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See the latest models and savings now at LG.com. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Faber. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Detour. On today's show, Trump says the ceasefire with Iran is on, quote, life support. We'll talk about why and what comes next as he heads off to China. We'll also talk about his new plan to make Venezuela our 51st state. That's a perfect plan.

Perfect plan. The follow-out from the Virginia Supreme Court's decision to throw out the Democrats' new maps, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez taking on Jeff Bezos and what she might run for in 2028, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and his wife, Rachel Campos Duffy, getting back to their roots with a new reality television show. Yeah. Exciting. Great.

Quick note before we start, if you're a friend of the pod subscriber, which if you aren't, you should be, you can now buy tickets for this year's CricketCon. special pre-sale just for subscribers. Just happening. Just for you. May 12th, that is today when you're listening. But if you're not a subscriber,

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Sir, why are you so great? Yeah, that's the only... Why is your leadership so impressive? There's definitely a limited range. of questions you can ask Benjamin Netanyahu if you get the job at CBS versus if you interview him here at Potta of America, which I don't think is going to happen anytime soon. Rhodes has got an askin. I think we'll be getting Benjamin Netanyahu before or after we get Biden.

Actually, actuarial question. Anyway, either way, Krikakon's going to be a big fun party right after the midterms, November 5th through 7th. Dan yelled at me for saying big fun party because he thought that was like jinxing the midterms. I'm like, it's still going to be a big fun party, even if you're we're going to still have a party. We're still going to live.

I mean, you know, what choice do we have? Gallus humor is still humor. June in 2017. I did. I did. And we don't connect those two things. And when Trump won. And when Trump won't,

I remember telling Emily, there might not be a wedding now. And she's like, unrelated reasons. And they're like, will she listen? Who knows?

That did, that did take you and through with this. Well, Hannah won't tell her. Hannah was talking about that. Don't worry about that. Anyway. Anyway, don't put this under a comment of Emily's Instagram.

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And you can become a subscriber at cricket.com slash friends. All right. It appears that last week's siren emojis about the U.S. and Iran closing in on a one-page memo to end the war have given way to this week's siren emojis about Trump possibly resuming military action in Iran. Live by the siren emoji, die by the siren emoji. Are we talking about reporters? I mean, that's who usually gives them. Well, actually, no.

Reporters do. And now also just random influencers and accounts that. steal the report. It lends. It lends such credibility. It does. And it starts with drudge.

The siren started to judge. That's true. The siren doesn't make sense as a newsbreak. Then reporters started doing it and then just random influencer just, you know, trying to gather information that's not in any way that just shows up in your for you algorithm. People with names like Joey Bloomberg. And then they've got, Bloomberg is reporting it. It's like, it's like, it's like it collapsed the market.

It is all caps. Um, anyway, uh, all of this comes after Trump rejected Iran's response to the, one-page memo. They kept telling it was one page. 14 points. They got it all on one page. Anyway, rejected, which Iran

waited 10 days to send and included demands for U.S. reparations and permanent Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz. Trump called that, quote, totally unacceptable and inappropriate before elaborating on his initial reaction in the Oval on Monday.

I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support where the doctor walks in and says, sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living. It's unbelievably weak, I would say. I would call it the weakest right now. After reading that piece of garbage they sent us, I didn't even finish reading it.

It was just unacceptable. You know, a lot of people said, well, does you have a plan? Yes, of course they do. I have the best plan ever. I have a plan. You know what it is? It's a very simple plan. I don't know why you don't say it like it is.

Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. To allow the removal of all their rich people. Yeah. Well, they did it two days ago. They didn't, okay? They did two days ago. They said, you're going to have to take it. We were going to go with them.

But they changed your mind because they didn't put it in the paper. I've had to deal with them four or five times. They changed your mind. They're very dishonorable people. The leadership. Exhausting. Who would have thunk it? He's learning a lot of lessons.

over and over and over again. Maybe not learning them. It drives me crazy when he says, I have a plan, a Ron cannot have a nuclear weapon. No, that's a goal. Yeah, that's what you want. What a plan. The plan is how you get to that.

Yeah, right. That's a destination. That's a damn. You need a route. You need a journey. So far as we start week 11 of the war, it doesn't seem like that plan is bearing fruit. It's also funny that he didn't read the whole one-page memo.

Yeah, finish. Well, yeah, get to the bottom of the thing. Maybe there's some good stuff at the bottom. What if there's some pictures? Tommy, what other options does Trump have at this point? I mean, it just all the details weren't public, but I think that the U.S. sent over a bunch of hardline nuclear demands and the Iranians were like, nah, we just want you to stop

blockading the straight-ohr moves and give us all this shit. And that's our take. And so now we're back. So all the options are bad. I mean, you can restart the war, which is extremely unlikely to lead to regime change, but will certainly lead to economic chaos in the region. He can keep the blockade going and hope that the economic pain breaks. the Iranian regime before breaks the global economy.

I don't think that's going to work either. And then he can find a way to declare victory and slink away, which seems like the most likely option, but Iran will probably control the straight-or-moos in that case. I'm very interested in his how he keeps talking about the leaders in all these different ways. First, he likes the new leaders because they're better than the old leaders. They killed all the old leaders. Then he also does sometimes, we don't know who the leaders are. And then this one was they're awful.

They're dishonorable people. They're lunatics. Yeah. It's also, we've been through so many rounds of reporting in which we're, which Trump felt we're on the precipice of a deal. And then the talks fall apart. But if you take out the spinning coming from the administration, is it possible that really they've just been far apart the whole time?

Because the Venn diagram of on one side, you have Trump requiring a deal that is better than the JCPOA, the Obama deal, because he said that deal was the worst deal ever made. on the other side, you have Iran in a stronger position than when the war began wanting a better deal than that, including consequences to the US reparations for the cost of the war and the power it's gained from having control of the strait or her moves. Those circles don't overlap, so what are we doing here?

Yeah, exactly. And then the reporting is so credulous. And so it feels like we're having this up or down, up and down roller coaster, but really we're just dealing with the like kind of strategic, like reality of this story. stupid fucking war.

It sounds like... It thumbs me out personally. Same. Well, it also sounds like, and you know, they said that they, in all these plans and proposals that Iran keep sending back or responding to, it sounds like they just want to keep control of the Strait of Hormuz. No doubt. And why wouldn't they?

Or they want sanctions relief. Or they want one or the other. They need a financial lifeline. Right. But it's also like they're sending over their maximalist position. We send over our maximalist position and then we just get mad and walk away. That's not how negotiations work. Get in a room.

Hash it out. Give a little on each side. maybe we can come to some conclusion, but they're just like, they're not even trying. Trump's like, I didn't read the one-page memo all the way to the bottom. Bob Elena Kagan, the hawkish neocon, Iraq war supporting Bob Elena Kagan, that one, just wrote a piece in the Atlantic. He's Robert to me. I'm not close enough to call him Bob.

