0:00

Whether you're a lawyer or a law student

0:02

or you're just here for the messy legal

0:04

drama, strict scrutiny has you covered.

0:07

The Colorado web designer says

0:09

she does not want to design websites for

0:11

same sex weddings or marriage celebrations because

0:13

doing so would make her, quote unquote, complicit

0:16

in a sin, thereby violating

0:18

her religious beliefs. Although she

0:20

asserted rights of both free exercise

0:22

and speech, the court only granted cert

0:25

as to her speech claim declining

0:27

to grant cert on the free exercise claim.

0:29

Do you guys have theories on why that was?

0:31

Yes. Yes. So

0:33

one possibility may be that the justices

0:36

realize that they have done quite a lot

0:38

on free exercise already. So that's one

0:40

possibility. They're just taking a breather

0:43

to that. Right. Okay.

0:46

I am so low hanging fruit probably. That's

0:48

not it. Listen to

0:50

new episodes of Strict scrutiny each week

0:52

wherever you get your podcasts, plus bonuses

0:55

whenever the Supreme Court takes away,

0:57

another one of our rights. Good

0:59

times.

1:00

Today's episode is sponsored simply save home

1:02

security. It's March, so you know what that means?

1:04

Saint Patty's Day, of course. Mhmm. Who

1:06

in politics could really use a bit of that old

1:08

luck of the Irish this month?

1:11

Terobiden? Yeah. I mean, listen.

1:12

Always. Every day, see the sunrise. Look

1:15

at the air. But of course, there are some things you

1:18

should never leave to luck. Like protecting

1:20

your home and family. That's why we recommend simplisafe

1:22

home security, simplisafe has advanced technology

1:24

backed by twenty four seven professional monitoring

1:26

for round the clock

1:27

protection. Here's why John love

1:29

it. Loves it. I set up simplisafe

1:32

and it's great. You get out of

1:34

the monks. It looks really nice and the app

1:36

is

1:36

fantastic. You get it, you customize it for

1:38

your your domicile, you

1:41

know, for the number of windows and and doors

1:43

and so forth. Simply safe is designed with cutting

1:45

edge technology and backed by twenty four seven professional

1:47

monitoring. In an emergency, agents use FastProtect

1:50

technology only from SimplySafe to

1:52

capture critical evidence and verify the threat

1:54

is real so you can get priority police dispatch.

1:56

Twenty four seven professional monitoring service costs

1:58

under a dollar a day less than half the price

2:00

of traditional home security systems. You

2:03

can lock and unlock your doors, access your cameras,

2:05

and arm disarm system from anywhere, c

2:07

net, name simply save, editor's

2:09

choice for twenty twenty three. Customize the

2:11

perfect system for your home in just a few minutes at

2:13

simplisafe dot com slash crooked. Go today and

2:15

claim a free indoor security camera plus twenty

2:17

percent off your order with interactive monitoring.

2:20

That's simply safe dot com slash

2:21

crooked. There's no safe, like, simply safe.

2:45

Welcome to Pod Save America I'm John Favreau.

2:47

I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Tucker

2:49

Carlson hates Donald Trump, but loves

2:51

his insurrectionists. Democratic

2:53

pollsters the Lake stops by to talk about Joe

2:56

Biden's new economic plan in the coming

2:58

battle with Republicans in Congress. And

3:00

later, there are some takes that need appreciating

3:03

and Elijah is here to give them to

3:05

us. But first, if you're in the

3:07

Los Angeles area, they'll love it or leave it weekly

3:10

residents he continues. Come

3:12

on.

3:15

Weekly residency was oh,

3:18

boy. Alright. Tickets for

3:21

the

3:22

March Tickets

3:24

for the March through June live shows

3:26

are now on sale, we've got a ton of great shows planned

3:28

featuring an all star lineup of comedians, actors,

3:31

journalists, including some of the

3:33

friends of the pod you know and love. Join us for

3:35

a night of hilarious commentary exciting games

3:37

and making fun of whatever bullshit came out of

3:40

our insane political nightmare factory. Don't

3:42

miss out on the fun. Grab your tickets now at crooked

3:44

dot com slash events before they

3:46

sell out. I can start reading this housekeeping

3:48

before I read it live on

3:49

air. I guess

3:51

we're

3:52

Very very trump of you. Yeah.

3:54

I know. Honestly, we're being

3:56

we're being honest with a little Barack Obama too.

3:59

Alright. Alright. Let's get to the

4:01

news. The Republican speaker

4:03

of the House and the extreme right wing host

4:05

of the country's most popular cable show

4:07

conspired to air a few minutes of

4:09

selectively edited surveillance

4:12

footage from the January sixth insurrection

4:14

in order to spread the lie that the violent attack

4:17

on the capital was actually nothing more

4:19

then peaceful tourists who were

4:21

protesting what they genuinely believed

4:24

was a rigged election. Tucker Carlson,

4:26

who we now know from his text messages, never

4:28

believed any of that got

4:30

the footage from Kevin McCarthy after

4:32

demanding it back in January as a

4:34

condition of supporting him for speaker.

4:37

Here's some of the lunacy from his show Tuesday

4:40

night. These were not insurrectionists. They

4:42

were sight seers. Footage from

4:44

inside the capitol over turns the story

4:47

you've heard about January sixth. Protesters

4:50

queue up in neat little lines. They

4:52

give each other tours outside the speaker's office.

4:54

They take cheerful selfies and they smile.

4:57

They're not destroying the capital. They

4:59

obviously revere the capital. They

5:01

obviously they obviously revere

5:04

the capital. Anyone who was

5:06

around on January sixth, watching

5:09

the riot unfold, of course,

5:11

knew that they were here to capitol Also

5:13

anyone who watched the prime time January six hearings,

5:15

let's listen to a clip from from that.

5:25

We are still taking metal, sharpened

5:27

optics, missiles to

5:29

include bottles in rocks. And

5:32

hands on chemical grade fireworks.

5:38

Sounds peaceful. Just just

5:40

some tourists out for a out

5:42

for stroll?

5:43

Revere. That's what that is. People were veering

5:45

the capital. So

5:46

I guess the hundred and forty cops who were

5:48

assaulted and the over five hundred

5:51

people who've pled guilty to various

5:53

federal charges in connection with January

5:55

six were just part of some other interaction

5:58

that that Petucker didn't

6:00

see? What do you think? mean, it's it

6:02

is wild because it is something we all watched

6:04

in real time. And all and

6:06

all the people including the person who gave

6:09

the footage to Kevin McCarthy to

6:11

cry the violence in the days and weeks

6:13

after. Everyone knew what happened.

6:16

And it is it is as Orwellian

6:19

as really anything we've

6:21

seen in this era. Right? The the Orwellian

6:23

quote about telling people not to believe the evidence

6:25

of their eyes and their ears Right? This is truly

6:28

it is it is it is wild. It is

6:30

absolutely a wild thing that is happening. And

6:32

it's even scarier

6:35

or more alarming or more fitting, whatever it

6:37

is, that the person who made it happen

6:39

is third in line for the presidency. Yeah.

6:43

A person who, like you said, again,

6:45

decried the violence in Donald Trump's role in

6:47

it immediately after January

6:48

sixth. We also Someone who

6:50

could have died in the, yeah,

6:53

violence. Right? He was the potential victim

6:55

of the

6:55

violence. He was hiding in his office,

6:58

clearly scared in the footage we've seen. I

7:00

mean, we could go on forever,

7:03

but, like, We heard we all heard testimony

7:05

from police officers. And as we know,

7:07

Republicans are huge supporters of police officers,

7:10

police officers who test fight under oath that they

7:12

were brutally assaulted some with their own weapons,

7:15

their own weapons. An officer

7:17

said that the fighting was medieval and

7:19

a trip to hell. So,

7:22

I guess, Tiger Carlson just and and

7:24

Kevin McCarthy Republicans just maligning

7:27

police

7:27

officer, not really standing with the

7:29

blue right there. I mean, just sorry

7:32

to keep doing this, but Kevin McCarthy was

7:34

on the phone with Mark

7:36

Meadows begging him to

7:38

send the troops to protect him

7:40

from the tourists.

7:43

Yeah. That's what was happening. So

7:46

Tucker could spend his time, his his hour

7:49

every night lying about all kinds

7:51

of shit that's more believable

7:53

than trying to convince people that January

7:55

six didn't happen. Why do you think

7:58

he has become so obsessed with this

8:00

issue? I think there are three

8:01

reasons. One is he

8:04

is a greedy grifter, and he

8:06

is in the outrage business. And

8:09

he gets attention. He gets money from being

8:11

outraged. And the thing about being the outrage business is you have

8:13

to get more outrageous every day. You have to up

8:15

the dosage every single day to

8:17

keep it going. And this is how

8:19

you get from being angry about people

8:21

saying happy holidays to great

8:23

replacement theory and and interruptions are

8:25

good. And so he just is grabbing the

8:28

whatever whatever third rail he could find, he will

8:30

grab to get attention. And then and this is

8:32

clearly one because it is

8:34

it is an absolute edge case because

8:37

there is a not among the far far

8:39

right or even among, like, Fox Prime. I mean, with the

8:41

general consensus, even among Trump loving

8:44

Republicans is, The election

8:46

was stolen. We've already done that. The

8:49

Donald Trump is not necessarily responsible for

8:51

what happened. But the but the violence

8:53

was bad. And so he has to go take that

8:55

last one on. The second reason

8:58

is, and we're gonna talk about this, He

9:00

has he now has a tremendous

9:03

need to prove his magna

9:05

bone few days to his audience because

9:08

he's been caught texting about Donald Trump.

9:10

And so this is a way to do that. This is the

9:12

sort of the he is sacrificing

9:15

the credibility he long lost long ago to

9:17

do this. And the third one is Trump's

9:19

a frontrunner for the Republican nomination. There's

9:22

a very real chance he's gonna be indicted for his

9:24

role in January sixth at some point,

9:26

and so you're gonna have to begin creating

9:28

a permission structure for people who

9:31

don't like January sixth, but do wanna go for Donald

9:33

Trump to be able to do those two things. And

9:35

one way to do that is just throw a bunch of mud

9:38

at the thing and make it make it just

9:40

just throw disinformation at it and help people throw

9:42

up their arms and say, I don't really know what

9:44

happened, but I like Donald Trump so I can

9:46

vote for him. Yeah.

9:49

I think that Tucker looked at the

9:51

midterm results and just like

9:53

we have, and realized that January

9:55

sixth and the

9:58

pro insurrection part of the Republican

10:00

Party is a real weakness for Republican

10:02

politicians. And he needs to somehow

10:04

try to neutralize that. And he knows he can't convince

10:07

everyone, but you're right. He might as well just throw

10:09

some shit at the wall and see what sticks. I also

10:11

think to your outrage point,

10:14

like, the Fox texts are

10:16

really revealing here.

10:18

Like, Tucker and the rest. It

10:20

they just reveal the Tucker and

10:23

and Laura Ingram and Sean

10:25

Hannity. They all just live in

10:27

fear every day that they're gonna lose viewers

10:30

to some crazier outlet. So,

10:32

you know, they probably spend their day checking out Fortune

10:34

and listening to Steve Bannon's war

10:36

room and reading the daily stormer

10:39

or whatever for the most

10:41

outrageous conspiracies So,

10:43

you know, they can give the people what they want?

10:47

That's it. They don't wanna they don't wanna lose viewers

10:49

to someone else who's saying that that

10:52

the insurrection was a false flag

10:53

operation. So they gotta jump on that they gotta

10:55

jump on that train. I mean, the thing about

10:59

Magna politics is you're

11:01

defined by the people you anger. And

11:03

so January sixth is a way to anger

11:06

all of the right people, to

11:08

prove that you are as maggot as can be. Right?

11:10

Now you you anger the press.

11:12

You anger. Ryno Republicans list.

11:14

Cheney comes out of retirement to come after

11:16

you. And, like so, I

11:19

mean, this is this is what Ted Cruz does. That's what Matt

11:21

Gates does. And Mark Taylor Green does. That you go out,

11:23

you pick things in a flame as many people

11:25

who are the quote unquote, enemy of

11:28

right wing Americans as

11:29

possible. And this is a absolutely effective,

11:32

very loud way to do that. And

11:35

it it shows what Fox is. Right? It's

11:37

obviously not news outlet. It's

11:39

not trying to inform viewers. It's not

11:41

even trying to persuade people

11:44

who tune in like I would like to think

11:46

we're trying to do. It

11:48

basically telling their audience

11:50

that the craziest conspiracies

11:53

that they believe are absolutely true.

