TACO Tuesday in Tehran

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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Faber. I'm John Lovett. I'm talking to you, Tor. On today's show, we got Trump seemingly making up stories about negotiating with Iran to calm the stock market after he threatened to blow up their power plants, ICE agents being deployed to airports because Trump refuses to fund TSA unless Congress passes a law, making it harder for people to vote, Democrats fantasizing about a schumerless future and hotter candidates, and the president celebrating the death of Bob Mueller. Then Lovett talks to strict scrutiny's Leah Lippman about the Supreme Court's latest assault on mail-in voting and lots more. But first, some exciting news, guys. Thanks to all of you listeners, we are, as of this recording, just 484 subscribers away from having 50,000 Friend of the Pod subscribers. So if you haven't yet subscribed, please consider doing so not just to help us hit 50,000, but so that you don't miss out on all the crooked content we're putting out for subscribers only. Friend of the Pod Subscribers get our new extra episode of Podsave America called Podsave America Only Friends. Other subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, access to all of our excellent substack newsletters like Pod Save America open tabs, ad-free episodes of all your favorite crooked pods, and you get to feel good about supporting one of the few independent pro-democracy media outlets left in Trump's America. And you're saying that, Tommy, at 50,000, you'll show feet, that's right? I do have a wiki feat. I could add to it. Okay. Tommy will show feet. I wouldn't say they're my best feature. I was going to say we'll give the 50,000 subscriber Trump's phone number. Should I go get my phone? Should I call him? Yeah. Ask him about his tweet. Let's check in. Oh, that's a good one. Or should we ask him if he thinks the new Ayatollah's hot?

Oh, this is probably like, he's getting to the witching hours, you know? He's sundowning. Probably calling, like, during his favorite show. Oh, yeah. Is this Sean Hannity? Fuck, you're right. No, Sean Hannity 8, right? Oh, yeah. Maybe this is. 415. Oh, no, who this is. He likes the moon. He hates news, Max. Please leave your name and number. I got a little excited for a second. I get a little nervous. Me too. I get a little nervous. I know that I feel comfortable that Tommy has a plan, but I don't. I do. I mean, I have to do the Tom Beach run a recorded line. I was going to tell him how Potsave America were bigger than Men Josh Shapiro. And then I wanted to ask him if the new Supreme Leader is Robin Williams from the Birdcage gay or Nathan Lane from the Birdcage gay. Oh, wow. Or Scott Bessent gay or Lindsey Graham gay. He's more Lindsey Graham gay if Lindsey Graham is gay, which we can't know for sure. Which we can't know for sure. But. But we could ask Trump. Maybe it'll cost that. We could ask Trump. All right, let's get to the news. Roughly 36 hours after Trump threatened to obliterate Iran's power plants unless they reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which caused oil prices to soar. Is Iran threatened to retaliate by destroying energy, water, and communications infrastructure across the Middle East? The president backed down just in time for markets to open, claiming that negotiations to end the war are underway, which Iran said. isn't true at all. Here's Trump talking to reporters about this Monday morning. Tomorrow morning sometime, their time, we were expected to blow up their largest electric generating plants that cost over $10 billion to build. One shot, it's gone. It collapses. Why would they want that? So they called. I didn't call. They called. They want to make a deal. We're doing a five-day period. We'll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts. You said there's many points of agreement with Iran right now. Many. What can you give us a- Many? Like 15 points. 15 points. Well, they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. That's number one. That's number one, two, and three. They will never have a nuclear weapon. They've agreed to that. Are you moved? Who's going to be in control of that? That'll be opened very soon, if this works. How soon? And who's in control of it? Will Iran still be able to control the flow of oil? Be jointly controlled. By whom? Maybe me. Maybe me. Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is, whoever the next Ayatollah. Me and Ayatola TBD. They're calling at the Tehran Taco, guys. Are they calling in that? No, no, I hope not. I bet they are. Yeah, somewhat is somewhere. I realize the simplest answer here is nobody knows because the president has undiagnosed mental disorders. But what do you guys think is going on here? How did we get from Trump threatening an escalation that would likely constitute a war crime just on Saturday night to a seemingly fabricated story about a possible deal to end the war? Tommy? Yeah, we went from zero enrichment regime change to joint custody of the Strait of Hormuz. Is that where we're at? Maybe Marco will, that's in Markos. Maybe Marco Rubio will be the chairman of the Strait of Hormuz. He's the bridge. He's the, he's the troll that sits and collects the toll at the Strait of Hormuz. That's a good Pete Hegseth at the job. He does like a kind of a rhyme scheme speaking stuff. In between, the price of oil exploded, the stock market fell way off its highs. And I think Trump woke up.

Monday morning, he saw the Asian and European markets way down. S&P futures were way down and decided to send up the old taco bat signal. And it's predictable, right? I mean, we know Trump cares about two things. It's TV coverage and bad moves in the stock market. And the only criticism he probably gets in person, at least, is from billionaires and CEOs and bankers who can afford to go to his country clubs, who will see him and be like, oh, I'm worth a billion less than I was yesterday, sir. And so I think... That's what happens with the move. That's why Scott Bessent was out. Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary over the weekend. Like that's not normally the guy that you'd have talking about airstrikes on IRGC targets, right? It's only about market manipulation. And so this will get them through the short term. Longer term, I don't believe a word he said in that clip. Like the Iranians know they have leverage. They're going to use it because they don't want to wake up in six months with the Israelis once again bombing them, bombing. going for regime change, trying to kill off their leaders. Iran has denied that there have been substantive talks. And I've also seen a list of demands from Iran that could include a simultaneous ceasefire in Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq, Iran continuing its missile program, Iran codifying its right to nuclear enrichment, Iran getting payments for damages in the war. Reparations. Reparations. And then some sort of de facto. recognition of their control of the straight, which Trump kind of preemptively grants there. So I don't know, man, JD Vance, maybe he's going to lead these talks. I think that'd be a good thing. Like, we should get Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner away from these talks because they're morons, but also the U.S. Marine contingent gets there on Friday. So I see about that. I have a question because I read some reports that they're all headed to Islamabad in Pakistan for talks. and jd Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are going to meet the meet the i guess the speaker of the iranian parliament there i saw pakistani official said this to reuters too but like a question about this if you're the uh if you're the speaker of parliament in iran and you're probably uh next on the israeli's list for targeted assassination you just popping your head up now hopping on a plane and going to islamabad is that is that something that uh you think the Probably safer out of the country than in. Yeah, there's a moment when Trump was asked who exactly he is negotiating with. It's actually very similar sort of geometrically to when he was asked which ex-president he was talking to and then didn't want to say and then they all denied it. So Iran saying these talks aren't happening. Trump's saying they are, but he won't say with who. Why? Because he suggests if he says who. the U.S. is talking to, Israel might kill them, which also gives you a little bit of a concern about what the negotiating posture can be about promising an end to the conflict when you can't promise that your chief ally won't step in and escalate when you choose not to. But this is, I mean, I was like kind of joking, but like also they have killed a bunch of top Iranian officials now assassinated them. Every time the Iranians have negotiated, we have bombed them or attacked during the negotiation. So like if you're the Iranians, Why do you try to go negotiate it all at this point? They were complying with the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear agreement, when Trump pulled out of it in 2018. Then the U.S. and Iran were negotiating when the Israelis started the 12-day war, and then we were negotiating again. Apparently, the last round of talks before the most recent war was the most productive yet. Then we bombed them. And then Trump in the press has bragged about how we use talks as subterfuge.

to trick the Iranians, right? So now the Iranians are not dumb. They know that there's 7,500 plus Marines heading to the Middle East right now. And look, I mean, the Israelis have killed a lot of people who have been our interlocutors in talks. They can kill the, you know, the Speaker of Parliament. The power structure in Iran is the IRGC. It's the military. And like, so that's who's going to be calling the shots here. And so I just. I don't know. Trump could be like, oh, I have a secret source of Delci Rodriguez of Iran. I just don't buy it. Yeah, I saw that a bunch of Trump officials just told Politico, too. They're doing the Delci Rodriguez thing again with the Speaker of Parliament. They're like, this is what he's looking for. And one official said that this, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, he's a hot option right now. That's the quote. He's a hot option. People are talking about him a lot. They think he's someone that they can deal with. He's a hot option. But they got to test him out. They got to test him out first. That's what they said. Is he hot? Do we look? We're not at that part of the show yet. Don't skip ahead to our hot candidate section. Hot Iranian section, yeah. The administration has gotten several Iranian generals up to like 3,000 or 4,000 degrees. Jesus. Tough. So there's that. I do think that the trouble for Trump here is that like Taco speak aside. Like he doesn't just get to cancel the war like he canceled some of his tariffs. Like the Iranians and the Israelis kind of can do whatever they want and keep this thing going in a way that really wreaks havoc on the global economy and our own for as long as they want. Yes. Look, what an extraordinary couple of weeks this has been. First, a war launched without Congress, without clear goals. evolved over the, basically over the course of that weekend. They didn't really land on. If there's one set of goals that kind of landed on repeatedly, it's the Marco Rubio version, which is no nuclear capabilities to destroy the Navy, et cetera. But they had talked about regime change. The regime's inability to project power. Then they closed the strait of Hormuz, at which point Trump began begging our allies to join the fight after the fight had already begun. And they said, no, thank you. We'll continue to not be part of this war we weren't consulted on and want nothing to do with, especially after you've been bullying us for a year. And then Trump said, actually, we don't need you because it's going so well. And then he saw the markets tank and is now trying to end it this way. And yeah, he's not in control of events. And he wants to be in control of events. But really, there's no, I saw a piece of analysis about this, which is it's actually ironically. a place where there's not much nuance. Either the straight-of-form moves is open, nor it's not. If it's not, you have a huge set of knock on consequences that Trump is not able to solve. He has to get it open. Iran has a say in whether or not it's open. And that's what puts him in this position. And you can kill a bunch of leaders over and over and you could create opportunities for promotion, but it doesn't deal with the underlying problem. Yeah, like, I want this a war over. today and if not today tomorrow i think that's the best outcome the sooner the better but we should just be clear if the war ends today it is a failure we lost like the uh the 900 pounds of highly inert uranium still sitting in iranum the regime is still in place in fact their position is hardened because we were placed an 86 year old named hominey with a 50-something year old named homine who is apparently much more angry at us because you know trump killed his dad his wife his kids and some others and by the way