I just, I call him Robert. Bobby. Bobby. He just wrote a piece in the Atlantic titled, a checkmate in Iran that starts, it's hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in the conflict. a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored. He then ticks through every conflict since Pearl Harbor and basically makes the case that

Trump's fuck up in Iran will be more consequential than all of them. What'd you guys think? I just want to just, before we get into the details of it, the neo-the-neocon high dudgeon of the 2000s, I still do not miss. Look, this is a very big blunder. I think it is a little, it's a little premature to be saying it's worse than Pearl Harbor. Oh, see, I thought Pearl Harbor was actually one of the easier ones because Pearl Harbor's thing was like, we came back and we won that one pretty decisively. Sure, in hindsight, it looks pretty fucking good.

But a year or so after Pearl Harbor, things were pretty up in the air. I think we're going to go to Iraq because that one was he was like, and then we left, then eventually we left Iraq more stable. And I'm like, oh, did we? Did we eventually? Yada yada yada yada there for Iraq for sure. That was my big note, too. Like, I want to build the biggest tent possible. But his idea that Iraq was mitigated by like a strategic change and then all's well that ends well.

because like Saddam's not there now. I, yeah, that was a little much for me. But this is all like throw clearing around what was truly a bracing and like just dismal read on the situation, including laying out like just how few options Trump has because part of the reason he called off military strikes wanted a ceasefire is because of the leverage Iran had when it was striking oil and gas infrastructure in the reason, in the how he can try to declare victory, but that still leaves the straight-of-war moves, how, like, that all the options that Trump has are fucking terrible.

Yeah, they're all terrible. And also, the Israelis have also just been crystal clear that they don't think the war is over. I mean, if you watch Benjamin Netanyahu in 60 minutes, he said as much. There's also the war in Lebanon. If you want a weaker ceasefire, I could point you to one, the one in Lebanon, where they're bombing each other all the time. And there's constant fighting, like daily, there's casualties all the time. Yeah, so I agree with this assessment that these Iranians are not going to give up the straight-over

moves unless they get sanctions really for something like really big for it. And that we look weak and we look kind of feckless and unreliable. It's also like the gall of Trump saying, oh, these people are dishonorable. Like you used previous talks as a smokescreen to, to bomb the leadership. You have ripped up the previous agreement and you may not have liked it, but it was negotiated in good faith by the United States, which you can, you know, which uh uh whose authority came from obama to you so you kind of undermined our credibility there they have no confidence that trump won't change his mind in a couple months and resume bombing

if they accept a deal they have no confidence that israel uh won't uh bomb iran if it views it in its interest even if there is a deal so just like the the the kind of the the the kind of the way in which we're like stuck in this morass because trump went into this so half-cocked is just it's it's it's sort of gruesome and it's when you step back and look at it. I think there were times in this conflict where people said, oh, you know, I remember thinking this at one point. Oh, he could end up just going back to like Obama's around deal, right? And then call it a victory, but it's going to be like around. We're like, oh, you know, you all criticized Obama for this. I think it's pretty clear now that there's no way he gets a deal

that's better or even the same as the Iran deal. It's going to be worse because when the Iran deal was made, Iran didn't control the straight of four moves. No doubt. Like this piece made me, think about the, like, not the, I knew about the strategic importance of the straight, but just from Iran's perspective now, they've got the control. Even they get some sanctions relief, they're going to have to get a lot more sanctions relief and a lot when they're calling it reparations or whatever than they ever were before because they got the straight. They have full control over it now. Maybe they go for a deal where they charge some tolls. Maybe they share control with other, you know, Gulf nations. But it seems like the, the scenario now where Iran willingly signed some

kind of a deal where they fully give up the straight of Hormuz, and it goes back to being like an international waterway seems very slim. There's no chance. They just got this incredible toy and they're going to play with it for as long as they want until it breaks or someone takes it away. There's just no chance. Also, it could get worse. Like, if Trump decides to go back to war, the economic cost could be just a resumption of what

we've seen, but also the Houthi rebels could get involved. They're in Yemen. They could start firing its ships in the Red Sea. They could choke off. The Saudis have been sending a lot of their oil and gas that they can't get up. through the Strait of Hormuz, west through a pipeline, and then it'll get out through the Red Sea or through the Suez Canal. If the Houthis get involved and they choke off those access points too, like prices could hit $300 a barrel. It's a disaster. And also, by the way,

we're not even talking about the reason we're in, we're there, which is the nuclear material, the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium. Sometimes it's dust. Sometimes it's the dust. It's critical to get out. It is still sitting in Iran. And also all of that material was enriched after Trump pulled that of the JCPOA. So it's a problem he created and now is probably not going to solve. I like the scenario that he mentioned where they were all, we were going to go in together with the Iranians, like just a group field trip to go to dig under the rubble and to find all the nuclear dust together. I'd go. I thought that was a real. That's a show I'd watch. I also like and this is, so this is around giving up the straight like through some negotiation.

Then there's the other option of trying to take it by force. But that that requires like like, you know, U.S. Navy ships potentially getting fired on and Iran's small boats firing on other ships too. And then Elena Kagan points out in this piece too, even if they are not firing on the ships, they can retaliate against Gulf energy infrastructure like they did a hour many weeks ago before the ceasefire. So like they have plenty of options Iran. And clearly they are fine taking a whole bunch of punishment because, you know, as the Trump administration likes to point out, they don't give a shit about their own people, they kill protesters, all like and stuff. They surely are not going to care if they're going to inflict a ton of economic pain on their

country. It's not like they care a lot about their people. So yeah, they're going to have the appetite for a lot of pain. Yeah, that's the part that's sort of like chilling about where we're at because we're in this sort of stalemate in which Trump looks like a loser. He can try to declare victory, but they'll still be the ongoing cost of us having kind of shown armite and Iran remaining in power and now controlling the Strait of Hormuz or there's escalation. And we've already done, we've already launched a massive campaign against Iran and the regime

held together. What escalation looks like, how far they'd have to go because the next escalation is toward the regime collapsing. And that's a combination of economic pressure to squeeze them. That's more an intense military action. And while that is happening, even if it were to happen relatively quickly, you're still talking about Iran unloading whatever it is willing to do in the Gulf. And so there are terrible options in front of America's worst person.

And this was totally, like Trump is a drunk guy at the bar who's been lifting a lot, who decided to pick a fight with the crazy guy who was cauliflower ear. And that guy is kicking the shit out of him and is willing to go a lot further to win this fight than Donald Trump is and take a lot more pain and it's not going to end well. Yeah, and by the way, you also killed his father, I guess. And there's no gold toilet burn. Like, it is, like, there was something someone said once a long time ago, which is, like, if someone is willing to fight you, it means they have less to lose.