11:55

Whatever you're feeling, whatever you heard, whatever you saw

11:57

in some comment section on some crazy website,

11:59

it is

12:00

true. And we're going to reassure you

12:02

that it's true. That's all they're doing. That's

12:04

all they're doing. Yeah. It's really hard to

12:06

establish where who's

12:08

leading here. Right? Because I'll we're using a lot of

12:10

people to believe these things because Fox has

12:13

created the context for them believe it, so they believe

12:15

it. So then Fox then reinforces it. And

12:18

it's not like Fox is not leading people like

12:20

sheep. It's like they're both leading each other right

12:22

off a fucking cliff. Well, and I do

12:24

think it's it's the competition within

12:27

the Mega Media Complex that

12:29

is driving this too. Because, like

12:32

I said, you know, they don't want OAN to

12:34

get out ahead of them or NewsMax to steal

12:36

their viewers. So they all they're in a race

12:38

race to the bottom in terms of who can

12:40

be the craziest. And that competition

12:42

between outlets within the Mega Media

12:45

universe is what sort of causing all the content

12:47

to become even more extreme. Do

12:49

you think the Fox executives who are

12:51

currently facing a billion and a

12:53

half dollar lawsuit for lying about an attempted

12:56

coup or excited to see Tucker lying

12:58

about an attempted coup on Tuesday

13:00

night.

13:02

mean, there's some reporting about the

13:05

tremendous discomfort summit Fox

13:07

had with what Tucker's doing. He felt similar

13:09

things that when he rare air the documentary,

13:12

and I've used documentary in air quotes about

13:14

this. A while

13:16

back and but they can't stop them.

13:18

And the reason they can't stop Tucker is because

13:20

he calls the shots. He is he's the one

13:22

who makes the money. And we tend

13:24

to think about Fox as this true, phenomenally

13:26

successful business because

13:29

it's the most watched cable channel, not

13:31

new channel, cable channel, Every

13:33

year for the last seven years. It's the most watched

13:35

cable news network for twenty years. They

13:37

routinely kicked the shit out of MSNBC and

13:40

CNN. But Fox

13:42

is also a dying business

13:44

like every cable

13:46

company. Every year, they make

13:48

less money. Every year they die businesses

13:49

with dying audience. Yeah. Exactly. They

13:52

that is this. The exact thing. They they

13:54

know the end is coming, and they have no

13:56

plan for how to monetize the next phase.

13:58

And so part of this is they are just trying

14:01

to it's real like end of Rome shit where

14:03

it's like, we're gonna try to make as much money

14:05

as humanly possible in the very

14:07

few years we have left. And

14:09

that's why you can't lose Tucker because

14:12

he makes the money. That's why you can't

14:14

piss off the audience because you may not get them back

14:16

because every minute you're not monetizing

14:18

that huge audience, you're not gonna get

14:20

that on the back end. There is no future. It is

14:23

over. Soon enough, and they're acting

14:25

like people who know that. And so it all

14:27

these decisions come from this perpetual state

14:29

of existential crisis. That allows

14:31

this shit to

14:31

happen, which is greatly magnified

14:34

by the fact that no one who works there has

14:36

a shred of fucking ethics

14:38

or shame or morality And so

14:40

it those are two very bad things flowing

14:43

in the same direction they give you this stuff. And

14:45

by the way, Tucker and the other hosts

14:47

know they have this power and we know that

14:50

now from the texts that have been revealed. There's

14:52

an exchange with Tucker Carlson and Laura

14:54

Ingram and Sean Hannity where they're all texting each other

14:56

and they're all pissed. That they the

14:58

new side has called Arizona for

15:00

Joe Biden, and they're and and I think Laura

15:02

Ingram said, oh, they hate us. We

15:04

officially we're we're working for a network that officially

15:07

hates us, but you know what? We have a lot of power

15:09

here, and we should be able to force some changes

15:11

to three of us. So the And they did. They

15:13

have. And they did because they fired

15:15

the people who made the call. They sent them all back

15:18

even though they were right. Yep.

15:20

That's right. So the

15:22

broader reaction to Tucker's latest bullshit

15:24

has not been positive. He was criticized

15:27

by president Biden and the Democrats

15:29

in Congress, rare for Biden

15:31

himself to weigh, and he tweeted about this.

15:34

The US capital police chief who never

15:36

gets involved in politics, called the footage

15:38

cherry picked offensive and misleading. Even

15:41

senate Republicans were critical, including

15:44

Mitch McConnell, let's listen. It was a mistake

15:46

in my view for Fox

15:49

News to depict this

15:52

in a way that's completely at

15:55

variance with what our chief

15:57

law enforcement official here at

15:59

Capitol Center. I think it's bullshit.

16:01

I was

16:02

here. The point is

16:04

what happened that day shouldn't have happened.

16:06

Breaking through glass windows and

16:09

doors, get into the United States capital

16:11

against the orders of police is

16:13

is a

16:13

crime. There were a lot of people

16:15

in the capital at the time who

16:18

I think, weren't here

16:20

for their lives. Those were

16:22

not a bunch of rhinos, a lot of

16:24

very conservative senators. You just heard

16:26

there. Why do you think they and Mitch

16:28

McConnell found their voice on this

16:30

one? Well, let's separate some of them

16:32

from McConnell. I do think that there remain

16:35

a handful of Republicans who are willing to hold

16:37

a grudge when a member of their own party

16:39

tries to have them murdered. Right.

16:41

So it's like I mean,

16:43

people were scared on that day. Everyone

16:46

involved was scared as they should have

16:48

been. It was a deeply dangerous situation. As

16:50

we know from the January sixth hearing, one

16:52

thing happens differently and

16:55

a member of Congress, a

16:56

senator, a staffer loses their life on

16:58

that day. Right? Thank

17:00

you. Easily gonna happen. Very close. It's

17:02

a traumatic thing, and they and

17:04

some of them recognize that. And they're willing to

17:07

suck it up and support Trump over it.

17:09

They're willing to continue pushing the big lie,

17:11

but they're not gonna let someone say,

17:13

no. They were not almost murdered or their staff

17:15

was not almost murdered over it or they were not

17:17

attacked. They're not gonna do that. Now let's Mitch

17:20

McConnell is not someone I think

17:22

who operates out of morality

17:24

or patriotism or community spirit. I

17:26

think Mitch McConnell everything Mitch McConnell does

17:28

inside. Community spirit is so far.

17:33

Yes. I don't think I don't think so any of I

17:35

don't think so when when Michelle

17:37

Connell speaks, it's

17:39

part of a plan. And the plan is always about

17:41

how you gather more power.

17:44

And Mitch McConnell knows one

17:46

of the reasons that he is the Senate minority

17:48

leader And not the senate majority

17:50

leader, it's because a bunch of candidates

17:53

ran on some insane MAGA Big

17:55

Live bullshit. And now you have the

17:57

most powerful force in Republican Party.

17:59

Yes, the most powerful force in Republican Party, Tucker Carlson,

18:02

creating another conspiracy theory that makes

18:04

it less likely that Republicans

18:07

can win the majority in a good what it should

18:09

be a very good year for them in twenty twenty four.

18:11

And this isn't like us guessing Stanford

18:13

researchers did a study comparing

18:16

big lie bleeding candidates to not

18:18

big lie espousing candidates. And

18:21

The ones who pushed the big lie got, on

18:23

average, two point three

18:25

percent less vote share than the other

18:27

candidates. That's enough to win a whole bunch of

18:29

races. And so now you have the

18:31

the forces that push the Republicans in a direction

18:33

to lose the election in twenty twenty

18:35

two, doing it again, and Mitch McConnell was

18:37

trying to stop it, I assume. Yeah.

18:40

I mean, he needs Republicans to

18:42

win in a bunch of competitive states where

18:45

being pro insurrection isn't all that

18:47

popular. Yeah. That's it.

18:49

That's that's where it comes down to. And

18:51

Where are the states where the proinstruction is

18:53

popular?

18:55

A good question. There

18:56

is a there is a one. There's one where maybe there's a

18:58

word, but but it's not a

19:00

majority not a majority position in

19:03

any state. So On the other

19:05

side of the capital, Kevin McCarthy defended

19:07

handing over the tapes in the name of transparency

19:10

even though other media organizations have asked for

19:12

the tapes and none of them got it except for Tucker Carlson.

19:15

And the House Republican Twitter account

19:17

called Tucker segment must

19:19

watch in all the capital letters.

19:22

So it's safe to say that none of these House

19:24

Republicans or most of these House Republicans

19:26

aren't really concerned as

19:28

about being seen as January six truthers?

19:31

Both these Republicans are in safe districts, so they're

19:33

more concerned about more vehemently pro

19:35

insurrection primary challengers than

19:37

anything else. But when it comes to Kevin

19:40

McCarthy, there's two reasons

19:42

here. The first is, he's a fucking

19:44

idiot. He didn't think this through. Just

19:47

like Tucker Carlson asked him, he said, yes. Tucker

19:49

Carlson seems important, gave it to him, did not

19:51

once think about how this would play out. Didn't

19:53

see around the

19:54

corner, didn't know the next move, that is always

19:56

the most likely explanation for all things coming

19:58

McCarthy. Indeed. Didn't see around the corner. He

20:00

ran right into the corner.

20:04

Constantly running into the corner. Just stepping

20:06

on rakes like sideshow Bob threw a parking

20:08

lot every single time. The

20:10

other thing that I think is true for

20:13

this, and to be between the debts and everything else, is

20:15

Kevin McCarthy is not the speaker of the house.

20:18

He's not the speaker. He's not the leader of the Republican

20:20

party. He essentially is

20:22

Marjorie Taylor Greens like Mansurfit. Right? He

20:25

works for the liquefaction because,

20:29

like, we know that technically any member

20:31

of Congress could throw Kevin McCarthy

20:33

out of the speakers' job,

20:35

like that can happen. But no

20:39

moderate ish or less Magna person's

20:41

gonna do because they know the person who's gonna replace

20:43

Kevin McCarthy is gonna be even more Magna than Kevin McCarthy.

20:45

So the people he's afraid of are Matt

20:47

Gates, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Keller Green. They're

20:49

the ones who might blow the whole thing up.

20:51

So he's gotta do bunch of things that make them

20:54

happy and This could be something that Marjorie Taylor

20:56

Green suggested to him. It could be something

20:58

that Donald Trump suggested to him. If Donald

21:00

Trump turns on him, that could push these people to toss

21:02

them overboard. So it is like the

21:04

nature of his politics is it's

21:06

better to appease those people and piss off eighty

21:08

five percent of country than the opposite.

21:11

Yeah. And it's worth highlighting here how much different

21:13

his political calculus has been

21:15

from Mitch McConnell who we just spoke about

21:17

because You're right that a lot of his caucus

21:20

is in safe districts, so doesn't matter. But

21:22

there's a bunch there's like eighteen or so

21:25

Republicans who are House Republicans who are sitting

21:27

in Biden districts Those people definitely

21:29

don't wanna be known as insurrectionist

21:31

sympathizers. And if

21:34

Kevin McCarthy and House of Public wanna

21:36

hold their majority in twenty twenty four,

21:39

they probably don't wanna be seen as as

21:41

January sixth truthers. But again,

21:44

McCarthy cares more about keeping his job than

21:46

even keeping his majority, I think, at

21:48

this point. He just wants this job more than anything.

21:50

And you mentioned the debt ceiling fight too. I'm sure you talked about

21:52

this with Selinda, but, like, when he's done

21:54

on the debt ceiling now is he's he basically

21:57

made all these promises to become

21:59

speaker. None of which he can

22:01

keep. Right? Although, I guess, this

22:03

one he kept by giving Tucker the tapes, but

22:05

on the dead sailing stuff, there was a watching

22:07

good watching a post story about this where it's like, You

22:10

know, he promises one faction. He's not gonna

22:12

cut Medicare and Social Security. Promises

22:14

another faction. He's not gonna raise

22:16

taxes. Promises another faction

22:19

that he's gonna balance the budget in ten

22:21

years.

22:21

Well, the math doesn't add up for

22:24

any of that. So he does he can't

22:26

even he's not even gonna be able to pass a budget

22:28

within the Republican caucus in the

22:30

house because he made all these promises to get the

22:32

job and now he can't cat gonna cash in and he's

22:34

not gonna be able to keep them? This

22:37

is a unique a problem that is uniquely

22:39

bad for McCarthy, but

22:41

it's been true of every Republican speaker. Since

22:43

the tea party took over. When

22:45

we worked for a while, Baylor

22:47

used to do things just like this. Right? He would

22:49

set himself up for things that were obviously gonna

22:52

pull up in his face. And president Obama

22:54

would do the thing he would do to us where he would like quiz you

22:56

on why they did certain things and all of a sudden you find

22:58

yourself defend it, trying to explain away the

23:00

position. You're like, all of a sudden you're defending John

23:03

Vayner. You're like, her and he's like pushing you

23:05

and you're like, why am I explained this? And

23:07

I finally the way I finally explained this

23:09

to a long who's always like, why would he do this? It makes no

23:11

sense why she's doing this. Because Republican

23:14

house leaders operate on

23:17

a one week

23:17

timeline. They are just trying to

23:20

get through the next caucus launch without blowing

23:22

up in their base.

