Trump Threatens to Steal the Midterms

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right to the Oval Office, and we heard this from Trump during his interview with Tom Yamis of NBC News. You've recently suggested nationalizing elections. What do you mean by that? When, and I didn't say national, I said, There are some areas in our country that are extremely corrupt. They have very corrupt elections. Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Philadelphia. Take a look at Atlanta. There are some areas that are unbelievably corrupt. I could give you plenty of more too. If they don't want voter ID, that means they want to cheat. We can't allow cheating in elections. Now, if we need to put in federal controls as opposed to state controls, if they can't do it honestly and it can't be done properly and timely, then something else has to happen. Will you trust the results of the midterms if Republicans lose control of Congress? I will, if the elections are honest. Look, I want the last one that wants to complain. Speaking of counties, what is happening in? I'm not doing anything, but the FBI went in. Why is Tulsi Gabbard there? I don't know, but you know, a lot of the cheating comes from, it's international cheating. We know that foreign governments try to influence a lot of things in this country. Well, therefore, she's foreign governments. I mean, there should be nothing wrong with the fact that they went in, got ballots from a while ago, and they're going to look at them, and now they're going to find out the true winner of that state. Nothing wrong with that. At least, at least we know that the Republican with the power to decide contested election results that could determine control of the House would never. go along with Trump's scheme, right? We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on election day in the last election cycle. And every time a new tranche of ballots came in, they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost. It just looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove that? No. Now, the red states have done a lot of good work in that front, but it's the blue states that I'm frankly concerned about. Yeah, I'm sure you are. So, Dan, because we are a real news organization. Crooked Media's own Matt Berg asked the White House specifically what Trump meant when he called for nationalizing our elections in that NBC news interview and previous interviews. Here's what the White House told us. Quote, President Trump cares deeply about the safety and security of our elections. That's why he's urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act. and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting. You feel better now? I don't, Chen. I don't feel better.

That is an absurd answer that bears no connection to what Trump actually said. When Trump was very explicit, he talks in there about the federal, the states being agents of the federal governments, us, the federal government taking over in certain places. He certainly was not referring to the passage of a national voter ID law that has no chance of passing. Like he's being very explicit. And I have a question for you. Because I think generally, when there is sort of alarmist. discussion from Trump or maybe it like bubbles up through liberal media or online you're you're the of us you're the least likely one to be alarmed typically yeah like you dig in deep to the details you try to you come back and say actually it's not as bad as you think it is Yet you seem quite concerned about this or more concerned than I am. And I will go to the parts that do concern me. But where's your head on this? Yeah. So having read all this and watched all this last night, I have now become quite concerned. And it's specific concerns, right? This idea that they're going to put in place federal controls, like that doesn't mean anything. The federal government cannot put in place federal controls. It is against the law. The federal government has no role in. elections. The states run the elections. We know that. That isn't the Constitution. It is the law. So him's talking about putting in federal controls, whatever else. But what Steve Bannon was saying, the ICE agents by the polls, which Karoline Leavitt was asked about it today at the White House briefing. And she said, no, no, I don't think so. She's like, well, I can't, I can't promise you there's not going to be any agents anywhere near any polls. That's for sure. So I worry about that. I worry about the intimidation, especially because of... everything we've seen in Minnesota and elsewhere over the last year. I think what I'm most worried about is Trump and all of his goons reviving the, let's seize the election machines. Let's seize the ballots. Because now that they've gotten a taste for it in Fulton County, and if you remember in 2020, they had an executive order drafted. that supposedly would have given Trump the authority to send in the military, the National Guard, federal agents, whoever, and seize the voting machines. And that is the one that really worries me because I think a lot of the stuff you can litigate in court. And I think even though the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court, on issues where sort of the sanctity of our elections. And I'm not talking about like, you know, Voting Rights Act, voter suppression. They're horrible on all that. They're horrible on all that. But when I'm talking about like throwing out ballots, you know, the craziest election stuff that Trump has tried to do, the Supreme Court has been. Good on it. Okay. But when you talk about the federal government going into just seizing an election, like it doesn't matter with the court rules at that point. They have the ballots. That's it. That's like the end.

I mean, it's an interesting, so I am concerned about this. I've been concerned for a long time about the National Guard originally and now ICE being at polling places. And even just Steve Bannon and the right wing media saying ICE is going to be at polling places will dissuade people who are American citizens who can vote but are of color and worried about getting picked up and detained by ICE from going out to the polls. And that's going to be particularly prevalent in states that don't have. readily available, early voting, or mail-in voting. And by the way, another way this could work. So Trump and the White House decide not to... be so obvious as to say, we're going to deploy a bunch of ICE agents to the polls on Election Day. Yeah, they just put them in the cities. Yeah, they say, okay, the next operation, next on our list after Minneapolis is all the cities where there are close races, in all the states where there are close races in the Senate and the House. And those operations are happening, I don't know, maybe three weeks before Election Day. But they are, and so just enough time. so that people like they are in Minneapolis right now, so people who are worried that they're going to get picked up by ice are hiding in their homes and don't want to go for even groceries, let alone to go vote. The test of this will be Texas, right, where Democrat, there's been a huge swing in the Latino vote based on the special election this past weekend and some polling we've seen. And ISIS stayed out of Texas in this sort of way because Trump really just deploys them in blue states to try to spark a reaction of some kind. But if all of a sudden they start showing up in Houston or Dallas or San Antonio at a time in which. control the Senate may come down to a race between Jasmine Crockett or James Talarico and a Republican. That would be the real test there. I mean, there are some other things I'm worried about here. One, just using all of this to, you know, suggest you need federal monitors at elections that you're going to put people there to make sure that, you know, nothing is happening, right? Just it's pure, I mean, this is, this is pre-voting rights era. Voter intimidation, right? Is what you see here. And then the big one, and I think the absolute biggest one is whether is creating this climate of, you know, fraud and corruption that allows Mike Johnson the pretext to not seat Democrats in a closely contested races, even though they have been, that's the other big one, yeah. Even though they've been certified by. The recount, the hand recount, the process in those states to claim that there is enough there not to seat them to hold on to the majority if this comes down. Like, I don't think he can't pull that off if we gain 30 seats and we have the usement. But if this comes down to essentially the majority of the Republicans had after 2022 where you're down to two seats, could you see that happening? That seems very, very possible. And remember, Mike Johnson is someone who was intimately involved in the stop the steel effort and pushing the big lie in 2020. So this is not.

This is not Mitch McConnell or maybe even a Paul Ryan who's just like a long for the ride. This is a true believer in those conspiracy theories. Yeah. And so just to give everyone an example of how this might work. So Georgia. Say control the Senate. It's a really close race in Georgia. That probably won't be the state that it comes down to because John House is doing quite well right now. But anyway, let's imagine that it's really close in Georgia. And he's already made this big deal of Fulton County and the FBI raided them. And he comes back and says, oh, 2020 was rigged and we're going to have extra DOJ monitors around Fulton County, which they can do. And it's really close. And now Trump says, oh, there's fraud and we're not going to certify it. Now the Fulton County Board of Elections is run by is majority of Republicans, specifically like election denying Republicans, and they won't certify. Now, the court could make them certify, but maybe before that happens and it's contested, you know, Trump sends in federal agents to grab the voting machines. And now control of the Senate hinges on Georgia. The same thing could happen in the House. I guess it's more, it's probably more likely that it's a Mike Johnson House thing, right? Because what happens is. It's harder to seat in the House. It's harder. Yeah. But what happens is in a contested election where there is no certification of the final result yet. And January 3rd rolls around. You're right that if it's obvious that Democrats are going to control the House at that point, the House automatically just switches over to the Democrats. And then they figure out who they figure out the contested House race under a Democratic majority. But if that contested house race or several contested house race is what. the control of the house hinges on, then Mike Johnson and the current Republican House, they're still there on January 3rd until they figure it out. And the House, according to the Constitution, gets to be ultimate arbiter of ceding their own members and the results of an election. So that's when you'd really worry. If I remember correctly, there are some limits in some previous court cases on this, but there is real room for monkey business that could delay a Democratic majority or prevent one if it's close enough. Yes. Because they went down this road with Adam Jay Clayton Jerome Powell, I think, and a couple other times over the course of American history. But sometimes control of the house has hinged on some of these close contested, uncertified elections, and the vote has gone to the house. And someone who was won or at least appear to have win via the vote count. isn't the one who gets seated. It's happened before. Yeah. This is one of those things where just the, well, people are listening to this and they're panicking and say, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? I mean, not to steal something from Trump here, but it has to be too big to rig. You just have to win enough that you have to take the power out of their hands because there's really not a lot we can do right now other than raising awareness of this possibility to prevent Republicans from doing very, very bad things. We learned that in 2020 when the election was very close. And so therefore, like, Just we got to go out and win. We got to go out and win enough seats that it's too big to Rick. Here's another. That's correct for all of us, I believe. I think there's a role for Democratic governors, state, and local officials. And I don't know when it is, but at some point, I'm just throwing it out there. But right now you hear them say, like, what Trump wants to do would be unconstitutional or, you know, Gavin Newsom's out there being like, I don't think, I'm worried that we're not going to have a free and fair election, right? So there's a lot of either.