And I don't think Trump ever learned that because I don't think's ever been in a real fight. No. Pots of America is brought you by Nutraful. Real change comes from small things you do every day that quietly add up to big. improvements. That's the idea behind neuterful. It's built around a simple, consistent approach to hair health that works from within and delivers visible results over time, not overnight. I take neutralvol. And basically, I've had, listen, you have so much hair there, I can't even see your face. It will be, if it were up to, listen, if you left it up to nature,

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That's rocketmoney.com slash cricket. RocketMoney.com slash cricket. Good news, though, for all you drivers, wondering if we're ever going to see $3 a gallon gas again. Trump said Monday he's considering suspending the federal gas tax. Do it. Which is currently about 18 cents a gallon for gasoline and 24 cents a gallon for diesel. The president said he'd suspend the tax for as long as it takes, which seems like not that long if you believe Kevin Hassett, which of course you should, who just said oil prices will drop quickly before the midterms once, quote, the gusher opens. Where is the gusher?

I guess in the straight. Chuck Schumer's office, now they'd heard about the gas tax bill. Because he excites him. Sorry. Just because he loves a, you know, he does a press conference. Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. Suspending the gas tax, good idea or great idea? Yeah, suspend the gas tax, release all the strategic petroleum reserve, get rid of all the

sanctions on Iran, maybe Russia while you're at it. Just go nuts. Prices will stay high, but now we won't be able to pay for highways or mass transit. It's a great idea. Let's do it. Yeah, we already can't pay for those things anyway. the last sort of half century, more and more of our roads were paid for without the gas. They ask that it's supplemental, but we still pay for ourselves.

I mean, having a gas tax is a good idea. The politics of suspending it are great. Just do it. This is said like someone who was on Hillary Clinton's primary campaign in 2008. I don't even remember. Were we forced to say? Yeah, I had to think about that too because there's like the mandate fight. No.

You guys, when we did the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, Hillary was saying we should suspend the gas tax. and Obama was saying that's just a that's just a gimmick and it's bad and we shouldn't do it and it's just

it's not really gonna affect your prices that much Is that when John McCain sent tire gauges to us That's something different That was when we were gonna solve That was when we were making We wanted people to check

He just suggested people check their tires And they're like you fucking piece of shit We like running on these soft tires Cushy It's not gonna fill up my tires Communist bastard But the yeah I look But the point of it doesn't

It doesn't actually bring down down the price. No, it's what is it? It's, what is it, 16 to 18 cents a gallon and then it's a little bit more for diesel. I mean, it's a bigger deal for truck drivers commercial. Like it does make a big difference for people like that. It's also ridiculous that Trump said he would do this. Can't do without Congress. There's some bipartisan legislation that was floating around.

It might get a little more lift now that he said it, but he can't do it on his own. Or I guess he's not supposed to do it on his own. Who knows he can try anyway? And, yeah, of course, it robs the government of, you know, revenue it can't afford to lose because we have a lot of big ticket items that we need to pay for, like bombing Iran and building a ballroom. And now apparently painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, American Flag Blue, which along with some other repairs is apparently going to cost $13.1 million, according to David Ferenhold at the Times. This is an, apparently it's an

88% jump in the cost of what it's going to take to repaint the reflecting pool. And you know why it jumped so because Donald Trump decided to give a no-blade contract to the guy who did all his pools at Bedminster. Which is Rudy Giuliani. I hope he feels better. They're trying to sue it to stop it. It was funny the guy that was suing. He was like, we just, look, it's a process thing,

but also we just think they chose a bad color. Which you know they did. You know it's going to be the tackiest fucking thing. The tackiest blue. Like, come on. It doesn't need to look like a goddamn, like, splash mountain. thing. Like just kind of... The best blue is North Carolina, Carolina blue. Let's just do that.

UNC colors. Now it'd be pretty bright in the reflecting pool. I don't know. I'm just making this up. Why did Kevin Hassett always... It looks like Dennis the menace just took down the biggest nitrous balloon you've ever seen. Then he just spouts like economic bullshit on... He's the best. He's the best. Yeah, he's the best. Get him out there. Get him out there.

$13 million for the reflecting pool. They're voting on the ballroom this week. Remember, that's a billion dollars that they want to add in security. There's a lot of security. Did you see what... What are we doing to that thing? Speaking of your boy, Chuck Schumer, uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Uh, he coined a new term for Republicans because of the ballroom. Did you see what it was? Oh, I didn't. No. Ballroom Republicans. He's calling him ball. He's calling the party Ballroom Republicans.

It's not, I know it's one of those. I'm like, it's definitely, definitely not using a scalpel there, more of a, more of a sledgehammer, but maybe he, he throws out ballroom Republicans and then everyone, it's like a signal, and everyone says it in a better way, but everyone knows what the message is because he... Shots me in this point last week that because he shot me, shots me in this ! billion dollars is in the budget, they're all going to have to vote on it. And I think that's great. It's a yes or no vote on the fucking ballroom.

Terrific. Terrific. The idea that they're saying, oh, it's security, security security. Secret Service needs it. What would they need it if you didn't have the fucking ballroom? Probably not. Hey. But it's like, you knocked down the East Wing and you got to rebuild it. Did you, did you not, was it a different America in which there wasn't security? Yeah. When you knocked down a building. Did you put that line item in the budget when you were doing up the budget for the new ballroom? You knew what the thing was going to fucking cost. It's like, now it's like every fucking, now it's like a football stadium where, uh, you know, these donors are going to go to the big unveiling because they're the ones responsible,

but the vast majority of the cost of the taxpayers, because if the actual kind of construction is $300 million, but securing the facility as a billion dollars, costs that were inevitable and required in order to ever use it, it's a taxpayer ballroom, just 100%. I'm just trying to add it up here. We got there's the ballroom, there's the Trump Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center, there's the arch. We haven't even started building the arch yet. Well, get going. We got the, and now the reflecting pool. They're also, that UFC fight, that's going to take some doing to put up that and take it down on the White House lawn. Now, some of this is like privately funded.

It is, of course, it's the worst of all worlds for Trump, the best of all worlds for us in the politics. But it's like some of it's being funded by major donors, corporate donors, who now get special access to Trump because of their donation. And then the rest is the taxpayers foot the bill. So it's like a good mix of shady influence of corporate allies of Trump and just, you know, you know, good old fashion, just, you know, corruption. The reflecting pool brought to you by Raytheon. So when you're reflecting on your life, you like to think about drones. Like, hey, we got really, the reflecting pool wasn't a problem.

No, it was fine. I'm open to the possibility that they could use a ballroom. I don't think it would have been my priority, right? But the reflecting pool was just doing its thing. It was just sitting there. It's not the wrong color. It looks great. It's classic.