86-year-olds tend to die on their own accord and create power vacuums that are not made by the United States. He was going to regime change himself. And then maybe the protesters who were out in the streets in December and January could have helped exercise a better option. And then Iran has now fully realized its economic leverage through the Strait of Hormuz, and it sounds like they intend to continue to exercise that leverage. Why wouldn't they? Why not? Trump was also asked about his decision to lift sanctions on 140 million barrels of Iranian oil that's already sitting at sea, which could be worth about $14 billion to the Iranians. The move was intended to ease what has now become a global crisis that the head of the International Energy Agency said is worse than the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks combined. U.S. and Israeli officials have also started forecasting a battle for Hormuz that will likely involve the 2,500 Marines headed towards the Middle East right now, though there doesn't seem to be much clarity on what that would entail, at least based on what various officials are saying in public. Here's soybean farmer Scott Bessent and a horny warmonger Lindsey Graham on the Sunday shows. Is the president in the process of winding down this war or escalating the conflict? Again, they're not mutual exclusive. Sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate, Chris. The sanctions were in place to prevent Iran from getting any of the money. They will have access to some of the money now. Again, Kristen, you're missing the point. In essence, we are jujitsuing the Iranians. We're using their own oil against them. Here's what I tell President Trump. Keep it up for a few more weeks. Take Kargallin. We did Ewo Jima. We can do this. They really send in their best. I guess we're funding both sides of this war now. $14 billion for the Iranians. I don't totally understand how this brings in the art of jiu-jitsu and who's doing jiu-jitsu. I don't even understand what the... Or even the type of speech that he was referring. He was jujitsuing them with their own oil. I guess it's that the idea being that if you... removed the sanctions you lower the price of oil and therefore lower the amount of money Iran gets, but Iran was currently getting $0. Right. That's going to say. So I think $14 billion is, as far as I haven't done math professionally in a while. Right. But $14 billion is more than $0.00. Right. And the pellets of cash that Obama gave Iran in the nuclear deal, that was, what, $1.5 billion altogether? And it was just their own assets on Frozen. Yeah, the pallets of cash was $400 million as part of the bigger settlement. Sorry. The dated back to the total. Yeah, it dated back to the 1970s. It was the Carter administration. There was an arms deal with the Shah of Iran that obviously ended when the Iranian revolution happened. And then it wound its way through these various courts and we had to pay them back. And that's how it ended up doing it. And that became like the biggest deal ever Donald Trump talks about to its day. But yeah, that, that. Pissy cadaver they put out fucking on the Sunday shows. Scott Bessent, he had a tough, tough interview. Yeah, because he's suggesting that giving around $14 billion that they can use to fund a war against us or new nuclear infrastructure or more weapons for Hezbollah or the Houthis is Jujitsu, which I would disagree with. He gets very angry at Kristen Welker for suggesting we should talk about how to pay for the war as they're primed to request $200 billion in funding. So like everything about his interview there, he was just fucking terrible.

That just seems like a lot of money. Also, I don't know if you saw that when they were talking about like the Iranians want reparations as part of any negotiation to end the war. Trump official was like, well, obviously we're not going to give them reparations. But maybe we can just like unfree some of their assets. And it just depends on what we call it. And I'm like, oh. Sanctuary relief. So you might you might unfree some of their assets and then say that that, oh, interesting. For a nuclear deal. Got it. But it's different when Trump does it. It's different when Trump does it. Trump's giving them even more money. I don't know who is receiving less genuine feedback more, Donald Trump or Lindsey Graham at this point. He's out there frothing at the mouth comparing Carg Island to fucking Iwo Jima. Are you out of your mind? We lost about 7,000 Americans at Iwo Jima, 20,000 wounded. Oh, are you saying what your goal is to have one of the great battles of fucking World War II in the Middle East right now? Like that's your goal? That's what you think we should be. That's the good analogy here? Yeah, we've just got to give them, first we've got to give them the, let them sell their oil so they can make $14 billion so they can fortify their defenses on Garg Island against the invasion that we're about to launch for what, for oil, for more oil to sell, I guess. I'm so, look, I think. So then we can sanction it again? I don't know. Who knows? I'm still, you know, I still want to take the over. on corruption being the way out of this thing. You got Wyckoff and Jared Kushner. They can make some kind of a deal. Suddenly, the Stradohor moves is open and everybody's making money. And that to me is, and that all of the escalation talk is a threat towards some kind of a deal. It's not impossible to imagine we live in that world. Suddenly you can play 18 holes on Karg Island, you know. Yeah. It's beautiful. And what's it? Genuinely, the Strait of Hormuz is beautiful. It actually is. Go look at pictures. Go look at, go look at pictures of Strait of Hormuz in March. You're never going to want to come back. Oh, yeah. And by the way, two weeks ago, Megyn Kelly was saying, Lindsey Graham is a homicidal maniac with a bloodlust that is insatiable. Well, that's before that interview. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's been satiated at all. Not satiated. Shout out to representation, though. Look at this administration. Scott Bessent out there, Lindsey Graham out there. Huh? Yeah. Marsha P. Johnson threw that brick and here we are all these years later. It's a beautiful thing. Why do you think, this brings up a good question. Why do they only have Scott Bessent, like you said, the Treasury Secretaries out there on the Sunday shows, they got Graham out there, they have Pete Hegseth doing his briefings. They're all selling the war. Like, You know, is the White House really sending their best? Where's Marco? Where's JD? No, I mean, I do think Scott Bessent is out there purely to talk to the markets because they were freaking out. And it's just like his lack of answers is just a sign of how poorly they plan on. Like, I read over the weekend that the strategic petroleum reserve was only 60% full at the start of the war. Like, they clearly all thought this was going to be quick and over by now. But I heard from somebody over the weekend that Trump is basically the only one who likes Pete Hegseth anymore. And everyone else thinks he's a clown and an idiot and that he sucks on TV and that he's doing badly at the job. So they're like happy to throw him to the wolves. That's awesome. And have him just kind of own this policy. And it sounds like Trump's kind of there too, right? You heard him Monday of the policy. He was like, Pete, you're the one who told me to do this war. Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up. And you said, let's do it. That's right. As Pete was sitting next to him in Tennessee today at an event. I have to say, that's actually to me the most revealing and chilling thing I've learned in quite some time about the way this decision was made because.

So they're the first person to chime in to say we should do this is Pete Hegseth. And we were off to the races from there. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're counting like U.S. officials, I'm sure it would be. I think we got B.B. Well, probably inside the administration is Pete Hegseth. And then you got Lindsey Graham. And then you got Benjamin Netanyahu. It seems like those are the big warmongers. I think over the course of the first four years and then the first, you know, 100 days of the Trump administration 2.0, a lot of people try to talk Trump into going to war with Iran and he waved them off or he got waived off it. And then he saw the Midnight Hammer operation and then he saw Venezuela and was like, we're invincible. We can do anything. And here we are. And so, look, I've watched all these Hegsuff briefings like, he's actively harmful. He's like, he's like reading war crime limericks. And then poor Dan Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is like, let me like try to be a fucking adult here. Admiral Cooper from the CENTCOM is pretty good. But Marco Rubio and JD Vance are in like witness protection. Like, remember Marco Rubio after Venezuela? He did Meet the Press. He was doing press conferences. He was everywhere. Have you guys seen him on TV? No, he popped up to say, Israel made us do it. And then we haven't heard from him since. And then JD Vance just sort of runs around trying to talk about anything else. And then when anyone asked him about the war, he was like, I'd go to jail if I told you about the classified info, the advice that I gave the president about this war. There is one more person I saw reported over the weekend that convinced Trump this was a good idea. Rupert Murdoch. Bloomberg reported tracks with what's on Fox. Yeah, it totally tracks that you've got Benjamin Netanyahu, Murdoch, Lindsey Graham, and Pete Hegseth. That seems like the right crew for this. Speaking of Anson Marco Rubio, this is sort of a non-sequitur, but I just thought you guys would like this. You see the St. Anselm poll from New Hampshire that just came out. They started doing 28 primaries on the Republican side. So they did their last one in October. Since then, JD Vance is at 46, but he's down 11 from October. Faves? No, no, this is the horse race on the Republican side. 46? 46%. He's down 11 because you know who is at 27. Marco Rubio up 18 points. That makes me happy. And then Ron DeSantis is at 5. Fight it out, boy. Ron DeSantis. Down two from the October poll, and everyone else is in single digits. But that is interesting that the JD Vance and Marco Rubio have switched a little bit. Trump also said on Monday he still wants Congress to send him another $200 billion of our tax dollars to fund this war. We've talked about why this should be an easy no vote for Democrats. Now it seems like some Republicans are also balking at the price tag. Senator John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he won't vote for any amount of funding until Congress holds hearings on the war. Thom Tillis said that a $200 billion request would need to pass the Senate with 60 votes. And over in the House, Lauren Boebert said last week, she's already... already a no on any additional war funding. So Trump and, you know, various pundits keep saying that Republican voters are fully behind this war. You think these Republicans in Congress are finally reading some of the same polling we are? I just, I was struck by the broker statement because she said, I will not vote for a war supplemental. No, I am a no. I have already told leadership, I am a no on any war supplementals. I am so tired of spending money elsewhere. I'm tired of the industrial war complex, getting all of our hard on tax dollars.

And I was like seeing that. I was like, wow, that is better than a lot of Democrats have been able to come out with and say clearly that there are no one any supplementists. All these Democrats seem to be playing. Got a hand it to her. Got it. But all these Democrats that are talking themselves into believing that this is a nuanced situation or it's complicated or that you're not supporting the troops. Lauren Boebert managed to find her way to a statement that I agree with. I'm wondering why it's so hard for some of these other Democrats to do the same. But I didn't mean to take your question about Republicans and turn it to the Democrats, but it was what was on my mind. It sounded like authentic and emotional and real. It was a good answer. I mean, we just drop it in right here. I will not vote for a war supplemental. No, I am a no. I have already told leadership. I am a no on any war supplementals. I am so tired of spending money elsewhere. I am tired of the industrial war complex getting all of our hard-earned tax dollars. I have folks in Colorado who can't. afford to live. We need America first policies right now. And that, I'm not doing that. But yeah, I mean, look, this funding request went from like a rumored possibility to Politico had a leak of 50 billion. Now it's up to 200 billion. And I was very worried from the very beginning, the Democrats have viewed this or that kind of like a rock war lens about supporting the troops. And you heard Jake Tapper literally say that, won't you be accused of not supporting the troops. But now we've gotten to the point where I think the war is going so badly, the number is so high that I think this is a political opportunity for Democrats and that we should not only loudly oppose it, but we should make it a big thing. Because voters do not want to spend. 200 billion to drop bombs on Iran. There was some recent polling about funding. 56% of voters oppose more funding for the war. 41% strongly opposed versus only 15% who strongly support. 61% of independents oppose more funding. And then CBS in their poll, like 60% disapprove for the Iran war, 67% of Americans say we should not be willing to pay more for gas during the Iran war. So like people are not feeling the time for collective sacrifice message. Also, that CBS poll, like, you know, they had recently polled on March 3rd, so just a couple weeks ago, war approval was 44-56 then, now it's 40-60. Also, it mirrors Trump's approval and disapproval now. Trump's drop approval, and that poll was 40, disapproval of 60. The argument just also released a poll as well that has very similar numbers to the CBS poll and all the other polls, but they also did a generic ballot test for the midterm, and they have Democrats leading 54-46, and if you do probably. definitely vote, likely voters, 55, 45, that's 10 points. That would be larger than the vote in 2018. The Pentagon budget's already over a trillion dollars. Stories recently about at the end of the last fiscal year, they were racing to spend what money they had because there was more than they knew what to do with, including buying grand pianos and Herman Miller chairs for people. You also have Sean Duffy out there. We're going to talk about what's happening at security at the airports. He had a collision at LaGuardia of FAA problems all across the country. Got Sean Duffy walking around begging for another $20 billion to pick the FAA to modernize air traffic control recruit enough air traffic controls. We can't get that money through Congress, but Trump's going to get $200 billion to pay for his war, basically to legalize it and authorize it after the fact of what are we doing here?

Yeah, they're already, I was thinking they would do this last week, and I think Scott Bessent started it over the weekend. And then Trump today was talking about it too, which is like, oh, you know, we need the $200 billion to sort of backfill for all the munitions that we've already used and for future threats. And we always need the money for our defense. And they're going to try to decouple this $200 billion war funding request from the war that they're asking for. The idea that this several weeks requires. A basically upping the Pentagon budget by 20%. It's outrageous. It's outrageous. Yeah. And the thing you mentioned a minute ago that... The administration will try to argue that this funding request vote is de facto congressional authorization of the war. And everyone should just know that that is how your vote will be viewed by history. You will be like all these Democrats after 2004 or 2003 trying to explain how, oh, actually, we just voted to authorize George W. Bush to go to the UN to put more pressure on the Iraq. No, you will be seen as voting for the war and for the funding. fucking vote against it. I will say, hearing Lauren Boebert say that, knowing that there are other Republicans who are going to be nose on this, like, I now feel more confident that Democrats are going to vote the right way, even if some of them at the very beginning of this process, we're thinking of maybe supporting it. Like, I don't know. I mean, explaining your vote is tough enough for, like, a $200 billion war funding request for a war that's not going well that no one asked for. But, like, supporting that when Lauren Boebert voted no and a couple other Republicans, like, you know, I just don't see it. I hope so.

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If you're traveling in America anytime soon, here are a few fun developments you should probably be aware of. One, flights are much more expensive because the war in Iran has spiked fuel prices to obscene levels. So your ticket's going to cost a lot more. Number two, you might end up waiting in the airport security line for more than four hours because Trump is now refusing to pay TSA agents unless Congress passes a bill that would require showing a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. And three, while waiting in that security line, you may see armed ICE agents in full tactical gear milling about the airport, looking for something to do or someone to arrest. This last stroke of genius came from the president himself who couldn't stop bragging about it to reporters on Monday. What was I do was it? Mine. That was mine. That was mine. That was like the paperclip. You know the story of the paperclip? 182 years ago, a man discovered the paper clip. It was so simple. And everybody that looked at it, say, why didn't I think of that? Ice was my idea. They're able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country. That's very fertile territory. Now, you know, I'm a big believer that they should be able to wear a mask when they go and hunt down, you know, murderous criminals and others. For purposes of the airport, I've requested that they take off the mask. I don't like it for the airport. We wear masks, not at the airport, but they need to do it when they're out in the country. The people coming into the airport typically speaking aren't murderers, killers, drug dealers, etc. There may be a few of them, but there are many. But they are coming in illegally because that is the easiest way for people to come in illegally to the country is to just book a plane ticket, show up at the airport. Well, I think he is, in his brain in there is some sort of a fact about how this one criticism of his border policy is that a lot of people who come in through the country illegal are people who overstay their visas after coming through flying it legally. Right, right. You have to stay a while. Skipping the overstaying part. No, I'm not, I'm not saying it's a smart point that he's making. So back story here is that Democrats have been trying to fully fund TSA and all non-immigration parts of DHS for a week now, over a week now. Senate Republicans initially said no. They were blocking these bills. But then over the weekend, John Thune reportedly called Trump and said, you know, Republicans are ready to join Democrats and, like, funding everything except for ICE. And then John Thune said maybe that just Republicans would try to fund ICE with, like, a party line reconciliation vote or something. You know, let's end this crisis. The airport lines are getting along, whatever. Trump says no to John Thune. He says that he will keep TSA and all of DHS closed unless Democrats pass the Save Act and that he's deploying ICE agents to the airports. This seems like both a terrible idea and terrible politics. What do you guys think? Did you guys hear the, the CNN report on the backstory of the Ice agents thing? Apparently it was literally a random woman, a radio caller named Linda from Arizona, which the idea to Clay Travis on his radio show Friday. Then Clay went on Fox News to talk about it. Trump must have seen that because he then announced his plan the next day.

So that's inventing the paperclip. And now, and now we have ICE agents just milling about the airport. The lines today are still just as long as they were. Why? Because they're not trained to be TSA agents. And so they're just walking. You see these AP photos of them just like sitting there looking with like nothing to do. Yeah, they're just there preventing the floors from flying up and hitting the ceilings. This is sort of like we're at this place where, oh, no, no, no, don't do that. It's too stupid. That's too stupid of a thing to think would help. They're not trained. They're not going to be able to do anything at the airport. They don't know how to use the machines. They haven't taken the training to scan what's in the documents. They don't even know how to read do the ID machine. Those machines seem complicated to me. They probably have to learn something for a while. They're just going to end up standing there. So we shouldn't do that. That's too stupid. But nobody is going to tell this guy now. No, it's like, oh, great idea, sir. Great idea, Mr. President. They're on their way. You say it Sunday. We'll have them out, we'll have them out there at the airports by Monday. Doing what? It doesn't matter. It's what you wanted, and it's an image of the ice agents there. And that's cool. You're doing something. It's to own the lips, basically. Trump said it drives Democrats. Crazy. That's what James Comer said, Republican in the House on the Sunday shows, too. This is like a line that we're hearing now that it's driving the Democrats crazy, having the ICE agents there. Rather they'd be in airports than like terrorizing communities. It's like, there's not going to be no harm, but like it. Yeah, no. So it's like, let's get them doing all kinds of tasks unrelated to their duties, road clean up, whatever you want. So Democrats have been demanding to take ice agents off the streets and to take their masks off. And that's what you did. It's like, dude, we're getting. Starbucks at LaGuardia now? Like, okay. Do a donut run for the TSA guys. Like, I have a great. Like, stand there. Fucking, what are we doing here? The other, like, we're in this, like, purely symbolic fight, too. Because, like, what was, before Trump added on top of it, and we got to do Save Act, and the trans people can't do sports if I'm not going to reopen the government? What was happening? Mutalization. What was actually happening? The, the DHS was shut down. Right. But the reason Trump can deploy ICE is because ICE has this other pool of funding, a $75 to $80 billion pool of funding that they're just going to run off of, right? So this is a symbolic effort to say we're not sending any more money to ICE. That's why the government's shutting down. Then the negotiations are we'll open everything up, but ICE, right? Even that will have no impact actually on ICE. Democrats came out in favor of that. Trump doesn't want to do that. He wants to add all these things on top of it. Ironically, right? any resolution that would have a positive impact on what ICE is able to do or not to would be the result of even more concessions on both sides over a negotiation of actually funding ICE. The only way to actually limit what ICE will do in the next few years is through a negotiation that's not about not funding ICE, that's actually about getting to funding ICE, which is so far from where we're at right now because we're having this sort of purely symbolic. a conversation about ice in the airports and whether or not will let TSA agents get paid. Well, now it's just, I mean, now Trump has just decided to own the whole thing. He's just decided to torpedo any chance of blaming anything on Democrats because he's like, you know, John Thune. Ted Cruz was out there saying he would just fund TSA. Like I love to travel. Exactly. Ted Cruz out there. And then, and then Trump's like, no, you got to pass the safe act, which the Republicans, John Thune in response told a reporter, it's just not real. He's like, look, we all like.

like the SAVE Act, because they're all supposed to say that, even though some of them probably don't want to pass the SAVE Act, because, again, it would probably prevent a lot of Republican voters from registering to vote. But he said it's not realistic to tie the SAVE Act to this funding battle. And you actually see a couple, like I saw one of the Ohio senators say this. Ted Cruz is saying it. So, like, I'm actually surprised pleasantly so that some Republicans are like, okay, this idea from Trump, a little crazy. But I don't know. I don't know if it goes anywhere. I just keep thinking back to the Politico story from January about how Donald Trump's going to travel the country weekly ahead of the midterms doubting fordability message. Now we're like debating whether or not like we're going to co-own the Strait of Hormuz with the Iranians and have ice agents in the airport. It's like 500 extra dollars to fly to Cincinnati and you're going to wait for three hours at the airport. Welcome to the Golden Age. Did you guys watch the Tennessee thing today, the Tennessee event he did? Just the beginning. It was like a cabinet meeting in that, like, there were all these staffers just kind of doing the ritualistic dick sucking. And, like, at one point, I forget who it was. It was Stephen Miller, like, really went to town. And Trump was like, well, I don't know if you can top that cash. And then Kash Patel was up. And he did his little, you know, glazing session. It was just terrible. Trump said that. Tommy refers an ad hoc blow job. Supposed to the more ritualistic and official time. He likes it off the books blowjob. It's a ritual. That's the whole deal. Trump also said that the Senate should kill the filibuster to pass the Save Act. They should cancel their Easter recess if necessary because this one's for Jesus to pass the Safe Act. Have you heard the good news? This one's for Jesus. Pass the Sayback. Did he actually say this one's for Jesus? Yeah, he said, do it for Jesus. Do it for Jesus. Do it for Jesus. Mm-hmm. Jesus would want you to present your passport or birth certificate to your local election office in order to register to vote by these midterms, which is, again, is something that would probably disenfranchise, not just Democratic voters, but plenty of Republican voters, which is probably why most Republicans in Congress don't really care that much about passing it. So that's where we are. I don't know how, Trump's just going to have to back down on this one because there's going to be pressure at the airports. The lines are going to be crazy. He doesn't have this Republicans in the Senate with him. I think he caves. Like, he'll find a way to, like, look, like. IRGC guys are doing TSA security work in the next quarter. Yeah, look, I was talking to the Ayatollah. They got some great ideas for what we can do to get these airports running more smoothly. Jesus. There's some security guys. They can loan us. Unfucking believable. Well. Rainier revolutionary guy. And honestly, I think we'd all make sure there's no liquids in our backpacks. Yeah, I would do what they said. I would not. Oh, yeah. The welcome message goes from Kristi Noem at the airports to the speaker of the Iranian parliament. Yeah. Hot option. Funded or not, speaking of DHS, appears that they're going to have a new secretary in place shortly. Rand Paul's the only Republican voting against Markwayne Mullin. And two Democrats are voting for him. We talked about John Fetterman voting yes. And as of Sunday, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said he's voting yes. He said Mullen is a friend and will stand up to bullying by Stephen Miller. Heinrich also noted that in Mullen's confirmation hearing, he, quote, recognized the necessity of judicial warrants, which also supports reporting from the New York Times over the weekend that before his nomination, Mullen had been working behind the scenes with Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer to hash out a compromise on reopening DHS that included requiring judicial warrants in most cases.

I wonder what you guys make of Mullen's relatively easy path to confirmation. Not just the yes-hotes from John Fetterman and Heinrich, but just not a lot of intense opposition from the Democrats. Seems to be based partly on a belief that DHS will be slightly less chaotic and more humane under Mullen's leadership than it was under Kristi Noem and Lewandowski. What do you guys think? Yeah, the Heinrich statement has a real kind of bros before hose energy to it. So you got to assume. Right, Mullen's getting through with Republican votes because Rand Paul was the only no. His vote mattered on the committee. John Fetterman helped him get out of the committee, but he would have had the votes to get through. So I suppose the argument would be giving him a yes creates a relationship in which you have kind of. a better opportunity to put pressure on and have to have real conversations with someone you worked with closely but that also i think works so well with Marco Rubio i was about to say it depends on um sort of ignoring what the actual reality is of the trump administration and what happens once people are are in there and the pressure they're under because whatever relationship you had before they become no matter what they're saying behind the scenes beholden to Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, the inability to be publicly critical of them, the inability to defy them, and all the consequences after that. And so you have people that have expressed their regrets about voting for Gnome. And you have people that have expressed their regrets about voting for Marco Rubio, yet not learning that lesson from their colleagues when they decide they're going to vote for this guy. So I think it's, I think not holding the line against these people is always something people regret. Yeah. The consensus is that Kristi Noem was a disaster. And I think there's kind of been anybody but her. vibe, even with Republicans. Also, senators tend to kind of coast through in these settings. So we'll see. I mean, I do think it's part policy, part personal. He does, Markwayne Mullin and Mullen does sound like he was genuinely willing to be more moderate than the Trump administration on judicial warrants. And also, it sounds like he has some genuinely good relationships, which is surprising because he did try to beat up a guy from the Teamsters at a hearing one time. But now that guy from the Teamsters is sitting behind him. at his confirmation hearing because they're boys. Also, you knew who else was there, Josh Gottheimer? Yeah. Democrat from New Jersey. And so, like, this sounds ridiculous, but he runs a popular workout group for members of Congress and senators. Yeah. He's like, he's teaching a Pilates class. I've heard members talk about this and that it's really good. Exhale through the dry phase. That's a reference. That's a. Don't even worry about it. Just for the three of us. Literally, no one else. That's right. Christy W. And so there's some personal politics here. You're right, though. He's spotted them. Yeah, he's going to be a disaster. Yeah, he's going to be a disaster, but he's spotted them. He's helped them really kind of crush their lats and their delts. It's not even like, it's not even a personality thing why he could be a, like when he's a DHS, there's, one way to lose his job, and it's by pissing off Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. And the senators can't hurt him anymore once he's at DHS. Right now, they can. They can cost him the nomination, right? But once he gets there, it doesn't really matter. But look, I think if you wanted to make a...

The better argument for why you don't put up a fight is you can only fight so many things. He has the Republican votes anyway. And so like, what are you going to do? You're going to do. It seemed impossible to strike down this nomination. I do think what you can do, the more important thing is in these negotiations to reopen DHS and as Mullen's getting confirmed, you try to codify the rules about a judicial warrant or all this other stuff, which is the reason that the Democrats tried to use DHS funding as leverage in the first place. As you mentioned, and now we've come so far afield that we've got ice agents running around the airports. Speaking of Lewandowski, Dan and I briefly mentioned the NBC story about him openly demanding bribes from a private prison company. On Saturday, the Times also published a big investigation into Lewandowski's time at the department that is just full of enraging details. On Monday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the bribery allegations. What do you guys think? Good use of time and energy if Dems get the House back. Yes. It's a shocking, like brazen corruption scheme where people are either obliquely or directly suggesting that if you want a government contract, Corey Lewandowski has to get his bequette. They all deny it, but they have a lot of sources, including sources at the White House that are validating this story. I don't remember if it was NBC or in the Times, but I thought one telling point was. People inside the White House or inside the administration considering whether or not to do an investigation or take some kind of action are worried that if they do, Trump will publicly come out in defense of Lewandowski. This was my concern that I expressed on Friday's pod. It's crazy. You know, I was like, maybe let's not talk about it until after Trump leaves office, if we're going to go after Lewandowski. Everyone should just quiet down until he can't pardon him anymore. Right. The pardons loom over the whole thing. And then there's the fact that. Lewandowski seemed to be getting the presidential daily brief. That is absolutely nuts. That blew my mind. He's basically a volunteer government employee getting the PDB. He's not a full-time employee and he's getting the PDB and he's holding meetings in Kristi Noem's office when she's not around. In other places. Doing a lot of things in her office. Once she's around. I think go after him. Like, whether or not we're able to prosecute this guy, I don't know. Maybe there'll be a state charge we can go after it. But like, put a fucking head on the pike, man. Like, do some oversight. Try to scare some other people out of doing this shit. Because, like, we've talked about a lot of newfangled corruption here. There's the Amiradi's buying your barely existing, you know, crypto company or like selling some Melania shit coin to somebody for. The market. The Qataris giving you a jet? The jet. Didn't get the return on that investment. No. No, they did not. They could have used that jet to evacuate. Here was a jet. Make sure everything goes our way. Yeah. Heads up by the way. Yeah. Hope it's bulletproof. Yeah. We'll send up, we'll send you some, we'll send some cock over to fix the fucking Rosewood Qatar. Can we get a fucking refund on that now? I got some good guys for countertops to fix the Fairmont. Unbelievable. The Lewandowski stuff is just, it's such old school corruption. Like, I need a kickback. I need to be a special advisor on the contract for this. Like, fuck that. You know when Trump White House officials are going on background to NBC and being like, this was brazen and crazy. We didn't like that. For sure. And even Trump is apparently annoyed with Lewandeski. Yes. Which maybe he won't give him the part. That's why. It's like, let's not assume he's going to pardon everybody. Like maybe he will, maybe he won't, but like make him do it. Oh, yeah. I don't why. I think you're right. Like,

If he does pardon him, he pardons him, but we have to live. That's a concession to him before we've even begun. You got to go into it. Get the documents. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp, whether you're dealing with anxiety, depression, conflict, and relationships, or simply need an impartial third party to help you deal with daily stress. Better help is there to connect you with the support you need. I want my third parties partial. That's what I prefer. I don't have them just judging me. Yeah, I actually think. Objective standard. I think the ideal therapist is partial. That's part of what it is. Partial to you. Yeah, they're helpful. Yeah, they're on your side. That's what you're paying them for. Yeah. Better help therapist work according to a strict code of conduct, fully licensed in the U.S. Better help does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and then 12 plus years of experience at industry leading match. Filment rate means they typically get it right the first time if you aren't happy with your match. Switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored wrecks. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com.com.com.com.

They want someone to blame. So you blame the leaders we have, but that doesn't necessarily take into account their actual capacity to stop Donald Trump when he has a trifecta. Could someone do more with the same cards? I don't know. To me, this boils down to one question, which is like, I do not expect. anyone to oust Chuck Schumer between now and November, nor do I think ousting Chuck Schumer between now and November would lead to any kind of appreciable difference in any of the outcomes for Democrats. I do think, and I remember having this conversation with Dan on some pod probably many times, like if, you know, if the Democrats don't take back the Senate, then you almost expect Democrats to have a new leader, right? Between 26 and 28. But he was like, Dan said, oh, but if we win, if Democrats somehow win the Senate, then maybe, like, Chuck Schumer stays on and his majority leader one last time until he potentially retires in 28 or something else. That, I think, is worth a serious conversation about even if Senate Democrats, even if Democrats win the Senate, is Chuck Schumer really the guy that you want to be leader between. the midterms and the presidential because like I think that is a perfect time for a new leader and you don't have to and you don't have to go back and you know, debate whether you could have had this outcome or that outcome based on the various shutdown things and all that. All you have to say is like, look, we are heading towards 28 is the most important thing to elect a Democratic president. We need our best messengers out there as leaders. And Chuck Schumer is getting up there. And do we really need two more years, let alone six more years of Chuck Schumer as Democratic leader at that point? Yeah, I think it's like a no-brainer. We do not want to go into. the most important presidential election since the last one with right a leader that represents like we we need to be representing change he will not represent change ironically though i think it's Democratic Senate candidates in at least 13 states have either come out against Chuck Schumer or refused to endorse Chuck Schumer. The more successful we are in these midterms, the more people that will be in the Senate that have either explicitly said they will not support or even under pressure knowing that they want Chuck Schumer support, people like Tel Rico, have refused to say they would endorse him. Now, I think at a certain point, you want people that are willing to say, no, I'm not going to be for Chuck Schumer. We need somebody different just because that's the kind of like, I don't know, want people that are. already worrying about how to kind of keep everybody on side. But at the very least, he has a huge problem in success or failure. And look, I think the complaints about the recruitment, you know, goes both ways. Like I think Chuck Schumer getting Roy Cooper to run in North Carolina when maybe he didn't want to at first was like a big win, getting Mary Peltola in Alaska to run. Great. Now, if he wanted to recruit.

Haley Stevens in Michigan and Janet Mills in Maine. Like that's fine. It's not the recruitment necessarily. It's the putting your thumb on the scales, which he may not be explicitly, but kind of is. Certainly for Mills he is. Janet Mills, like, yeah, I think actually recruiting Janet Mills is great and a coup for him and credit to him. But yeah, they formed a joint fundraising committee with the DSCC. And Haley Stevens is similar. Like, I think. There's a lot of good candidates in that field. It is not clear to me that she is the strongest candidate by any means, but I'm almost positive that there have been like DSCC or party events and fundraisers that have included her or her campaign. And you just have to wonder why. And I will say that this is not, I mean, Chuck Schumer gets a lot of the blame for this, but, you know, you wait into the online wars. And there's a lot of democratic strategists out there who just, who are just assuming. assuming that Mills and Stevens are the most electable candidates and the strongest candidates in those races. And it's like not even a question to them. And I'm like, really? Are you that sure? Yeah, and that's my take. Like everyone's going to be like, oh, you guys are, you know, endorsing Graham Platner. No, like we're saying let the voters of Maine vote. Let people in Michigan vote. That will help us determine who the strongest candidate is. If you can't win the primary, you're probably not the strongest candidate. Have just have a just a dose of humility after you've worked on several of the presidential campaigns over. the last decade that haven't come up a little short is what i would say speaking of giving a democratic leadership a glow up uh lauren egan at the bulwark is out with a piece headlined thirst traps over think tanks dems want hotter candidates on the ballot uh she has a bunch of democrats musing to her about how we need more uh lookers i didn't have We need hotter candidates like Jon Ossoff and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the ballot. Tommy, you recently referred to Assoff as a piece of ass on the show. Agree with Lauren? I stand by that. I say it again. He's a piece of ass. Look, the man's way taller in person than I expected. He's got a jaw line that you could use as a ruler. Great hair. Great demeanor. Great hair. Uh-huh. Legs that go all the way up. Legs that go all the way up. Is the key to winning, quote, run more hot people like the article says? Maybe. Like, counterpoint. Donald Trump. I know, I know. Not hot. Not hot. I think we, look, I think there's a big space between someone between, say, a Hollywood 10 and a Delaware 86. You know what I'm saying? And. The problem, right, like, there's like... Talk about Dan like that. There's a strange, like, there's a strange, like, like the way like hotness and ideology, like there are, like the, the, like, the, like, Bernie, beloved figure, right? I'd say he's, look, you know. I don't think you would call it traditionally hot, you know, right now. Where he's at now, maybe he's a young man. He's so handsome. He's handsome. Yeah, you've seen some of those pictures. He's handsome. He's handsome. He's handsome. He's handsome. He's traditionally considered to be good looking, one would say. I don't find him particularly. He's hot to me. I think it's like one asset out of many, right? Like you can clearly, you can win the presidency without being hot.

donald trump but i do think because you because he's so fucking charming you know i think law insights in her piece there's like political science around this that attract them just does help candidates yeah You know who is hot, Saddam Hussein. Look at Google Young Saddam. He could get it. Castro, famously hot. Yeah. So you got, it can help you get. As is his son in Canada. Elected. Oh, yeah. Or now with Katie Perry. Take the coup. But maybe you're a bad leader. There is some truth to this, right? I mean, like, how many times have you had friends in your life or just normies who would be like, oh yeah, Gavin Newsom? He's the good-looking one or whatever. Many have said that about Gavin Newsom. Rock Obama clearly benefited from being perceived as young and good-looking and cool, and that was part of the appeal, Bill Clinton as well. Jon Ossoff has clearly has had a glow-up. No doubt of the last several years. It is funny that no one in the story would go on the record saying that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is hot. There's a sort of a reverse gender thing. People are so worried about it. Clearly, she's beautiful. And I don't know why it's like weird for people to say that. It's just a compliment. I get the people don't want to like objectify her and there's gender there. But like she's beautiful. I'll objectify Jon Ossoff and I have no problem. What does that say about me? Right. I think it's sort of in the context of our conversation. But I think if you don't know what the article is and someone's like, uh, talk about, hey, I'm a journalist from the bulwark. Talk about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's appearance. Oh, no, thank you. Let me know how the piece goes. That is a really funny press called again. Yeah, we could talk about it here because we're giving ourselves the context of saying all the guys are hot. Until it's clipped. The guys are. All the guys are just, look at all these eminally fuckable guys. Bernie's best ass, how did you feel sitting across from Josh Shapiro? What? Look, I'll just say, you know, I asked him about this. I think there's a lot of Jewish mothers that would love to have their daughters bring home a guy like Josh, handsome. knows how to dribble a basketball. Does he? Yeah. Okay. Did you guys play hoops? You know, it's obviously. It came up in the book. It did not come up in the actual experience. Okay. It would be in the interview, though. When I was on the fourth grade basketball team, I didn't have the arm strength. I could get the ball high enough to hit the hoop. I can obviously pitch you forward, but I couldn't get that parabola going. Right. Probably because you were thinking you needed to get a parabola going. And that's our March Madness coverage. Did you guys see that, J.B. Pritzker?

spoke at the gridiron dinner. And he's on the shot. I got it. Do you hear his joke? That he puts the gov and we govi. Yeah, he puts the gov and we govi. Good for him. Good for him. Here's the thing. Every time I read an article about the gridiron and it's like, and then the journalist did something, something set to the something from Chicago. I'm like, how is this a thing that still exists in the world? The sketches part of that event is insane. It's crazy. A bunch of journalists get together with. politicians and they make up skits and songs and they perform them it's like what the fuck is happening it's white tie What is white tie even? It just means tails, I guess, right? What is tails? It's the most. I've never. It's a longer coat with tails. Never. You're supposed to technically, you're supposed to have a different kind of shoe. You can't just have a hat. You would have to. You would have to. You would have to. You would have to. You would have to. You would have to. You would have to. You would have to drug me to go to that event. People, yeah, you just, you just, you'd have to mediro me. How did I get here? Delta force guys kicked down your door and all of a sudden here. Here, put this on. Yeah, watching. You're fucking John's a hot tide. You're going to watch Lynn Sweet sing. Worse of all, we're a pro-Linsweet podcast. Everyone loves Linsweet. She's just the first person who came to mind. The gridiron queen. A lot of these traditions began before television. Yeah. And it used to be at night. It just got dark in your house. And maybe you'd read a book. And so people went out more. Yeah. You know? The grid iron. Okay. I'm going to get yelled at this point. My segue to this next section was ruined by our conversation. So I'm just going to say, on the subject of the midterms. Great. Perfect. If, hey, if we can't find hot candidates, this is not to say that we don't have plenty of hot candidates running in the midterms. It's a good time to remind everyone about Project 218, which is Vote Save America's big push to help take the house back. Again, with candidates who are hot, not hot, anywhere in between. To recap, we're asking you to get five people you know to sign up for VSA so that they can get the best info about how to make the biggest difference. We've had more than 3,000 signups so far, but we need more. Head to Votesaveamerica.com to learn more. And while you're at it, one more plug here. Do you know the next No Kings Day is this Saturday, March 28th? There are thousands of events to attend, and as we've seen, it's very, very important to show up and be counted and be heard. So head to no kings.org to find an event near you, make a plan to go, bring friends, post some pictures, send some pictures. I told you so. That'll be a sign. We'll see some of that. I have told you. Regime change begins at home. If you've kept your sign from 2004, about Bush and the Iraq war. You can dust it off and bring regime change begins at home. I think I still think it's like a bumper sticker, I think, that my in-laws have it. It's a sad.

But very true statement. Yeah, it's been around for a long time. All right, one last thing before we get to love its conversation with Leah. We got to talk about Donald Trump dancing on Robert Mueller's grave. We do. After the news on Saturday that the former FBI director and special counsel died at 81 after a fight with Parkinson's disease, Trump and his White House posted the following statement. Good. I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people. Incredibly, that wasn't the only depraved comment Trump made involving death in one of his perceived enemies. When he was asked Monday morning about the resignation of his former counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent, the president said, quote, I'm not a fan of the guy. His wife was killed. He remarried fairly quickly. I feel like Trump might not be a good person. What do you think? Have we all just grown numb to this now? Just real quick, Joe Kent's wife was killed while serving the U.S. military in Syria by a suicide bomber. So that's the context in which he made that comment. Got married too quickly, just like he said that about Thomas Massie. This is from a guy who would bring a date to Melania's funeral. Oh, yeah. Gladly. Yeah, for sure. 100%. Yeah. Walker by the golf course grave of his previous wife. That's where I put that one. I saw Trump's comment, and I was like, my first reaction was, you know, Bob Mueller died, and now, like, all of the stories about his death have to include the President of the United States issuing this jackass fucking comments. So his family and friends have to all deal with that. Remember two, and now everyone's going to do, like, the Charlie, of course, we all lived through the Charlie Kirk thing, and JD Vance just told people to fire, you know, people who worked for them and who, you know, said, celebrated Charlie Kirk's death. And, you know, there was a whole government-wide effort to hunt down people and cost them their jobs over potentially celebrating or not grieving properly for Charlie Kirk. And now we're doing this again. Yeah. And I feel like it's actually been quite helpful to be consistent through all of this, which is not celebrating any deaths. Right. And, and by the way, like, not. not celebrating death is not an act of civility. I'm not saying I feel happy when my enemies die, but I pretend not to as a means of projecting the morals I think we should have. I'm not judging people for what they're actually feeling. What I'm my feeling, what I see when people kind of celebrate someone's death is actually like when someone dies. And they did bad things. I'm not talking about people that are actively in the midst of doing horrible things. Their death relieves people of pain and abuse and tyrants, whatever. But like to celebrate someone you not like dying is to act as if... Dying is a kind of justice, that they're getting justice. But that can't be true because everybody dies. And what you're really doing, when you celebrate the death of your enemies, you're actually just avoiding facing the injustice that happened when they were alive. You're coping with the fact that you don't believe they faced what they deserved when they walked among the living. And so, like, I think about what happens when Donald Trump will inevitably die. And there will be a crazy debate befitting Donald Trump in which our whole country is sort of...

caught up in this very kind of notion of it's okay that people are happy that he's dead and celebrating in the streets feel like that that bob muller tweet from trump will be back on the rotation when this happens but but the truth is i think a lot of what will people will be feeling that kind of like will be a kind of a a grief about all the damage that was done and our failure to stop it and to get justice when somebody was walking around. And so, like, to celebrate death is to act as if it won't come for all of us. And that's just bad for the soul and it's bad for the world. And so I just want no part of it, whoever dies. That's my take on this. And they might express that feeling with, like, a party hat and one of those like, you know, but like, that's what they're thinking. Yeah, I'm not, look, I'm not going to say, They're going to go out. Look, look, you've been consistent on this. Like, you took a day off when the Ayatollah was killed. You didn't come in that day. And I think that's, you know, that's commendable. Yeah, look, I. You were grieving. I laid, yeah, I'm stopping myself. I'm stopping. You see those tweets go through and you're just like, We just know the cycle. We're all going to go. I know. It's so exhausting. It's like, it's exhausting. He, you know what? I'm at this point where I'm like, say what you want to say, I guess. Like, he's the biggest, he's the worst person in the world. He happens to be our president. He's dancing on the grave of like a purple heart winning, you know, American citizen who served as FBI director. That's self-evidently terrible. You know, the hypocrisy is exhausting. Like, you know, Fox News did a month of coverage of Charlie Kirk insults. And yet Fox, as far as I can tell, like did not air a single story about Donald Trump's tweet. And then, you know, the Daily Wire today, unironically had up a story with the headline Red Hen Deja Vu. Sarah Bernie Sanders kicked out of Arkansas restaurant flipped off by staff. For those who weren't as terminally online as we are, in 2018, a restaurant called a Red Hen. asked Sarah Mike Huckabee Bernie Sanders to leave the restaurant because there were a bunch of, I think, LGBT employees who didn't want to serve her. And this became a huge thing, right? So, like, the civility, please come out whenever Democrats do anything to Republicans, and they're silent when Republicans do things to Democrats. And it's just, like, it's so exhausting and frustrating to even have to call out hypocrisy. And I just, I don't know. The thing that I thought was interesting about this one, and this is similar to one about Rob Reiner, is. It is so indefensible. So what you end up with is a lot of anger and outrage at Trump's direction and all these people deflecting. But I saw like Britt Hume said something, which was like, this is what makes people not just oppose Trump, but hate Trump. And I think that's true. It is true. But even that is kind of like, this is bad strategy. This is bad politics. And it's actually what this also does is prove all the people that oppose him and hate him, that they're right. And that really you've done something terrible by embracing someone so obviously morally unfit, so kind of broken in his soul. God, I've forgotten about the Rob Reiner thing. Jesus, there's so many examples like this. And it's also like it is, I think it is tempting for those people to be like, oh, he says things and he's an asshole. But like, no, no, no. The same thing in Trump that makes him post that about Bob Mueller or about Rob Reiner is the thing that makes him talk about war.

right now in Iran is like, we like sinking the ships. The Navy love, it's fun to sink the ships. And we'll bomb the more and it's funny and we're going to kill another one. And like when you, someone who devalues human life like Trump obviously does, who has the power that Trump has, who has his finger on the fucking button, yeah. That's it's all connected, guys. Can't separate it. How many of you have quoted Margaret Thatcher saying character is destiny? I stupidly internalize that. I've come to believe that there's truth in that. That character is destiny, that over time your character reveals something important about you and becomes what your life amounts to. I actually stupidly thought you agreed. Quoting the iron lady. For some reason, the thing that got me even angrier was, did you see Scott Bessent getting asked about it on Meet the Press? Oh, incredible. Oh, my God. Oh, he'll get so. He's, she, you know, Welker asked him about it, and he's like, well, I think people have to understand what Bob Mueller put Donald Trump through. I mean, and she's like, I'm sorry about what you agree with the statement. He's like, I think that people just need to. All he could say is he put through Trump a lot. Like, the fact that you're like a fucking grown man who had a real, like, and this is what you're reduced to sitting on meet the, press and like just dismissing this? The Trump administration made Bob Mueller the special counsel. You guys selected him. That is also true. It's just, you know, look, what Trump said about Bob Mueller, what he said about Joe Kent, it's sort of like equally despicable. And the common thread is those were people who opposed Donald Trump in some way. And Joe Kent. as of like five days ago was Donald Trump's employee. And just like, you know, it doesn't matter what Bob Mueller did to Donald Trump over the course of several years of an investigation. It's binary. It's like you're with me or you're against me. I got a little excited. Maybe I shouldn't, thinking about someone, some journalists sitting down with JD Vance and starting the question by reminding him of what he said after Charlie Kirk died and what he said about people who were celebrating and then asking him about Trump. And Bob Mueller and seeing what J.D. Van says. See how he gets out of this one. He'll just be a slippery prick. He'll start scolding. Yeah. This is what you want to talk about with everything else that's going on. It can't just be a shouted question because he'll just, you know, I want like a good sit down with someone where he's like stuck for 20 minutes with the interviewer. I like, it's just like you're right that it kind of needs almost like you. Maybe it does at this point need to be actually explained why rooting for people's death is bad. Maybe we do need collectively to actually talk about it. No, I'm with you. I think it's bad too. No, I know you do. Again, that's what, yeah, we were, we were all there for Charlie Kirk and we got plenty of shit. But it's almost like I actually want the conversation. I want someone to talk to JD Vance about like the worth of a human soul and like what happens after we die and what we root, like, what is the purpose of being alive and like who gets to be celebrated and what lives are worthy. It's just we're at like a kind of first principles thing because the President of the United States is a moral fucking monster. Yeah. Blah. A whole bunch of people are working for him. All right. When we come back from the break, strict scrutinies, Leah Littman.

Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. What's the latest trend in hiring? Skills-based hiring. which emphasizes capabilities over education and direct experience. Who needs education anymore? According to experts, this leads to faster hiring and better job performance. If you're an employer who's adopted skills-based hiring, the best way to ensure that your applicants have the right skills is ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter recommends smart screening questions to help you hone in on that perfect match for your role. And right now, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates fast. You can easily add ZipRecruiter's screening questions to your job post so you get the high... quality applicants. Want to see who's recently active? ZipRecruiter's filters can show you. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Let ZipRecruiter help you find amazing candidates with the skills you seek. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter, get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. That's ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Big transfer news today. Who's moving? Me. To the couch with Domino's best deal ever since they just added stuffed crust. Any pizza, any toppings now with stuffed crust for $9.99. It's a long-term contract with no release clause. Only $9.99? Yeah, that sounds like the move. I'm heading straight to Domino. Price is higher for some locations. Excludes Excel and specialty pizzas. Select this offer from 615 through 726. Online over. Size availability varies by crest height, max seven topics, six for hand in New York style crust. Minimum purchase required for delivery. Prices, delivery area and charges may vary. Joining me now to discuss today's Supreme Court hearing on mail-in voting is strict scrutiny's Leah Lipman. Leah, welcome back to the pot. Thanks for having me. So the Supreme Court heard oral arguments today for Watson v. R&C. It's an elections case where the Republican National Committee is arguing that federal law prohibits ballots received after Election Day from being counted, even if they're postmarked before or on Election Day. Can you tell us a bit about how this case reached the court and what the RNC is arguing? Sure. So the RNC brought this case challenging a Mississippi statute that allows the state to count ballots that are cast, i.e. postmarked, honor by election day, so long as they're received within five days of election day. A lower court trial judge said, get the fuck out of here, right? That argument is ludicrous. It would literally call into question, early voting, election law practices for the last 200 years, et cetera. And then the geniuses on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. three of Donald Trump's Court of Appeals appointees said, you know what? Actually, federal law does make it illegal to count absentee ballots that are received after election day. That theory would destabilize election laws in more than half the states, I think 29 some states. And so because their ruling had such sweeping implications, the Supreme Court basically had to take this case. And that's how it got up here. The argument is federal law that just said,

the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November is established as the day for the election. Their theory is that federal law makes it illegal for states to count ballots that are cast by election day but not received until a few days after. And part of this is grappling with whether or not that would also mean votes cast before election day would be counted. Also, it's not clear if election day is the day, if you can count votes, say, after midnight. If you turn into a gremlin, if you count votes after midnight. I mean, they are gremlins, so I think that's kind of non-unique, but sure. Now, are the officials in Mississippi defending this case not also Republicans? They are. And part of what is so striking is that you have the prospect that both the federal government and I think at least three justices, three Republican appointees, if not more, are more anti-voting rights than the state of Mississippi. That is the state of our union. So there was some dissensus between the conservative justices. What was the kind of arguments you were hearing from, say, Samuel Alito and Thomas versus what you were hearing from, say, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett? So Samuel Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch seemed to be totally magapilled, like their brains had just been marinating in Fox News and were regurgitating. anti-absentee ballot talking points. So Samuel Alito referred to, you know, the confidence you can have once you turn your ballot over to the Postal Service and whatnot. Honestly, Brett Kavanaugh sounded like he was more in that camp than in the middle. So he was throwing out concerns about... If the apparent winner the morning after the election ends up losing due to late arriving ballots, won't that undermine confidence? And shouldn't we fashion a rule based on that? Again, eating up the kind of talking points from the 2020 presidential election. And then you had justices Amy Coney Barrett and the chief saying some of that, but then also saying, well, Federal government, R&C, wouldn't your theory also call into question the ability of people to cast early ballots, early in-person voting? Wouldn't it also call into question why states can even continue to count ballots after election day, even if they were received on or before election day? Like, why does it have to be that receipt happens on or before election day, but nothing else has to happen then? Like, that's just nonsensical. So they seem to be the ones that are going to dictate the outcome in that case. And I will breathe a sigh of relief if they end up rejecting the federal government and the RNC's theory. But it is just so scary that we are living in a world where it is possible that the Supreme Court at the end of June is going to announce this decision that could again nullify voting laws and practices just a few months before the midterms in over half of the election and craft a rule that would have disenfranchised almost a million voters in the 2024 election.

Didn't Brett Kavanaugh, though, question whether doing that would be feasible? Didn't he raise some concerns about that? Or am I being too optimistic? Tell me. I think your interpretation is very generous. I think what Brett Kavanaugh was doing was tell me why I'm right. Tell me why this isn't a concern question because what he asked the lawyer for the RNC was, would there be a problem under the so-called Purcell principle if we announced this decision? for the upcoming midterms. The Purcell principle is this idea that the court has selectively invoked that suggests courts shouldn't change the rules too close to an election, lest they risk voter confusion and whatnot. But the advocate for the RNC said, no, no problem, right? Just like hand out this bad boy at the end of June and upend election rules for an election that's going to happen in November. No big deal. And Brett Kavanaugh didn't push back on that. And the reality is this court has really selectively invoked that principle. So it has invoked Purcell when courts try to protect voting rights. Basically, it's always too close to an election to do something that protects voting rights. But it's never too close to an election to do something that would help Republicans. You know, they allowed the 11th Circuit to change the voting rules in Florida almost a week. You know, before that state's primary, they have allowed, you know, other, you know, decisions to go into effect that, again, were likely to benefit Republicans, but not decisions that actually improved multiracial democracy or made it easier to cast a ballot. So it's hard for me to think that he's actually going to apply that principle in a more even-handed way. So I agree that when California takes forever to count ballots, and during that process, suddenly you go from a Republican winning to a Democrat winning. creates an impression that leads people to question whether things are fair, even if they are entirely fair. And there is no evidence to suggest they aren't fair. But presumably, it's a bad policy. It's a bad policy. But presumably the Supreme Court doesn't believe federal law should be made to assuage false concerns. They're trying to interpret what the law says. Are they suggesting that we've, that the elections we've been running have all been? a foul of federal election law? Or are they just ignoring this all together? John, you're sweet, sweet summer child. I'm a summer child. I'm going to spring out in Lola here. Okay. So yes, I mean, this theory would suggest that many elections over the last 200 years have been conducted in illegal ways. And, you know, you express surprise at the idea that they would. indulge the suggestion that these false claims or false notions of voter fraud could actually alter the election rules, when the reality is they've actually embraced that idea before. You know, in a decision from seven years ago about the Voting Rights Act, Samuel Alito, writing for all of the Republican appointees, said states have an interest. in protecting the appearance of legitimacy in an election, even if there's zero actual evidence of fraud. And that was the same idea that you had justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito reverting back to a bunch during this argument about absentee ballots. Well, isn't it fair for the state to basically adopt rules or the federal government to adopt rules in order to combat the appearance of impropriety, even again, if that's not rooted in reality?

You know, that's not how you usually interpret federal statutes. You know, under our constitutional system, states are supposed to be able to be the primary rule setters on elections. And they seemed willing to kind of abandon federalism, to abandon textualism, you know, in favor of something like what aboutism. Right. Well, because if the state has an interest in making their elections fair, it would. the state would be the one trying to protect their electoral interests. Perhaps one way they're trying to make sure the elections are fair is by allowing people to vote. Right. And that would be there. That would be, right, this is about usurping the state's prerogative to oversee the elections. But you basically, what you saw today leads you to think that this is right now on the edge, but there could be five votes to protect. the counting of absentee ballots and the fact that it's close is incredibly terrifying. That's what I heard. I think that's what other Supreme Court watchers also heard. And just to pick up on one thing you said, you know, of course the fact that states take so long to count ballots, that's not a good thing. But the reality is in validating these state rules that allow the counting of absentee ballots, that's not going to fix the problem because it still takes states a lot of time to count ballots that are. received on or before election day. You know, we need to be able to invest more resources in order to give states the ability to process the counting of ballots. You know, some states don't even allow officials to begin counting ballots until a certain point. And so this decision is not going to address all of the bogeyman and the fears they're trotting out. It is just straight up voter suppression. Speaking of straight up voter suppression, President's on a tear here. He's trying to get the Congress to pass the Save Act, a restrictive voter ID bill, to require Americans to provide proof of citizenship. At the moment, it seems unlikely that the bill can pass Congress. Even as of today, Trump was trying to... get some of the funding measures tied to the SAVE Act, trying to get everything altogether. The Senate leaders are throwing cold water on that because there aren't the votes to pass this. One part of the contention has been around what this would do to, I believe it's pronounced women. Women who are married. Now, on one side, they say, well, there are Democrats are spreading misinformation about this. On the other, it's truly not clear what happens to women whose birth certificates and legal name are not the same because they got married. What actually happens if this becomes law? What would be the odds that it would face a lot of legal hurdles to actually going into effect? Yeah, I mean, happy Women's History Month, ladies, you might not be able to vote very soon. But yes, so, you know, various provisions of the law require you to be able to present an identification, you know, that matches your name when you go to vote. And so.

Married women who change their names, you know, when they get married might have an identification where their birth certificate or their passport, you know, doesn't align with their married name. And so they would be prevented from voting under the SAVE Act. But it's not just married women. You know, a lot of people change their names for a variety of reasons. Same sex couples, you know, they change their names when they get married. Individuals, you know, change their names for family, personal reasons. And this law just threatens to disenfranchise large swaths of the population. And that seems to be the goal. You know, I'm glad you put the SAVE Act together with this case because I think we should understand this as really all a coordinated effort to suppress voter turnout, make it more difficult to vote. You know, this is part of their mid-cycle redistricting, write a set of rules that allows them to retain power. The SAVE Act is part of that, suing for voter data and potentially deploying ICE agents, right? Those are also. of voter suppression tactics. The pending case about the future of the Voting Rights Act, that's another voter suppression measure. And so they are trying to throw everything they can, you know, at the wall in order to hold onto power because they recognize that nobody fucking likes them. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of people who are not being liked, I wanted to talk to you about this story. So last weekend, and you talked about this a bit on strict scrutiny, a federal judge Biden appointee absolutely tore into some DOJ attorneys in New Jersey, in a courtroom, basically had a Trump lawyer removed from court, threatened to have him dragged out of the court. Then gave that lawyer a second opportunity to leave on his own volition, an opportunity he took. What happened? And is it now resolved because of what took place today? I cannot begin to convey the insanity of what has been happening in the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Jersey. Imagine GTL. but like on ketamine and it's like the legal version of that. So, you know, they appointed... Jim Tan lawyer. Exactly. Yeah, Jim Tan lawyer. They appointed Alina Habba, U.S. attorney. Federal judges said, no, that's illegal. Then they created this new leadership structure that they referred to as the trifecta or the triumvirate where three individuals were supposedly running the office. Another federal judge said, no, no, no, no, that's illegal. And the problem with making all of these illegal appointments is if you have an illegally... appointed prosecutor, then the cases that they bring have to be thrown out. And so it was jeopardizing public safety, law enforcement, law and order. And so all of these judges were like, guys, just fucking get your act together. And except, you know, the lawfully appointed U.S. attorney because under federal law, the judges basically have the power to select a U.S. attorney for a district after a certain period of time. And that was what the Trump administration was resisting. So in this particular case, it involved a defendant who had been indicted for a child pornography offense. And because the U.S. attorney's office is just not functioning, apparently the U.S. attorney's office entered into a plea deal with this defendant without actually searching.

the defendant's phone. They agreed to a sentence before actually looking at all of the defendant's phone. And once they looked, it had even more child sexual abuse material on it. But because they had entered this plea agreement, they were kind of stuck to it. And this judge was pissed off. He was like, what are you doing? And also, why are you insisting on imposing a sentence when you are running a U.S. attorney's office that might not even be lawfully structured? This transcript was basically my ASMR. I would strongly recommend to people reading it for themselves. You know, at the end of the transcript, the judge basically says, in a single year, you have squandered all the credibility that the Department of Justice has built up over... decades. And it does seem to have been resolved in the sense that the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey is now being run by the individual that was selected according to the statutory procedures by these federal judges. And so what that would mean is now there's a lawful appointment structure in place. And so all of these plea agreements, all these criminal cases aren't going to be called into question as to whether the individuals who stayed at the U.S. attorney's office, including, you know, some individuals who came in under Trump, you know, can dot their eyes and cross their teas and do law remains to be seen. But this does actually solve some of the problems at least. Yeah, just so people understand basically if the role of U.S. attorney is vacant. Because it's a confirmable Senate confirmable position, the law says that if it's open, there can only be a temporary appointment by the administration for so long before the judges appoint someone in their stead because there are real powers that are associated with job and they have to go somewhere and you have to know who that person is. And Trump was trying to get around this by kind of continuously appointing temporary people. And the fear would be that those prosecutions. Not only was this usurping Congress in the role of the courts and what they've, what Congress has assigned to the courts, but it would mean that these prosecutions could ultimately be in jeopardy. They were fighting and fighting and fighting. It seems like they've, as of today, as of this recording, basically given up the fight. It does seem like a genuine victory for the federal courts over the Trump administration. It really does. And this is an area where the federal courts held the line and basically refuse to back down. And, you know, in a game of chicken, the chicken always loses. And the Trump administration lost, as they should have. And so hopefully they actually stick to this and are willing to accept, you know, the statutory procedures in other U.S. attorney's offices as well. Leah, before we go, one last question. Donald Trump over the weekend. said that he was happy that Robert Mueller had died. He said, good. Oh, my God. Because he didn't like him. Do you ever allow yourself to root for the death of people that you don't like or do you know how bad that is for the human soul? Where are you at? You know, I have some sense that that is bad for the human soul because basically when I saw that tweet, I forced myself to think about, okay,

When Donald Trump inevitably dies, like what will you say and what will you think? And nothing remotely like the truth he posted about Robert Mueller remotely entered into my lexicon, even though this is someone whose policies and behavior have affected vast suffering, right? Untold deaths, human consequences. And still, like, I just don't think that is a normal human reaction. It's sociopathic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Death is injustice. We all die, you know. That's how I feel about it. It comes for everybody. So how do you celebrate it? You just all stand on the same train tracks, you know? But while we walk among the living, subscribe to strict scrutiny. Because these cases are coming down. They are huge cases that will affect the elections. It will affect all of us. And if you want to know what's happening, if you want to be prepared, if you want to understand and do it in a way that is entertaining, even joyful at time, even in these dark moments, please, please, please subscribe to strict scrutiny. Leah Lipman, thank you so much. Good to see you. Thank you for having me.

That's our show for today. Thanks to Leah for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Cherlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jim Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seiglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroote is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jay Jones, Ben Heffcote, Mia Kelman, Carol Pelaviv, David Tolls, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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