Democrats expressing concern about what Trump might do, Democratic officials, or Democrats saying like, this is authoritarianism, this would be bad. I would like Democratic governors to go out there and say like, it is illegal. and unconstitutional for the federal government to deploy any kind of federal agents or troops around polling places. It is illegal and unconstitutional for the federal government to seize voting machines or to have the military seize voting machines. And I think that every one of them should go out there, every Democrat should go out there and say, if they see federal agents anywhere near a polling place, intimidating voters, They will be immediately ordered to leave. If they see them try to seize voting machines, they will be immediately ordered to leave. And if they do not leave, they will be arrested. And they will have, I mean, we've heard about this in Minnesota, right? Like in Jacob Frey, the mayor there was like, oh, could we technically have local police arrest ICE agents? Yes, legally, maybe, but obviously that gets really, that gets really dicey to actually have that conflict. But if you get to the point where federal agents are intimidating people at polls or trying to seize fucking voting machines, which we know is flatly unconstitutional, I think that you let Trump know early. You know, you don't do the, like, look what fucking all the Europeans finally did around Greenland, right? Instead of just like letting Trump keep doing this, they were like, no, it's not for sale. And we're going to put troops in Greenland to make sure you don't do it. And he fucking backed down. Like, and maybe not, maybe now is not the time. And what month is it, February? But like, I think that sometime before the election, they have to, there needs to be a shot across the bow there. That, like, you send federal agents in, they are, no, they are not going to be welcome. I asked Janet Mills about what they were doing in Maine to secure elections and people can stay on and listen to the answer. But what is clear is that Democratic governors are beginning to think about this. And I didn't ask this, but I imagine there are conversations happening amongst Democratic governors about what they can do together. Because there are some simple things like make clear the points you're making. Just make it clear that the, I mean, this is an insane thing to say. the United States of America, but that state troopers will be guarding the... the counting centers or the voting machines. Like there's just, the message has to be centrally that this is not going to be tolerated and we're not going along with this. I think that's right. And it is as much, I think because what Democrats have done in the past, what we love to do is it's like we got all our lawyers in line and it's a big legal strategy and that's very important. But it's just as much of a communications strategy at that point as it is a legal strategy. We got, I feel good about our legal strategy. We got some great lawyers in the Democratic Party. But on election night,

If the count is close, you know that Trump's going to be out there and every Republican is going to be out there saying like, oh, these mail-in ballots, they're late, all the shit they did in 2020, all the shit they do all the time now. And Democrats just got to be out there right away being like, absolutely not. Do not come near us. Do not come near our, you know, we have the state troopers there. We don't want to see you here. You're not welcome. Like, they just got to show a little. a little fight on this and not be not be like crying authoritarianism actually tell them what you're going to do and why they're not allowed to actually fucking violate the constitution especially when it comes to our elections so that's that's just a thought that i've been having Pod Save America is brought to you by Quince. A well-built wardrobe is about pieces that work together and hold up over time. That's what Quince does best. Premium materials, thoughtful design, and everyday staples that feel easy to wear and easy to rely on even as the weather shifts. Quintz has everyday essentials that I love with quality that last. They have organic cotton sweaters, polos for every occasion, lighter jackets that keep you warm in the changing seasons. The list goes on and on. Quince works directly with top factories and cuts out the middlemen so you're not paying for brand markup, just quality clothing. Everything is built to hold up to daily wear and still look good season after season. Plus, they only partner with factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. I've told you guys before, I have a ton of stuff from Quince. I got workout shirts. I have basics. I have T-shirts. I also gave... two really nice of the Quince Mongolian cashmere sweaters to family members for Christmas. They love them. They're well received. They look great. They fit perfectly. And frankly, they were affordable. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash crooked for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. 365 day returns. Quince.com slash crooked. Pazave America is brought you by Mint Mobile. Every group has someone who insists on doing things the hard way. That one friend's still paying for a subscription they forgot they had. That one who refuses to update their phone because it still works. That one who's still overpaying for wireless. Be a good friend. Tell your friends about Mint Mobile. Stop paying way too much for wireless just because that's how it's always been. Mint exists purely to fix that. Same coverage, same speed, just without the inflated price tag. The premium wireless you expect, unlimited talk, text, and data, but at a fraction of what others charge. And for a limited time, get 50% off 3, 6 or 12-month plans of unlimited premium wireless. Bring your own phone and number. Activate with ESIM in minutes and start saving immediately no long-term contracts, no hassle, with a seven-day money-back guarantee and customer satisfaction ratings. in the mid-90s. Mint makes it easy to try it and see why people don't go back. Our friend Nina, she's always telling all of her friends about the money she saves since switching to Mint Mobile. She won't shut up about it. Every time we see her. We see her on a Zoom and she's like, hey, how's politics going? And she's like, Mint Mobile, Mint Mobile.

And she talks about how the wireless service and the data speeds are just as good as her old provider. She doesn't even remember what her old provider is at this point. She moved down. She dumped that loser. Ready to stop paying more than you have to. New customers can make the switch today and for a limited time. Get unlimited premium wireless for just $15 a month. month. Switch now at mintmobile.com slash crooked. That's mintmobile.com slash crooked. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for $6 months, or $180 for $1.80 for $12 a month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. plan term only over 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy capable device required availability speed and coverage varies additional terms apply see mintmobile.com now that it's been a week or so since the the Fulton county raid do you have a better understanding of what specifically Trump is trying to do there aside from Just relitigating 2020. And obviously, you know, I think we can guess that he wants to use the made-up fraud that he's going to come out with from 2020 as a pretext to screw with 2026. But like, how? Like what a... Yeah, I think... I don't think there's a master plan here. I think this is the product of having a diluted conspiracy theorist in the Oval Office with a capacity to send federal agents down the rapid holes he'd like to explore. Yeah. And so that's why this happened. Like he is obsessed with this. He can't get over it, even though he's back in the White House. He's wanted to do this for a long time. Now he's got no one who's going to stop him. He has a director of national intelligence who was doing yoga on the beach during the last major military operation and is trying to win back favor. So she is spearheading this process. It's just worth noting that the director of national intelligence is spearheading. an effort to investigate election fraud, fake effort to investigate fake election fraud from five years ago, six years ago. It's totally ridiculous. But I do think this is a pretext and a pretext, like along the ways we talked about. So there is what the federal government can do. And then what can you do if you create this, you know, let's say they find. They make something up. They doctor something. They find one ballot where the signature didn't match, even though they were all matched by hand because of how this went. And they use this to suggest fraud. So then that can lead to a couple things. That can lead, not just pretexts for federal government action, it can lead to getting Republican election officials to change how votes are received or counted. or certified to change procedures or laws to limit mail-in voting, early voting. like making the signature match that much harder, throwing more ballots out, purging the roles again, ways to do that. Now, they are limited in what they can do because a lot of the places, especially a lot of places where the House races will be decided are in states run by Democrats, California, New York, a lot of states in the Midwest, including Pennsylvania, and then Pennsylvania. But, you know, the Senate, the paths of the Senate runs through red states.