I do think, listen, I've said this before, no offense to Steven Spielberg. I think that that World War II Memorial. Oh, yeah. This is my position, which I think is, I don't want it. I don't want the final design. Trickle-down ballroom. Does Steven Spielberg design? No, he was part of the, because it was part of the post-saving Private Ryan, Tom.

It was in the, he was helped raise money for it. He was kind of a big booster of it. I don't know exactly what his direct involved. He's not the designer of it, but he was a big face of getting it done. So Democrat takes over. We're going to bulldoze the ballroom. Yeah. Bulldoze the World War II Memorial.

No, no, no, no, I don't want that. Listen, it stands. Paint the reflecting. What are we painting the reflecting pool? Is that where Jenny and Forrest Gump reunited? Was that in the reflecting pool? Yes. Yeah, it is.

It is. Don't mess with that landmark. Look, this, the painting the reflecting pool, kind of undoing that, that's an easy one. Also, all the gold on the White House. That's coming off. That's easy. The writing on the outside of the oval that's like cursive gold writing oval this way.

It's cuckclips here. Why do you think this house needs a fucking name tag? We all, everyone knows what it is. That's the whole idea of it. It would be funny if they did a big gold, like, in this house, we believe, kind of like. The Mar-a-Lago, obampong, umbrellas, the yellow umbrellas, those are all going. Those drive me crazy. It looks just like Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, that's the, anyway.

That's silly color. It's a long list. Well, if suspending the gas tax doesn't work and the gusher of oil doesn't open, Trump does have one other- Stop saying gusher. Gusher, gusher. It's a snack. It's a snack.

It is a snack. Yes, Tommy. Trump does have one other trick up his sleeve. President told Fox on Monday that he is, quote, seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st U.S. state because there's, quote, $40 trillion in oil there and, quote, Venezuela loves Trump. Isn't this the MAGA fever dream? Isn't he president because Joe Biden led in too many people from Venezuelan prisons? Where is Stephen Miller on this one? I don't understand.

I'm pretty sure. Every person in a Venezuelan prison would become an American. He would make, he would actually make an unprecedented number of Venezuelan prison It's quite an amnesty. Every person in the asylum, the worst people in Venezuela would all become Americans. It's a good question. But I wonder if, just to play this out, if this administration, Zeevna, would make sure that they are second-class citizens who have to stay in Venezuela. We know how they treat the citizens of Puerto Rico right now. The old of Maduro's advocate here.

Well, they're not a member. They're not there. They don't have state. Right. Right. Well, also, it doesn't matter if Trump's considering. Exactly. It doesn't matter.

He's considering it. Oh, you're considering it. So am I. You also need, I mean, I know that we don't care about international law or the UN anymore, but it's a flagrant violation of international law. The people of Venezuela would have to, of course, vote on this. It would only be a flagrant violation of, in an international law, the Venezuelans don't choose to do it.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. Presumably you'd have to have some sort of vote on it. That's what I'm saying. That's quite a presumption. Also, boy, creates a bunch of new interesting borders that presumably would also need walls for Mexico to pay for, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

Also, he said that they love Trump, and I did look at some polling on this. It was in the Miami Herald, actually, a couple weeks ago. They did a big poll in Venezuela. In January, 92% of Venezuelans said they felt grateful to Trump for capturing Maduro. That was like a couple days after the capture. And a few weeks ago, it's down to 47%. 89% of Venezuelans reject Trump's continued backing of Rodriguez. And 78% think the country's on the wrong track under her.

Honestly, him losing support for deposing Maduro that quickly, it's actually very American to me. It's like, wow, what have you done for me lately, bitch? I'm 100% sure that we've now officially thought about this longer and deeper than Donald Trump has. But certainly there's an easier way to just steal all their oil than to make them another state. Yeah. That's the end game. By the oil. Are we doing that now?

Am we doing that now already? The oil is not just like, it's like in the Amazon. It's like very hard to access, actually. It's real pain. I know. I was flirting with not talking about this at all. But we saw what happened with Greenland. There's, you know, NATO had exercises, military exercises in Greenland.

So we got pretty close on that one. Raphael Lempkin just wanted to shout at us about international law over here. Like a mall Clooney over there. Oh, Moly. I didn't get the first one. No, no, no. No, no. Yeah, save that shit for Ben.

Take it to the world, those. Okay.

I've had all kinds of sleep issues over the years. Brain can't stop, you know. I had a dream last night in the middle of the night that I had signed a contract that obligated me to an unlimited expense over a real estate deal involving apartment buildings. I woke up in a panic.

You know, I sometimes think nightmares get a bad rap. If you have a really good dream and you wake up, it's not true. You have a nightmare and then you wake up. That wasn't real. Yeah. That wasn't real. That's a nice feeling.

That's what I've been telling Charlie. Also. Works with the five-year-old. Works with YouTube. Also a nice feeling. Sleeping on a helix mattress. I love my helix mattress. Again, Charlie also does.

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That's 50% off your first order by using code crooked or going to cookunity.com slash crooked. All right, so Trump staying on this subject, Trump's about to spend some quality time this week with fellow imperialist Xi Jinping when he takes his first trip to China since 2017. Naturally, Trump will be rolling a few billionaires deep. Elon Musk and Tim Cook are joining, among others, probably because of their diplomatic skills.

Can we pause on that? Hey, Tim, you're resigning. You don't have to do this anymore, Tim Cook. You know what? I think... I think he's over the game. I think he's in. I think he's in.

I really do. I think anyone who thought Tim Cook was just like, I think Tim Kirk's just a fan of Donald Trump. I figured he just liked fucking screams. No, fuck Tim Cook. He sucks. Hope your iPhone.

All right. Hope your Apple cares. Yeah. See you pride, Tim, I guess. Okay. Anyway, so Tommy, an Asian diplomat in D.C. told Politico they're worried that China might offer to help reopen the straight in exchange for American concessions on Taiwan, which I'm sure if Trump read that would be like, good

idea. How big of a deal would that be? How concerned are you? I mean, first of all, I'm just skeptical that China could actually force Iran to reopen the straight and kind of go back to the before times. Because if you're like, China buys 90% of Iran's oil. But still, if you're Iran, you're thinking, look, we get a couple million worth of Bitcoin of how to every boat that goes by. We find a new buyer for that oil. Like, I don't know.