23:23

Yeah. So with if if if can get through lunch

23:25

without someone yelling me by saying, I'm not

23:27

gonna cut military spending, I'm gonna

23:29

do that. If next week, the way I'm gonna get

23:31

through lunch is by promising to give

23:33

Tucker Carlson a bunch of interruption footage,

23:36

I'm gonna do that. And you never if you can

23:38

survive the lunch or still speaker when the lunch ends.

23:40

And that and Kevin McCarthy has that

23:43

to the nth degree compared to some of his predecessors.

23:46

Yep. I think this is all true. We should

23:48

also dig down in the question. Like,

23:51

is there a politically important

23:54

January sixth truth or constituency

23:56

out there for for just the

23:58

Republican Party, certainly not in the electorate

24:01

at large. But is there

24:03

what's what's the politics of this?

24:06

They're terrible. They're absolutely terrible.

24:08

And all the polling we saw in twenty twenty

24:11

two, huge swaths of Republicans

24:13

believe some form of the big

24:15

lie that it that there was fraud. The

24:17

election was stolen. Donald Trump should have

24:19

won. Many of them

24:22

believe that Donald Trump is not

24:24

responsible for what happened on January

24:26

sixth. Somewhere in the neighborhood

24:28

of fifteen to eighteen percent in some of the polling.

24:30

I've seen are quasi

24:33

supportive of the

24:35

people who broke into the capital. Like, you have picked

24:37

the least appealing, the most

24:39

polarizing,

24:41

the most easily blamed

24:44

group if you're gonna side with the people. It's just why

24:46

it's insane that Donald Trump's releasing, we are the world

24:48

songs for the January sixth

24:50

Christmas. Right? We we think we think

24:52

we have clip of that right here. I

24:55

pledged allegiance to the flag

24:57

of the did states of America. That

25:08

is that is Donald Trump and the January

25:11

sixth insurrectionist. It's a

25:13

new single that was we're not

25:15

joking, that was released. The other

25:17

week, it's a banger of a song.

25:21

You remember that there was a time in your

25:23

life many years many years ago, were you

25:26

wrote a victory speech for a victory that didn't happen.

25:29

Obama gave it anyway, and then will I am turned

25:31

it into a hit song? It did.

25:34

That's a thing that happened. This is basically

25:37

that for Steven Miller. This

25:39

is his will I have moment.

25:43

If you had told me that in

25:46

two thousand, which was

25:48

already felt extremely bizarre when

25:50

it

25:50

happened. You guys that

25:52

this would be the mere image of that this

25:54

many years later. Yeah. I would not have

25:57

would not have believed you in safe to say.

25:59

But yeah. So Donald Trump very pro

26:01

insurrection. He has gone from, like,

26:04

saying that it didn't happen. It was a false flag operation.

26:07

All this goes up to now. And we all We

26:09

all knew he would get there. Right? The

26:11

insurrection was good. The people

26:13

who have plead guilty, have

26:16

done so under duress, they are patriots,

26:18

there are some who are being held wrongly

26:22

unjustly. I think I think Kevin

26:24

McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Green are trying to get like

26:26

AAA congressional group

26:28

to go visit them in prison. I

26:31

mean, this is a whole the the Republican party

26:33

is getting ready to run-in twenty

26:35

twenty four with a good chunk of their

26:37

politicians being unabashedly pro

26:40

insurrection and pro insurrectionists. With

26:43

these numbers that you were just mentioned. It's

26:45

fucking

26:45

wild. Yeah.

26:46

I mean Trump has talked about pardoning them if he

26:48

gets reelected. I

26:51

mean, you you mentioned some of the polls.

26:54

The most recent, you know, polls in in

26:56

these were, like, in January, February, twenty twenty

26:58

three around the anniversary of January six. Sixty

27:01

seven percent of all Americans in an AP poll

27:03

described January sixth is very or extremely

27:06

violent, and that includes forty percent of Republicans

27:08

only three in ten Republicans

27:11

say the attack was not violent. You

27:14

gov polar on the same time. Forty percent

27:16

of Trump voters said they approved

27:19

strongly or somewhat strongly

27:21

of the supporters taking over the capital.

27:23

Just over half said that they disapproved.

27:25

And then date of our progress did an interesting poll

27:28

where they they asked a question, when

27:30

thinking about the actions of Donald Trump's supporters

27:33

on January sixth, which comes closer to

27:35

your view. One, the supporters

27:37

did the wrong thing by inciting violence and threatening

27:39

our democracy, or two, the supporters

27:41

did the right thing by standing up for Trump. And

27:43

trying to overturn the election results. Wrong

27:46

thing, seventy four percent. Right

27:48

thing, seventeen percent. Only

27:51

twenty seven percent of Republicans said it was

27:53

the right thing. Now, then they did a

27:55

messaging test Biden versus Trump

27:57

in twenty twenty four and straight

27:59

test Biden versus Trump, forty seven Biden

28:02

forty five Trump, so Biden wins by two points.

28:04

When you tell people that Biden opposes the

28:07

January sixth attack, and Trump supports

28:09

it, which is, of course, Trump's position, it

28:11

moves to forty nine percent

28:13

Biden, forty two percent Trump. It's

28:16

still wild that being

28:19

a a that we have a ballot

28:21

test with a candidate who's pro political violence,

28:23

and that candidate's opponents still doesn't get to a majority

28:25

in

28:26

America, which is very concerning. No.

28:28

We have four yeah. Forty percent of the country we may

28:30

have lost them. But that's we got

28:32

sixty that we're playing

28:33

with. It's important that you gotta get that class. We

28:35

are half full here. The thing

28:37

that's interesting about Trump's rhetoric that --

28:39

Yeah. -- is he is the

28:41

insurrection didn't happen. Those

28:44

people are political prisoners but

28:47

also I didn't

28:49

tell them to be violence to be very clear.

28:52

And I also repeatedly asked for them

28:54

to not to stop being violent,

28:57

and Nancy Pelosi failed to stop them. So

28:59

he's he's not he doesn't

29:01

pick it one item on the

29:02

menu. He takes the whole menu. Right? And

29:04

it might have been antifa, but also it was

29:06

good. Yeah. So Now

29:08

one notable figure in this extreme minority

29:11

with Donald Trump. Elon

29:13

Musk. Did you see that he was tweeting

29:15

support for Tucker? He was supporting Tucker.

29:18

A couple tweets for Elon Musk supporting Tucker.

29:21

And he also attacked Mitch McConnell

29:23

for not being pro insurrectionist enough.

29:26

He said does he tweeted does Mitch McConnell,

29:28

does he forget which party He's

29:30

from. This is this is the great centrist

29:32

Elon Musk. Right? He's not right. He's

29:35

not left. He's in the middle just like most Americans.

29:37

Yeah. Well, now Mitch McConnell is

29:39

not pro insurrectionist enough for

29:42

Elon Musk. That's where Elon Musk gives these

29:44

days. I mean, the red pill is a powerful drug,

29:46

my friend. So,

29:48

obviously, another person who rushed to Tucker's defense

29:51

here was Donald Trump who said that he did a great

29:53

job on truth social. Unfortunately, for

29:55

the former president, the feeling isn't mutual,

29:57

In the latest batch of text messages

29:59

from the Dominion lawsuit against Fox,

30:02

Tucker said this about Donald Trump.

30:04

Quote, I hate him

30:06

passionately. We're all pretending

30:09

we've got a lot to show for the last four years

30:11

because admitting what a disaster it's been

30:13

is too tough to digest But

30:16

come on, there isn't really

30:18

an upside to Trump. Tucker

30:21

Carlson, welcome to the resistance. Just

30:25

the reason they have the worst person

30:27

good point memes right there. What

30:30

do you think? Do you think Tucker will

30:32

lose mega viewers because of this? Do

30:35

you think Trump will lose Tucker

30:37

fans over this, or will fans

30:39

of either man

30:41

ever even know about these texts

30:43

at all? Probably option

30:45

three is that very very few

30:47

people who care about this will know Tucker

30:50

said these things. I don't think Trump

30:52

will get mad at Tucker because Trump does

30:54

understand power dynamics quite well.

30:56

And he knows how much power Tucker

30:59

generally has, but he also fucking loves

31:01

leverage on people, which is why

31:04

when those recordings from the Jonathan

31:06

Martin Alex Burns book came out about Kevin McCarthy,

31:08

did Trump attack Kevin McCarthy? No.

31:11

He just called him and made him do his bidding. And so

31:13

this is probably this is these texts are

31:15

partially why I'm sure Tucker's

31:17

doing the January sixth. Footage,

31:19

Jeff, because it is a way to appease Trump.

31:21

And Trump is very happy about it, and he'll go

31:23

around to Moralego bragging to

31:26

the eighty five year old real estate, Moogles,

31:28

and the Chinese spies, whoever else

31:30

about how he may Tucker do this stuff. And

31:32

so Everyone wins and

31:35

we all lose.

31:36

Yeah. And Tucker knows this too because also

31:38

in the text, he says that the one thing Trump is

31:40

good at is destroying and he can destroy all

31:42

of us. If we're not careful. So

31:45

that was by far the most enjoyable text of

31:47

the latest bunch, but there were plenty of

31:49

others that have been dribbling out

31:52

over the last couple weeks. What what were some of your favorites

31:54

of this latest

31:54

bunch? And and did we learn anything new?

31:58

I

31:58

just think we had all of our pre

32:00

existing notions confirmed about how

32:02

terrible everyone who works at Fox News is and

32:04

how just -- You

32:05

know, there's always a comfort.

32:07

It's just it's nice to be right. That's what I'm

32:09

saying. I think

32:12

I've particularly enjoyed everything

32:14

involving Brett

32:15

Bear. The bell

32:17

I know

32:17

you and see that. I knew that was

32:19

gonna be your first your first

32:21

comment. I have been

32:24

I'm not even one of the people who who's gonna go back and

32:26

refer to my tweets from, like, twenty seventeen about how Reddit

32:28

was, but I've always

32:31

hated Brett Bear. I've always known he's fucking

32:33

fraud, and it's good to have that exposed. And my

32:35

hope is that everyone in DC who

32:37

cites him as the one real person

32:39

in Fox because once in a fucking Blue

32:41

Moon, he has a tough question for Republican now

32:43

recognizes what a propagandist he is.

32:46

I also And we should we should tell people, by the

32:48

way, what you're referencing with Brett Barr. So Brett

32:50

Barr, said that it's

32:53

at one point was texting that after

32:55

Fox made the call on Arizona for Joe

32:57

Biden, obviously, Fox got a ton

32:59

of blowback. From their viewers, of course,

33:01

not from anyone else, but from their

33:03

their hardcore fans. And Brett Beyer

33:06

was texting Fox indicative saying that,

33:08

like, they should seriously consider putting Arizona

33:10

back in Trump's column

33:12

or at least not calling it for Joe Biden

33:15

because they're getting killed on Twitter because

33:17

they're viewers, and he's basically says, look, I know

33:19

I know the numbers are what the numbers are, but there's

33:21

another layer here that we should think

33:23

about. Yeah. There's a Brett Bear side. There's

33:25

two elements of the Brett Bear stuff.

33:27

One is the text that come came out in

33:29

this batch, and then there's been a bunch of reporting

33:32

that is all kind of related to

33:34

some of the revelations in this that was in a big

33:36

near time story. Some of it even dates back

33:38

to the book that Peter Baker

33:40

and Susan Glasser wrote about Trump

33:42

that gets into Albert

33:44

Breiter repeatedly pushed Fox

33:46

to pull back the Arizona

33:49

call because voters were mad and Trump was mad at

33:51

them. And then even in a meeting

33:55

with Suzanne Scott in the sort of high command

33:58

fox, Brent Bear and Martha McCallum, someone

34:00

else who walks around with the sort of quasi

34:02

journalistic legitimacy

34:04

argue that we should not just

34:06

look at the numbers when making calls. For

34:08

states, we should factor in what our viewers

34:10

want. Which is

34:13

definitely how math works. It's

34:16

all fan service. That's it. That's

34:18

Fox. That's Fox. It's just a fan

34:20

service. Anything

34:21

else? Anything else for you in this in this batch

34:24

text? I also enjoyed Bill Salmon and

34:26

Chris Steerwalt. Bill Salmon was the Washington

34:28

Bureau chief. Or executor or editor of

34:30

some kind of Crystal Wall was a politics editor,

34:32

both of whom were cookie show in the door

34:35

when Fox's ratings went down. Talking

34:37

about how this was Bill

34:39

said that this was a his greatest

34:41

ag journalistic existential crisis

34:44

in twenty two years of Fox, and Chris

34:46

said that they were following basically

34:48

losing a silent majority of Fox

34:51

viewers to follow bunch nuts off

34:53

a cliff, which really

34:55

speaks to. And also, that's

34:58

basically I'm sure what was in the post

35:00

January sixth PowerPoint for hire Fox

35:02

got their viewers back was just a bunch of nuts going

35:05

off a

35:05

cliff. Right? Because that's the strategy they

35:07

adopted. Yeah. No. They it's pretty

35:09

clear they hate their viewers. It it's

35:11

just For all, they

35:13

tell us about the elites looking down

35:16

on real Americans and Liberals

35:18

and coastal elites. They fucking

35:20

hate their viewers. And

35:22

all they see their views as a way for themselves

35:25

to make money. That's all. I

35:27

thought that to the sort of

35:29

decision desk point, like, There's

35:31

a couple there's a text from Rupert Murdoch

35:34

that says, I hate our decision desk people.