Yeah, I was going to say this. The states with Republican governors that are going to matter in 2026, both in the Senate and in the House to an extent as well. Iowa, Ohio, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alaska. Yep. And those are the ones. And, you know, like Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, all Democratic governors. There's some house seats in Arizona, Democratic governor, Pennsylvania, Democratic governor. But yeah, that's the concern there. And that's where they can really fuck with things. And do they need this fake 2020 ballot thing to do that? Absolutely not. But it would make Trump happy if they found it. And when he talked, the Fulton County thing, it's not necessarily if they find something and make a big deal of it. It's the federal government that can do something. But if the Fulton County Elections Board is now majority MAGA, then they can just get them to, you know, to put in place restrictions, controls, whatever it may be, which they will. Yeah, and so people understand, Fulton County is where Atlanta is. This is where the overwhelming majority of Democratic votes are. And so if you were able to reduce turnout in Atlanta through a series of things that you can do, they can be explicit like changing voting procedures, it can be, but also as implicit and devious as reducing the number of machines in a certain precinct so that the lines are too long of people to vote, et cetera, then that would really hurt. Jon Ossoff's chances to win if he can't count on the same chunk of votes that he's gotten, Raphael Warnock's gotten, and Joe Biden got in 2020 out of Fulton County. I've been wondering about the Tulsi Gabbard angle as well. Why is the director? And he's talking about foreign governments in that interview. Foreign governments, there's some cheating and interference. I hadn't realized because when I was going down the rabbit hole on the executive order to seize the voting machines from 2020, I realized that one of the orders that he was going to use as justification or thought about using his justification to seize the machines is about foreign election interference. And it was basically saying if there's, you know, evidence of foreign interference, then, A, it authorizes him to, you know, levy economic sanctions on the country, but also to somehow seize the voting machines to look at them for national security reasons because they have been attacked somehow by foreign governments. So I do think that's the, that's the Tulsi Gabbard angle. Once again, not a master plan here in the sense that like most of right wing big lie stop the steel world is so fucked up in the head that they think Venezuela was involved in this. They thought Chavez was doing this from the grave at one point. Yeah. But there's a lot of speculation online that. Maduro is going to cut a plea agreement by copying to some sort of Venezuelan experience. We know that, even though this is not far in interference, but we know that Tulsi Gabbard Gabber was investigating some conspiracy in Puerto Rico connected to Venezuela. Like this is like we are so far. through the looking glass of insanity with the things that is guiding this conversation, that it, like, that it all comes back to this international stuff. And like they would love after, you know, Russia, Russia, Russia to have some to make this argument that no, it was actually Venezuela or Cuba or some other country that interfere with our elections that cost Trump, you know, the office. One other, um, on this topic before we go, one other scoop that, uh, crooked media got.

Or Matt Berg, again, just crushing it. You know, Nevada Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar from Nevada. So he talked to Matt and told him that Aguilar and basically all the secretaries of state got an email from the FBI organizing a call. in a couple weeks with all the various agencies and the federal government to talk about election security. And Agriar told Matt, I was just like, this is the strangest thing in the world that the FBI is reaching out to us and trying to coordinate election security. It has never happened in the past. The casualness with which they did is just beyond crazy. And Matt got a hold of the email. And it is just like, it's, hey everyone, hey every secretary of state. This is the FBI reaching out. We're going to do a call soon. What? Like in this Trump administration, especially in this poorly run FBI, like that can be one of two things. It could be some fucking doofus organizing a grand conspirators of a state election, or it could be one soon-to-be-fired, well-meaning bureaucrat in the department who wants to actually secure our elections. You just never know. Or both. They seem like, the person gets fired, and then they're like, wait, I have an idea now. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, something to keep an eye on. But I think too big, for everyone listening, too big to rig. Unless you're a Democratic official, then. You know, make sure that you, uh, you start talking tough if you're talking. Yeah, you have a, you have some state troopers. You got some national guard if I can use it. Um, all right. Let's talk about the. Just think about that for a second. Oh, that's, you know, it's going to be too late once we're on election. It'll be like, oh, how did the voting machines get stolen and the ballots are gone? Now what are we going to do? Pod save blue America. Coming to you in 2027 after the civil war starts. You know. All right. Let's talk about the latest with Trump's invasion of Minnesota. Speaking of. Borders are Tom Homan announced this week that 700 Department of Homeland Security officers will be leaving Minneapolis. That leaves about 2,000 in place. And the way the White House is thinking about the mass deportation campaign doesn't seem to have changed very much at all. Trump and Tom Yamas at NBC talked about this a lot in the interview. Here's a sampling. I learned that maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough. I'm not happy with the two incidents. It's not, you know, it's both of them. Not one or the other. He was not an angel, and she was not an angel. You know, you look at some tapes from back, but still, I'm not happy with what happened. Nobody could be happy, and ICE wasn't happy either. Two people. It's bad. I hate it. I hate even talking about it. Two people out of tens of thousands, okay? And you get bad publicity. Nobody talks about all of the murderers that were taken out of our country. They don't talk about... But it was two Americans who died. They don't talk about we have the smallest trucks. As an example, we've been very tough on the waters and soon, you know, pretty much overall. But if you look at the waters where we knock out boats...

Think of all the people, think of all the Americans, ice agents haven't killed. Why aren't we getting publicity for that? You kill two Americans and suddenly everyone's up your ass, just complaining about this and that. But think of how many boats we've blown up. Isn't that cool? Think of how many potentially innocent people we executed on the high seas. I went through that same journey with Tom Yamas in real time, which was the waters. The waters. The waters. Oh, the waters. Well, you don't know if he's going to talk about how he saved Los Angeles by turning on the water in Northern California so it could come down the map. Or the shower heads? Yeah, in the shower heads. There's a lot of waters. You just, you never, the toilet said wouldn't flush. You just don't know. This is a man focused on water. They've been very tough on the waters. But what he's trying to do there, of course, is the message, and you see this from Stephen Miller and JD Vance and all the rest of them on Twitter. All they do is they're like, well, you know, we don't hear the Democrats showing any sympathy or remembering the people that undocumented immigrants have murdered. It's like, what the fuck does that, what does that have to do with anything? Yes, people who murder other people should be arrested. And if eligible for deportation, deported. And if not, thrown in jail. After a trial. That's America. Welcome. Yeah. Like, it's totally unconnected to ICE agents shooting to American citizens. in the street and then the administration lying about the incidents for the world to see you think that uh you think trump's trump's answer there that's the right messaging for a uh national tv audience that will be watching the full interview during the super bowl yeah are they going to air the full interview well everyone kept saying it's the super bowl is it is it like during the super bowl is it before It is, I mean, John, we only did this for eight years. It is, it airs in the pregame long before the Super Bowl. Usually before people's even civil parties start. This is the one that you advised Joe Biden not to do. I was just thinking that it had been two years since that debate. Two years since that. And I guess no one did one last year because, well, I guess, did Trump do one last year? I don't remember. No idea. Who knows? But this year, if you tune in before the Super Bowl begins. If you're just milling out, you're feeling out your Super Bowl squares, you are, you know, waiting in line to get access to the six foot sub or the wings. And do you just hear Trump say that two people who were murdered, who the vast majority of Americans think were unjustly killed? We're no angels. No angels. In fairness, they were no angels. I hate that they died. In fairness to who? In fairness to who? In fairness to who? In fairness to who? Yeah, right. Yeah. Just, oh my God. Trump also said on Thursday that he's definitely not going to fire Kristi Noem. And Republicans in Congress don't seem very open to even modest reforms to rein in DHS and ICE.

Democrats sent Republicans a list of 10 demands this week that include banning masking, racial profiling, military-style weapons, and raids near schools and daycare centers. They also want to require body cams and ensure better conditions and congressional oversight at detention facilities. They also want to ensure that you go find a warrant before you arrest someone, wild idea, or before you, you know, break into someone's home. Usually they think that's a crazy extremist idea from the Democrats. But then, again, lead negotiator for the Senate Republicans, Katie Britt, called the letter, quote, political posturing and, quote, a ridiculous Christmas list of demands for the press. A reminder that there's a two-week clock on these negotiations before the Department of Homeland Security either shuts down or gets funded at current levels. What's the best play for Democrats here? Democrats have to recognize that the American people are on their side here. And it's not just Democrats. It's not just independents. You have a quarter of Republicans who believe in a recent data for progress poll that... I should not be funded without real guardrails on what ICE is doing. And so I do think they have to narrow that list. And so one recognize that you have the political high ground here. You have limited legislative leverage, like we should be very clear, but you do have the political high ground. And I think that you should narrow that list to three, maybe four, very popular, easy to understand, very substantial guardrails. I would, on that list, I would include no masks. Body cams. I know Kristi Noem said she was going to put in body cams, but let's have a law about it. And that law should contain, as Janet Mills said to me, in our interview. requirements to make sure that footage is saved for transparency. Number three, independent, transparent investigations into the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pruddy. And number four is warrants. A judicial warrant. Warrants is at the very top of the list for me. Really, this is... Way more than masks. Fuck a thing. Yeah. And then I guess the fifth thing, if I was going to do a fifth thing, is to ensure that ICE and CBP have to operate with the same... use of force and other standards is the rest of federal law enforcement, including the FBI. Yeah, that's good. Those are very simple, very popular things that would make a difference. They're not going to solve all of the problems with ICE, far from it. It's not going to abolish ICE or anything like that. But if you could get those or some of those, it would make a difference, and that is a position of strength to argue from. Yeah, I think if you're going for something that every American understands, banning warrantless arrests. I think that'll get people going. Yeah. Because, you know, John Thune today, he basically agreed with Katie Britt that like, oh, these demands aren't serious. And he's like, well, if, you know, the Department of Homeland Security shuts down, then that means TSA will shut down and we could have some of those travel problems. And it's like, you know, if you want to tell people, your plane is delayed, your flight is canceled because Donald Trump refuses to require ICE agents to get a warrant before they arrest you or break into your home.

