend himself but I

19:48

didn't, we'll see what he says on the Thursday.

19:51

But I didn't quite agree with that either. Or

19:53

he said publish it but then stand by it. I

19:55

think they're standing by it. They're just saying, like

19:58

here are our results. We're standing by them. By the

20:00

way, they're not in line with most

20:02

of the other polls and most of the other media

20:04

outlets, which I think is a responsible thing to do. Yeah,

20:06

I thought it was responsible too. I think part of Dan's critique

20:09

was they called it an outlier, but I think

20:11

the last ABC Washington Post survey had Trump

20:13

up six. So it was not that much

20:15

of an outlier, which frankly is more cause for

20:17

concern. Yeah. Well, there could be

20:19

something interesting in the methodology

20:22

there, right? You pointed out, I

20:24

guess that Wisconsin poll was not 2022, that was 2020,

20:26

right? Yeah. Correct.

20:29

It was like a million points and it was good. So

20:31

there is something a little goofy about the ABC Washington

20:33

Post polls, even though they're rated in A pollster,

20:36

but the A pollsters have problems, right?

20:38

I do think it's interesting, I wonder what you think about ...

20:41

So all these national polls are really tight. I

20:44

think the real clear politics average, which

20:46

also isn't perfect, has Trump up 1.8

20:48

on average. The state

20:50

polls, especially swing state

20:52

polls, are so far

20:55

better for Biden than the national polls,

20:57

which is interesting. Yeah. So

20:59

there was an end poll of New Hampshire last week that has

21:02

Biden up 52 40 on Trump in

21:04

New Hampshire. Biden won New Hampshire by

21:06

seven points in 2020, so that would be a better

21:08

result for Biden. And that's obviously a state

21:10

where a lot of people pay close

21:13

attention, especially because there's a primary going

21:15

on. So I do wonder why the state polls are

21:17

somewhat better. Yeah, that was very surprising. You'd

21:19

expect New Hampshire to be hearing a lot of anti-Biden

21:21

messages right now and for that maybe to do

21:23

a number on its approval rating. I think the last thing

21:26

people need to understand is you don't

21:28

do a poll, get the data back and

21:30

the results are the results. Every pollster

21:33

waits it in certain ways based on what they

21:35

think the actual electorate

21:37

will look like at the time of the election. So

21:39

that's how you see a large variance. The one thing I

21:42

wonder about with New Hampshire and the electorate

21:44

there is it is more college-educated

21:47

than the nation as a whole. It's whiter than

21:49

the nation as a whole. And we know that college-educated

21:52

white voters are giving

21:54

Democrats and Joe Biden much

21:56

bigger margins than ever before, and they are

21:58

turning out. Much more than ever before,

22:00

that's why we're doing so well in a lot of these special elections,

22:03

when you just happen to be in areas

22:05

where there are a lot of college-educated white

22:07

voters disproportionately. And

22:10

I noticed this from the NBC poll right up, which

22:13

is, it says, a greater share of Republican voters

22:15

than Democratic voters have high interest in the upcoming

22:17

election, while key parts of the Democratic

22:19

base, younger voters, Black voters,

22:21

and Latino voters, have lower interest

22:24

than at this same point in past election

22:26

cycles. So even if you have the Washington

22:28

Post as an outlier and some of these other polls, you

22:31

could start to see a pattern where sort

22:34

of lower interest voters, people

22:36

who aren't consuming the news as much, which tend to be younger,

22:39

disproportionately Black and Latino, are

22:41

either not participating in polls,

22:43

are less interested in the election, are less enthusiastic

22:46

about Joe Biden. And either way,

22:48

it does seem like this is a group

22:51

of voters that you're really going to want to focus on if

22:53

you're the Biden campaign to make sure

22:55

that they are engaged in turnout. Absolutely.