35:37

I hate our pollsters too. I think they're some of the

35:39

same people. I think this is important going

35:41

forward because one thing we've

35:43

said, we've talked about Fox News polls

35:45

on here because they are

35:47

done by legitimate pollsters. The

35:49

Fox News decision desk. Obviously, it

35:52

proved itself to be a legitimate operation

35:55

calling Arizona for Joe Biden. And

35:57

I don't know that we're gonna be able I certainly don't think

35:59

we're gonna be able to trust the decision desk at Fox

36:01

anymore for future elections after they

36:03

pushed out all the people who you know, we're not

36:06

crazy. And I don't I'm wondering

36:08

what they'll do with their posters too. Like, I think

36:10

that they are going to move to a place where

36:12

you're not gonna be able to trust even

36:15

the numbers people at Fox, which

36:17

I I know sounds crazy about like we you

36:19

you usually have been able to trust them

36:21

in past election.

36:22

Yeah. Is the example of how far it's gone

36:25

is many people of certain age

36:27

who remember in twenty twelve when

36:29

Fox was prepared to call Ohio

36:31

for Obama, which was essentially give him reelection.

36:34

Carl Grove was acting like a lunatic about because he

36:36

was talking people in the Romney campaign who

36:39

didn't know that black people could vote and was --

36:41

Yes. -- to talk about how they're

36:43

they're all these votes out there, Ohio, etcetera,

36:45

and Megyn Kelly, basically

36:48

walked back into the room and they made decision

36:50

and just completely embarrassed Carl

36:52

Rose because it was obvious that Obama was gonna

36:54

let Ohio. You flash forward to now where you

36:56

have

36:57

Brett Bear pushing

36:59

to not to rescind calls because

37:02

it upsets the MAGA president's

37:04

United States. A

37:06

few other good quotes of text from

37:08

this bunch, Tucker asking his

37:10

staff, do we have enough dead people for tonight.

37:13

Basically, this was him asking for examples

37:15

of dead people voting in Nevada or Georgia,

37:17

even reached out to the Trump campaign. Trump

37:20

campaign gave him four examples from Georgia.

37:22

Three ended up proving to be false.

37:24

And Tucker had to walk that back, but then said,

37:26

Well, there are dead people voting everywhere

37:28

just so you know. Murdoch

37:32

said in the in the deposition that he never believed

37:34

Dominion rigged the election, which seems legally problematic

37:36

for them. And he said that Sean and Laura,

37:38

Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram, quote, went too

37:40

far. He then told everyone

37:43

we've got to focus on the Georgia senate

37:45

by helping any way we can.

37:47

Yeah.

37:48

Seems Helping. I

37:48

mean, that's what that That's what we try

37:51

to do here, but we tell you about it.

37:52

That's right. Yeah.

37:55

I see that it's just secret. And

37:57

then Fox is ostensibly a new I mean, come

37:59

on. It's just fucking bit it's ridiculous. Oliver

38:01

Darcy had a good point about this. He was he's been interviewing

38:04

people at Fox too. He's the CNN media

38:06

reporter. He said, these people are just paid

38:08

actors. Basically, to make money

38:10

for the network. That's who Tucker and

38:12

and Lauren all the

38:13

Mark. It's

38:13

true

38:13

they are. They're basically paid actors. That was a good

38:16

point. There are two kinds of people who work at Fox.

38:18

There are obvious propagandists

38:20

like Tucker Carlson or Ingram. And then

38:22

there are subtle cynical,

38:25

even more dangerous propagandists who pretend to be journalists

38:27

like Brett Bear and John Roberts and the rest.

38:30

They're all part of the same effort.

38:32

In anyone who's ever read anything, written

38:34

anything about how Fox was created, knows, the

38:36

purpose was to push Republican

38:38

Conservatives into power.

38:40

Yeah.

38:40

And

38:40

if you took job there, that's what you were agreeing to be a

38:42

part of. I do think the dynamic

38:45

that the sort of divide between news and opinion

38:47

and the and the fact that they don't like each other

38:49

is interesting even though none of them have

38:51

integrity. Yes. So there's there's

38:53

an exchange between Sean Hannity

38:55

and Steve Ducey -- Mhmm. -- of

38:57

Fox and Friends in the morning, a brilliant

39:00

journalist. And Hannity

39:02

says, news destroyed us today,

39:04

and then Doosie says every day. And

39:06

then Hannity said, you don't piss off the

39:08

base. That's cardinal rule at Fox. You don't

39:10

piss off the base. And then and then says,

39:13

they don't care their journalists in

39:15

like a sarcastic way. Which

39:18

is also funny, by the way, because Ducey's

39:20

son Peter Ducey is one of those supposed

39:22

journalists. I

39:23

don't even think I don't think Peter Ducey puts

39:25

journalists on business card. But

39:29

it is interesting that, like, the news people

39:32

because they like getting sort

39:34

of the air of legitimacy from

39:36

the larger DC set does get embarrassed

39:38

by the opinion people from from time to time

39:41

even though the news people are also

39:43

doing what the opinion people do? Yeah.

39:45

It's the the all the people are gross.

39:48

So you read a great message box yesterday

39:50

about how Democrats can take advantage of

39:53

what might be the greatest crisis Fox

39:55

News has ever faced. Or or

39:57

maybe any any media organization. I mean, this is

39:59

one of the biggest media scandals, I

40:01

think, in my lifetime. Time. Yeah. Because it's

40:03

both a challenge of credibility

40:05

and could be a massive financial

40:07

blow

40:08

all at the same time. Yes. So

40:10

what should Democrats do here? What's the what what are

40:12

the options? So I will give the short version

40:15

here. First is Democrats

40:18

have to stop giving Fox

40:21

full legitimacy. We used to say all the time

40:23

that Fox is a Magna network propaganda,

40:25

Zuckerberg Carlson, but in the day to day life of

40:29

most Democratic politicians

40:31

and political operatives, Fox still

40:33

exists in this quasi legitimate

40:36

place. They're in the network pool. They get

40:38

to ask bunch of questions. And

40:40

if you think that sounds ridiculous, just remember,

40:42

like, a month ago, the absurd conversation we

40:44

had about whether Joe Biden should do

40:46

a Fox interview with the Super Bowl. Fuck

40:49

with these techs revealers at Fox and Braebart are

40:51

the same thing. So we have to treat fox like Breitbarn.

40:54

If Breitbarn was doing ser operator, you know

40:56

me like, twice, Joe Biden missing this opportunity

40:58

to speak to the American people through Breitbarn. Like, what the

41:00

fuck are we doing? Right? Stop. We don't

41:02

when Bright Bar like, it's not to say that Fox

41:04

can't come to the White House. They can't cover things.

41:06

Of course, they can do it. When we were in the

41:08

White House, right bar at the daily caller they showed up. So

41:10

in the brief room every day. And sometimes they'd

41:13

call our office with questions. You know what we would do? Not

41:15

fucking call them back because we don't have time to deal with

41:17

Maga propagandist. We they are as

41:19

as adversarial to us as the RNC,

41:22

and we should treat them the same way, and Fox is the same

41:24

way. Second, In

41:26

related to this, we should stop pretending

41:29

that Fox is a good way to reach

41:31

persuadable voters. It's

41:33

not. And the math is pretty simple.

41:35

Just think about it this way. There are

41:37

two million people that watch Brett Bear. That's a shitload

41:40

of people compared to, like, what, seeing that in MSCBC

41:42

getting the same time? But it's a fraction of

41:44

the overall electorate.

41:47

And so let's generously say

41:50

that, like, ten percent of those viewers are

41:52

persuadable viewers. Because the vast majority

41:55

of all cable news viewers are not persuadable voters. And

41:57

Fox is even to the extent of that. So let's say

41:59

that ten percent of the

42:01

two million are persuadable.

42:04

So that's two hundred thousand dollars. So let's say you're

42:06

a Democrat in a Trumpy

42:09

district. And you do have some

42:11

Fox, some some Trump voters you

42:13

have to win to to be reelected. What

42:15

are the odds that of the

42:18

small sliver of your seven

42:20

hundred and fifty thousand or so voters who

42:23

are persuadable fit

42:25

in that tiny two hundred thousand

42:27

watching Fox at that moment. It's almost zero.

42:29

It's like the odds of winning the

42:31

lottery. It's insane. And so this is not

42:33

to say people shouldn't go on Facebook. So

42:35

Wait. Wait. This seems

42:37

like an argument too if you're

42:39

working in politics not to put your boss

42:41

on CNN or MSNBC either.

42:44

Well, you can at least meet you would at least talk to

42:47

some of. I think in

42:49

all

42:50

You're talking a lot of persuadable voters on MSNBC.

42:53

No. But there's there's an argument of talking to your

42:55

base sometimes

42:55

as well. Right?

42:56

Which is why people may I don't know. wanna come on

42:59

couple podcasts I could think of on top of my head.

43:01

So, you know, Just

43:05

thank you politicians for joining us. Like,

43:09

if you wanted this is not to say, no. Won't you go on Fox?

43:12

There may be reasons to do it. Peep Buttigieg is

43:14

is kind of the model of go on Fox, uses

43:16

them. Know what you're getting into. The talent and

43:18

plan to make in a moment that will reach people outside of Fox. But

43:21

if you're just gonna be

43:21

like, if I can just get on there and talk to my vote

43:23

for the biff, it's gonna move voters, it's just

43:25

not. Session. I wanna I wanna push on your

43:27

pete Buttigieg point because I thought it was great

43:31

that you you made this in the in

43:33

the message box, which is like the

43:35

way media works today, you've written

43:37

about this in multiple books now, you

43:40

don't necessarily, if your politician, go

43:42

on a show to,

43:44

like, reach that audience right

43:46

there that's watching the show. Sometimes you do and

43:48

Unless it's local news Right. Unless

43:50

it's local news or it is a Super Bowl

43:52

interview that's not Fox News. Right? Like

43:54

-- Yeah. -- or or someone with a huge following

43:56

that's maybe non political that could interview

43:59

you. Right? Like, there's a whole bunch of ways to do it.

44:01

But what you're usually gonna do is

44:03

go on, get a clip of yourself, and

44:05

then blast it out to your supporters, or

44:07

put it in paid ad or do whatever. And

44:10

So I do think that if you, you know, you you basically

44:12

advise people in the message box if you're gonna go on

44:14

fox, like pick a fight

44:17

and have a plan. And

44:19

and also have the talent to pick a fight.

44:21

Right? Which you said Pete does

44:23

and and Bernie did a couple times.

44:25

Well, porter could do it. Like,

44:27

there are people who have who have done it and can do

44:30

it.

44:30

And I guess what my point is there should

44:32

be more people who do that and and have

44:34

the talent to do that. Like, you should you should

44:36

practice and have them because, like, a

44:38

clip of you fucking owning

44:40

someone on Fox News. It's not

44:42

only good for your supporters, if you can get it

44:44

in front of persuadable voters through whatever campaign

44:47

or apparatus you have, I think that's helpful too.

44:49

Like, there I do think we should have more

44:51

people who can go on there ready

44:53

to pick a fight and ready

44:55

to sort of have a moment and and sort of

44:57

develop that talent that I think Pete and

44:59

Bernie and some other people who go on Fox

45:01

hats. I mean, this is sort of what got around

45:03

the whole Biden Super Bowl debate is there

45:05

is an argument for Biden to go on Fox

45:07

one day and have

45:09

a battle with someone. The time to

45:12

do that is not when people are suffering their face with wings,

45:14

two hours for the

45:14

Securant.

45:15

Yeah.