I'm skeptical. I asked a China expert friend about this quote in Politico. And his take was like, it would likely be more like. how can you expect me to help you with a straight-oh-h-h-h-muz and not sell my Iranian friends any more weapons when you're selling weapons to the Taiwanese and giving them diplomatic cover? That could certainly happen. And Trump, I think, basically said today that Taiwan arms sales are up for negotiation, which is a huge deviation from traditional foreign policy where that's just not a thing

that is discussed with the Chinese. It's, you know, congressionally mandated law. Which he signed, like, right? Yeah, well, this is an interesting thing. Like, I've always assumed Trump could give a shit about Taiwan. He cares insofar as losing access to their semiconductors would be an economic calamity, right? And it would be a historic, it would be historic ego wound. Yeah.

But like, he doesn't give a shit about freedom, democracy, human rights, religious freedom, hating communism, all the traditional, like, things that once animated Republicans on this. So I assume he would trade away Taiwan in a heartbeat for a good trade deal. But even, but Xi Jinping, like, he doesn't need Trump to be, to make some historic shift, even rhetorical. I think if he gets what he, if he hears what he wants to hear behind the scenes, that's more than enough. Like, yeah, you do what you got to do. I'm not going to go after you. I mean, so we'll see. Like all that said, the Trump administration has greenlit huge arms sales packages to Taiwan. Now, the rub here is that those haven't been delivered yet. They're like 20 billion behind in the delivery of those weapons. But like people like Marco Rubio is making sure that the packages get

authorized. So I don't know. And then they're going to be talking about AI a lot as well. Apparently, it seems like a good outcome on AI seems like it could be, there's reports that they may open a channel of communication to make sure that like Cold War style with like nuclear weapons, like make sure there's not. She gives them a chatbot.

Yeah, this is me. Like you want, I want those two going deep on AI. I don't know. No shit. But I would like our country cooperating with China on making sure that we are keeping a line open on AI when it gets kind of scary. Yeah, I talked to Bernie about it. What was it last week?

It feels like time flies. But there's obviously a space between like hamstringing whatever advantage we think we have and allowing just sort of unfettered development. Like there clearly would be some kind of, there's a way to have an agreement about some kind of limits to prevent sort of catastrophic outcomes with AI. And like that seems like exactly what we would want them to be working towards. And they said they were going to talk about it. So I do think that's genuine. I'm sure they'll land that place. It's not AI.

The nuclear decision make process. No AI on that. And they have they have both agreed so far to split that off. But there's a lot more. There's plenty of other problems that could end the world, you know, bio weapons and the rest of it. All right. We haven't had a chance to talk about the shitty news we got on Friday about Virginia where the state Supreme Court overturned the referendum that voters just passed to create new congressional maps ahead of the midterms. Tommy and Dan covered the news when it broke on the PSA YouTube channel.

I have to say we crushed it. That's why you should go subscribe for free. Subscribe to Potson America on YouTube. Free. If you want to see Dan looking spicy on a Friday. Okay. He does most of the YouTube's, he pops at top. Oh, he does.

Popless YouTube, that Friday? Yeah, for Friday. And then under the table camera, that's for the subscribers. For the subs. Talk about a polar coaster. You're Dom. You want to be a stuff. Nice.

Anyway. Nobody put this in the comments on message box. That's the only way Dan will know this happened. Everybody should be fucking cool. Fucking narks. Oh. Anyway, what was I going to say? Oh, yeah. There's been some more developments on the potential redistricting fallout in Virginia and other states ahead of the midterms. Here's glass half empty. Nate Cohn, of course, calculated that Republicans could now lose the popular vote by more than two points and still keep control of the House. Then there's glass half full. Jonathan Martin is out with the column arguing that Republicans still might lose many of the newly drawn districts, which by definition will be more competitive. Amy Walter at Cook Political basically said the same thing. I think you can. I guess probably talked about that on Friday, I imagine.

I think she thinks that when all of a sudden done, the realistic gain is probably like five seats in a good scenario. Yeah, they could net like 11 or 12, but probably won't. And that's because of the Democrats still winning those tough districts, not because they would still get to redraw them. And J. Mart argues that they're handing Democrats a generational opportunity to mobilize outraged black voters. Case in point, Republican Representative Ralph Norman said on Monday about the state's lone Democratic

a congressman Jim Clyburn, who's one of the longest serving black members in the House, quote, I like him personally, but he does not represent the rest of South Carolina. Wow. Well, that's, you know, that is part of the point of representing one district and state, as you represent some people in the state and not all the people in the state. How are you guys processing the news generally and specifically on the question of whether this is all as bad as people think? And on that point, some breaking news while we were recording this, the U.S. Supreme Court

did rule. They lifted the injunction on Alabama that they had in place before. now allowing them to pursue their new maps. She was dickheads, they voted forward their new, you know, map proposal in the middle of a tornado warning. They just kept going. They're supposed to evacuate.

They're like, no, no, no, stripping away black people's voting rights is more important to us. So what do you guys think? How bad? So I've seen a couple different numbers, but basically even with these new maps, if we have, you know, if we went by,

let's say, 4% right, nationally, the house the house margin is 4% then we still win the house i get that's an important one just to yeah just put an exclamation point on that because um that was if if louisiana alabama in south carolina all go which now seems like we are definitely hit during that scenario and they say if we won the popular vote by four in that scenario democrats still win the house right and so i'm all for doing like a round of worry and and recrimination but i would say that in this political environment the deeper problem would be not having confidence that against a president with this approval rating, with both kind of on the politics and on the policy, has been as bad a president

as you could ever imagine, as destructive of force as you can ever imagine enabled directly by Republicans who deserve to be held responsible for this president's misadventures. We ought to be able to beat that 4%. We should focus on that. Because if we do that, then not only do we overcome their advantages in the gerrymander, or we can win those Virginia seats that on the old map. And we can actually prove that some of their maps were drawn too aggressively and make them more nervous the next time they look at doing this to try to redraw the maps because

the Republican incumbents will start to think, oh, if there's even a slight wave, I could lose my seat. Yeah. I mean, Democrats won the House popular vote by 8 in 2018. So if we're thinking and hoping and expecting this cycle to be better than even 2018, then we should have no problem in the House. And look, if we're not winning by eight, if we're only winning by four,

then something else went wrong. Exactly. More than redistricting. If we're, like you said, if after all this, Democrats win by four or five or six in this kind of year, and so do worse than we did in 2018?

Maybe they like the ballroom. Maybe they like the ballroom. Maybe they like the ballroom. Maybe they like $5 gas. Yeah. Or $6. Maybe people were like upset they had so much money left over

after they filled up their tank. Yeah, people hate it. They hate having all the options with what to do with the money. But yeah, And I'd also say, if this does galvanize people and we are able to win the House, suddenly you have people showing up in these Senate races that might not have otherwise. And it's sort of, you know, Republicans can be hoisted by their own petards.

Yeah. Nate Cohen points out the challenge is the median district, House district now in the country, will have voted for Trump by five and a half points. Sweet. So that means to win back the majority, you're winning a lot of, not all, but you have to win some significant amount of seats that, you know, Trump won. by five, five, and a... Look, it's...