22:57

Yeah. I was just wondering, why do a bunch of national

23:00

polls this far out? Why not just do a bunch of state-based

23:02

stuff? If I was running

23:05

a media organization with enough money to do

23:07

a really high-quality poll, I would

23:09

absolutely start doing state polls. I would not

23:11

waste my money on that. I would need a bunch of data out of Texas

23:13

and California. I would love it. I was looking

23:16

before we did this, and I was like, there

23:18

hasn't been a high-quality

23:20

Georgia poll in a long, long time,

23:22

Arizona. There was a couple of Pennsylvania

23:24

and Michigan ones, again, where Biden was actually winning

23:27

in those polls a couple weeks ago. So

23:30

I'd love to see more state polls. In

23:32

the NBC poll, 60% of Democrats said that

23:34

they want someone else to run. Democratic

23:37

Congressman Dean Phillips from Minnesota just said

23:39

in an interview this week that he's

23:41

still thinking about mounting a primary challenge

23:44

against Joe Biden. What do you think? Good

23:46

idea, bad idea, doesn't really matter? I

23:48

pay a lot of attention to politics. I

23:51

don't know who Dean Phillips is. Dean Phillips

23:53

could be in this room. Congressman Dean Phillips from

23:55

Minnesota, is he here? Couldn't

23:57

pick him up. Yeah, that's why I'm less worried

23:59

about him. This one if it was some well-known

24:02

governor or you know A

24:04

senator or someone's like a name ID to

24:06

primary Biden that might make me worried

24:08

right the example you always hear is about Ted

24:11

Kennedy his primary challenge

24:13

to Jimmy Carter in 1980 The

24:15

the context there was though that you

24:17

know the bottom had fallen out for Jimmy Carter I

24:20

think pre before Kennedy decided

24:22

to run he was beating Carter

24:24

like two to one in polls And

24:26

then they went through this brutal primary Carter

24:29

B Kennedy and Kennedy didn't

24:32

he didn't really it was acrimonious all

24:35

the way to the convention Yeah, and Kennedy gave this famous

24:37

speech and kind of ripped the party apart And

24:39

so I think a lot of Biden staff work for Carter. They're very

24:41

sensitive to this but Dean

24:44

Phillips ain't Ted Kennedy, you

24:46

know like Thought

24:49

about this a lot because I don't I don't want it to appear

24:51

that we think like oh Everyone

24:54

get in line behind Joe Biden It's gonna be easy

24:56

and he's obviously the strongest candidate

24:58

and he's gonna win a boba like we're all scared,

25:01

right? We're pretty anxious about this, but like here's

25:03

here's the reality of the situation Biden

25:06

has had plenty of people tell him to step

25:08

aside You know one of his favorite columnist David

25:10

Ignatius and the Washington Post was

25:12

doing it right now one probably cut deep He has had

25:14

no shortage of people telling the step aside He has

25:16

refused plenty of Democrats could

25:18

have launched a primary campaign against him over

25:21

the last year They have all refused and

25:23

if any of them decided to change their minds, right Gavin

25:25

Newsom Gretchen Whitmer Josh Shapiro

25:27

tomorrow They just woke up and decided they wanted to challenge

25:29

Biden They'd have four months to put together a presidential

25:32

campaign raise money hire

25:34

staff get on TV Yeah, get well

25:36

known and then somehow make

25:38

an argument to anxious Democrats that actually

25:40

they are the best Candidate

25:43

to beat Donald Trump instead

25:45

of a sitting Democratic president who is the

25:47

only person who beat him last time Yeah,

25:49

it's just like you can have

25:52

your anxieties over the Biden situation, but then

25:54

you have to go to alright What's

25:56

the alternative? Yeah, and I think

25:58

the alternative requires someone one with

26:00

a chance of winning running against

26:03

Biden in a primary and no one has decided to do

26:05

that. And listen, yeah, to your point, I am just

26:08

as worried about some of the polling you

26:10

talked about sort of under the hood in this NBC

26:12

poll and the ABC one, some of the concerns about age,

26:15

some of the frustration about the economy,

26:17

despite the fact that there's all these economic

26:19

indicators that make us think that the economy

26:21

is actually getting better but people aren't feeling it. So

26:24

there's a lot to be worried about. But

26:26

Dean Phillips is not on my list. And you just, like

26:28

I said, you really have to play it out in your head.

26:30

Like it's either, you know, Joe

26:33

Biden on his primary stage with

26:35

Gavin Newsom and Josh Shapiro

26:37

and Gretchen Whitmer and Raphael Warnock

26:40

or whoever you have up there. And they're all debating and fighting

26:42

over the next three months, four months before we get

26:44

to South Carolina or Biden steps

26:46

aside and now you're picturing Kamala Harris up

26:48

on stage with Newsom and Shapiro

26:51

and all of these same people that I just mentioned. And like

26:54

really think of that as going to make you sleep easier. And

26:56

then also like none of these people want to do it. Someone's

26:58

got to step and run, you know. Yeah, I'm very much

27:00

on the camp of I don't know, I worry,

27:03

I don't think primaries are bad. I sometimes think of vigorous

27:05

debate about policy and getting

27:08

our message out all over the place can be a good thing. Sometimes

27:10

it pulls a bunch of candidates to

27:12

the far left or to the far right and hurts in the general

27:15

election. Generally, I think you can deal with that

27:17

and candidates all end up tacking back to the middle

27:19

and whatever. It's a 50 50 country. That's

27:21

how these races end up. If there were

27:23

some sort of Democratic primary happening,

27:26

maybe it would help Joe Biden emerge stronger

27:29

if he defeated them. However, we still

27:31

are at this point where whether or not pundits

27:34

and donors and voters want

27:36

an alternative, someone has to step up and run.

27:39

Yeah. And

27:42

if someone stepped up a year ago, it would be a different

27:44

story. Again, it's really hard to do that

27:46

four months out from the first primary. And your message

27:48

would likely just be, I like almost everything

27:51

that Biden has done. Substantively, I just

27:53

think he's too old. And maybe that's a potent message. Yeah.

27:55

But someone, Again, no one's done

27:58

it. Except our boy Dean Phillips, who we

27:59

We could not recognize, not sure that's a

28:02

real person.

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least

34:00

effective are arguments about how

34:02

they're holding the government hostage to

34:05

defund the Trump prosecutions and impeach

34:07

Joe Biden. People actually don't give a shit about that. That

34:09

makes sense. I wouldn't give a shit about that either if I

34:11

were just trying to live my life. I also think

34:14

you can tie it all back to Trump because he is

34:16

the maestro here. He's like the offensive coordinator,

34:18

like true thing out the next play

34:20

to the base, to

34:23

McCarthy, to everybody's thing, you know, shut it down. Yeah.

34:26

They care about themselves. They care about their own political futures

34:28

and they don't give a shit about you and people are going to

34:31

be hurt as a result just because they're playing games.

34:34

Yeah. All right. Finally, Joe Biden's weaponized

34:36

justice department is at it again with yet

34:38

another politicized indictment of the

34:41

Democratic chair of the Foreign Relations

34:43

Committee. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez

34:46

has been accused of bribery and corruption specifically

34:49

abusing his power to influence arms sales

34:52

to Egypt. The FBI searched the senator's

34:54

home and found $100,000 worth of gold bars

34:56

and $480,000 in

35:00

cash that was stuffed in envelopes

35:02

and jacket pockets. They also got texts,

35:04

phone calls, shell company payments,

35:07

lots of evidence in this indictment. Multiple

35:09

Democrats in New Jersey and elsewhere have called on Menendez

35:12

to resign, but at a press conference Monday,

35:14

he said, he's not going anywhere. Let's listen.