45:15

It's not That's fine to do that. I very much agree

45:17

with that. Yeah. Very much agree. And then

45:19

the third part here is there

45:21

are all these efforts that have been afoot to

45:24

try to hurt Fox

45:26

in some way, shape, or form. Before this and then

45:28

there sort of amplifying this moment. Like Lincoln Project

45:30

and others have been running ads to tell Fox

45:32

viewers that Fox

45:35

lied to them. Which is

45:37

interesting, except the only thing flaw

45:39

in that in that plan is, let's

45:41

say you do finally reach some of those voters and they

45:43

do do get upset at the Fox Live. Don't think they're

45:45

gonna go to PBS NewsHour for their news. Right? They're

45:47

just gonna go somewhere

45:49

else to get more radical news. And so

45:52

I'm not sure that we're solving the de radicalization

45:54

problem that way. And then there

45:56

are these arguments about, you know, can

45:58

we do advertiser boycotts or can we

46:01

we more importantly convince cable companies

46:03

to take Fox out of the bundle, which

46:06

I appreciate that effort. Media Matters has one,

46:09

it's worth putting pressure on people, but

46:11

ultimately Fox is the most successful cable channel,

46:13

and I don't know that cable companies in a dying industry

46:15

are going to, out of the goodness of their heart,

46:18

speaking people aren't into community spirit. I'm not

46:20

sure, like, Comcast is gonna be like,

46:22

you know what? We're willing to lose money in

46:24

our dying industry for the good democracy. I'm not

46:26

sure that's gonna happen. And so just my

46:28

advice to people, and it is very biased

46:30

advice as I summarize my progressive newsletter

46:33

on my progressive podcast that is hosted

46:35

by your progressive media company. Is,

46:37

like, the only way we're ever gonna be Fox is to

46:39

build up a progressive megaphone that can compete with

46:41

it. Because Fox will go away in some

46:43

shape or form as we said. Died, but so we replaced by

46:46

something else that's probably more powerful and more

46:48

dangerous. And the days

46:50

in which traditional media

46:53

media could overwhelm that

46:55

sort of propaganda and disinformation are so

46:57

far gone. And to be honest with you, they're not coming

46:59

back in our lifetime. And so we

47:01

aren't we live in an era of ideological media.

47:03

And the problem with that for us is the

47:06

right gets in and most in the left don't. And so

47:08

what that means is If

47:10

you is that if you are someone who

47:12

spends some of your money on media, allocate

47:15

some of it to progressive media. Spend

47:17

invest in some progressive media. If you

47:19

are someone who who spends your

47:21

time with media, allocate some of it to

47:23

progressive media. Right? Smash the subscribe

47:25

button as a joke we do on PlayCorrect versus

47:28

React, but it fucking matters. Because

47:30

the more subscribers that progressive

47:33

YouTube channels and Facebook pages have,

47:35

the more the algorithm will show that content

47:38

to people on those platforms. But

47:40

we're the right gets that. That's why DailyWire

47:42

is approximately one trillion

47:45

YouTube subscribers and all of that. And so

47:47

we and then there need to

47:49

be more people investing time and energy and creating new

47:51

platforms. Like, that is ultimately how we're gonna do this.

47:53

All the other stuff is sort of managing the decline.

47:56

Actually winning is building a progressive

47:58

microphone. You know, that that was just I'm gonna leave it

48:00

there because that was just such a great pitch for crooked

48:03

media, and I'm just gonna I'm not gonna can't I

48:05

can't believe on

48:05

that. When we come back, Dan

48:07

will talk to Democratic pollsters, Lake,

48:10

about Joe Biden's new economic plan.

48:17

Pod Save America's brought you by magic spoon.

48:20

Talk about how boring protein shakes and supplements

48:22

can be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

48:24

You know where you can get your protein in a bowl magic

48:26

spoon. It's replicated your favorite child's

48:28

and cereals to taste good, but each serving contains

48:30

zero grams of sugar thirteen to fourteen

48:33

grams of protein and four to five net grams

48:35

of carbs per serving. Honeycutt flavor

48:37

does contain one gram of sugar, so watch out for

48:39

that one It's a keto friendly gluten free, grain

48:42

free, and soy free way to relive those moments

48:44

watching your favorite cartoons plus. It's

48:46

only a hundred and forty calories a serving. It's like there's

48:48

magic in every spoonful. With over eight unique

48:50

flavors, you won't get bored of feeling good with magic

48:53

spoon. My favorites are

48:55

frosted and like myself

48:57

some cookies and

48:58

cream. Like some birthday cake? I

49:00

love the peanut butter. But there's also yeah. There's

49:02

peanut butter, ones we didn't mention. Coco,

49:04

also great fruity, blueberry

49:07

muffin, maple waffle, honey nut, cinnamon

49:09

roll and watch

49:12

out limited edition spring

49:14

flavors. What do we got? We got strawberry

49:16

milkshake, Nice. And peaches and

49:18

cream. They taste like

49:20

dessert and are absolutely delicious. They're only

49:22

available for a little while. So grab

49:25

these one of kind flavors while you can.

49:27

Love magic spoon. We've been eating it for a

49:29

long time here at here at

49:31

Pod Save America. And, you

49:34

know, still grab myself a bowl, sometimes in

49:36

the morning, sometimes in the snack at night. Head

49:38

to magic spoon dot com slash create to grab custom

49:40

bundle of cereal and try the magic for yourself

49:43

and be sure to use our promo code crooked

49:45

checkout to save five dollars off your

49:47

order. Magic's been so confident in their

49:49

product. It's with a hundred percent happiness guarantee. So

49:51

if you don't like it for any reason, They'll refund

49:53

your money no questions asked. Remember,

49:56

get your next delicious bowl of guilt free cereal

49:58

at magic spoon dot com slash crooked. And

50:00

use the code crooked to save five dollars off. Thank you

50:02

magic spoon for sponsoring this episode.

50:05

Pod Save America sponsored by better help. Getting

50:08

to know yourself can be a lifelong process, especially

50:10

because we're always growing and changing. Therapies

50:12

all about deepening your self awareness and understanding

50:15

because sometimes we don't know what we want or

50:17

why we react the way we do until we talk

50:19

through things. Better help connect you with licensed

50:21

therapist who can take you on that journey of self discovery

50:24

from wherever you

50:25

are. Talk about a time when you learn

50:27

something new about yourself. I found

50:29

this mole. What

50:33

was that experience like for you? Well, I talked to one

50:35

of my therapist. And is it that that's

50:37

what this is an ad for. Right?

50:38

Mhmm. And we

50:39

worked through it. We worked through it. Good.

50:41

But if you're thinking starting therapy,

50:43

give better help a try. It's entirely online

50:45

designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your

50:48

schedule. Fill out a brief questionnaire to get

50:50

matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime

50:52

for no additional

50:53

charge. Cool thing about therapy is if, you

50:55

don't feel like doing a whole session, it needs to be ten minutes late.

50:58

You're paying for that? I know. But in that ten

51:00

minutes, you're paying

51:01

for, you you know, it's sunk costs.

51:03

But you

51:03

don't have to be the whole sometimes it's just like any of the

51:05

less I

51:07

I like every minute of therapy. No.

51:09

You you'll okay. You'll get there. You're

51:12

still you're still dealing with You're in

51:14

the honey pays. You're the honeymoon folks. Because

51:16

here's the thing. You're on the you're on that surface.

51:19

You're on that surface. You get to the magma underneath.

51:21

It's too hot down there. Yeah.

51:24

Get it. This is an ad this is an ad four

51:26

thirty. And you all need to let

51:29

listen. Here's the thing. You love it with that mag magma

51:31

ouch. Discover

51:33

your potential with better health, we'll call

51:35

it potential. Visit better help dot com

51:37

slash PSH today to get ten percent off your

51:39

first month That's better help HELP

51:42

dot com slash PSA.

51:45

Pod Save America has brought you by real paper. Let's

51:47

stop cutting down trees to make toilet paper. Yep.

51:50

It's true. Humans are cutting down tens

51:52

of thousands of trees every day just to supply

51:54

the American need for toilet paper. And the

51:56

worst part is that when we use trees for toilet

51:58

paper, it's just one use and done. It obviously

52:01

can't be recycled or

52:01

reused, so it just goes straight into our water system.

52:04

That's why we've all made the switch to real paper.

52:07

What way do you sit on the toilet? I like to face the tank.

52:15

Real yeah. Absolutely. Real's hundred

52:17

percent bamboo, so we're using plant that grows fast

52:19

can be harvested and regenerated. Like

52:22

grass and the lawn. It doesn't impact entire

52:24

ecosystems of forest. Real's the best

52:26

kind of eco friendly product because it doesn't feel like you're

52:28

sacrificing something to help the earth. In fact, it feels

52:30

like an upgrade. It's always shipped free

52:32

to my door and plastic free packaging. And

52:34

I can schedule it on subscription so that

52:37

it comes exactly when I need it and I never have to worry

52:39

about forgetting to buy any at the store.

52:41

Real's now partnered with one tree planted and

52:43

with every box of real that you buy their funding reforestation

52:46

efforts across the country. So one like the other

52:48

tip that cuts down trees, real is helping

52:51

actively plant them. Yeah.

52:53

Feels great. Feels great. Doesn't feel

52:55

does it feel scratchy? No. It's just a good toilet

52:58

paper. And you know you're not causing any trees

53:00

to come down. Real Paper is available in

53:02

easy hassle free subscriptions or for one time purchases

53:04

on their website. All orders are conveniently delivered

53:06

to your door with free shipping. In a hundred percent

53:09

recyclable plastic free packaging. If you head

53:11

to real paper dot com slash crooked and sign up for a subscription

53:13

using our code crooked at checkout,

53:16

you'll automatically get thirty percent off your first

53:18

order and free shipping. That's REELPAPER

53:22

dot com slash crooked or enter promo code crooked

53:24

to get thirty percent off your order plus free

53:26

shipping. Let's make a change for good this year

53:28

and switch to real paper. Real is

53:30

paper for the planet.

53:36

This week, president Biden released a budget proposal

53:38

that tells us a lot about how he'll run-in twenty

53:40

twenty four Jordan is to talk about how it'll

53:42

fly with voters as Democratic

53:43

pollsters, Slinda Lake. Slinda, welcome

53:45

back to the pod.

53:46

Oh, thank you. I love being here, and thanks for your

53:48

good work and good analysis. Well,

53:51

thank you. We'll we'll see how the analysis goes. We

53:53

for a really good analysis is why we invite you on the

53:55

pod. So for our listeners who

53:58

may not know, presidents are required

54:00

by law to present an annual budget to Congress.

54:02

Because this Congress will not act on it,

54:04

the budget is essentially a political document statement

54:07

of values as are frankly most of the

54:09

budgets that Obama put out when I work for him.

54:11

But because it's a political document, I wanted you to

54:13

help us understand the political environment that

54:15

Biden is putting this budget into. And it's largely

54:18

an economic document. So let's start

54:20

here. How are people feeling

54:22

about the economy in your research? Has it

54:24

change from where it was in election day twenty twenty

54:26

two where people were concerned, less concerned

54:28

about

54:28

inflation? Do they feel a little bit better, a little bit

54:30

worse? What are you hearing? So

54:32

in general, people still feel negative about

54:35

the economy, but they are feeling a little bit

54:37

better. Their sense of

54:39

the they're worried about recession in the future. Their

54:41

worried about what steps we're going to take to get

54:43

rising prices under control, but

54:46

it doesn't have as much intensity as

54:48

it has. And people are

54:50

starting to be open now

54:52

and starting to pick up more on

54:55

what the president has done, like

54:57

the thirty five dollars on insulin. Getting

55:00

gas prices are down, which is always very

55:02

vivid, particularly to men. And

55:05

so there are lot of things going on that are quite

55:07

good. The number one thing

55:09

that the public wants, and this has

55:11

really been underreported and

55:13

under understood, if you will. Two

55:15

thirds of voters said the most important thing

55:17

for them is to have stability. They want

55:20

to get on a track and they want to get going

55:22

back. To a better

55:24

state. And that's what Joe Biden's

55:26

budget plan offers, and that's what Joe Biden

55:28

offers as his presidency, stability

55:31

and CURITY AND MAKING OUR WAY

55:33

STEDILY BACK FROM THE COVID ECONOMY.

55:37

THE HOW THE -- I'LL ALWAYS PAY

55:39

TENSURE TO HOW THE PRESIDENT AND THE STACK present

55:41

the budget. It's several hundred page document.

55:44

There are a million things in there. So what are the things I

55:46

highlight? And they've really been leaning

55:48

into how his budget's gonna

55:50

reduce the deficit. I was very sort of curious

55:52

about that because compared

55:54

to, you know, previous election cycles, we haven't

55:56

heard a lot about the deficit recently. Nate tone

55:59

wrote the other day that only

56:01

one person of the sixteen hundred

56:03

respondents he did open any question with said

56:05

that debt deficit or spending was the most important

56:07

problem. Is there this sort of

56:09

subterranean growing concern about the deficit?

56:12

What what what is it you think about

56:14

the president and his team are trying to do there?

56:16

I think that what the president and his

56:18

team is trying to do are trying to do

56:21

is create a permission structure. There

56:23

is a very vivid contrast here.

56:26

In terms of what the priorities are for spending.

56:29

They want to jeopardize the economy. They

56:31

want to default on our debts. They don't want

56:33

to increase taxes. So the wealthy

56:35

and big corporations pay their fair share.

56:38

They don't want a minimum tax for billionaires.

56:41

They don't want to

56:45

increase the investments or continue the investments

56:47

we're making. But if you start from

56:49

that point, a lot of independent

56:52

swing voters will say, well, that's just

56:54

spending. We can't afford it. Price is already

56:56

going up. I think what the emphasis

56:59

on the deficit does is to

57:01

provide permission to draw

57:03

these other contrasts more vividly

57:06

and say, listen, we are getting the deficit

57:08

down. We are doing that. By cutting

57:10

costs of prescription drugs, by making

57:13

the wealthy and big corporations pay there for your

57:15

share, by cutting spending that doesn't make

57:17

any sense, And we are not going

57:19

to jeopardize Social Security. We are not

57:21

going to cut Medicare. And it allows

57:23

you to make those contrast in a way that

57:26

I think people will say, well, those are the

57:28

right choices. The choices the Republicans

57:30

are offering or the lack of choices the Republicans

57:33

are offering is the wrong way to

57:34

go. So sort of in a

57:36

sense may be Republicans are

57:38

gonna say, we know it's the math

57:41

doesn't work. It's gonna bullshit. But we're

57:43

we're cutting the deficit and we're cutting all this

57:45

stuff. You may like as a part of that. And Biden's

57:47

saying, I'm gonna do both. I'm gonna do a bunch of deficit

57:49

reduction over here. Some of it's very popular,

57:51

like raising taxes on the wealthy or the prescription

57:54

drug stuff. But because we're doing that, we

57:56

can do these other things we know we need

57:58

to do. Is it is that what you're

57:59

saying? That's right. And it gives

58:01

permission to draw the contrast.

58:04

So it's not big spender versus

58:06

no spending. It's smart

58:08

spending versus jeopardizing

58:11

our economy. Cutting Social Security

58:13

and

58:14

Medicare, which are secret promises to our

58:16

seniors. The other

58:18

thing that the White House has really emphasized is

58:20

the plan to strengthen Medicare, the president rolled

58:23

it out in the New York Times op ed a couple

58:25

days ago. He said he would extend the solvency

58:27

by twenty five years. In part

58:29

by some increase in taxes on the very

58:31

wealthy, making over four hundred thousand dollars and

58:34

expanding the prescription drug

58:36

provisions that he passed as part of the

58:38

inflationary act. We

58:40

all sort of know intuitively

58:43

that Medicare and Social Security are

58:46

politically powerful issues. But one thing

58:48

that I think some folks are curious about is,

58:50

one, do they work with younger voters,

58:52

voters under forty, and are

58:55

they you know, we see the polling that shows that

58:57

even Trump voters don't wanna cut Social Security

58:59

and Medicare, but is that sufficient

59:02

or is that is that an issue that could really

59:04

could drive a wedge in the Republican

59:06

coalition? It's an

59:08

issue that could definitely drive a wedge in the Republican

59:10

coalition. Starting actually with

59:12

rural voters. Because rural

59:15

voters are disproportionately dependent

59:17

on Medicare and Medicaid and

59:19

Social Security. I grew up on a ranch

59:22

in Montana. We never had health insurance the whole

59:24

time I was growing up. And I can remember

59:26

sitting around kitchen tables and people

59:28

would say when Joe had his 60th birthday,

59:31

but at least now we get Medicare. First

59:33

insurance for lots of farm and ranch

59:35

families. Or of the first plan

59:37

that isn't a high deductible plan.

59:40

So this is a great wedge. And

59:43

And what's happened is, with Trump,

59:45

for a long time, the Republicans

59:47

didn't and independent voters didn't believe

59:49

that Trump would cut Medicare and

59:52

Social Security. This budget

59:54

fight is a great opportunity to

59:56

say, no. Look at their plan. Look

59:59

at what their what Rick Scott put on the

1:00:01

table. Look at what these candidates endorsed,

1:00:03

look at what their budget is addressing. People

1:00:06

also think that Social Security would be

1:00:08

just fine if politicians would keep their

1:00:10

midst off the money. But they think that

1:00:12

Medicare could be in trouble because

1:00:15

of rising health care costs. So it's

1:00:17

very reassuring to them

1:00:19

that there's a plan here to

1:00:21

make Medicare more solvent and

1:00:24

including getting prescription drug prices

1:00:26

down. And it goes back to that,

1:00:28

what do voters want? They want stability

1:00:30

number one. They want security number

1:00:33

one. That's particularly true for

1:00:35

women voters. And this is saying

1:00:37

to those voters, we know what's going

1:00:39

on. We're going to make this program

1:00:41

stable. We're going to keep your Medicare.

1:00:43

You don't have to worry about it. This

1:00:46

budget has been talked about and I frankly talked

1:00:48

about it in the context of a twenty twenty four reelection

1:00:51

blueprint or roadmap, but it's also the

1:00:53

first volley in the upcoming

1:00:56

debt ceiling battle. It's gonna happen later this summer,

1:00:58

is you sort of look towards that fight.

1:01:01

Are there things that you worry about

1:01:03

for Democrats. We know we sort of hold the high

1:01:05

ground on Medicare Social Security and some of the

1:01:07

other budget cuts. But are

1:01:09

there sort of if you were as you

1:01:11

advised Democrats on how to talk about

1:01:13

this, are there's are there some guideposts or or

1:01:15

things we should be aware of? Yeah.

1:01:17

So I think the first thing is don't debate

1:01:20

the dead ceiling as the dead ceiling

1:01:23

because it's a it's terrain that Republicans

1:01:25

are stronger on. What you

1:01:27

need to debate is whether we're going

1:01:29

to default on our bills

1:01:32

and whether we're going to torch the economy in

1:01:34

the process. That are

1:01:36

we gonna introduce this major instability

1:01:39

by defaulting on

1:01:42

our debts and our bills? And Joe

1:01:44

Biden comes across very strongly on that.

1:01:47

But I would warn other

1:01:49

Democrats don't get tied

1:01:51

up debating the debt ceiling.

1:01:53

That's a dead ring or debate whether

1:01:55

or not you're gonna torch the economy,

1:01:57

whether you're gonna let the economy default,

1:02:00

whether you're gonna let people

1:02:02

defaults in their deck, which could be a national

1:02:05

and global

1:02:05

crisis. You know, in twenty twenty

1:02:07

two, you know, we we're talking about this in the economy. We've all

1:02:09

sort of worked in our careers in politics

1:02:12

in the under the guise of it's the economy

1:02:14

stupid that is always the single most important

1:02:16

issue. And then in twenty twenty two, a

1:02:18

surprisingly large segment of voters

1:02:20

that were concerned about inflation or

1:02:22

disapproved at Joe Biden on the economy voted

1:02:25

for Democrats anyway because they prioritized

1:02:28

other issues. They're worried about extremism, on

1:02:30

abortion, or the big lie, or all of those

1:02:32

sorts of things. Do

1:02:34

think that was an anomaly, or or we

1:02:37

seeing other issues rise and

1:02:39

service? Are are we sort of seeing the end

1:02:41

of it's the economy stupid

1:02:43

sort of politics? I

1:02:45

think was an anomaly, and I think it

1:02:47

was also the fact that people don't expect

1:02:49

their local congressperson or even their

1:02:51

senator. To solve the economy. They

1:02:53

do expect the president to solve the economy.

1:02:56

So I think that and

1:02:58

I'm really pleased to see the administration

1:03:01

emphasize so much its economic message

1:03:03

and repeat and repeat and repeat the breakthrough

1:03:06

because it's so frustrating. How

1:03:08

little people know what they've done for the economy.

1:03:11

But it's gonna be the economy stupid

1:03:13

in twenty twenty four. And

1:03:16

what I wanna make sure is that when

1:03:18

we're talking about the deficit and

1:03:20

the debt and the budget, we don't

1:03:22

forget the economy because The

1:03:24

budget is inherently a very

1:03:26

awkward prism for discussing

1:03:29

the economy. And I think we

1:03:31

need to make sure that our economic message

1:03:34

takes advantage of the opportunities and

1:03:37

the contrasts in the budget document, but

1:03:40

that we lay out more fulsomely our

1:03:42

economic vision for the future.

1:03:45

And our economic vision for

1:03:47

jobs and wages and

1:03:49

health care costs because

1:03:52

the budget has a loan is

1:03:54

just a very flawed vehicle

1:03:57

for discussing an economic vision.

1:04:00

No. It's it's frankly, it's one that it takes place

1:04:02

on traditionally Republican territory because

1:04:04

we're talking about spending and

1:04:06

deficits as opposed to growth

1:04:08

and

1:04:09

jobs, which is where in wages where we have

1:04:11

been stronger traditionally at least. That's

1:04:13

right. And think in the end,

1:04:15

voters also think it's a lot of political games.

1:04:18

And then It

1:04:19

is. In

1:04:19

this case, yes. Oh, well, there you go.

1:04:21

These are only the burgers so long. And

1:04:24

they also are not gonna hold their individual

1:04:26

member of Congress responsible the entire

1:04:28

federal deficit. The

1:04:32

thing that I think Democrats have to keep focused

1:04:34

on is on election day,

1:04:37

We have to be even or ahead on the economy.

1:04:40

We have never won the presidency when

1:04:42

we have not been even or

1:04:43

ahead. That's our goal. That's

1:04:45

what we gotta keep focused on.

1:04:48

Were we even or ahead in twenty twenty on

1:04:50

the economy?

1:04:51

Yeah. We pulled up even by

1:04:53

election day. You

1:04:56

recently surveyed voters in,

1:04:58

quote, factory towns in battleground states like

1:05:00

Iowa, in Minnesota, Ohio. And

1:05:02

that was for with the group American family force.

1:05:04

So that was a fascinating survey that really

1:05:07

laid out some of the challenges for Democrats. Could

1:05:09

you I would recommend that everyone read it. I

1:05:11

think it's an incredibly important document. But could you maybe

1:05:13

walk us through some of the big takeaways from that research?

1:05:17

So this is my Alexa's vision, and

1:05:19

it's really very, very exciting.

1:05:22

So the first thing is we're focused so much

1:05:24

on what we've lost in

1:05:26

rural America. And again, I come from

1:05:28

rural America. Rural America is important.

1:05:31

But what Mike identified working with

1:05:33

Target Smart and others, was that

1:05:35

the real losses and the bigger

1:05:37

losses have actually been in in

1:05:39

factory towns, small towns that used

1:05:41

to be the manufacturing base that

1:05:44

aren't anymore. They dominate the Midwest,

1:05:46

but they're also present in places like Georgia

1:05:48

and North Carolina.

1:05:51

These three things are happening in these

1:05:53

towns. First of all, they're very

1:05:55

populist economically. They

1:05:58

really are anti

1:06:00

big corporations, wealthy big corporations, anti

1:06:02

CEOs, they think they've been taken advantage

1:06:04

of The best thing to call

1:06:06

Fox News, by the way, in these

1:06:09

Fox Street towns is to call them corporate

1:06:11

media. These towns hate

1:06:13

corporate media. And now we're

1:06:15

seeing Fox really proving to have been

1:06:17

media after all, which is what we

1:06:19

knew all the way along. They're very interested

1:06:22

in trade. They're interested in bringing manufacturing

1:06:24

back. They're interested in wages. They're

1:06:27

pro labor unions. And labor unions

1:06:29

are very strong folks preaching to

1:06:31

them because they once had labor

1:06:33

unions or their grandfathers and fathers

1:06:35

wearing labor unions. And so

1:06:38

while they're not labor members today, they're

1:06:40

very, very responsive to that view of the

1:06:42

economy. They also believe

1:06:45

that all of their friends and neighbors and half

1:06:47

of their relatives are trumpets. And

1:06:49

they think, okay, I'm just keeping my head down

1:06:51

low. I'm not saying anything because I'm surrounded

1:06:54

by Trump supporters. And so

1:06:56

social math is very important to them. Letting

1:06:58

them know. No. There are a whole bunch of

1:07:00

people in this neighborhood who believe

1:07:02

in that chip's factory that's being

1:07:05

brought in. Believe that we ought to be tough

1:07:07

on China with trade, who believe

1:07:09

that we ought to bring manufacturing home,

1:07:12

who believe that renewable energy, can

1:07:14

generate jobs here at home and

1:07:16

who believe that the wealthy and big corporations

1:07:19

ought to pay their fair share. And

1:07:21

that there should be a mid billionaire minimum

1:07:24

tax. Why should a secretary be guaranteed

1:07:26

minimum tax, but a billionaire is not?