I think you could probably win that battle. I will be bringing this up to you in about a week when we're flying home from Australia to see how you feel if our flight is canceled. You know, there's an extra time in Australia. I mean, I do think, like at some point that's going to happen, right? They're not going to agree to this shit. Yeah. They're just not. And so we're going to head to a shutdown. And then it's going to be who is, who feels more pressure about the fact that there are flight delays. Right? Is that where we're heading? Yeah, I mean, the Republicans did, like the fact that they agreed to this in the first place suggests that they feel real political vulnerability here. Now, the attention is starting to focus elsewhere. There's less attention on Minnesota. They sort of pulled the, we're de-escalating bullshit and like attention turned. The narrative switched a little bit. But they're still in a really bad place here on immigration and ICE. It's a huge vulnerability for them. Like, both sides are talking tough right now. The question is, like, nothing is getting resolved in the next however many days we have left here. The question is, can you do another short-term extension to keep negotiating another couple weeks? Like, I think that would be a very reasonable thing for Democrats to do. These are big changes and just to think that you're going to get them done in, like, 10 days is hard to imagine. But, you know, maybe you get another short-term extension. I don't know that they're, I think they're, I'm not sure the Republicans want this fight as much as they like, they like Democrats that think they want this fight. I think that's true. I, I, I wonder if Democrats have the stomach and are ready strategically. when the shutdown happens, if and when the shutdown happens, to go out there and stick with the fight. Because I just, you got to like, you know, we're right back to ACA subsidies, which by the way, negotiations over the ACA extensions are over. Yeah. So there will be no ACA extension at all, even though the Republicans felt like maybe they, you know, felt a little pressure. But once again, news moved on. And so they feel like they can get away with it. I mean, news moved on. The American people did not move on. Correct. So they're going to, they will pay a stiff price for this one in the fall. I think the question is not, do Democrats, like, we can say, do Democrats have the right communications plan? Are they going to be able to do all the right things? I think they did a pretty good job during the last shutdown. The question is, are those Democrats who reopen the government? What's their stomach? Yeah. Yeah. Like that is the question because I think the vast majority of Democrats will go up in the House and definitely in the House and certainly in the Senate will go to the mattresses on this. It's that last group there that you have to worry about. And I just don't know where they will come down on this since they were so willing to fold, you know, back in December or November, I guess that was. Just to give everyone an idea of what a nightmare DHS is right now, there's a story that caught our eye this week about DHS lawyer, Julie Lee, who had been detailed to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota from the Department of Homeland Security. On Tuesday, a judge pressed her on why ICE violate so many court orders. And according to courtroom transcripts, Lee responded, the system sucks, this job sucks, and I'm trying with every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need.

Sometimes I wish you would just hold me in contempt, Your Honor, so that I can have a full 24 hours of sleep. She also said, quote, I am not white, as you can see, and my family's at risk as any other people that might get picked up. Her family came from Vietnam. Lee told the judge she'd already tried to quit, but that they can't find a replacement for her, and that she'd even taken to emailing ICE officials in 24-point font to try to get their attention, mostly unsuccessfully. Lee has now reportedly been taken off the Minnesota assignment and is back at DHS headquarters in Washington. Wild story. It also comes from, there was a Politico story about how overwhelmed prosecutors are everywhere, but especially in Minnesota, trying to deal with the legal fallout from what ICE is doing, particularly basically everyone that DHS picks up, rounds up, whether you're legal resident. whether you're an asylum seeker who's legally supposed to be here, whether you are an undocumented immigrant, they file habeas petitions. You have the right to file a habeas petition, meaning like, why have you put me in jail? And you've got, you know, the government has to like have a reason. And every one of these habeas petitions then goes to trial or at least has some kind of a hearing, not a trial, but hearing. And there's just too many. There's too many for... The courts, there's too many for the prosecutors that they have. There's just too many. And so all these prosecutors, paralegals, everyone working around the clock. And ICE is so irresponsible that they are just, they're not responding, they're not cooperating, they're not doing anything. They're just a fucking rogue agency. That's what they are. Yeah, it seems suboptimal. The system is not set up for this level of mass deportation. Even if ICE was doing... everything right. They were crossing the eyes, dotting the T's, then just processing this number of people, having these number of hearings. would stress the system. But the fact that you have an incompetent rogue agency that it's just sweeping up people because of their accent, because of the color of their skin, because they looked at an officer the wrong way, means you get a lot of people who are being detained, who shouldn't be detained. And the court put, for good reason, puts tremendous pressure on the government to respond to these habeas petitions because there is a person in a detention center who maybe shouldn't be there. And like, this is what the courts are for. And it can't. operate with this level of incompetence and disregard for the wall and human decency that you're seeing for mice. And by the way, it's probably incompetence as you get sort of down the food chain there to like random mice agents at DHS. But it is also a pretty intentional strategy on behalf of Stephen Miller and the people who are running the show because what they're doing is they're rounding people up. They're putting them in these detention centers, which are. Just under horrific conditions, many of the detention centers they put you in if you're rounded up or not in your home state or your city, but in Texas or somewhere far, far away. And what they're telling people once they get them there is, yeah, you can file your habeas petition and you can wait for your hearing in this horrific detention center under these awful conditions. Or you can sign this piece of paper right now and we'll just deport you. And you can waive your right to a hearing. And so for a lot of these folks, they don't know if they're going to...

be successful at their hearing and maybe they need medical care. Maybe they want to be back with their families. Maybe they have young children. And so they feel this pressure to sign the document to then be deported as opposed to waiting for the habeas hearing. And this is like Miller's strategy to try to get as many people deported as possible. Yeah. I mean, this has always been true of Trump and the people around him, which is it is a stunning combination of. incompetence and malevolence. Did you check out that Wall Street Journal story about Stephen Miller? Did a big profile of Stephen Miller? I did. I was going to send it to you, but I was like, there's just no way John hasn't read this yet. I mean, there's a couple points that I, first of all, it's interesting that Donald Trump is maybe starting to realize that Stephen Miller is causing him some. political problems. It says in one paragraph, Trump told advisors he isn't comfortable with how far Miller has gone on some fronts. He's mad that business officials were calling to complain about getting their workers rounded up. And then he at one point he sees Miller on TV talking about Venezuela and Trump. talked to AIDS nearby and he said, why is he on TV? He doesn't do foreign policy. Why is he talking? He doesn't talk about foreign policy. So Trump's, there's a little, you know, maybe Stephen Miller's going too far. But like, some of the stories about that guy and that, and these are all from White House officials who are sourced in the story, that he basically decided to label René Good, domestic terrorist and Alex Preti, an assassin without. any approval or review from anyone else in the administration. After Alex Pready was murdered, Stephen Miller was just texting directly with border patrol agents on the ground. And then it went from the text from the border patrol agents to Miller to Twitter calling him an assassin. That's it. That was the whole process. Not a good process, apparently. He was the one who suggested the Insurrection Act, apparently in Minneapolis. He was the one. So apparently, after Renee Good was killed, there was this debate in the White House, like, should we just withdraw from Minnesota, at least draw down the agents there because like things are getting out of control? And Miller was like, no, we got to send in more. We got to double down. He's the fucking cancer at the heart of the administration in the country. He really is. Like. He's a deeply dangerous individual who is obviously a huge narcissist, but also a megalomaniac, with very, very, I don't even know if disturbing is a strong enough word. You have a set of odious views about the world that are like as white nationals as it could possibly be. Like he has a very explicit project about making this country whiter. Yep. Like that is what he wants to do. And look, none of that is going to convince Donald Trump ever to get rid of him. But Republicans do poorly in the midterms, Stephen Miller's fault. Donald Trump can look around and realize that he lost Congress or lost one or both houses of Congress. If that happens, it is Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller is probably more responsible for that than anyone else around him, I would say. And you knew who will get fired? Christie, no.