Which we've already been doing in every... Yeah, right. Yeah. The swings from 24 to these specials have been like, on average, I think, 13 points. You know, these are base elections. Democrats are already more motivated. Hopefully they will all learn about this, be angry about it, be even more motivated to turn out. And the good thing about Trump is he just, things are as bad as they've ever been for him

politically. And he's like, give me a shovel. I'm not done digging. A billion dollar ballroom. One point five trillion dollar Pentagon budget. Let me drive my stupid car on a fountain. for some reason. He's just like wasting his time on stupid shit. And look, the bigger long-term problem here that will outlast Trump is the concentrated power

of the state legislatures in red states, which they have because they have gerrymandered their state legislative districts in such a crazy fashion. And in many cases, like in North Carolina, know that if the full state elects a Democrat as governor, which happens in places like North Carolina, Wisconsin, then the state legislature, which never has to be. to worry about competitive elections or Republicans losing, just takes all the power away from the government. So like at some point, whatever project 2029, whatever long-term thing we're doing, like we have to figure out a way to win back power in some of these state legislatures in some of these southern states and other heavily Republican states that have gerrymandered themselves on a state level, forget about

the federal level, into such a play. And we know from the Constitution, right, that it, you know, endow state legislatures with a lot of power when it comes with elections. Certain, nail-eatable rights like. like that, yeah. But that is, you know. And on that note, if Democrats do control Virginia, I don't know if you guys saw the mini news cycle about Virginia Democrats considering whether to...

It was a mini new cycle. Yeah, it's over. It's like a mini war. We talked about this morning. It's already over. Anyway, they were considering whether to change the retirement age for state Supreme Court justices. So to bring it down in order to get rid of all

the state Supreme Court justices on the Virginia Supreme Court and appoint new ones in time to change the maps and then have the new democratically appointed uh democratic party party appointed uh state democrat state supreme court justices approve the new maps and in time for the midterms first of first they'd have to get a bunch of new they'd have to replace those justices because they've been retired by the government at the age of i think in decrepit 54 i mean first of all shout out for create points for creativity points for creativity local news or some local news outlet in virginia to this idea and all of a sudden we're talking about it.

Real dog, another thing says a golden retriever can't be speaker in the House situation. It is without a doubt, undemocratic, terrible precedent. The kind of thing the voters would absolutely despise in this climate, absolutely would do it. 100% appropriate. You know, the governor of Louisiana is just talking about

on TV how he's like throwing out ballots and he's like, it's not my fault, Supreme Court's fault. It's like you did cancel an election. Do we really think Abigail Spanberger, Governor Abigail Spanberger would have wanted to, you know, kind of hemorrhage all the political capital she built up with independent Republican voter doing this early on. I doubt it. I bet she has other

things she wants to do. Did you see Greg Sargent's piece in the new republic on this? When it went it, the reason they're not doing it is. So May 12th, which is the day you're listening to this, that is the deadline set by the Department of Elections for having congressional maps in the system in time for early voting in June ahead of the August primary. So they couldn't pass the law to lower the retirement age to get rid of all the judges to appoint all the new judges to reach on the maps to send it back to court. Because the technology is so old, it takes a lot of time to input new districts into the computers. I don't know what that meant.

The computers. If we lose fucking... Are we putting the house? Are we putting the maps like... Is it a floppy dress machine? Yeah, is it punch cards? Like, I don't know what we're doing. Like, how big...

Is it a room? Does it overheat? Like, I don't understand. Can you get Claude? But the idea that we could potentially lose the house because the computers... The computers... If called upon.

The Virginia government's computers are too slow to be a democracy. That's where the potential... Did Greg Sargent just call an old person by accident? Like a Luddite who doesn't. I think it was like the guy that runs the state senate. He was the one that was saying the death.

Yeah, I think no, no, he got a real guy on the phone. No, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think Greg Sargent got got by like AI or anything. He was talking a real person. But that guy was like, hey, listen. It was grok. Yeah, love the idea. It was great. Landit.

Crock. Love your idea. Yeah, I mean, look, my take on it was. Grox drawing bikinis on all the state legislature in Virginia. On all the districts. All the districts have just magnificent, magnificent yavos. Look at these cannons. Look at the shit.

It's just so we yeah. Virginia State Senate Majority Leader Scott Survelle. Yeah, I just meant was he old and doesn't know computers. No, no, no, no, that's fair. But I do want to, I refuse to go. I refuse to Google. I'm calling him the James Comey of fucking Virginia.

No, I don't, I don't think that's fair. No, look, the thing about it is. 86 that idea. He's the one who picked up the phone. Yeah, never, don't make that. Could have been Abigail Spanberger. She didn't pick up the phone. Yeah, well, smart.

Yeah, no. I'm not taking that fucking call. Yeah, I'm not taking that fucking call. Oh, the crazy. I will get rid of all the judges because of the democracy. To save democracy, I've gotten rid of all the judges.

They're worse than us. Everybody, get behind me. We're going. Come on. Gavin Newsom's breathing down her napkin. Gavin Newsom, we could have had all democratic gifts. He's like, I put him on a raft and send them off to fucking Hawaii.

That fucking institutional fucking fagg. We could have had all Democratic districts. All Democratic districts. What kind of coward was he? Why is Gavin Newsom such a coward? Yeah. Put that out there. No, but the, just kidding.

I'm just kidding. But if you told me right now that we, there's no time issue, we don't know what the future holds. We can still win the house. We should fight the win the house. Yes, this made it harder.

But the idea that, like, if we knew, like, with, with certainty that our only path to, to having some check on Trump was doing this. Was updating the machines? Was it updating the machines? Was the software? Was Tim Cook software update?

Updating the fucking updating. He's not going to give me now. Updating to CERO 15.2 so we can upload the map. So the new judges that are young and vital just the 32-year-old new Democratic judges could approve them out. I'd be like, okay, I get it. Maybe it's worth the risk award.

Second year lay yells. But everything can get worse. And look, I believe Republicans are leading us down all these escalatory paths all along the way, every step of the way. But this would be a new one and it would be on us. Yeah, big deal. Here's what we're expanding courts. They were expanding courts.

No, here's where I'm going to be upset about Democrats is any, it's clear that any state where Democrats have control either of the governorship or the governorship and ideally the state legislature, if we do not act to maximize the number of seats that we win between now and 28, because this cycle has clearly already passed us by. Which Virginia will have a chance to do. Right, which Virginia will have to do. If you decide to take a pass on that, yeah, then you're fucked. But like, I expect New York, Virginia and Colorado better get in the act.