35:17

I recognize this will be the biggest fight

35:19

yet, but as I have stated throughout

35:21

this whole process, I firmly

35:24

believe that when all the facts are presented,

35:26

not only will I be exonerated, but

35:29

I still will be the New Jersey's senior

35:31

senator. Now, this may seem old-fashioned,

35:34

but these were monies drawn from my personal

35:37

savings account based on the income

35:39

that I have lawfully derived over

35:42

those 30 years. Tommy, is

35:44

that what you do? Do you just take money every once in a while

35:46

out of your savings account? It's just cash, stuff

35:48

it in envelopes, stuff it in your jacket pockets,

35:50

and then also buy some gold. You get

35:52

some gold under your bed? The gold bars. It's

35:56

really amazing. Many Googled price

35:59

kilo gold. I should

36:01

just say that I want to say at the top full disclosure I

36:04

thought Bob Menendez was a terrible United States

36:06

senator for a long time before this indictment

36:08

before the previous You have been indicted

36:10

in 2015 for similar things for using

36:12

his office to help out donors and

36:14

friends But I think he's hung jury so he

36:17

escaped that one Yeah, and you know that frankly

36:19

that was a much harder case to prosecute

36:21

I think is he had a pre-existing relationship this one is

36:24

gonna be trouble for him But you know look I been

36:26

Dez's thinks that you know

36:28

another Decade or four of sanctions on

36:30

Cuba will change the government there. I think

36:32

that's stupid He was opposed to the Iran deal So he's just

36:34

sort of hawkish and I think he's bad on policy

36:37

But that just want to get that out of the way and get off my chest

36:39

But yeah, I mean the he is in big

36:42

trouble here It seems I highly recommend

36:44

folks read the full indictment read the indictment Or

36:46

if you don't want to read the 39 page indictment New

36:48

York Times has some great stories about it The

36:51

details are shocking. It's very

36:53

blatant. It's multiple parts multiple

36:55

parts. It's Menendez and his wife

36:57

and Businessmen that

36:59

they knew that has a lot of business in Egypt

37:02

He was in this so it was like Menendez taking all

37:04

these actions and pressuring all these people as part of his

37:06

role on the for Senate Foreign Relations Committee

37:08

And then just getting money. Yeah, so there's

37:10

a couple different parts first of all he uses

37:13

position as US senator and

37:15

the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to

37:17

help push for US assistance

37:20

to Egypt this was at a time when there

37:23

were a lot of real serious human rights considerations

37:26

When it came to Egypt Egypt is the

37:28

second biggest recipient of Military

37:31

aid from the US after Israel I think they get about

37:33

a billion dollars a year in

37:35

foreign military Financing funds and

37:37

Menendez could put a hold on that funding if you

37:39

wanted or help push it through if he did

37:41

not so the Allegation is that he got

37:44

money to help push that money through. He

37:46

also allegedly did favors to

37:49

help a business associated

37:51

with one of the individuals who was bribing him basically

37:53

that guy had a monopoly on The

37:56

export of halal meats to Egypt

37:58

from the US and he put pushed Biden

38:00

to nominate a US attorney

38:03

in New Jersey that then it is felt he could

38:05

control to prevent some of his buddies

38:07

from getting prosecuted. So there are- It's

38:10

really fucking mobster stuff. Real

38:12

mob stuff, multiple strands,

38:15

super brazen, and

38:18

a lot of this seemingly was going through his

38:21

girlfriend, now wife. Who

38:24

was texting about it? She was sending a lot of

38:26

texts that were not helpful. So

38:29

outside of New Jersey, so you get a lot of New Jersey Democrats

38:32

have called on him to resign. Phil Murphy, the governor,

38:35

a lot of the congressional delegation,

38:37

a lot of like county chairs and stuff like that. Outside

38:40

of New Jersey, we got John

38:42

Federman was the first senator to call

38:45

on him to resign. Sherrod Brown

38:47

just called on him today. Why have it more

38:49

Democrats do you think called on him to resign and

38:52

should they? I'm surprised by this too. Look,

38:55

we all deserve the presumption of innocence

38:57

until proven guilty, but you don't

39:00

deserve to be US Senator.

39:02

You don't deserve to be the chair of a committee. And again, Menendez,

39:05

he ghost wrote a letter for

39:08

the Egyptians that was then sent to his colleagues

39:10

about the need to push for a military aid. Menendez

39:13

had a private meeting with some Egyptian official and

39:16

then one of these businessmen that was allegedly

39:18

bribing him bought 22 one ounce

39:20

gold bars. They had serial numbers on them. One was then

39:22

founded at his house. These guys were renting

39:25

cars or purchasing cars for Menendez's

39:28

wife. And after

39:30

the feds approached Menendez, he wrote

39:32

his wife a check for $23,000. She

39:35

then wrote a check back to

39:38

one of the guys who allegedly has been bribing him

39:40

all this time. And the memo

39:42

section said personal loans. So it seems

39:44

like they got him dead to rights. There's

39:46

all these evidence that Menendez

39:49

knows he was busted and is trying to sort of clean

39:51

up after himself. And so I guess my

39:54

question is whether they're just worried that Menendez

39:57

is vindictive enough to basically

39:59

screw around. the whole Democratic Party to

40:02

do something that might take away the Democratic

40:04

majority. I'm not sure what they think he's threatening

40:07

that would lead them to treat

40:10

him with kid gloves here. Look, I

40:13

get that if someone is

40:15

indicted, who you serve with, that

40:18

if the indictment is vague, let

40:22

the legal process... You don't want to set a

40:24

rule that every indictment

40:26

automatically disqualifies you, right? Because prosecutors

40:29

can get things wrong, people can be innocent. Like you

40:31

said, there's a presumption of innocence. You read this

40:33

indictment, you read the stories, you read what they

40:36

already have as evidence. Again, let

40:39

the legal process go forward, but he

40:41

doesn't have to be a Democratic senator from

40:43

New Jersey anymore. Andy Kim,

40:45

who's one of the Democratic members of Congress, has

40:47

already announced that he's going to run against Menendez

40:50

in the primary. Menendez is up, by the way, in 2024.

40:53

That's important context. There may be other

40:55

Democratic members of Congress who run in that race as

40:58

well. We'll see what happens. I bet it gets pretty

41:00

crowded. For sure. And look, I

41:02

guess from the Biden administration's perspective, I sort

41:04

of get it because if Joe Biden's standard

41:07

for both the Trump prosecution and

41:09

now the prosecution of his own son is going to

41:11

be like, it's my Justice Department, I'm going to

41:13

let the process play out. I'm not going to say anything like,

41:16

I get that, right? Now, obviously, Joe Biden should not

41:18

endorse what Menendez

41:20

does for real, but for the other senators, like,

41:23

come on. I know. I don't get

41:25

it. I don't know if it's- A lot of people called on Al Franken

41:27

to resign, just based on some news stories. Right.

41:30

I don't know if it's a collegial thing. I don't know if they're

41:33

friends. I don't know if these are, you know,

41:35

a bunch of people who are too used to being in these

41:37

jobs. It's weird. But again, you know,

41:40

Menendez did a

41:42

favor for someone, tried to interfere

41:45

in the prosecution of one of these guys who was bribing

41:47

him. Menendez then called

41:49

the guy from his Senate office who

41:52

he just helped out. And then they had a celebratory

41:54

dinner a few days later and a champagne toast and they took

41:56

photos of it. Like this is how brazen it

41:58

was. And the other element of this is- This

42:01

isn't just like Bob Menendez helping

42:03

out a corrupt businessman in New Jersey.

42:06

He's providing information to the government

42:08

of Egypt about foreign

42:10

military sales from the United States. He

42:13

passed along to his girlfriend information

42:16

about the number of American

42:18

employees and locally based Egyptian

42:21

employees at the US Embassy in Cairo.

42:23

I don't know why you would do that. It's

42:27

weird information to want. I

42:30

was wondering if it was like to get them to get so that they

42:32

could lobby them directly. I don't know if it's

42:34

lobbying them. I don't know if it's looking

42:36

for people to extract intelligence

42:39

from. It's

42:41

very strange. It was a shocking piece

42:43

of this puzzle to me. And of course, it

42:46

goes to that saying that the Republican

42:48

likely nominee has been charged

42:50

with 91 felony counts. And part

42:52

of our argument against him is like, hey,

42:55

no one is above the fucking law. And

42:57

this guy's got a bunch of criminal charges. And again, Donald

42:59

Trump enjoys the presumption

43:01

of innocence as well. But Donald Trump should absolutely

43:04

not be serving as president again and should

43:06

not hold any public office again. What

43:09

I would like to see is I'd

43:12

love for Dana Perino, who

43:14

is moderating the debate on Wednesday, to ask

43:16

these Republican candidates what they think about Bob Menendez.

43:19

Yeah, I'm sure everybody's practicing that answer right

43:21

now. They're all going to say that, yeah,

43:23

of course, Bob Menendez should resign, but Donald Trump, he's

43:26

okay. Yeah, and look, what Menendez

43:28

will say is, look, I was just doing what any US senator

43:31

does. You lobby for businesses in your state.

43:33

You help out constituents, et cetera, et cetera.

43:36

But normally, constituents don't lease

43:38

your wife a Mercedes for 60 grand. Yeah,

43:40

no, it's like you do some constituent services, you get

43:42

some gold bars. That's

43:45

always what happens. The guy's in a privileged position.

43:47

He has access to a lot of information. He will no longer

43:49

be chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He's

43:52

already stepped down from that role. But

43:54

I don't care why some Democrat didn't primary him a long time

43:56

ago. You know who's defending him? Who?

44:00

Okay, good. George, you just said he

44:02

shouldn't resign. He should do that. We should tell you

44:04

everything he needs to know. That's right. Okay, before we

44:06

go to break, quick housekeeping note. This week is

44:08

apparently banned book week because

44:11

that's where we are as a country right now. It's a good reminder

44:13

to go to votesaveamerica.com where you can find all kinds

44:15

of ways to help fight book bands across the country. And

44:17

we also have some fun merch in the Crooked store. There's

44:20

Free the Books March. There's Are

44:22

You Afraid of the Books t-shirts that are well

44:25

timed for Halloween? And there are kids,

44:27

teas, and onesies that say, read me a

44:29

banned book. Check it all out at crooked.com

44:32

slash store. When we come back, Tommy

44:34

talks to our friend and former White House colleague Cal Penn

44:37

about the tentative deal to end the writer's strike, youth

44:39

outreach in the 2024 campaign, and much

44:41

more. Pod

44:49

Save America is brought to you by Field of Greens. The

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48:23

Our

48:26

guest today is an actor. He's a

48:28

former White House staffer during the Obama administration,

48:31

and most importantly, he's my good friend. Cal Penn,

48:33

it's great to see you. Good to see you, man. How

48:36

are you? I'm great. I saw a

48:38

bunch of Iowa folks over the weekend, which made me think

48:40

of you because you weren't based in Iowa,

48:42

but you might as well have been given the number of times

48:45

the Obama campaign asked you to go

48:47

there to turn out the vote, to

48:49

travel around the state, to talk about climate. What

48:51

else were you doing? A million things. Mostly

48:54

youth outreach with

48:56

Team Iowa and then a little

48:58

bit of Arts Policy Committee work, but that

49:00

was ...

49:01

Man, it feels like so long ago, but also 50 years

49:04

into the future, just in terms

49:06

of the wholesomeness and the lack

49:08

of vitriol. I know. I

49:10

know. It's a different time. But you know

49:12

what? For the best part. I

49:14

was able to come out there because that

49:16

was the last time the screenwriters went on strike,

49:19

so I wasn't able to shoot TV show

49:21

House, which is why I was able to join the campaign. Oh,

49:24

that's right. Well, we're going to talk about strikes

49:26

in a minute. Let's talk about it right

49:28

now. We booked this interview

49:31

a few weeks ago because we were thinking it would be important to check

49:33

in on the ongoing strikes in Hollywood.

49:36

On Sunday night, there was some good news

49:38

about a potential breakthrough in the negotiations between

49:40

the Writers Guild and the studios. I've

49:42

not seen all the details. I'm not sure that a lot of

49:45

folks have outside of the bargaining committee, but

49:47

it sounds like the writers got more compensation

49:49

for streaming content, some rules

49:52

around a baseline for the number of writers

49:55

in a room, some sort of protections

49:57

when it comes to artificial intelligence. So

49:59

that's great. In the coming days, the

50:01

writers will vote on whether or not to accept that deal,

50:04

but the WGA leadership is

50:06

excited about it, which is telling. So

50:09

fingers crossed there. But there is

50:11

another actually considerably larger

50:13

union representing actors and TV

50:16

and radio artists that is still on strike.

50:18

I don't believe those negotiations have

50:21

been happening recently, but

50:23

I want to check in with you on that. So this is

50:26

the SAG-AFTRA union. What are

50:28

they hoping to get out of the strike?

50:30

What are the demands they're looking for? So in some

50:32

sense, I'm full disclosure, I'm a member of both

50:35

unions, but I've been a SAG-AFTRA member

50:37

for two decades. I

50:39

think both unions wanted

50:42

things that are pretty common in labor disputes,

50:44

wanting to make sure that wages for

50:47

workers reflect

50:48

everything from inflation to a fair

50:50

reflection of profits if the industry

50:52

was particularly profitable. But

50:55

then one of the newer

50:57

pieces is related to AI in

51:00

both unions. And I know your

51:02

listeners probably know a lot about this, but the kind

51:05

of thing that I would underscore, you hear this happening

51:08

a lot with discussions about labor

51:10

in general, but

51:13

it's kind of a decision point and a point of reflection

51:16

within the industry, predominantly

51:18

in television, because what you used to have

51:21

was you would have things called residuals.

51:23

So for writers and actors, it's money that you

51:25

would get every time something airs on television,

51:27

for example. And a lot of that structure is

51:29

really archaic because it was set up when everything

51:32

was on these big four networks. And so

51:35

if your show, the Nielsen ratings said 24 million

51:37

people watched it last night, the

51:40

ad space, Ford would spend a ton

51:42

on your show. And so essentially that's how

51:45

they could track what was

51:47

fair in terms of compensation. Because

51:49

almost everything is streaming now, those

51:51

algorithms are proprietary, understandably,

51:54

right, by these platforms. But because

51:56

they're hiding who's watching how much.

51:59

And even

51:59

Even though ads are part

52:02

of, you can get Hulu, for example, with ads,

52:05

there isn't a good way for

52:07

labor to track what's fairly

52:09

owed to us. That's a big

52:11

point of contention that I think you're hearing a lot

52:14

about. Then AI is the

52:16

other piece of it. This morning

52:18

we were texting back and forth and you were telling me how you

52:20

just ... You checked in on some of your old

52:23

residuals. You were looking up the very

52:25

Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas check,

52:28

which ... How

52:31

much was that again? I shit

52:33

you not $4.20. Come

52:35

on. How

52:38

is that possible? Those

52:41

movies ... It's a good segue. First

52:45

of all, it seemed like a joke. You

52:47

and I had spoken and I just logged onto

52:49

the app to make sure that

52:51

my memory was correct and I wasn't somehow making

52:53

a ton of money off of residuals from that

52:56

movie. That movie, man, we

52:59

signed

52:59

onto it in 2004. It

53:02

was obviously a very competitive, really long

53:04

audition process. I had done a movie

53:06

called Van Wilder with Ryan Reynolds. That was the

53:08

only real big thing that I had done. John Cho,

53:10

who plays Harold, had heard American

53:13

Pie and I think a couple other things.

53:17

Basically they offer us this deal and they're like,

53:19

look, take it or leave it. X

53:22

amount of money. What

53:25

I would tell you is it was a decent

53:27

middle class salary was

53:30

what that reflection was, which is wonderful when you're just

53:32

starting out. It was a three picture option,

53:34

which is also very common. Nobody

53:37

was making tons of money and there also weren't things

53:39

in the contract that are common

53:41

called box office bumps or bumps. Meaning if your

53:43

movie makes $20 million, you get

53:45

a check for however much you

53:47

get it. We didn't have any of that stuff. The movie comes

53:50

out and actually it tanked at the box

53:52

office. Everybody forgets it. It tanked initially.

53:55

Then it did really bonkers numbers on

53:57

DVD and I guess. now

54:00

streaming. But we didn't get

54:02

a share of that, right? We didn't get a proportional

54:05

share of that because we had sort of signed this

54:08

three picture option. And that was the fair contract

54:10

that we'd signed, right? I knew exactly what I was signing. The hope

54:12

there, which turned out to be true, was if your movie does well,

54:15

it'll hopefully launch your career and you're fairly

54:17

compensated down the line. But what's kind of crazy

54:19

when I talk to friends about this is,

54:21

you know, you see that, okay, on DVD, that

54:24

first movie initially made $50 million.

54:26

And everyone's like, dude, so you got a sweet

54:29

check, right? Like, no, not really,

54:31

you know, my salary for that movie lasted me

54:33

a couple of months after agent manager

54:35

commissions and taxes, which just

54:37

to be clear, is fantastic

54:40

for an actor. You know, I just want to make

54:42

clear that I'm not whining about this. That was that's the dream.

54:44

The dream is to put a roof over your head, pay

54:46

your rent from your acting. But I think when,

54:49

you know, obviously, in just saying

54:52

the 420 screenshot, although it's accurate, but

54:54

one of the one of the real things that I think

54:56

when you see an industry like this, get

54:59

restructured in this way, you know,

55:01

for Screen Actors Guild, as an actor,

55:03

you have to make $26,500 a

55:06

year minimum to qualify for your health

55:08

insurance. And more than 80% of

55:10

our union members don't make that money acting.

55:13

And so they're, you know, they either don't have health insurance,

55:16

or they have to get it through other means. So when you're when you're

55:18

hearing about things, I totally understand why celebrities

55:21

and people like myself are

55:23

kind of becoming the face of this on on

55:26

TV. But the reality is the vast

55:28

majority of our union brothers and sisters are

55:31

working class folks working their hearts out

55:33

for a dream that they have. They're

55:35

working very, very hard. And they

55:38

don't often you know, the difference between a $4 and 20

55:41

cent residuals check could literally be the difference

55:43

between whether they hit that cap for their

55:45

health insurance or not.

55:47

Now, I think that's such an important point. Because look,

55:49

even when I met you, back in 2007, I

55:52

remember all of us being like, Whoa, that guy's a movie

55:54

star. There's another one on the way.

55:56

There's a third one was like, he must be loaded. I

55:58

wonder if he came out here. on a private

56:00

jet and you're like, I have a one bedroom. Yeah.

56:04

Kind of. That I've been kind of a forward like. And you guys came

56:06

out to LA and you saw me driving my mom's car and you're

56:09

like, oh, okay.

56:11

But like, you know, I think the title

56:13

of actor gets flattened, right? And

56:16

you think of Tom Cruise and you

56:18

think of Penelope Cruz, all the cruises. And

56:21

you think that everyone with the title of actor is rich,

56:23

but I think it's important to understand that you

56:25

can be wildly successful in the industry. You

56:27

can be a part of a three part franchise

56:30

that made what, a quarter of a billion dollars, but

56:32

a lot of the actors don't receive anything

56:34

near what they deserve for that work. Yeah,

56:37

that's a good point too, man. I think, you know, the

56:39

focus of these disputes should obviously

56:42

be on the majority of

56:43

members who are working

56:45

in middle class folks. But

56:48

the point you raised is a good one. Like if you

56:50

made somebody that kind of money, there's

56:53

nothing wrong with wanting what you're fairly entitled

56:55

to.

56:56

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So,

56:59

Cal, the AI part of these negotiations

57:02

is so fascinating and complicated. It's

57:04

hard for me to wrap my head around what the technology is new.

57:06

It's also evolving so quickly. But what are the

57:09

general principles that you think we could

57:11

say artists writ large, I mean, writers,

57:13

actors, whomever you want to fold into this should

57:16

ask for to be protected from what

57:18

we know about AI? Yeah. So

57:21

I think, like you said, the writers,

57:23

though, hasn't released the fine print yet because I think

57:25

they're still mulling it over.

57:26

But my presumption is that they

57:29

got some guarantees that AI wouldn't be used,

57:31

meaning no inputs of

57:34

work that was written by human

57:37

writers can go into this algorithm to spin

57:39

out something that would make us obsolete.

57:42

I think from the acting perspective,

57:44

we already have, you know, you do a

57:46

TV show, a movie commercial with special effects,

57:48

and you're already, your face, your body,

57:51

your voice is being scanned. And

57:53

in some of the early Netflix language, you know, there

57:55

was stuff in there that allowed them to use

57:58

modifications of your voice. without

58:00

your consent, without additional compensation. So

58:03

the fear there, which is not far-fetched

58:05

at all, especially if the precedent

58:07

of these companies means anything, is that

58:09

you don't want to participate in these

58:12

scans and then find out someone's making a movie

58:14

with your name, likeness, voice, all

58:17

of that stuff that they have and that they own without

58:19

your say and without any additional compensation.

58:22

And it's really not far-fetched. It happens

58:25

already. And

58:28

it's in these contracts already. So I think having

58:30

those protections in there is really critical

58:33

for both the actors and the writers.

58:35

Yeah, I know someone like, I think Sarah Silverman, for

58:38

example, is suing some

58:40

of these companies and saying basically, hey, somebody

58:42

uploaded a bunch of my books, a

58:45

bunch of my jokes. They scraped my

58:47

identity, essentially, and now they're plagiarizing

58:49

that to recreate stuff

58:51

in my own voice. Of course, that

58:53

doesn't seem fair. No, it's not fair. And also,

58:56

let's just be clear, I know there's a lot of bad

58:58

blood right now because there's a double stripe.

59:01

But

59:01

the executives and the folks who run these

59:04

companies, as much as I

59:06

look forward to working with them again, they're

59:09

not writers. They're not creative talent. And

59:11

so to basically underscore,

59:14

you need that human element, or

59:16

at least you wanna have that human element. Audiences

59:19

have sort of said time and again, they like the

59:21

idea of the human element remaining. I remember if

59:23

you look back to, okay, when TV started,

59:25

people said radio's gonna die when DVD

59:28

came out. People aren't gonna go to the theater. People

59:30

still love being together. They love seeing plays.

59:32

They like going for those big blockbuster movies. So

59:34

I think hanging onto that culturally is something

59:37

that's relevant, but really pushing those companies

59:39

on making sure that they do the right thing is

59:41

important. The other thing that I

59:43

think makes sense to bring up is,

59:46

these are unique challenges right now for

59:48

actors and writers. There

59:51

are things that are gonna affect other labor unions

59:53

and other industries. You're already seeing it come up in

59:55

conversations about lawyers, for example. Obviously

59:58

they're unionized, so they're... is

1:00:00

not sort of what it is in a singular union. I

1:00:03

can't believe that Andrew Yang was the only dude

1:00:05

talking about UBI a couple of years ago,

1:00:07

but the idea that the technology has changed

1:00:09

that quickly and that people's jobs are at

1:00:12

risk in a very real way

1:00:14

is like, look, we're gonna have to start talking about what

1:00:16

that means down the line because not

1:00:18

all of these professions have unions that are strong

1:00:20

enough and concentrated enough. So it

1:00:23

begs the larger question of what kind of world do we wanna

1:00:25

live in.

1:00:26

Yeah, and that's an important point as

1:00:28

part of these negotiations generally. I'm sure you can put

1:00:31

in near-term language

1:00:33

so I think sort of mitigate some of the risk from

1:00:35

AI, but I think what you'll hear

1:00:37

from people on the executive side, people

1:00:40

who, friends of mine who are writers, friends who are

1:00:42

showrunners, is that a lot

1:00:44

of people believe that it's impossible to stop

1:00:46

technological progress, that

1:00:49

these new tools will get incorporated into

1:00:51

the writing process, the show creation process

1:00:53

in some way and that fighting it is to some extent

1:00:56

a losing battle, and the question becomes

1:00:58

how much can you mitigate that risk,

1:01:00

right?

1:01:01

Yeah, there was an older New York

1:01:03

Times article from May, sort of

1:01:05

when the writers started out about

1:01:08

AI and it mentioned in their, unions

1:01:11

generally had not been successful in fighting technological

1:01:14

changes. So if what we assume

1:01:16

is in the Writers Guild contract is in fact in

1:01:18

there, it's obviously a huge win for

1:01:21

writers and talent, but also arguably a huge win

1:01:23

for any working professional whose job

1:01:27

is impacted by any technological change. And

1:01:29

that's kind of the generational question

1:01:32

to ask ourselves. I also would argue that

1:01:36

asking for fair regulation, compensation

1:01:38

and a framework doesn't mean that

1:01:41

you're against the technology, right? There

1:01:43

are obviously uses for all

1:01:45

of these technologies that can benefit humankind.

1:01:48

Just the idea that it's a zero sum game to me is very

1:01:50

silly. And

1:01:52

that question, going back to that question of like, what

1:01:54

does it mean for the sake of humanity

1:01:57

that we actually put checks and balances

1:01:59

on these things? I don't think it's impossible.

1:02:01

I think it's impossible if you have a bunch of 63 year

1:02:04

olds running the Senate who don't understand How

1:02:07

you know how they're 63 isn't that the other

1:02:09

young people? Yeah, I know But

1:02:11

you know like in the in in the in

1:02:14

the house, for example, Don Byers doing a

1:02:16

masters in AI So like we

1:02:18

need more people like that or willing to kind

1:02:20

of go in and and and study up on

1:02:23

this stuff

1:02:24

Yes, I'm intellectually curious. Yeah, although I'm

1:02:26

look I I don't I don't think

1:02:28

people are good at making predictions I've been reading the

1:02:31

Walter Isaacson Elon Musk book, which

1:02:33

is a Hagiography in a

1:02:35

lot of ways, but you know, I was reading about how one

1:02:38

of the mistakes he made at Tesla is They

1:02:41

automated as many things as they could in their in

1:02:43

their assembly line built it and then

1:02:45

realized that a lot of the automation they had

1:02:47

created actually was slowing things down that people

1:02:50

were faster and Better at it and more cost-efficient.

1:02:52

So they de automated ripped out a bunch of

1:02:54

machines and throw them out of back and hire people You

1:02:56

know, I think even guys like Elon

1:02:59

get this stuff wrong So Cal

1:03:01

you know in addition to to be

1:03:03

an actor and a writer you worked

1:03:06

in politics for a long time And

1:03:08

as we were saying at the top you've done a ton of work reaching

1:03:10

out to young voters trying to get them Fired

1:03:12

up to care to realize, you know that this matters when

1:03:14

you're talking to say 18 to 30 year olds about

1:03:18

Things that are on their minds what they want to see

1:03:20

in a leader. What are you hearing these days? I'm

1:03:23

hearing that. I'm old. I'm like the old guy

1:03:27

There there was a can't remember

1:03:29

who it was, but there's a there's a College

1:03:33

student at one of the guest lectures I did who

1:03:35

was like, you know on the walk back to the

1:03:37

car or whatever He was like, hey, you know,

1:03:40

I noticed you were saying you were saying, you know My generation

1:03:42

needs to have a lot more patience

1:03:44

and like yeah, you know, we live in a vibrant democracy

1:03:46

There are checks and balances the shit doesn't

1:03:48

happen as quickly as sending like a nasty tweet Which

1:03:51

obviously feels very good, but doesn't necessarily

1:03:53

accomplish anything So just think like, you know, your generation

1:03:56

needs to understand the analog a little bit and

1:03:58

he goes, uh, so Just out

1:04:00

of curiosity like so I

1:04:03

get it right you grew up in an analog world and you're

1:04:05

young enough to know how digital stuff works I

1:04:08

grew up and this and he pulls out his phone. He's like, this

1:04:10

is my whole reality Right, like ever

1:04:12

since I was born I could get all the information

1:04:15

I wanted immediately on my phone

1:04:18

and it's always gonna be like that So why am

1:04:20

I the one who should have patience instead

1:04:22

of the other way around? It was like, okay,

1:04:25

fuck fine fine I feel old right?

1:04:27

I feel old That you're right, but

1:04:29

I think to answer your question Tommy that like that

1:04:32

interaction then kind of made me Feel

1:04:35

like yeah, the system should Adapt

1:04:39

a little more. I'm still obviously still free branches of government

1:04:41

fiber democracy Like we need

1:04:43

to hang on to that But the idea that change

1:04:46

should happen a lot quicker is something

1:04:48

that I find myself talking about a lot Especially

1:04:51

with something like so for example the

1:04:53

IRA right inflation reduction act

1:04:56

has this insane insane

1:04:58

climate stuff in there that we would have killed

1:05:01

for in the Obama administration and I

1:05:03

remember Having youth climate meetings

1:05:06

and young people who would protest outside

1:05:08

the gates of the White House while we were having fucking

1:05:10

meetings off climate Because they

1:05:12

just wanted to push the president that much harder

1:05:14

to do that much more and you know

1:05:17

It's now what 12 years

1:05:19

later after some of those meetings and now they're getting

1:05:22

it in they're getting more than what they had asked For

1:05:24

in the IRA under Biden But those people

1:05:27

who were 18 at the time are no longer considered

1:05:29

part of the youth vote block, right? And the

1:05:31

kids who are young are for obvious reasons

1:05:33

not feeling any sense of

1:05:36

reward for work that they're putting in to

1:05:38

climate so this idea that like you

1:05:40

know a lot of the stuff we realize it works because we're

1:05:42

feeling good about the work that we put in and seeing

1:05:44

the results of that work and my worry

1:05:47

is that you've got this bold climate action and People

1:05:50

aren't celebrating it the way that they should like this

1:05:53

stuff really is happening because of all the I

1:05:55

interviewed the president when I was guest Hosting

1:05:57

the Daily Show a couple months ago and I asked him that

1:06:00

You know what led to all this aggressive

1:06:02

climate stuff and he said it's young people It was two decades

1:06:04

of youth advocacy on climate that created

1:06:07

the political space for him to act on

1:06:09

that And so I just think like, you know, I

1:06:11

I get that we live in sort of a cynical

1:06:14

world But to to

1:06:16

not focus on the things that we've won

1:06:19

is such a mistake and I think it lets the other side

1:06:21

win the world

1:06:22

Yeah, I mean climate's the hardest one because I think that

1:06:25

The younger you are the more

1:06:27

of a stake you have in the future of

1:06:30

the planet personally I mean look I now have

1:06:32

a 10 month old daughter So I feel an enormous

1:06:34

sense of responsibility to her but also

1:06:36

the things that have happened as you note

1:06:39

in the IRA are monumental But the implementation

1:06:41

of that law is taking some time

1:06:44

probably longer than we all want and the

1:06:46

impact is really about Mitigating

1:06:48

the effects of climate change rather than stopping

1:06:51

it or reversing it yet So I so I

1:06:53

both I hear you and that people should be proud

1:06:55

of how much their work and blood

1:06:57

sweat and tears and fighting For climate policy

1:07:00

have moved the needle, but also I get why

1:07:02

people are frustrated About

1:07:05

the lack of additional progress I mean is that the number one

1:07:07

thing you're hearing though when you're talking to Young

1:07:09

voters about what they want out of a president

1:07:11

or what they want to see Biden do I mean, I

1:07:14

think look I what I think I'm hearing

1:07:16

the same thing that everybody else is hearing which is like I think

1:07:18

People think generally maybe an

1:07:20

audience like yours the president's doing a good job

1:07:22

They wish he would do more which is pretty standard

1:07:25

for for a left-leaning block I

1:07:27

think the stuff that I'm hearing that they care

1:07:29

a lot about understandably is you know How

1:07:31

we're how we're treating migrants a lot of that is

1:07:33

on the state level and places like or

1:07:36

even city level places like New York City Where I live? But

1:07:39

I think they're they're hoping that there's

1:07:41

a little more federal action on things like

1:07:43

that Climate's big one job a lot of a

1:07:45

lot of it's the same stuff that keeps coming up jobs

1:07:48

cost of education You

1:07:50

know, those are those are all things that that

1:07:52

I'm still hearing so it none of it

1:07:54

is from the like I'm washing my hands of

1:07:56

it. I will say the part that's a little harder to push

1:07:59

back on and I'll bring this back to the strike because this

1:08:01

has come up so much, especially with

1:08:03

young writers and younger actors. People

1:08:06

have taken notice of the fact that most

1:08:08

of these studio heads and people

1:08:10

who have forced the labor unions into

1:08:12

a strike are big democratic donors

1:08:15

themselves, right? These are people who

1:08:17

love to use social media to talk about equity,

1:08:20

but when it comes time to actually paying their teams

1:08:23

and their artists and their labor, they don't want to do it. They

1:08:25

went and hired, the AMPTP

1:08:28

hired this woman named Molly Levinson

1:08:31

in DC, this

1:08:34

PR powerhouse

1:08:36

who the US Women's

1:08:38

National team hired

1:08:40

for pay equity. And she did a wonderful job.

1:08:42

Yeah.

1:08:43

And it was really shocking that she and

1:08:45

her team would then go and take a

1:08:48

client that wanted to break labor unions.

1:08:50

And I think a lot of young people are recognizing

1:08:52

that even on the supposed left, you

1:08:55

have this hierarchy that's more based on money and

1:08:57

power than it is on the equity that

1:08:59

these people supposedly talk about

1:09:01

or tweet about. And that it seems like at

1:09:04

the root cause it's just, well, with enough

1:09:06

money and greed at stake, we'll say or do anything

1:09:09

to keep people down. And you're talking about a generation that

1:09:11

is increasingly in more debt. The

1:09:14

housing market right now at least isn't

1:09:16

perfect for them. You have a lot of people living at home, not

1:09:18

that there's anything wrong with that, but the idea that it's

1:09:21

less of a choice to live at home to save money and more

1:09:23

of a necessity. So I think the

1:09:25

thing that does worry me is not that we're

1:09:27

somehow outraged that, oh, look at these Republicans doing

1:09:30

this shit. Like, of course you expect that. But

1:09:32

the idea that people in your own party are

1:09:34

doing it is something that

1:09:37

is really unsettling, I think to me and to a lot

1:09:39

of young people I talk to.

1:09:41

Yeah. And I'm sure that Biden tried

1:09:43

to take this massive step to

1:09:45

wipe away student debt and blocked by the courts. And

1:09:48

I think that just must be unbelievably frustrating

1:09:50

for someone who maybe counted on that check as

1:09:53

going towards rent in the future or paying down some

1:09:55

other credit card bill or whatever else. Another

1:09:57

piece of this that I hear about that I worry about is kind of colored.

1:09:59

Like in the, let's

1:10:02

say the sixties through

1:10:04

fairly recently, being liberal,

1:10:06

being progressive felt counter-cultural.

1:10:08

It was anti-war, you know, anti-establishment.

1:10:11

And I think that manifested in

1:10:14

activism, voting patterns, music,

1:10:17

movies, right, art. And today

1:10:20

there seems to be this strand of young

1:10:22

conservatives or young men mostly, who

1:10:24

feel put upon

1:10:27

by progressives. They feel

1:10:29

they talk about being canceled. They're really

1:10:32

focused on that all the time, or

1:10:34

feel like they're being told what they can think or say. And

1:10:37

that somehow Trump has become counter-cultural

1:10:40

or anti-establishment despite the fact that he was

1:10:42

the president of the United States, because he's the one

1:10:44

kind of raging about that

1:10:47

piece of the status quo. Have you encountered

1:10:50

that kind of young

1:10:52

voter at your events or their arguments

1:10:54

that you've worked for you that's gonna reach them, kind of like the Barstool

1:10:57

Sports kind of Republican generation? I

1:11:00

gotta say, I just gotta give a shout out

1:11:02

to words too. The Barstool Bros love the Harold Lee Kramar

1:11:05

movies. So we

1:11:06

do have some commonality there.

1:11:08

They're great movies. Thank you, thank you. I'm

1:11:10

confused by this, to be honest. Like,

1:11:13

you know, I don't know, to me I see

1:11:15

that. I'm like, oh, what are you aggrieved about? To

1:11:17

me, the conversation comes up a lot with me

1:11:19

in the realm of comedy. So I'll

1:11:21

hear from people,

1:11:23

you know, you just, I

1:11:26

can't make jokes the way I used to. You know, do you think

1:11:28

you could make another Harold Kramar movie today?

1:11:31

You probably couldn't, you'd probably get canceled. This

1:11:33

sucks, you know, I was gonna go into this career, but I can't do

1:11:35

it, because you just can't say the thing you used to be able to

1:11:37

say. And I'm sort of like, well, bro,

1:11:40

what's the word that you wanted

1:11:42

to say that you couldn't say? Go ahead, say it.

1:11:44

Say the word, go ahead, go ahead.

1:11:47

What are you worried about? Say the word. Are

1:11:49

you worried that you're gonna

1:11:51

get supposedly quote

1:11:53

unquote canceled? Or are you recognizing

1:11:55

that the free market is going to take care of something

1:11:58

that they no longer like? I

1:12:00

think there's a big difference there, right? Like if

1:12:03

we're pretending that the only

1:12:05

reason that you used to be able to say and do anything

1:12:07

you wanted and people would tolerate it is

1:12:09

because it was the right thing and that was freedom,

1:12:12

I think we're confusing that with the fact that especially

1:12:14

in the comedy space, my job is to make people laugh.

1:12:17

I don't wanna make jokes that I made 20 years ago. That

1:12:19

shit's boring to me. I wanna continue to build

1:12:21

on an audience in a marketplace that's demanding

1:12:24

us to be better and better and more

1:12:26

dynamic. So that's always

1:12:28

been my approach to this and it confuses

1:12:31

me a little bit when I hear

1:12:33

what you sort of outlined. But then I kind of get

1:12:35

it, right? If you've

1:12:38

always had this immense privilege and

1:12:42

have never felt what

1:12:45

it feels like to have to kind of account

1:12:47

for what equity actually is, meaning that everybody

1:12:49

has to work really hard to get a seat

1:12:52

at the table, nothing is promised or

1:12:54

owed to you. I think that if a shift

1:12:56

like that is happening culturally, I'm

1:12:59

a little empathetic to what that might be like for somebody.

1:13:01

Yeah, it is weird in the comedy

1:13:03

space. It is often the

1:13:06

most successful,

1:13:07

rich, famous comedians

1:13:10

who are complaining about being canceled all the time and

1:13:12

you're just like, you seem to be doing fine, Gil Rogan

1:13:14

or Dave Chappelle or whoever it is. Yeah, also

1:13:17

it's like make the jokes you wanna make.

1:13:20

I'll defend till the day I die the right of somebody

1:13:22

to say and do whatever they wanna do. The

1:13:25

consequence of that is that we

1:13:27

live in 2023 and the audience might be demanding

1:13:29

more and might've loved your old shit

1:13:31

and might not like that you're making

1:13:34

jokes about something that they don't feel the need to

1:13:36

litigate even through comedy, because it's just a dumb joke

1:13:38

to them. Goes back to feeling like we're getting older,

1:13:40

right? It's like I'm the old man man sometimes.

1:13:42

So I just need to account for that.

1:13:45

Yeah, well just stay

1:13:47

funny, comedians. That's all you need to do. Well, listen, Cal,

1:13:50

thanks so much for helping us understand what's

1:13:52

going on with these strikes in Hollywood. Hopefully the

1:13:55

SAG strike will be resolved

1:13:57

soon in a favorable way in the WGA. Leadership

1:14:00

will will like this plan and they'll vote on

1:14:02

it and folks will get to go back to work I know you're

1:14:05

all you to go back to work And

1:14:07

it's you know been really hard on the people who

1:14:09

have been picking every day and not getting paid and

1:14:11

so Belusive buddy great to talk

1:14:13

to you. Let's talk to you and we'll talk soon.

1:14:16

Yeah

1:14:22

All right, thanks again to Cal for joining

1:14:24

us today and We will talk

1:14:26

to you guys after the debate on

1:14:29

the Thursday morning pod Hot

1:14:31

Dave America is a Crooked Media production Our

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producers are Olivia Martinez and David

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Toledo our associate producer is Farrah

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show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick

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