1:07:29

So there's a lot to talk about

1:07:31

in these cities, at these small

1:07:33

towns and cities, and they're like the Flint, Michigan,

1:07:36

the Atoma, Iowa the

1:07:38

Waukesha, Wisconsin.

1:07:43

These are places of great opportunity for

1:07:45

us. And your

1:07:48

research shows that a democratic economic

1:07:50

message, if delivered consistently

1:07:52

and credibly, can overcome some

1:07:55

of the culture war stuff from Republicans, it's been

1:07:57

pretty effective at moving some of these voters

1:07:59

out of our column despite our shared policies

1:08:02

on the economy.

1:08:03

Yeah. So that's what's really interesting.

1:08:05

It was a tough test that we did. We put

1:08:07

up these places are being hit

1:08:09

very, very hard. With cultural

1:08:12

messaging. And we have good answers

1:08:14

on the cultural messaging, but what we said

1:08:16

is, can a populist economic message

1:08:19

beat back the cultural wars, and

1:08:21

it was resounding. It absolutely did.

1:08:23

In fact, these folks are far more interested

1:08:26

in jobs and then what

1:08:28

kind of sex education their

1:08:31

fifth grade teacher is giving their kid

1:08:33

or their grandkid. And

1:08:36

so this is a way to beat

1:08:38

back. It's a twofer. Right? It puts us in on

1:08:40

the economy, and it beeps back the cultural

1:08:42

wars that the Republicans are trying to wedge

1:08:44

right now in these rural and

1:08:46

and small town

1:08:47

areas. Celinda, this is fascinating

1:08:49

stuff. Thank you so much for joining us. Super

1:08:52

interesting hallways, and we can't wait to talk to you

1:08:54

again

1:08:54

soon.

1:08:54

I love it. And thanks for your great questions and your

1:08:56

fabulous analysis.

1:08:59

Only superseded by your even more fabulous

1:09:01

analysis of things. That's right, guys. We have to

1:09:03

have real experts who talk to real voters on here period

1:09:05

like Hey. Thanks so much.

1:09:13

Pod Save America has brought you by Z Bionics. Ever

1:09:15

skipped workout because of drinks the night before?

1:09:18

It says me too, but no, I haven't. Alright.

1:09:21

I always I always Come on. Come on. Read

1:09:24

that. Jesus Christ. Unbelievable.

1:09:27

If you're committed to your healthy routine this year,

1:09:30

you need zbiotics. Zvietics

1:09:33

pre alcohol probiotic is the world's first genetically

1:09:35

engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD

1:09:37

scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking.

1:09:39

Here's how it works. When you drink alcohol

1:09:41

gets converted into toxic byproduct in the

1:09:43

gut, it's this byproduct not dehydration

1:09:45

that's to blame for your rough next day. Ziolex

1:09:48

produces an enzyme to break this byproduct

1:09:50

down. It's designed to work like your liver, but in

1:09:52

your gut where you need it most. Just remember

1:09:54

to drink Ziolex before drinking alcohol,

1:09:56

drink responsibly and get a good night sleep to feel

1:09:58

your best tomorrow. Love

1:10:01

zbiotics. In fact, I'm out. He's

1:10:03

zbiotic. Send me some more. Hey.

1:10:06

I'll pay

1:10:06

whatever. I'll pay I'll pay top dollar. I'm

1:10:08

hooked now. Well, it's whatever they charge.

1:10:10

It pulls a discount for through the code, I assume.

1:10:13

Give it a try for yourself. Go to zbiolex dot

1:10:15

com slash crooked to get fifteen percent off your

1:10:17

first order when you use code crooked at checkout,

1:10:19

zbiolex is backed with a hundred percent money back

1:10:21

guarantee. So If you're unsatisfied for

1:10:23

any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions

1:10:25

asked. Remember to head to z bionics dot com

1:10:27

slash crooked and use the code crooked at checkout for

1:10:29

fifteen percent off. Thank you, Z Bionics

1:10:32

for sponsoring this episode. I do not leave home

1:10:34

without Z Bionics anymore.

1:10:36

It can

1:10:38

be tricky to sort through all the noise in the news.

1:10:40

That's where SLAIT's political gap fest comes in

1:10:42

each week host John Dickerson, Emily Baselon,

1:10:44

and David Platz to sit for the headlines break

1:10:46

down the rhetoric and tell you what issues really

1:10:49

matter. They don't always agree, but they do always deliver

1:10:51

thoughtful debate with context and analysis and

1:10:53

have a good time doing it. Think of political gap

1:10:55

fest as having after hours drinks with

1:10:58

three journalist friends who can navigate our current

1:11:00

unstable political terrain and unpack

1:11:02

the underlying issues and broader effects of latest

1:11:04

headlines. Listen and subscribe to Slates political

1:11:07

gap fest for the debates, the fireworks, and the cocktail

1:11:09

chatter, wherever you get your podcasts.

1:11:15

Alright. Before we go, Elijah's

1:11:17

back to play

1:11:19

another round of take

1:11:20

take. Don't tell me. Lijah, tell us about the

1:11:22

rules. I will. But first, I gotta

1:11:24

say, if if you're the audience, you just heard this one

1:11:26

in the lake interview. But for us, we just heard Dan

1:11:29

talking about how you should subscribed to the crooked

1:11:31

media YouTube channel and the whole video

1:11:33

Slack were freaking out, Dan.

1:11:35

Wow. Why

1:11:37

is it you you want?

1:11:40

I won the crooked medium

1:11:43

video Slack channel. I don't know how I'm gonna

1:11:45

get through this weekend. Honestly, a

1:11:47

tough crowd, tough crowd, so think it's pretty

1:11:49

good.

1:11:50

Alright. I'll explain the roles now.

1:11:52

Look, if you can't win the video channel and an audio

1:11:55

company,

1:11:59

We're a multimedia company, Dan.

1:12:01

Oh, thank you. Thank you. I apologize. It

1:12:03

was very twenty seventeen to me. Real

1:12:06

cross platform outlet here. Okay.

1:12:08

Let's do it. Welcome

1:12:11

to the second installment of take take.

1:12:13

Don't tell me, this is Dan's first

1:12:15

time playing. So this

1:12:17

is how it works. I'm gonna present you both

1:12:20

with five new stories. You

1:12:22

haven't seen these new stories. They're

1:12:24

going to have to rank them from best

1:12:26

to worst, but the worst story

1:12:28

being number one. Here is the catch.

1:12:31

You don't know the takes that are

1:12:32

coming, so be careful not to fill that number

1:12:34

one slot too early. Are you guys

1:12:37

both ready?

1:12:38

So ready. Dan, do you understand the rules? Tell

1:12:40

me

1:12:40

again.

1:12:42

Don't know. Just kidding. Get out of the book. Blind

1:12:44

ranking. Blind blind resume season. And

1:12:46

we do have it's not each of us ranking. We both

1:12:49

have to agree together. On on them.

1:12:51

Nice. Can so we're not building.

1:12:53

So there's no chance I'm gonna lose the chance he had to get

1:12:55

another game here. No.

1:12:58

You you can only lose to yourselves in

1:13:01

this one. Fuck in the story of Democratic politics.

1:13:03

I'll tell you that. Alright.

1:13:08

We'll kick it off with a classic meat

1:13:10

and potatoes cake that was sent in from

1:13:12

Pod Save America fan at GP2K on

1:13:14

Twitter. It's a piece from bookings

1:13:16

titled, is this the end of Trump?

1:13:19

Yes. But that's not good news

1:13:21

for Democrats. So if there's two

1:13:23

takes in that headline. The

1:13:25

piece basically argues that not having Donald

1:13:27

Trump is bad for Democrats because he takes up

1:13:29

media attention and he's uniquely bad

1:13:31

and he makes the Republican Party worse.

1:13:34

Here's a quote. Donald Trump

1:13:36

is in trouble. A return to a more

1:13:38

normal Republican party may be good for

1:13:40

America, but could pose a problem for some

1:13:42

Democrats who need to build a stronger

1:13:44

rationale

1:13:46

for their party than were not

1:13:48

Trump. What do you guys think? I

1:13:52

kinda wanna give that fifth

1:13:54

place because I might There's

1:13:57

some truth to that take. Just

1:14:01

to be completely honest with you. Look,

1:14:03

I don't wanna be like Tucker

1:14:04

Carlson, just tell you what you wanna hear. Might

1:14:06

be a little truth of that take.

1:14:09

Yeah.

1:14:09

I think strategically it makes sense just to

1:14:11

leave our options open for the rest. So, yeah, with

1:14:13

that.

1:14:13

Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that it

1:14:15

is the end of Trump?

1:14:17

Oh, no. That that I'm not gonna I'm not I

1:14:20

was I guess I was responding more to the part of

1:14:22

the that, like, Democrats are gonna need to make a stronger

1:14:24

case once Trump departs, which I

1:14:26

agree with. I don't I

1:14:28

yeah. I I don't have no idea if

1:14:30

it's the end of Trump. We

1:14:31

don't do predictions here, Elijah. Yeah.

1:14:33

As you know, nice try though. Nice try again us

1:14:35

to try to predict. Alright. Cool. Well,

1:14:38

we'll probably go ahead and put that at number

1:14:40

five. The end of Trump

1:14:42

is bad for Democrats. Sorry. The the problem

1:14:44

of this game is that, like, type the list real time. There's

1:14:46

a lot of scrolling. There's a lot of takes, but okay.

1:14:49

Next take. I'm really excited for this

1:14:51

one. I texted it to Madeleine and

1:14:53

Handy like super early this morning. I think it

1:14:55

broke both of their brains. This

1:14:57

is piece from The Wall Street Journal titled,

1:15:00

The Fox News lawsuit, and the public taste

1:15:02

for lies. So this

1:15:04

piece is hiding behind a seemingly non problematic

1:15:07

headline, but the author makes

1:15:09

the case that the Fox News

1:15:11

lies about the election are basically on par

1:15:14

with the media's handling of Hunter Biden's

1:15:16

laptop in COVID. It then argues

1:15:18

that the tax rebilling of the Fox News, how is

1:15:20

new they relying is actually a good thing,

1:15:23

because it shows their quote, that

1:15:25

they kept their wits and that they

1:15:27

took accountability. Here's

1:15:30

an excerpt. When

1:15:33

are the lives of a disreputable and widely

1:15:35

discredited figure like mister Trump a bigger

1:15:37

danger to the

1:15:38

republic? In the lies that receive near

1:15:40

universal endorsement of the establishment

1:15:42

and its institutions.

1:15:44

I mean, that's a pretty bad

1:15:46

take.

1:15:49

What do you think of Dan?

1:15:54

Once again, I'm trying to think about strategically? Like

1:15:56

a very I know. On on McCarthy way. So I

1:15:58

think maybe we wanna go with three. Okay.

1:16:01

I was gonna say two or three. I'm I'm comfortable

1:16:03

with three. Okay. Then we we got we got room for

1:16:05

a less good take or -- Yeah. -- less

1:16:07

bad take and we got some we still got some room some

1:16:09

real winners here.

1:16:10

Alright. Let's slot it into three.

1:16:12

Would you guys say that texting in private,

1:16:15

that you're lying in public is

1:16:17

being accountable?

1:16:18

Yeah. No. I would have. That's the

1:16:21

That's the antithesis of accountability. Well,

1:16:23

it's it's personal accountability. We tell

1:16:25

people take accountability for themselves all the time.

1:16:27

So maybe that's what they're doing. Yeah.

1:16:31

It's that one is Who's

1:16:33

the one to tell you the author? Is that a secret?

1:16:36

Oh, no. I can totally tell you the author. I actually

1:16:38

prepped for this. I put it in the dock. So

1:16:40

It's a Coleman

1:16:42

Jenkins. Coleman Coleman.

1:16:45

Never heard of that person. But I will note also

1:16:47

that what else I I almost wanna make

1:16:49

this one too, but I'll do three. Because this was

1:16:51

also written in Murdoch

1:16:53

paper. Unbelievable.

1:16:58

Unbelievable.

1:16:59

It is the number one story on

1:17:01

The Wall Street Journal today. They

1:17:03

do rank their stories. Of course.

1:17:05

If I was going to write a novel and

1:17:08

one of the characters was going to be

1:17:11

sort of a preppy, shitty

1:17:14

Republican take haver. Home and Jenkins would

1:17:16

be a good name for that character.

1:17:17

Yeah. Technically, Holden Jenkins

1:17:20

junior, which is even Oh, it should be, you know what?

1:17:22

But Holden Jenkins the third is the way you

1:17:24

go with this. Yeah.

1:17:26

So he's building a legacy. Okay.

1:17:29

I'm trying to think which one I wanna do next. Let's do

1:17:32

this one next. Many people send it to me,

1:17:34

including Dan Feifer, We have

1:17:36

to go back in time a little bit. It's a piece from the

1:17:38

New York Times titled. In the fog

1:17:40

of East Palestine's crisis, politicians

1:17:42

write their own stories. Number

1:17:43

one. So Number one. Yeah. So number

1:17:46

one. Absolutely. Number one. With a

1:17:48

fucking bullet, put it right at the top. Then

1:17:50

you should tell me what is the

1:17:51

take, but is number one.

1:17:53

Yeah. Yeah. Good. Give us the take. Good.

1:17:56

Okay. I'll just so just in case you need a

1:17:58

reminder, a trained derailment in these policies in Ohio,

1:18:00

there's an firemenal catastrophe. This

1:18:02

of course came in the wake of several train industry

1:18:04

deregulation from the Trump administration. Here's

1:18:08

a quote from the author. Democrats

1:18:10

see his policy as actions and consequences.

1:18:13

Rail regulations were gutted, blame

1:18:15

aside. Republicans see it

1:18:17

more as a operatic narrative, a

1:18:20

forgotten town and a flyover stage struggling

1:18:22

against an uncaring mega corporation and

1:18:24

an unseen government. In some sense,

1:18:27

both sides are right. Both sides are

1:18:29

wrong. And the bifurcated politics

1:18:31

of this American moment None

1:18:33

of those arguments matter

1:18:35

much. Was

1:18:35

this Jonathan Weissman or Jeremy Peters?

1:18:37

Jonathan

1:18:38

Weissman.

1:18:38

Jeremy Weissman is a very similar

1:18:40

piece, but you have to you have to find and replace

1:18:43

real disaster with Fox News. Oh,

1:18:46

right. Right. Right. Yeah. No. I'm very comfortable with this

1:18:48

being number one. Also, the whole, like, Republicans

1:18:50

see it as and everything that followed

1:18:52

that? Hi, I'm a Democrat. I see

1:18:55

it as that too. Uncaring corporation,

1:18:57

unseen government, meaning the Trump administration

1:19:00

which repealed all the regulations, like

1:19:03

a town that's been forgotten. Yeah. No. I I'm

1:19:05

I'm there on all of that. It's just not

1:19:07

fucking Republican thing to think.

1:19:09

Just also, what a

1:19:11

fucking thunderhead to put both

1:19:14

sides in the quote it self

1:19:16

by talking about on the

1:19:17

nose. That makes me feel like that

1:19:19

he is trying to troll his

1:19:22

critics at that point. Like, you know

1:19:24

you at this point, you know that both sides has become

1:19:26

a punch line, the phrase both sides, and you're putting

1:19:28

it in your piece. I You

1:19:31

think God's wife's been too stupid is you.

1:19:33

I'm

1:19:33

not gonna I'm not gonna say too stupid. I don't think

1:19:35

No. No. No. I can see that you're being

1:19:37

tough. It might be

1:19:38

oblivious enough to have done that.

1:19:41

I will say For sure. For sure. When

1:19:43

we play this game at the end of the

1:19:44

year, I think this one

1:19:47

has secured its spot and the top ten worst takes

1:19:49

of the already. And we're not even --

1:19:50

Wow.

1:19:51

-- gosh. Yeah. Whoa. Make

1:19:54

that notalized. I make that note. I've got it. I know

1:19:56

Olivia Martinez is already writing out a damn

1:19:58

fantastic producer here. Yeah. That was

1:20:00

really accretive. So we wanted it at number

1:20:01

one. Alright.

1:20:02

That's where I would like it. John made just a

1:20:04

sec. Yeah. No. I'm I'm with you. I'm with you. Let's do it.

1:20:06

Okay. So to recap, before we go to the next row,

1:20:08

we have number five. The end of Trump

1:20:10

is bad for Democrats. Number

1:20:12

three, Fox News lying is not

1:20:14

a big deal. It may actually be good.

1:20:17

And number

1:20:18

one, both sides and East Palestine. So you have

1:20:20

the number two and number four slots still available.

1:20:22

Interesting.

1:20:24

Okay. Let's go. So for number four,

1:20:26

it's not really a take. We're going to assign part

1:20:28

of this a take. Wait. You guys requested that we talk about

1:20:30

this Elon Musk public viewed with his

1:20:33

employee, it's I have a ton

1:20:35

of context here. So please

1:20:37

just interrupt me at any time. So

1:20:40

it's not just like

1:20:42

me reading. So

1:20:44

in case you missed this, this started when

1:20:47

a Twitter employee named Hallie

1:20:49

Thorleifson publicly asked Elon

1:20:51

Musk on Twitter about

1:20:53

why he wasn't able to access any of his work

1:20:55

and why Twitter HR wasn't responding to him

1:20:58

and if he'd been laid off by Twitter. In

1:21:00

the following exchanges, Elan

1:21:02

must publicly said that Halle didn't

1:21:04

do any real work and that Halle was using

1:21:06

his disability as an excuse. He

1:21:09

mocked him with memes for the movie office space,

1:21:11

He said, Hallead no longer was working

1:21:13

at the company, but he wasn't fired because, quote,

1:21:15

you can't be fired if you weren't doing any

1:21:17

real work anyway. He also simply

1:21:19

said, quote, He's the worst, which we'll

1:21:21

go ahead and use a shorthand for our take

1:21:23

here. I will go on in this

1:21:25

story, but do you guys want to respond to any of that?

1:21:28

And he didn't just mock his disability. He basically

1:21:30

said that the disability wasn't real. And

1:21:32

then this guy came back and was

1:21:34

like, oh, actually I have muscular dystrophy.

1:21:36

That's what Elon Musk did.

1:21:38

Dan? The guy's a shit.

1:21:39

The guy's a shit. It's

1:21:41

bad. My my only thought is the person

1:21:44

who I learned about this from via their tweets

1:21:46

and also the person who suggested this

1:21:48

be one of the takes for this game is

1:21:51

the host of Crooked Media's podcast offline.

1:21:55

You know what? We I used that joke

1:21:57

last time I complained about Elon

1:21:59

Musk on this podcasts.

1:22:01

And I'm probably gonna use it the next time you do

1:22:03

too, just as a fear of war. It's like, I'm

1:22:05

all I thought you I love it

1:22:06

here. I got like one joke. I'm not gonna give it up.

1:22:10

Left coming on the shuttle fly.

1:22:12

Now are we supposed to rank this this this

1:22:15

thing that happened or what's what's the

1:22:16

Yeah. What's the take? What are we doing here? Well,

1:22:18

I'll continue on so you can appreciate the the

1:22:20

full thing of the story here. Because I think we have to go into some

1:22:22

of Holly for Leafscence replies to Elon Musk

1:22:25

and who he is. Holly,

1:22:27

but Ovation is a designer who sold his company

1:22:29

to Twitter for an undisclosed amount of money. He, as

1:22:31

John noted, has muscular dystrophy and was

1:22:33

actually named Iceland's person of

1:22:35

the year last year. Well,

1:22:38

got it. And there's over shots at Musk saying things

1:22:40

like I've worked in big companies like Twitter when it

1:22:42

started and small companies like Twitter

1:22:44

today. Ultimately

1:22:49

sorry. Ultimately, concludes with, you know, I must

1:22:51

apologizing publicly to Halley saying

1:22:54

I did a video call with him. It's

1:22:56

long story better to talk to people than communicate

1:22:59

via tweet. I want to apologize to

1:23:01

Halle for the misunderstanding of

1:23:03

his situation.

1:23:06

For breaking the take, we could just go with Halle

1:23:08

is the worst. That's

1:23:11

gotta be too,

1:23:11

then Right? I mean, it's gotta be too. It's one

1:23:14

of the it's one of the biggest

1:23:16

owns

1:23:17

on Twitter. In the history

1:23:20

of Twitter,

1:23:21

That was real choice to lean into this

1:23:23

one. Really keep it going

1:23:25

for hours. It would appear that Elon

1:23:27

Musk exposed himself legally

1:23:30

to a very large degree, and that led

1:23:33

to the retraction there.

1:23:35

Yeah. Yeah. I would say so. I

1:23:37

mean, you have a company with several employees. Could

1:23:39

you imagine doing this kind of thing? No.

1:23:42

No. No. No. I keep that kind of stuff

1:23:44

to Slack. Just

1:23:48

kidding. Just kidding everyone. Just kidding.

1:23:51

Alright. Let's give us the what's the last one?

1:23:54

So you it's the number four slot. My

1:23:56

employee who's who also is

1:23:58

the person of the year, is actually the worst,

1:24:00

is number two. Let's

1:24:03

end with this piece that set the crooked Slack

1:24:05

on fire last week. It's from the Washington

1:24:07

Post and it's titled The

1:24:09

Biden's ordered the same dish at a restaurant.

1:24:12

Who does that? The piece

1:24:15

of notes of the Biden went out to a restaurant called

1:24:17

the Red Han. Not that Red Han.

1:24:19

And ordered the same thing. For those interested, it

1:24:21

was Regatoni. Here's an excerpt

1:24:24

from the piece. For many, it's a verbosen

1:24:26

to choose the same entree as one's dining partner

1:24:28

it quotes someone who says, getting

1:24:30

the same thing as the person you're eating dinner with

1:24:32

is silly. The whole point of going

1:24:34

out to eat is getting to try as many things

1:24:37

as

1:24:37

possible. This is our

1:24:39

number four automatically, but any thoughts?

1:24:42

You know what? I'm I'm very comfortable with this

1:24:45

at number four, I should say. Because

1:24:47

I think it is the same sort

1:24:49

of level as that number five Trump

1:24:51

take, but it has angered me a little bit

1:24:53

more just because it's like, Stop telling people

1:24:56

what the fuck to get when they go out to restaurants.

1:24:58

They can get the same dishes their partner. They can get

1:25:00

a different dishes as their partner. It doesn't fucking

1:25:02

matter to you. Mind your own fucking business. Mind

1:25:04

your own fucking business. Everyone's

1:25:06

too fucking nosy. Alright.

1:25:09

Yeah. Move to the free state of Florida. Yeah.

1:25:14

I'm with John. Order what you want, eat

1:25:16

what you want. Mind I don't even care

1:25:18

if he's president of the United States. Mind your business. We

1:25:21

my family, we don't order the same dish.

1:25:23

Ever because we like to share, but other people can

1:25:25

do other things. Sometimes you go to a restaurant that has something

1:25:27

that's so fucking good that you don't wanna have portion of

1:25:29

it. You want the whole portion. Right?

1:25:32

Sometimes, sometimes,

1:25:34

maybe Emily and I order the same dish, sometimes

1:25:36

a different dish. Who the fuck cares? Mind

1:25:39

your own business.

1:25:42

Also a sterilizer pointing out Biden's

1:25:44

like he's he's old. He

1:25:46

knows he knows what he wants. Doctor

1:25:49

Joe Biden, she knows what she wants. They can get the same

1:25:51

thing. It's a new restaurant, maybe not, but they've been to

1:25:53

every restaurant at this point. Yeah. So

1:25:56

Alright. The final list, number five,

1:25:58

the end of Trump is bad for Democrats. Number

1:26:00

four, the Biden's either saying thing is bad. Number

1:26:03

three, Fox News lying isn't

1:26:05

a big deal. Maybe it's actually good. Number

1:26:07

two, my employee who is

1:26:09

the person of the year is the

1:26:11

worst. And number one, Both

1:26:13

sides in East Palestine. How do you guys

1:26:15

think you did?

1:26:16

I think we fucking nailed it, Dan. That's

1:26:18

exactly right. There's no other way to order that.

1:26:20

That is We

1:26:22

Objectively correct. I'm

1:26:24

two for two in this game.

1:26:27

I have two for two in objectively. Assessing

1:26:30

my results in the stand in

1:26:33

my in my podcast, in my company. Yes.

1:26:35

Yes. I'm

1:26:38

basically Tiger Carlson right now. Alright.

1:26:40

Thank you once again to Elijah for

1:26:42

taking us through the takes. Thank you to Salinda

1:26:45

Lake. For joining us. And everyone

1:26:47

have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. Bye everyone.

1:26:54

Pod America is a crooked media production.

1:26:56

The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

1:26:58

Our senior producer is Andy Gartner Bernstein.

1:27:01

Our producers are Hayley Muse and Olivia Martinez.

1:27:03

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

1:27:06

Kyle Segment and Charlotte Landes sound engineered

1:27:08

the show. Thanks to Hallie Keith for Ari Schwartz,

1:27:10

Sandy Gerard, Andy TAF and Justin How

1:27:12

for production support. And to our digital team,

1:27:14

Elijah Kone, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,

1:27:16

and Emilia Montoon. Our episodes are uploaded

1:27:19

as videos at youtube dot compodsave America.