Minnesota can, I believe, Wisconsin can, Maryland, I think can squeeze out another one at Illinois. But J.J.B. Pritzker probably won't be bulldozing the courthouses, you know? I guess that's not going to be part of it. The problem is the Virginia State Constitution Commonwealth that gives, you know, the legislature, the authority to appoint the judges and gives them certain terms so that you get a bunch of republic. It's actually probably a fair for democracy. It's probably great for the country. They can't, they can expand from seven to 11 seats as you need actually like a big, a super majority in the legislator, I think, to prevent this exact scenario.

Sounds like a good model for America, actually. Yeah, yeah, one thing. But again, we have to do things as a country and not as individual states, which is why you need to eliminate gerrymandering as a country. Back in this court or what? Can you think a decision? Well, I'm about to say, the U.S. Constitution does not require any specifics on expanding the number of justice on the Supreme Court. And that is just a custom. And now, are we, have we ever, did the Biden administration ever finish that report?

On whether we should do on camera. Where are we on that? Good poll. Hey, where are we wearing that report? Yeah, you know. I think they did put it out. It's on Merrick Garland's to-do list.

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What's really happening? What can we do about it? And how do we keep going together? This is a space for clarity, strategy, and hope rooted in action, not denial. New episodes of assembly required drop Tuesdays. Tune in wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube.

All right. Anyway, why worry about 2026 when we can speculate about 2028? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made some news over the weekend when she sat down with our pal David Auxerat at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Boy, was there an event that was just designed for us? Yeah. Axe at the IOP with interviewing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Good times.

We reviewed the IOP tape and I'll tell you all about it. No? Yeah, pretty good. 2017 joke. Where she provided the terminally online among us, plenty of content to engage with, as people have been over the last couple of days. There was one response in particular she gave. to the age-old question of whether she's planning on running for president or Senate in

2008. We should talk about in which she answered by pivoting to a Washington Post editorial last week going after her for saying that it's impossible to become a billionaire without breaking rules and abusing workers or paying them not what they're worth. Take a listen. It was very clear this was a veiled threat, right? So the elite saying, if you want this job, you just stepped out of line. They assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. And my ambition is way bigger than that.

My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go, Senate, House seat. elected officials come and go, but single-payer health care is forever. A living wage is forever. Workers' rights are forever, women's rights, all of that. I wish this president would come and go a little faster. What did you guys think?

I thought it was in terms of non-answers to questions about, are you going to run for president? That's one of the better people. They went to the crowd to a guy named Chuck Schumer who was like, ban to the question. Yeah, we've all heard a million politicians duck that question. And usually it's some version of like, I'm not thinking about that right. Now my priorities are on the state of Virginia or my calendar.

It's like she made it bigger. She made it about what she wanted to do, the people she wanted to help. I thought that was nice. It was well done. Now, the nitpicking response that we kind of hinted at is the legislative accomplishments are more durable, but they're not forever. The Supreme Court overturned Rovers is Wade. But I think that's a little too literal.

Yeah, yeah. We all know the point she was trying to make here. Forever. And then like the policy nerds or the lawyers would have been like more durable as more accurate, which is correct. It would have been more accurate to say that. Yeah. ACS still hanging on.

Nearly forever. Yeah. By the skin of its teeth. That's right. I did think it was completely wild to have a Washington Post editorial, not a column, but an entire editorial from the ed board owned by Jeff Bezos being like, hey, stop picking on billionaires. It's so funny.

Well, he's like, I'm going to redo the editorial board. that it focuses on free markets and like, you know, not attacking success. And it's like, you know, promises, made promises kept, I guess. I don't know what that editorial board would do, yeah. I watched the whole thing, though. I'd never heard her talk about the specific experience of going from candidate to overnight celebrity. That was a really interesting story. And how just like head spinning and insane that was.

And then the part about what, did you hear the story about why she didn't go to med school? Like her dad got sick, passed away, actually, and her mom started working all these jobs. I mean, it's not just. like the bartending story that makes her feel like more of a human being than any other politician. It's the very recent past and economic hardship shit. I don't know. It's just a very compelling event. It was worth watching the full hour, I think. Yeah. I will say that the whole conversation about should billionaires exist, to me, is not the most productive use of time on either side of the debate because it's like, here's the thing about billionaires. I just want to make sure

that they are taxed appropriately. I want to make sure that they can't use their influence and power to change the laws and have a bigger megaphone than everyone else in the country just because they're rich. But like it seems like an academic dorm room debate to be like, should they exist? Should they not exist? If they exist, does that mean

that they broke the law or not broke the law? Like, I don't know why we need to be debating that in the first place. So I feel like it's, I was thinking, there was something about the online debate that was very frustrating to me because there's a lot of people talking past. There's a few aspects of the online debate

that we can get into. We can start with the billionaires one. And I was trying to figure out what was bugging me about it. And it is, I think, because you end up in this conversation in which the terms are moral and fuzzy, terms like earned, legitimate, deserved. And those are, because it's moral language. And I actually think the debate over the, the kind of morality of who can amass fast sums of wealth and how they do. It is not like, I don't think it's, I think it's more than academic.

I think the way we habit is academic. But the, what was interesting to me is the response. Like, it is absurd that Jeff Bezos's paper is writing a defensive of billionaire. And what was interesting about the defense is they always land on celebrities like Taylor Swift and Seinfeld and people like. Likeable people. Well, likeable people and people that like, you know, nobody had to pee in a bottle for Taylor Swift to write the music, right? Like nobody had to sew sneakers with their little hands, right? So like they...

You see that documentary about the Ares store? How many children were working those gears? It seems like she had to pee in a few bottles. Maybe she did. I think she did. I think Scooter Braun pissed himself a couple of times. Is that girl? But like but but then so it's like oh because they really earned it and and what the the kind of underlying defense of it is like well Taylor Swift by dint of talent without exploitation created more than a billion dollars worth of value and like I think I largely agree with that but where I kind of what they are talking past the deeper argument which is a system in which one person can accrue all that wealth like even Taylor Swift like she's protected by intellectual property law she's been able to take her vehicles on the roads and

all the rest. And it's not about like the righteousness or the morality to me. Like, that's just not what I care about. I think it matters a lot in politics. It's like a system in which those benefits accrue so much is both wrong on the front end and in the back end, the incentive structure and power structure of the economy and then the tax structure on the back end. And so whether billionaires should or should not exist, if a lot of them do, it is because something is fundamentally broken in the system and they have the ability to exploit that wealth that has kind of also wrecked our politics. And like that to me is what makes it worth having. Yeah. And for me, that brings us to like, all right, so what are the policy considerations here?