Yeah, maybe, maybe. I, there is, I mean, this is like such nerdy old people political talk, but there is a lot of, like, these are in, these are imperfect historical analogies. I don't stipulate that. But immigration is becoming to Trump in 2026, immigration ICE in particular is becoming to Trump in 20206, what Iraq was to George W. Bush in 2006. And the people were telling him. Exactly. Like, that is exactly right, which is, you know, they. They refuse to fire the people responsible or at least make a firing to acknowledge that, even if it's just purely symbolic, that something is going to change and they don't do until afterwards because they're so afraid of admitting failure or weakness that they make their political problems much worse. Yeah. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. February often feels like a nonstop parade of romance. There's a thing I always say, John. Me too. Let's be real. Navigating your love life can be confusing. I'll be on a work trip before Valentine's Day. Whether you're partnered up or flying solo, there's no right way to feel right now. Therapy is a great way to cut through that noise, helping you find your footing and gain some clarity on what you want. Listen, I think we all know a lot of people who need therapy. Maybe your issues manifest with trying to invade NATO countries. And, you know, maybe a little therapy would prevent a lot of heartache on the front end. What better time to try therapy than with your loved one on Valentine's Day? That's right. Yeah. There's romantic. Melania, use some of that 40 million you got from Amazon to hire BetterHelp. Better Helps quality therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and their fully license in the U.S. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and your preferences. And there are 12 or more years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist. anytime 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. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash PSA. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash PSA. POTSave America is brought to by Built. No one likes paying rent, but Built makes it feel a little better. Built is the loyalty program for renters that rewards you monthly with points and exclusive benefits in your neighborhood. Let me explain. With Built, every rent payment earns you points that can be used towards flights, hotels, lift rides, Amazon.com purchases, and so much more. And here's something to get excited about. Now, Built members can earn points on mortgage payments for the first time. That means you can get rewarded. wherever you live and unlock exclusive benefits from more than 45,000 restaurants, fitness studios, pharmacies, and other neighborhood partners. Personally, I'd redeem my points for, let's see what they got here.

Some restaurants? That's kind of cool. Yeah, good restaurants. Like anything you want on Amazon. Yeah. Basically just anything. Yeah, that's great. Fitness classes. Look at that. Travel. Travel. There's a built travel portal. Member-only experiences. Boy, but I love a member-only experience. It's simple. Paying rent is better with built. And now owning a home can be better with built, too. Earn rewards and get something back wherever you live. Join the loyalty program for renters at join built.com slash crooked. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-T dot com slash crooked. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. One last thing on immigration here. JD Vance did an interview with the Daily Mail, not sure why, where he got this question. Have you apologized? Did you plan to apologize to the family of Alex Bredi? For what? For, you know, labeling him an assassin with ill intent. Well, again, I just... describe to you what I said about Alex Pretty, which is that he's a guy who showed up with ill intent to an ICE protest. No, but if it is determined that his civil rights were violated by this FBI investigation, will you apologize? So if this hypothetical leads to that, hypothetical leads to another hypothetical, will I do a thing? And again, like I said, we're going to let the investigation determine. We're going to let the actual law come to the surface and figure out what happened. For what? For what? What I said about Alex Prady is that he showed up with an intent. First of all, no, he didn't. Second of all, you can't know what his intent was. Third of all, you called him an assassin. Or Stephen Miller called him an assassin. You retweeted Stephen Miller. Still up on your Twitter feed. You called Renee Goode a domestic terrorist. You called Renee Goode a domestic terrorist. No. So maybe you apologize for that. I don't know. I thought you were a Catholic? No. No. Don't feel as a Christian that perhaps sometimes you make mistakes, that you're fallible. He's so fucking smug. I cannot. It's the smugness that just takes it to a whole new level for me with him. He is the most obnoxious high school debate nerd you could ever possibly meet. Oh, so this hypothetical or that hypothetical? The way he just uses. nonsense logic to run circles around these reporters or at least get out of answering questions is incredibly frustrating. But he is missing something fundamentally human. Donald Trump is also missing it. But he just, he can't, like there is no shame. There is no guilt. Like you said, he's Catholic. He certainly didn't get the guilt part that comes with that. He, there is no, there's no inherent decency. I couldn't, like, I just can't imagine saying something like that about someone and feeling no obligation to the family, to yourself, to your family, to correct that publicly. And that's just to stand by it because you've been convinced that to admit failure or to admit being wrong is weakness and treason in Magarworld. And that this is a really... That is stupid politically, but it's a really toxic way to go through life. Yeah, he really combines, like, the smugness of the most annoying coastal elite, you know, with the soul of Stephen Miller, with the charisma of a shoe. That is, that, that is JD Vance. Presidential candidate. President. In 2020. A shoe has neutral charisma.

It is something much worse than that. You know, like we, you know, everyone missed Trump in 16. You know, Trump could never be president. But people thought like Trump could never be president because they thought, oh, he was too offensive for America. It's not that JD Vance is too offensive or too extreme. It is that he is like so fucking smug and just devoid of charisma. Like, I don't know, man. Who knows? Who knows in this country? But it does, he does not have what Trump had. No, of course not. Like, not even close. I don't even think he has... I think Ron DeSantis looks better than him. I... Maybe. Right? That's a lot. The tough one. It's a tough one. I think he probably is a little more death than Ron DeSantis, but... But I think he's more odious. Yeah, more repulsive for sure. Yeah, more repulsive. Look, I have a lot of thoughts about this. This is coming maybe we are new me next week, depending on how my long flights go. But I that's coming in message box soon is I have a lot of thoughts about JD Vance, what we should be doing right now to. frame JD Vance, because we have this advantage as Democrats. I feel like we're trying every week here, Dan. We are. I mean, I'm trying to take what we're doing here and move it out to the rest of the world and also maybe focus what we're doing. Maybe be motivated by strategy, not just pure undulterated rage. But like, JD Vance is going to be the Republican nominee. There's almost no history of a sitting vice president not getting the nomination. Will he have to fight for it? Will he get a primary? Probably. But he's probably going to be, he's almost only going to be the nominee. So we have another three years to shape his public image. And Republicans did this very successfully with Al Gore from 1996 to 2000 by the point where everyone thought that Al Gore, this famous Boy Scout, was now this inveterate liar who made up things about inventing the internet and was corrupt in all these ways. JD Vance, we just have to let people see who he is. But he does not have any of the charisma. or cool factor. I know that that's gross to say about Trump, but like Trump has something that powered his rise that JD Vance does not have, and we can be weaponized against him. He's a smug weirdo who probably only appeals to incels. How's that? Test that one. If I hear, if I. That, John, no one better come down from the top of the mountain. That's a stage direction. I don't want to hear someone coming down from the top of the mountain with the tablet saying, the message says that JD Vance is in line with the oligarchs, and he's going to hurt working people. I don't want to hear that shit. It's to really, he's fucking smug and weird. He's a odious individual. That's the message. Yeah.

All the other stuff is right, but that is the message. He's out there doing a bunch of media. He also did a sit down with Megyn Kelly, speaking of people we love, where he brought up Trump's attack on Caitlin Susan Collins earlier in the week. We will play that for you first in case you haven't seen the Trump attack on Caitlin Susan Collins. Let's watch. You know, she's a young woman. I don't think I've ever seen you smile. I've known you for 10 years. I don't think I've ever seen a smile in your face. You know why you're not smiling? Because you know you're not telling the truth. No, as she was trying to say, she wasn't smiling because she was asking about survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse of underage girls. That's what she was asking about a couple times when he did that. But here's what the vice president had to say about it. She's asking a question. The president says, why don't you ever smile? Yeah. And it's actually like so perceptive. Even if you're asking a tough question, even if you take your job very seriously, like, why does it always have to be so antagonistic? Well, I laugh because I saw online everybody who's calling him sexist for saying that. And I literally said the same thing about Caitlin Susan Collins a year ago on my show. She never smiles. Every once in a while, you have to smile. Roger Ailes used to tell us that. I bet he did. I bet Roger Ales did tell them to smile and a whole bunch of other things that they have alleged in court documents. I mean, this goes back to the earlier point, but. Like, to understand J.D. Vanzas, understand him as someone who is an empty vessel for ambition. He just wants power. And he'll do anything. If he has to be against Trump, it'll be against Trump, before Trump, before Trump. You and I have debated about how much he actually believes this stuff. I think he does, but it's not here nor there. But I think the lesson he's taken from Trump is that the path to political power in America is to be an unapologetic asshole. And maybe you can get away. Trump has gotten away with that. But Trump has like a showman-like. appeal, right, that works for him that JD Vance does not have. So he's just an asshole. He's not a funny asshole. But again, once again, right there, he added the smugness too of like a, of the most annoying pundit because he did punditry about Trump. It wasn't just like, I agree with what Trump said, right? Which would have been bad enough. It was like, and if he actually look, it's so perceptive. It was so perceptive to just scream at a, at a female reporter that she should smile more while she's asking about victims of sexual abuse. So perceptive.

He sucks. He sucks. Yeah. His approval rating's not great. They were asking young college Republicans who are like, you know, as extreme as they get these days, college Republicans. And he's like 18 points underwater with college Republicans. These are supposed to, you know, he's supposed to be like the young next generation leader of the party. Not doing so well. I saw that in Huck. He's not going to appeal to young people. I mean, Sarah Longwell has put it out in multiplications just how poorly he does in focus groups with young Republicans. And also she said on Twitter recently that in focus groups of women, JD Vance consistently gives them the ick, Sarah's words. He, like, he is real. And then, you know, people like clavicular think that, you know, Gavin Newsomogs him. Yes. He's very, he's very moggable. Yes. That's his problem. That's the way to use it. I have no idea. I actually have no idea. Austin's shaking his head. No. Anyway, while we're talking about the assault on the free press, we should mention what Jeff Bezos, another person we love, did to the Washington Post this week. On Wednesday, the post laid off about a third. of its employees. The sports and book sections were eliminated. The metro section and international coverage were also hit hard. A lot of incredible journalists, including guests we've had across all of our cricket pods, lost their jobs. Adding insult to injury, neither Jeff Bezos or Will Lewis, the publisher Jeff Bezos appointed in 2023, had the balls to log on to the Zoom where the layoffs were announced. This is according to Ashley Parker, our pal Ashley, who's a former post journalist now at the Atlantic. Meanwhile, this is what Jeff Bezos has been up to lately. On Monday, he welcomed Pete Hegseth at his Blue Origin rocket facility. Afterwards, writing to Pete Hegseth on Twitter, huge honor to have you at Blue Origin today. Lovely. And of course, Amazon also sank around $75 million into the Melania Dock. That's $40 million for the licensing rights, $35 million from marketing, which, you know, they hit $8 million so far. So close to making that money back. I know you wrote about all this, what happened with the post this week in Thursday's message box. So the floor is yours, Dan. I'm going to rant for a minute, so I'm going to apologize to everyone in advance. But we talk all the time. I write all the time about the declining relevance of legacy media institutions and how the economics of big media have gotten so hard. And so like some of the things like this should not feel like unexpected. But I think this is an absolute tragedy. It did not need to happen. There are the, on the day in which the post announced these layoffs in New York Times. announced that they had gained more than a million digital subscribers in 2025, and their revenue was up 10% year over year. The Wall Street Journal remains strong. They've been growing. They've been adding subscribers. The post is there is.

our other national newspaper. They could have had a very similar path. Maybe they couldn't be the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, who have very specific business models, but they absolutely could succeed. And they didn't succeed for two reasons. The first is that Jeff Bezos hired Will Lewis, who was an absolute dupus from, he came from the British tabloids, he immediately showed up, he was enmeshed in the phone hacking scandal in in the UK, lied about it, lost the newsroom, never had a plan, didn't seem particularly interested in executing a plan, had no real attempt to actually save the paper, did not seem to care about the paper. But the biggest reason is Jeff Bezos, because when he bought it in 2013 for $250 million, which is fucking couch cushion money for him, he was heralded as like a savior of a great journalistic institution. He put money into it. He, you know, was sort of... Like, he was treated as a savior and someone who, like one of the old media barons, like who would, through their generosity was supporting this important institution in the fourth state and all of that. And then around 2024, he realized that. Owning the Washington Posts the paper that Donald Trump hated was now going to be bad for business for him. It was going to make him less filthy rich, slightly less filthy rich. It would make his companies, huge successful companies, slightly less successful. And so he made a couple of decisions that basically torpedoed the paper. The first was he canceled, personally canceled the paper's plain endorsement of Kamala Harris in 2024. That caused... thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of people to cancel their subscriptions. And then in 2025, he announced that the Washington Post editorial page was no longer, was going to change in a way to make it less likely to anger Trump. It was going to stop doing politics. The whole thing was just ridiculous. It was a naked ploy. And in doing those things, they lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers. They could not afford to lose. And it completely lit on fire. The trust, the paper had built over many, many decades with their audience. And it is absolutely a tragedy. I care about this a lot because I went to college in D.C. I've read the post forever. It is not just a great political newspaper that covers Washington, although they do a great job of that. It has had one of the all-time great sports sections in any paper ever, right? Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, Sally Jenkins wrote there, covered everything. The metro section, people don't remember this, but that Watergate started as a metro section story. Like, the way that, because I lived in D.Z. for a very long time, there is the town of D.C., head to Mark Liebevich, which is the political stuff. There's the city. Right. But everything else that's happening there, what's happening in the government, what's happening in the suburbs and the metro section cover that. The style section was incredible. You remember the profiles done of politicians by our friend Mark Liebevich and Data Bill Bank and others who wrote those. There were great columnists. The political reporters there, like Dan Balls and David Broder and people like that. And that was all destroyed because a man worth a quarter trillion dollars.

couldn't be bothered to try to save the paper and thought it would be better for himself to let it die on a vine. And what's left, like maybe they can bring it back in some way, shape, or form. But right now what's left is the rotting husk of a great journalism institution. And everyone in D.C. and in the country are poorer because of it. Everyone except Jeff Bezos. And look, like, some of it definitely is just, you know, I don't want to piss Trump off. And, you know, Amazon has contracts with the government. And if the government, you know, if Trump turns on Jeff Bezos, what's going to happen, all that bullshit? Some of it's also, I think, with Jeff Bezos is like, he's just another fucking rich guy that thinks his niche political views and the views of the people he surrounds himself with are the views of most Americans. And so you get this sort of like. center-right wall streety silicon valley kind of sensibility that sort of took over the paper at least in the editorial section um and it's just you know these fucking billionaires they're just they think that they're told yes they're surrounded by people who share their views they all bitch about this and that and politics and and they just they They are rich enough to buy these toys and then treat them like toys and break them and not really care. And I saw some people say, like, well, you know, all these subscribers that quit after the canceled editorial endorsement of Kamala Harris, like bear some responsibility as well. Like, why do you stop your subscription when there's so much other great reporting, who cares about the editorial board? And like, I get that. But it's also like, at the end of the day, you're selling a product to the customer. And if you piss the customer off and they don't buy the product anymore, that's your fault. Yes, 100%. Like, you can blame the customer for sure. But like, that's your, you're the one who, you're the one who caused them to leave with your decision. I think to the extent there is a larger lesson here. We have talked for a long time about the absolute essential need of building up a progressive pro-democracy media ecosystem. And over the many years, and I have been to one gazillion meetings, fundraising meetings, pitches about this with everyone in the Democratic Party. And a lot of what you hear is we need our billionaires to come in and support progressive media. And you do need that. Like, you need support to do it. But what a billionaire can give, they can also take away. And so what you need here is that we're not going to be able to build up a competing ecosystem to Fox News and Breitbart and DailyWire and all the rest, simply by a handful of Democratic billionaires giving money to progressive concert creators and media people. You have to build sustainable businesses. That's the only way that independent media will work.

And like that is, and you know this. You are running a large media company in MessageBox. I'm running a much smaller little media company. But like that is it. Is it if you are depending on. what are equivalently charitable donations from foundations and individuals, that can last you for a while, but one day that's going to go away. Either because the billionaire changes their mind, the economy changes or whatever it is. And so it has to be a sustainable business, which is why the beginning of this podcast, you made the request that people subscribe to Friends of the Pod because that is one of the ways in which we make Crooked Media a sustainable business. It's one of the reasons why I'm constantly bothering people to subscribe to MessageBox because it's one of the ways in which continue to do it because I'm not depending on anything other. We're trying to build products that people want and we'll pay for so that we can make more of those products, which we believe is good for democracy and good for our messaging. That's exactly right. It's because it's not just to sustain us now, but it's to grow. It's because we want to, we want to make sure how many fucking journalists are out of a job right now, right? And like, we desperately need more reporting. And I'm not even like, just. It's not even about like opinion reporting at this point or opinion journalism or punditry or analysis. Like we just need people out there doing reporting. I mean, some of the people that were laid off from the post, they were in war zones in Ukraine. They fired the post reporter while she was in a war zone. I mean, it's like we are, we are heading into this. By email. They fired her by email. Be very clear. We've been dealing with, you know, misinformation and this like difficulty and figuring out like a shared reality. We are now, it's going to be supercharged by artificial intelligence. And it is, if it is not the time to have less reporting. You know, because. Pretty soon people aren't going to know what to believe at all. And reporting helps us do that. So I know, you know, I know that some people are like, you see some, a lot of right wingers and MAGA people and just like annoying pundits are like, oh, it's a business and a business failed and, you know, you don't need to cry over it and blah, blah, blah. It's like, Fine, whatever, but, like, you need... Journalism is valuable for democracy. Reporting is valuable for a democracy. If we want to live in a world where we have good information, where we know what's going on, and we can make decisions based on good information about how we live together, like, you need journalism for that. So... It is true that some media businesses are doomed to fail because of changing economics, and we can talk for a long time about what has happened with social media platforms and advertising and now AI. But the Washington Post was not one of those. The Washington Post had a clear... path to sustainability, and they did not go down that path because Jeff Bezos did not take them down that path. That's right. That's right. All right. When we come back, you'll hear Dan Sullivan interview with Maine Governor Janet Mills.

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Joining us now is the governor of Maine and a candidate for U.S. Senate. Janet Mills, Governor Mills, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to be here. Okay. So there has been in recent weeks so much attention, understandably so, on what's been happening with ICE in Minnesota. But at the same time, ICE has been in your state. And I've seen some of the videos, and they seem quite terrifying to lots of your residents. Can you tell us what that experience was like with ICE in your state and what's happening with ICE right now in Maine? Sure. Thanks for a question. Listen, we heard... three weeks ago that ICE was looking for a staging area. So we got word. They might be coming. The cavalry are coming. And we started preparing. And I said, I made a public announcement that, listen, if they're sending ICE agents with those provocative and violent behaviors that they showed us in Minneapolis and elsewhere, that they weren't welcome here. Well, they came. We kept an eye on things. We worked with local law enforcement and state law enforcement and with local organizations to keep track of what they were doing and where they were doing it. And so for about a full week, they began, well, first of all, they announced they were making this operation and calling it catch of the day, operation catch of the day, which is about as insulting as you get. I mean, it was not a fishing derby. It involved real human beings being taken violently from their cars, taken from workplaces and schools and from their families and homes, and taking, God knows where, one state to another state to another state. And they said they had a target of 1,400 people they wanted to take into custody. 1,400 people, well, these aren't the worst of the worst. Let me tell you right now. And what we saw happening on the streets of Portland and Louisston and Bitterhood, Maine was not anything to do with the worst of the worst. We saw people with no criminal backgrounds, no criminal charges, being hauled from cars, being hauled from their homes, and taken into custody and kind of disappearing. disappearing and that included a civil engineer who was here in a construction job. It included two law enforcement agents, two corrections officers and two different counties who were snatched from their cars and their cars left running in the street so that the local sheriff said, this is a botched operation. This is Bush League policing, Bush League law enforcement. So that's what we saw. Has it subsided? Well, we've heard a couple more reports yesterday of people being taken by unidentified officers, unidentified people. That's disturbing. Susan Collins made an announcement that the enhanced ICE operation had ceased. We have yet to have confirmed the confirmation of that. But the point is, why did it happen in the first place?

Seriously, catch of the day? Why did she not know it was coming in the first place? Why didn't she stop it in the first place? Stop people with no criminal charges being taken from their families, snatched from the state of Maine. And so now I'm working with local authorities and organizations to identify exactly who has been disappeared. They claim they took 206 people. Who are they? Where are they now? Under what legal status? Are they now? What warrants were used? We haven't seen any yet. And identify how people can be reunited with their families and get back to work and contribute to their communities. As you point out, Susan Collins announced on Twitter, I think, that the operation was over and claimed credit for it. This is, I imagine, sort of, how she's going to run for re-election in the state to try to show independence of some kind of Trump or show influence with Trump. But you say you have no evidence that. the operation has, that these extra ICE officers have left or anything like that, is that correct? Yeah, fewer reports of kidnappings and whatnot. Fewer reports of people disappearing from their cars and homes. That's true. But who knows, would it restart tomorrow? They gave us very little warning that it was happening in the first place. And we demanded answers. The Attorney General and I wrote a letter last Friday to Christine Ome and insisted on answers about who the people are and where they are and their legal status and whatnot. So Susan Collins has the ability to control this behavior if she wanted to. She has. that ability. But she's been playing these political games for a long time. And she has voted with Trump, as you know, like 94% of the time. 94% of the, she's not fooling anybody here by claiming a victory lap. It's like they came in. Why did they come in in the first place? Why didn't you stop them if you had that power? And she's a person who, you know, supported, voted to confirm Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem, who has no law enforcement ability or experience, who shouldn't be heading up this agency to begin with. And, you know, where did the orders come from? Where do they get these 1,400 targets? How? We need answers. So there's a larger conversation about what's going to happen with ICE. And I think there's two parts of that conversation. There's what can be done right now short term while Trump is president. And then there's a question of what happens when a Democrat is president and hopefully has a Senate congressional majority. Let's start with the first part here. So over the next week or so, Congress is negotiating over the funding for the Department of Homeland Security bill. Democrats want some set of guardrails in exchange for their votes to fund that apartment. You're running for Senate. Seems like a fair question to ask. What would it take, if you were in the Senate right now, what sort of guardrails would you need for your vote to keep the department funded? Well, first of all, there shouldn't be $1 more additional funding for ICE and for DHS without concrete controls, substantive controls and reforms to account for the behavior they've already conducted, already engaged in, and to prevent such behavior in the future. Basic training would be a good thing. Sure, body cams.

They've been talking about body cams, but you've got to tell them to turn them on and save the tapes, for instance. You know, our police officers in Maine, they know how to do that. They've been trained. It's sort of simple, stupid. De-escalation techniques, of course. It sounds like this group has been trained to escalate, not to de-escalate. And, of course, there's no need to be anonymous and unidentified. If you're a trained police officer under basic standards, you shouldn't have any problem identifying yourself before you make an arrest. stop somebody on the street or tear into somebody's home or car. It's basic. police procedure, identify yourself. And so there are a lot of other concrete things you could do, but not a dollar more in funding until you account for what's happening. Have independent investigations into what's already happened. The people have no confidence in the suggestion that there might be an investigation into the killing of Alex Preti or Renee Good. This is not happening. There should be a transparent and independent investigation. We know how to do that. I was Attorney General for eight years in Maine. We did independent investigations into the police use of deadly force. It's by law and by good public policy in our state and most every state. We know good law enforcement in this state. We train them up for 18 weeks minimum in Maine. And I helped teach the courses on Constitution law, Fourth Amendment and such. They know better than to do what the ICE agents have been doing in Maine and other states in recent months. And our law enforcement agents, they don't have to wear masks. They know better. And they don't go out and do a sweep of whole communities based on some artificial quota set by some political figurehead for no good reason. Would you require a ban on masks in exchange for your vote? Sure. I mean, it's sort of simple, fundamental. Why would any law enforcement agency need to wear masks for fear of retaliation? Well, what would there be retaliation about if you weren't doing some bad stuff? Right. Yeah. I mean. That's sort of the point, right? That's the point of the accountability. Don't do it in the first. You won't worry about retaliation. All right, let's talk long term, or medium term, I guess. Your primary opponent, Graham Platner, has called for abolishing ice. In a CNN interview, you didn't go that far. Can you tell me what you would, how would you want to see if you were in the Senate, how to change ice if I'm correcting that you're not for abolishing it? What does a new reform ice look like? It could end up being abolished, but first of all, have accountability. as I mentioned, investigations into what's going on so far. And how do you prevent that from happening again? And for goodness sakes, when bad things do happen, you have to coordinate with local and state officials to investigate bad stuff like the killings of two people in Minneapolis. We investigate killings here in Maine. We know how to do that. And you don't just abscond with the car, the body, the evidence.

and not let local enforcement who know what they're doing investigate bad behavior like that and violent acts by ICE. So require independent investigations into these actions and prepare for investigations coordinated with state and local officials if things continue to happen like that. That's sort of basic. Re-training the people who've been hired with these amazing recruitment bonuses from the... the big bad bill of last summer. Retrain them if they've been trained in the first place. Teach them de-escalation. It seems like these people have been trained in escalation, not de-escalation. Make sure they're accountable. And obviously... identifying themselves. A lot of nitty-gritty things that would have to be reworked to hold ICE accountable for what they've done and let them continue operating in any sense of the word, but not one dollar more in funding. And look, then there's the money they've gotten from last summer to build these detention centers in states across the country. That's pretty scary too, and that ought to stop. At the beginning of your answer, you said it could be abolished. What do you mean by that? Well, if they can't make these basic concrete reforms, these changes, they can't let them go on doing what they're doing, terrorizing neighborhoods and communities and whole cities, terrorizing the public safety and people's fundamental constitutional rights, civil rights. So abolishing ICE is on the table or move it or sometimes I hesitate to just use the slogan, but. moving enforcement to a different part of the government. But the problem is, the problem is if you change the name, this administration will just create another agency with a different name with the same mission, a very dangerous, violent mission. You have to stop the violence in whoever's name it's done. And it's the people given the orders from above that are the threat to our country. Right. And theoretically under this scenario, it's a Democratic president. doing this, right? Like, I don't have any, any, any hope or that or idea that this would happen under Trump. But I'm sort of thinking of 2029, you're in the Senate and a Senate majority potentially. We have a Democratic House. We have president, pick your, your candidate of choice. And so it's like, what can Democrats do there where it's not just, Trump just not renaming it. It's a democratic decision about how to enforce immigration law and whether ICE as currently constituted would be part of that. That's a question? Yeah. Or suggestions. Well, I guess that's my, I guess I was just surprised to hear you say abolishing ice was on the table. So I just wanted to get to some clarity on that. If there's no other way to change what's going on right now. But first and foremost, the Congress right this minute has the power to withhold further funding. And the Senate has the power to stand up with this administration and demand concrete answers, concrete reforms, changes, and accountability. And that's what must happen. I think the American people are insisting on that. Even the Republicans are hearing that voice back home that things have got to change. Things have got to change. And you know what?

It can't just be, oh, let's wait 10 days, another two weeks, kick the can down the road like Washington tends to do anyway. Look at the ACA. And let's say, oh, let's start a task force and look at this, a commission, a blue ribbon, pink ribbon, green ribbon commission. No way, okay? People know what's happened. We don't need to re-examine things. But let's get answers to the questions that were raised just the other day. And those hearings... from the brothers of rene good and from other victims of the minneapolis rampage get answers for what happened then and how we can stop it from continuing first and foremost and until that happens not one dollar more In the last couple of days, Trump has said that he wants to federalize elections at the federal government take over. He has doubled and tripled and now quadrupled down on that in recent days. Steve Bannon said that, he declared that ICE would be sharing up at polling places on Election Day. We have the Director of National Intelligence seizing ballots in Fulton County. Have you begun thinking about how to secure elections in Maine from federal interference this November? Sure. I mean, these are dangerous, dangerous words, dangerous talk, dangerous thoughts, dangerous threats to our democracy. And as governor of this state, I will stand firm and as a state that has repeatedly large turnout, a large turnout of voters every election year, one of the highest turnouts in the country. We will protect every individual's right to vote. this November and take every action necessary to secure the polls and secure absentee ballots. We just fought a battle with Republicans this past November where they tried to take away absentee ballots. Put a measure on the ballot to take away balloting and we defeated it by a huge margin because people don't want to do that. They hold dear their right to vote. It is sacrosanct, not just in this state, but every state. And we will make every effort to make sure that the polls are not violated by some agency like ICE. The Constitution says the states have authority over elections, and we will assert that authority under my governorship and in this state make sure that people are able to vote safely without intimidation, without... deprivation of rights. You, when you announced that you were running for Senate, it, it appeared they came after like significantly long deliberation. You thought long and hard about it. And you decided that you were the best person to do it. This was the time to go. You know, my sort of, I, I intuited from that that you believe that you're the best person to beat Susan Collins. Do you think you're the only person to beat Susan Collins? Look, right now, I am, the issue is electability right now in this. And we have run people against Susan Collins before, wonderful people, but we've run people who are not tested. I have run and won two statewide elections.

I had a seven-way primary the first time, and I won. I had a four-way general election, and I won. I have been up and down this state. People know me, whether they agree with everything I say or not. They know me, and they know that what you see is what you get. I'm a person in this primary who has done that, who's won two statewide elections by 13 points last time, increasing margins. I'm the only person in this primary who's delivered progress for main people when it comes to health care, reproductive rights, education, climate action, all those things. And I'm the only person in this primary who's actually stood up to Donald Trump. And I'll do it again as a U.S. Senator. So I put my record up. of electability. This is a crucial state, as you well know. Control of the U.S. Senate, I believe, goes through Maine. It has to. The Republican machinery is already promised. They've already committed $42 million to an advertising campaign this coming fall. They've already had Susan Collins up on TV. saturating the airwades since last fall, saying all these good things about her and trying to build up her image and trying to get behind the fact that she voted. She gave the critical vote. She cast the critical vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. She cast votes for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. She cast the vote for Kristi Noem. She cast the votes for Linda McMahon. All these decisions and her 94% voting rate with Donald Trump. And this is the woman who said just a couple years ago, Donald Trump, I think he's learned his lesson, quote, unquote. You know, I'll take her on. I'll take her on because it'll be a hyper-local campaign. What have you done for Maine? What have you done for Maine? And I can go toe to toe with Susan Collins on that basis, and I can win. One of the concerns, as you know, and it's been brought up in every interview that you've done, has been about your age. And so you have, you know, I've appreciated that you've taken that on directly in a lot of ways. But one way in which you took it on is that you have made a pledge to serve one term. Can you talk to me about why you made that pledge? And whether some people's fears that this just means we're going to have another open seat race in Maine in six years is a concern. What's really critical to me is the next couple years. The more I see what's happening in Washington, you've brought up just a few minutes ago the threat to our elections this year. That's not going to stop. And if we don't take control of our country in the next couple years, I worry we may not have a country. And that is why I'm running, because we need to take back control of the U.S. Senate. We need to stand up to Donald Trump. We need to push forward on things like universal health care. And I have the ability and the experience to start on day one, getting stuff done, making these changes, standing up for the rights of people, standing up for a better economy, affordability.

and progress for people and health care and education and otherwise. I have the ability to do that on day one. And I'm not going to start on day two, dialing for dollars and running for re-election. I want my whole focus, and my whole focus will be on getting the job done as soon as I get there. We have a young bench behind me. And the office would be open another six years. God forbid we still have a country, we still have elections. There will be other people behind me. And I'm always been pleased to mentor young people and younger Democratic Party candidates. And I'll continue to do that as well. But I'm giving it my all. I'm not running because I need a position or a platform or resume builder. I don't need that. I need to be down there. And I think people say, well, you won't have seniority. Really? If I'm part of taking back the U.S. Senate, my voice will be heard and it will be heard loudly. Last question for you. You have said that you are undecided on how you would vote for Chuck Schumer as leader. My understanding, at least, is that Chuck Schumer spent a lot of time and energy recruiting you to run for Senate. I've been on the other end of some of Chuck Schumer's phone calls over the year, so I can imagine what that was like. The DSCC is supporting you. Is that an awkward position to be in? And what would... How would you decide whether to support Center Chuck Schumer or not? What is making you undecided on that point? Let me back up a second. Before I decided to run in mid-October, I had had exactly one conversation with Chuck Schumer. One meeting. Oh, interesting. Okay. That's good to know. January, February of last year, he was not pushy. He simply said, we think you're the, you're the candidate who can win, who can beat Susan Collins. And I gave it a lot of thought in the meantime. It was I who decided to run. Nobody else. Anybody knows me, knows that I'm not beholden to anybody. I have made no commitment to Chuck Schumer. Nobody in Washington pulled my chain, yanks my chain. Whether it's Chuck Schumer or Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump, people know that, I stand up and speak my mind. And the question I will ask anybody running for majority leader next year? year for now, would be what can you do to help me do the best job I can for Maine people? How can you help me help Maine people? And I've had conversations with other senators who well may be in the running for a majority lead. I don't know. But I've held an open door to them as well and happy to hear from them on all accounts. So, you know, I have no commitment. I appreciate that the DSC thinks I'm the best candidate. I think of the best candidate also. I happen to agree with that. And that's why I'm running. And let me be clear, I would be running for this seat because I feel so strongly that we have got to stand up for our country, especially in the next few months and the next few years. I would be running for this whether Chuck Schumer were in office or anybody else in that office. I chose to run. And I am running with a commitment.

and the passion to help turn things around in a broken Washington, D.C., in a government that is not simply not doing the right things, but is doing all the wrong things, a government that is taking a wrecking ball, not just to the White House, but to the Constitution, to our economy, to the rights of American people. I can't stand for that anymore. My work isn't finished here with everything I've done at the state level. I'm very anxious to go on to the federal level and continue the work I've done at the state level, but also stand up to an abuse of power, the likes of which we have never seen before because I think these times are most urgent, most urgent dangerous times that we've seen since the Civil War. That's what I feel. And that's why I'm running. Governor Mills, thank you so much for joining us. Good luck on the campaign trail. And we will talk to you again before your primary, I hope. Hope so. Thank you very much. That's our show for today. Thanks to Janet Mills for coming on. Tommy's going to be back on the feed on Super Bowl Sunday. He's going to be interviewing sports journalist Pablo Torre. Bye everyone. Bye, everyone. 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 DeGroate 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.