What are we going to? What rules and laws are we going to put into place to make sure that the system is more fair? How do we tax wealth? How do we tax wealth? And it goes into regulations and lobbying and all the and all the corruption stuff as well. Right. There's all that. And I also think, I think about Ruben Gallego and what he would always say after the 20th. 24 election is that Democrats with Latino voters failed the big-ass truck test and that people people in this country want to be rich. Working class people want to be rich. And do they all want to be billionaires? Do they think they're in billionaires? No, but they want to be wealthy. And what they just want is to like have a, you know, fair playing field, whatever you want to call it,

whatever cliche you want to bring out. But like people want to make a lot of money. And they also want to make sure that people who are absurdly rich, like pay their fair share in taxes and don't have more power and influence than everyone else. But I think like Democrats end up focusing on the tax side of it and not as much on like the deeper kind of like structures that mean individuals like whether they have whether they have a union or not, whether they have other protections like let's say non-competes and things like that. All of which like kind of mean as and as like more like all the productivity gains are sort of going up to the top, which means the individual has less negotiating and bargaining power than they used to. and their dollar doesn't go as far because of all of our failures across housing and all the rest. And to me, those are the questions that I think Democrats struggle the most to answer. We have the least compelling answer on like upriver from the taxes.

One last thing we have to talk about. Gas prices may be $450 a gallon, but Transportation Secretary and Road Rules All-Stars veteran, Sean Duffy, really wants you to get out and take a road trip so much so that he and his wife and nine children have been apparently doing their own road trip over the last several months, which they've documented in a god's documentary series premiering soon on YouTube. Duffy's wife, Fox News host, and fellow Real World and Road Rules star Rachel Campos Duffy. That's where they met. Describe the project as really wholesome, good family stuff that's an antidote to the quote, porn hub world we're living in. The fuck kind of road trip to Chigo. Well, she was on real world, I can never say real world

road rules challenge. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, anyway. Here's a, here's a clip. What a beautiful family. Hi, is KSA Adam, Mr. President, KS editor to President Trump. We're inviting you along with our family on the Great American Road Trip. The Duffies, they've got tons of kids. I think they have like 11 kids.

Nine. Nine or 11 something. Is there a difference? Before Kid Rock became Kid Rock, you're traveling all the country, you're... Oh, yeah. Basically an Aero Star van. Dad's Real World House.

If I never lived in this house, none of you would be here. Was that... That looks so boring. Was that antidote to porn hub or no? Well, I mean You've got a lot of kids So something's working All right

That's so many First of all You can't road trip with nine kids What are we driving? Is it as a school bus? Because that looked like a little car So we're just leaving them behind Also bullshit that they're really driving around the country

They're flying places And then driving around and filming it, right? We assume? Yes You think of Moonlanding was fake? No You might be wondering who paid for this massive boondoggle 501C4 called the Great American Road Trip, Inc, which says it fully funds its own efforts to celebrate and share America's story and whose sponsors happen to be industries with a business in front of the Department of Transportation.

So that's helpful. And the department later confirmed that taxpayer dollars paid for the secretary's travel to a bunch of the stops, but not his families. And the whole thing is official business anyway, because he's the transportation secretary and he was doing some transportation there, I guess. Your job is driving. Right. Dude, remember when the planes were all crashing and like Sean Duffy was the guy who was going to fix it? I just watched the guy get hit on the runway

in Denver the other day. I don't know. Maybe don't road trip around so much. Look, you know, this, first of all, this would bug me less if, A, they didn't have a bunch of sponsors who have business in front of the Department of Transportation. And if they were Democrats, right, John?

Well, no, I was going to say, I was actually going to say, classic. You know who fucking wouldn't stop talking about Pete Buttigieg and criticizing Pete and Chaston? Rachel Campo Stuffy. when they spent two months when Pete took two months

paternity leave because the twins were in the NICU and she criticized him for that and so it's like okay and now you're gonna go do this it's crazy to film a seven month reality show what are we doing? They said that he like popped in

for a day here and a day there but it's like whatever if he wants to do it on his days off none of these people are fucking doing a good job anyway in the cabinet it's all a grift I would say he's one guy not my Sean yeah he's one guy where it's like dude like you got like

real legitimate ongoing management problems at your department. And if Butt Rocket Duffy can't fix it, who can't? You know, that's what his nickname was in the real world? But Rocket? Why was it that? Because he would run around the house

streaking and mooting people. There's the rocket. I remember he did a front moon, I think, too. Out of a window in one of the episodes. But Rock. Also is on the show Cyrus. Rachel was. Rachel was.

Rachel was. Lawson is a pretty good series. There's so much reality. I don't either. There's too much reality TV. Butt Rockets a great name. Butt Rockett, sure. Trump, Sean Duffy,

Spencer Pratt, torturing us in the mayoral race here. Like all these annoying reality people just popping back up and ruining the 2026. Sean Duffy, I defended you as one of the lesser offenses in terms of the actual cabinet performance so far.

And that remains the case because the bar is so low. But this is tough. I also look as a rule like if someone's producing their own reality show it's just more boring That's just how it goes you got the only reality shows like oh it's wholesome like what would you think that's why people are gonna bravo con? No, they want to watch these bitches throw shit, you know and get into it ! He was also a lumberjack. Yeah, we're gonna chop some wood? Is that part of the born nothing? Mm-hmm. He was a lumberjack? Oh, yeah. Wow, I didn't know that. That was a part of the real world Boston thing. Yeah, huh? That's right. That was his that was his stick that and butt rocket I don't remember but rockets I'll send you the video

I was gonna I thought I thought that was an old joke that was gonna be like I've said it too many times Also flagging that he was briefly NASA administrator you guys remember that Yeah wanted to keep the job Get some other rockets up there You know he's got the expertise

He has a history of he's worked with He's worked with all kinds of rockets Anyway Is that it? That's it That's our show for today everyone Yeah it's a good one Was it was a gusher of a show show. Dan and I are going to be back with the new show on Friday. So I want to check that out.

I think we're starting. This is a new ending. This is a new end segment of Pats of America. I want to apologize for calling Gavin Newsom a woke f***. I want to apologize for suggesting that removing the gas tax would cause Chuck Schumer to come. I think I regret saying that or applying it. Now I read saying it. Oh, it was ass rocket. Sorry. Oh. Well, well. Same thing. I was just being family friendly. Let's do a pickup. Uh-huh. Took this rocket. Unlike me. A real rump rocket. That's something different. Speaking of Tim Cook going to China. What?

Oh, fuck. End the show. We're out. Credits. Pots of America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna John Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed Juerlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jim Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis,

Carol Pel Aviv, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. In moments like these, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and even easier to feel powerless. But we are neither. I'm Stacey Abrams, and on my podcast, Assembly Required, I take on each executive action, legislative battle, and breaking news moment by asking three questions. What's really happening? What can we do about it? And how do we keep going together? This is a space for clarity,

strategy, and hope rooted in action, not denial. New episodes of assembly required, drop Tuesdays. Tune in wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube.