Minneapolis is a Turning Point

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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favro. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, we'll talk about how the White House may actually be willing to negotiate with Democrats on reforms to rain and ice as a way to avoid a shutdown. We'll also talk about the FBI's extremely concerning raid on the elections headquarters in Fulton County, Georgia, and Trump's latest posting spree about the 2020 election. That's right. I didn't misspeak. The 2020 election, he's still posting about it. We also got the new Melania documentary that Dan has to get to right after we finish recording, so I'll try not to be too long. And then MS Now's Joe Scarborough stops by to catch up about the news. And finally, we got a special preview for you of our new bi-weekly subscribers-only episode of Pod Save America. called Pod Save America Only Friends. A perfect title. A perfect title. Perfect title. No one could criticize. To get it, you got to be a friend of the pod subscriber, which gets you ad-free episodes, our growing list of excellent substack newsletters, subscriber-only shows like Only Friends and Polar Coaster. And Polar Coaster. And it gives you the confidence that you're doing your part to support independent. pro-democracy media that will never capitulate to Donald Trump. But you've got to be a subscriber. We will never fund a documentary about Melania. Never. No. At least, I can't say never. I can say never. I can say never. Well, please subscribe so we don't have to. If you do not, we will, Melania 2, Electric Bugaloo coming to you from Crooked Productions. Become a friend of the pod, cricket.com slash friends. All right. First. Trump's borders are, Tom Homan, who is now the top official in charge of immigration enforcement, held a press conference in Minneapolis Thursday in an attempt to defuse the political crisis facing the White House after federal agents killed Alex Prettie. This came after Reuters reported on new internal guidance from a top ICE official that now directs all federal agents to avoid talking to or engaging with, quote, agitators in order to avoid inflaming the situation. And the guidance also ordered. orders agents to only target immigrants with criminal records. As of this recording, there haven't been any actual signs that ICE has changed their tactics in Minneapolis. But here's what Holman had to say on Thursday. I'm not here because of the federal government has carried this mission out perfectly. This is common sense cooperation that allows to draw down on the number of people we have here. Yes, I said it. Draw down the number of people here. I said in March if the reddick didn't stop, there's going to be bloodshed. I don't see anybody die. Not officers, not members of the community, and not the targets of our operations. With that, I call upon those officials stand shoulder to shoulder with us to tone down the dangerous rhetoric and condemn all unlawful actions against law enforcement in the community. We are not surrendering our mission at all. We're just doing smarter. Okay, so you heard him say there. I'm not here to say that what the federal government did was perfect. It's the closest thing. I guess you're going to get to an acknowledgement that they have terrorized cities and also that there will be a drawdown. So it certainly seems like they're trying to change the political narrative that much we're clear on. Big question is whether they actually change their tactics. What do you think?

Look, if you can't trust Tom Homan, a man who definitely did not take a $50,000 bribe in a Kava bag, who can you trust? I don't know anymore. Look, if we're being serious here, that is as much, I don't want to say good, but at least as much as you can plausibly expect from a Trump administration official to suggest that. things are going to change, as you could hope for it, because they never admit failure, they never apologize, and they never back down. And he's basically, he's definitely trying to change the political narrative. He's basically wearing a t-shirt that says de-escalation as he talks about this. I mean, we just have to see what's going to happen. Like, I think the big test is, are they going to draw down some of the agents there and reverse the surge and get to what is a... like a more manageable number in a city the size of Minneapolis. And do they, are they really going to? stop engaging with the actions. I'm going to see an actual change in tactics and attitude from these agents. And I think that's going to be very hard because they spent the last year being told you were above the law, you're unaccountable, you can do whatever you want, and you're at war with these people. And so we'll, you know, we'll have to, we'll have to see here. I just think it is notable that they feel an obligation to even suggest the escalation as opposed to doubling down, which is a very, unusual move from Trump, particularly in Trump 2.0. Yeah. And then, you know, the concern, the version of this that goes poorly is, you know, Stephen Miller sort of bides his time and knows that Donald Trump, who has barely been focused on. the actual work of governing anyway, moves on to the next thing, the media moves on to the next thing, Democrats move on to the next thing, Susie Wiles, whoever else is saying we got to fix this shit, moves on, and then continues to send ICE out there with these operations. ICE is also this giant, unaccountable federal agencies, the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country now, the budget, the size of the Israeli military, they're hiring people who are... completely unqualified, ideologically extreme. Those people all got to do something. They have all this money. You still got Miller there. You still got JD Vance there. Still got Kristi Noem there. And so what do they do? Now, it's hard for them to be as bad as they've been under the radar because they go into another city. Say they draw down in Minneapolis. If they go into another city and they start doing this shit again, it's going to be all over the news. So I don't know. There's also just this inherent tension between what Tom Homan says he wants and reportedly has been pushing for throughout the administration, which is why he was originally sidelined, which is he wants them to focus on.

people with a criminal record and people with final deportation orders where you know who you're going after, you go get them. And I'm sure he's not doing any way in the way which we would want it to be done, but that is a more targeted approach than the Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandalski, Greg Gregory Bovino, just march an army across the streets, grab everyone you possibly can figure it out later. The problem is you have this tension between Tom Homan's purported approach and Stephen Miller's numbers. And you simply cannot meet the quotas the Stephen Miller's forward. You can't even do it with what they're currently doing. But just you're not going to be able to deport the number of Stephen Miller is talking about. You focus only on the people who should be deported. And so what happens when that tension becomes bare to Trump? And I'll also say, like, L.A. was one of the first cities where they had a sent in ice for immigration operations. Tom Homan was in charge then. Tom Homan said what you heard there that, like, oh, we're going to prioritize the criminals, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, we might pick up some other people if you happen to be around. And it just wasn't true what was happening in L.A. Like, they just weren't prioritizing people like that. It was certainly not as bad as what Chicago became and certainly Minneapolis. But... you know, whether Tom Homan is lying or not, and again, guy with the Kava bag, how can you not trust him? But whether he's, whether he's lying or whether he thinks he's telling the truth, but the agency and these crazy ICE officials and ICE agents are just doing whatever the fuck they want, you know, that's, I worry about that, too. Well, I mean, like, if we're being honest, that was a problem in the Obama years, too. It's one of the reasons why DACA had to be created was the original idea was that was to, because you obviously set out. You couldn't get a handle on ice in the first term. Right. You want to set out priorities on who they should focus on. And one of the things is we are deprioritizing dreamers. They're not the sort of people who should be the focus of your limited resources and who, in who you get supported. That did not work because they kept picking up dreamers all the time. They kept ending up in detention center. Sometimes they would get out. Sometimes they wouldn't. And so you had to actually change. change their status to be able to protect them. And so, and that was ICE before the white supremacist recruiting, uh, campaign before we just started surging people in there who are untrained, um, and handing them guns and dressing them like their Navy seals and sending them out to the streets. So, so I will also say that the political incentives are going to put pressure on the white house from their base and from the part of the Republican party where the energy is because. You know, any of the, the blowback they're getting right now is from most of the country, but certainly not the core of the Republican base. And those people are ready to, like, you know, move on from this. We'll talk about it, but they, you know, blame Renee Good and blame Alex Preddy for their own deaths. And they're just like full speed ahead. So that's going to sort of rear its ugly head at some point, too. Yeah. Tom Homan's Presser came a day after the top federal judge in Minneapolis, a George W. Bush appointee. Absolutely. kicked the shit out of ICE for repeatedly defying nearly 100 court orders just related to their operation in Minnesota. The judge wrote in a four-page order, quote, this list should give pause to anyone, no matter his or her political beliefs, who cares about the rule of law, ICE has likely violated more court orders.

In January of 26, then some federal agents have violated in their entire existence. ICE is not a law unto itself. Seems notable. Yeah. I mean, this is a classic example of the fish rotting from the head town, which is when you have a president who believes he's above the law, you end up with people who work for him. JD Vance, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Greg Gregory Bovino, who believe that the law is what they say it is. Not what judges say, not what Congress says, not what the Constitution says, what they say it is. And then that filters down to a bunch of ICE agents who are wandering the streets with weapons that are disproportionate to the tasks before them, heavily armed, and who believe they're that they're unaccountable to anyone. or anything. And when you have that sort of attitude pulsing through an organization, you're going to end up with exactly what we've seen in Minneapolis. And by the way, all the assholes on the right who are like, well, these protesters and these people who come out and yell at ICE, like they're impeding federal officers and they're breaking the law. And it's like, well, you have this unaccountable paramilitary force that. Courts are saying are not just breaking the law, but then defying court orders. So when you have a lawless paramilitary force rampaging through the streets of American cities, what are Americans supposed to do? They're just supposed to just sit there and take it. And like, they're not fighting them. They're blowing whistles. They're coming out to protests. And yeah, when they, when a mob of these guys comes and tackles them to the ground as opposed to walking up to a protester and saying, hey, come with me. You're under arrest. I'm going to read you some rights. That's not what's happening. When people are like impeding law enforcement or accused of impeding law enforcement or thrown to the ground, it's not because the officer or the agent politely said, hey, please put your hands up and we're going to arrest you and you're going to come with me. And then they tried to like tackle them and run away. That's not what happens. They just they don't even say anything. They just tackle people. The overwhelming majority of what's happening out there is classic, nonviolent civil disobedience. Yes. It's exactly the entirely within the law. Tirely within the law. Titherto within the Constitution. And it is historically the only way to combat this sort of state overreach. Yes. So almost a week later, no one from the administration has apologized or offered. Any kind of explanation for why they smeared Alex Preddy as a domestic terrorist and an assassin who intended to massacre federal agents. In fact, they are now doubling down after a new video surfaced of Preddy being tackled by agents 11 days before he was killed. CNN had a story about this a couple days earlier, but then we actually got some video. And the Minneapolis Star Tribune confirmed that it was Preddy in the video with his family. And they also spoke to a witness.

who was there and saw the incident and had filmed another angle as well. Basically, ice agents had descended on a Spanish immersion daycare, which led a bunch of people in Minneapolis to show up and start yelling at the ice agents and throwing snowballs at them. Then you see in the video, Alex is near one of the ice SUVs and spits on the car. flips them off, and then kicks the taillight as the car is pulling away. The vehicle then stops. Four agents get out, tackle Preddy, shoot tear gas and pepper balls at the crowd. Preddy wrestles away from the agents. They let him go, drive away, and then Preddy turns to the crowd and says, are we all okay? Are we all safe? CNN had also reported that a source said Preddy suffered a broken rib from that encounter. But of course, MagaWorld from the president. and the vice president who were retweeting or reposting different accusations about this to all of their media sycophants. They're using this video to support their argument that Preddy was a violent agitator who was solely responsible for agents reeling his body with bullets 11 days later. Just give you one example. Megyn Kelly tweeted that the new video was proof that he, Alex Prattie, was victimizing and terrorizing and stalking them. as in Border Patrol. And then she tweeted, quote, find another poster boy, illegal loving leftists. Dan? The argument being made here is so morally bankrupt and intellectually vapid that's almost impossible to talk about. I know. Like the video does not show him terrorizing and targeting ICE officers. But even if he did, even if he broke that taillight. even if he spit on that not like a car an officer that is not grounds to shoot someone in the street to murder later 11 days even if it right this was right there's no evidence they knew who this person was he was the same person who might have kicked a taillight 11 days earlier but even if he did that right then there even if he walked up to the car of those guys were standing in front of and broke their taillight they don't get to kill him That's not how it works. They are not judged jury and executioner. And anyone making this argument, is just so fucked in the head that it's even hard to like the fact that we're like parsing the video of it's 11 days earlier and all he did then he said this nice thing is like we're like already playing their game you don't get to shoot and kill people in the street who do not pose a threat to you that is not something that you get to do that is murder that is what happened here you like it's so fucking ridiculous it's like watching a bunch of the MAGA accounts and they're like, this is the video that Democrats don't want you to see. I'm like, sure, no, everyone should go watch it. It's fine. What are you talking about? Like, you know what I want? I want what they say they want, which is law and order. So if he, you know, vandalized a federal agent's car, whatever the fuck it is, and they didn't like it, you stop the car, you walk out of the car, sir, you just...

tried to, you know, impede an investigation or you just tried to kick the car. Do you want to explain yourself? No. Come with us, sir. Put, you know, and then, and then you arrest it. If that makes sense, right? Just like 11 days later, when they grabbed him and threw him on the ground, they could have said, sir, you're under arrest. You're under arrest and you're impeding our officer. We're taking you away. We're taking you downtown. Right. And then we're going to go before a judge. And we're going to present evidence as to why you should be charged. That's it. And when you, before you tackle the person, you tell them who you are and why you are stopping them and why you may arrest them. That's it. I don't know. That seems pretty basic. You don't fucking shoot them 10 times. It's like the idea that the right is getting together to milkshake duck a murder victim is just so stupid. Of course they are. Of course they are. It's like, ha, we got you. But it's also this like, well, it's also this view that our outrage and grief over this is solely because Alex Preddy is this like perfect hero, right? Now, it turns out. Seems like an amazing human from literally everything everyone has said Video we've all seen all the rest of it But I don't care if he was a fucking schmuck I don't care if he was an asshole. I don't care if you hated police. I don't care what happened. That is why we have fucking laws in this country. It's not about whether the person is good or bad. That is their shit. They think that they see the world through you're either good or you're bad. And if you're bad, anything can happen to you. We get to decide, by the way, whether you're good or bad. If you're bad, anything can happen to you. And if you're good, then fine, but we'll find something bad about you. It's crazy. It's just, I don't care if he committed a felony. moments before they tackle him to the ground. You don't get to shoot him. I don't care if he shot someone. I don't care. It's a murder suspect. You arrest them. And then you try them. If that person does not pose a threat to the officers, they don't get to kill him. They just, no. It's just the way it is. Because the government and its propagandists are working overtime to rewrite the history of Alex's killing, I do think it's worth playing a clip from Anderson Cooper's. truly extraordinary interview with Stella Tucker Carlson. She's the witness who filmed the shooting from the closest angle. I think the internet was calling her Pink Coat Lady for a while because they didn't know her identity. And then Anderson was in Minneapolis, sat down with her. It's a longer clip, but I really think the whole 20-minute interview is worth your time. I wish everyone would watch it. But let's take a look at this excerpt. I mean, I watched him die. I remember him arching his back and his head rolling back and he looked. It was so fast moving but not for me. Like when they left, when they fleed, which now I see.

After the shooting, they decided to just scatter and save themselves. And then they come over to try to perform some type of medical aid by ripping his clothes open with scissors and then maneuvering his body around like a rag doll, only to discover that it could be because they wanted to count the bullet wounds to see how many they got like he's a deer. You knew he was gone then. I knew he was gone. There was no way with the way his body was moving. And I only knew that because of the way they were manipulating his dead body, just playing with it. Like they're in a video game. They were looking at us and laughing. After the shoot. Yes. They wouldn't talk, look at us. Everyone just kept saying, just look at us. You're our representatives. You work for us. Why won't you look at us? You know, when we walk around with the whistles around our neck, it's not that we have... Like, we know we can't do much. But what we do know is that we can let our community at large know when we're walking around. Like, I see you. And if you're stuck in your apartment, I want you to see me. I'm another person walking around who is here to protect you as best I can with my whistle in my phone, which really feels not great. To you, this is murder. Yes. I know it is. It was an assassination. full view in the middle of the streets. I think people are feeling like there's nobody here to help us. There's nobody who can step in to protect us. And I think people are at a loss and shook and like, what do we do? What can we do? What is in our constitutional rights that don't seem to matter? The Constitution doesn't seem to matter. I mean, I... I watched that and I was just my first reaction was like I want. My wish is that everyone in America would just watch this 20 minute video. And if you finish watching it and you still think that Alex Prady deserved it, that he was responsible for his own death, that the federal agents that are out there on the streets are just trying to do their jobs and that this is the right thing for the country, then like, you know, I can't help you and that's what you think. But like, at least watch this. At least watch it. I had two reactions to this. You sent it to me after it aired. You said this was gut-wrenching, I think was how you described it to me. And I definitely had that reaction. Like my heart broke for her. It breaks for Alex's family and friends and everyone in Minnesota and elsewhere who's being terrorized by ICE. But the other part of it is for as gut-wrenching and heartbreaking as the interview is, it's also so inspiring that, like, as we everything. feels so dark, and has felt dark for a long time now, that just people don't give a shit. We are just like becoming this nation where the fabric of society is just like torn apart and no one cares about anything. But like what's happening in Minnesota, what people like Stella are doing, that they are going out at great risk to themselves in absolute freezing weather.

with phones and whistles to protect members of the community that they don't know. They just know that they live near them, but they're neighbors. And to do what they can to protect them because that's what you do when your community is under assault, matter who is doing the assaulting, is so inspiring and should give us hope that we can come out of this as a country on the other side, that if we can survive this period, if we can get through Trump. and all of MAGA and all of this, that this country deserves so much more than we're currently getting and that there is like real good here in a lot of our population who will be there on the other side for something much better than what we currently have. Yeah. And again, it's not your typical activists, people who go out to protests, people who are super politically engaged, though. in Minneapolis and all over the country. Those people are certainly out, you know, count myself as one of them, you, all of us here. But it is, if you just watch the coverage in Minnesota, you listen to some of these people, some of them have just never, never thought they would join a protest, never have done political organizing, never would do any of this. And they just feel that their community is under assault. And this is the response that they are providing because they just, they care about their neighbors. And they care about their neighbors even if they've never met them. even if they're strangers to them. And they're taking great risks for this. Everyone should also, by the way, Alex Wagner, runaway country, her podcast, she was in Minneapolis. The episode is phenomenal. And, you know, she's like talking to this mother who's like trying to organize rides for people and for schools and to like make sure kids are okay and stuff like that. And she's like, she's feeling guilty because she's got two young kids. And she's like, I'm... spending all my time. Like, I want to spend time with my kids and they're hurting, but also I'm trying to, like, help my neighbors and, like, that's the tension. And I don't, I feel upset and I don't want to feel, like, I feel guilty. But then I'm like, why do I feel bad? People are feeling worse. It's just like, the humanity that we're seeing is like, it is. It is really, really inspiring. And so I felt that. I felt inspired. I was also just like shaking with rage. like I can't I can't shake it because when you see that and then you watch like you know and again not even it's weird I don't know if you feel like this but like I still have all my anger at Donald Trump that I've always had but when you see him he's just like this fucking moron who's like yeah you know it's a horrible thing horrible thing and even worse with Renee good because you know her parents are Trump fans and you're like this guy is just he has no soul, he doesn't care, whatever. But like, JD Vance and Stephen Miller and Christine Ome and Gregory Bovino and these people who are like smearing him as an assassin and the Megyn Kelly's and all the other fucking ghouls on, like in right wing media, I'm just like, God, like I don't understand. I don't understand how you can't like just sit this one out. This one incident just be like, you know what? This was bad. This was bad. I'm going to have all my same beliefs. I'm going to have all my same political views. But this is pretty bad. Like, no, they just, they have to fucking go in on every single thing, even something like this because I guess they have to win. Yeah, it's, I mean, it is you, this is how you show your loyalty to Trump.

Is you take an incredibly insane disgusting position. You double, triple, quadruple down on it to prove to him that you will debase yourself for him. And then there is the incentive structure of right wing media, which is to have the most out there, outrageous, edgy take possible, right? It's how you, these people end up. Pussy's footing around with Nick Fuentes because that's where the juice is, right? So it's like it's the what's the obviously right thing to do? And you ask any of these people who possibly pretended to once have conservative values, like what would your reaction be to federal government agents shooting an armed man in the street for expressing his first and second amendment rights? Like. I mean, that's an NRA ad for 25 years. It's also like, what would your reaction be if you saw someone in your neighborhood? who maybe you don't know well, but you've seen walk around, and maybe they're a Democrat. Maybe they didn't vote for Donald Trump. And you see a federal agent shoot them down on the street. Like, what would you feel that? Right? Like, you know, the Charlie Kirk assassination has been brought up a bunch over the last couple weeks from, you know, idiot right wingers. Mago be like, oh, the Democrats never condemned Charlie Kirk or felt back. It's like, no, we all, I mean, you know, we took some shit for this. Like, I watched the Charlie Kirk thing and felt genuinely bad and horrified because it's a human being with the family. And he was murdered. And that's how I feel about people on the left being murdered and the right and the center and people with no politics and kids. And like I just, you either have universal principles and empathy for other human beings. Or you don't. And like, you don't draw the line at only having that for people who are on your side. And I thought that's like the most fucking basic thing, the basic set of values. But like, I don't know. I wish people would find it. I wish, because I don't want to just like, I hope they find those values. I hope they do. I know your anger, and it's very apparent to me where your anger is focused. And I share it. But this is the result of a decade of cultural rot of Donald Trump at the top of our politics. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know. Not to blame social media, but like it's, you know, it is not seeing people as humans. It is exactly what Stella Tucker Carlson said.

which is like they treated it like a video game. What you talked about those agents treating his body like that. But that is how some of these people whose brains are so fucking broken by the internet and whatever they do for their jobs, which is just like, oh, it's just another person. Whatever. Ding, ding, ding. Someone died. Whatever. We've got to win the fight. We've got to make sure that we own the libs. Got to come out stronger than them. And I didn't have to see them. I don't know them. They're not in my life. So people die all the time. Oh, well. And like, that's the dehumanization that leads to... truly horrific outcomes. This show is brought to you by AG1. AG1 is the daily health drink that combines your multivitamin, pre-and-probiotic, superfoods, and antioxidants into one simple green scoop. It's one of the easiest things you can do to support your body every day. The New Year is often a time when we commit to building better habits or refocusing on improving our health. AG1 can help you work toward those goals by supporting energy, digestive, regularly, immune defense. and a healthy mood. Most resolutions are hard to maintain, but one scoop of AG1 every morning is one of the easiest things you can add to your routine to keep you on track this new year. Even if you miss the new year, there's no better time than now to kickstart your journey to better health with AG1 NextGen. AG1 NextGen is a daily health drink clinically shown to support gut health. and fill in common nutrient gaps with 75 plus ingredients, including five probiotic strains. AG1 replaces the need for a multivitamin probiotics and more. It's very easy. I've taken AG1. You just put the scoop in the water. You mix it up. Tastes great, you feel much healthier. Visit drinkag1.com slash crooked and get three free AG1 travel packs and three free AGZ travel packs plus free vitamin D3 plus K2 and an AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. That's drinkag1.com slash crooked. Pots of America is brought you by article. We love article furniture here. We have a whole bunch in the office. I have some at home. It's very comfortable. It looks beautiful. And it's really affordable. Article offers a curated range of mid-century modern coastal and scandy inspired pieces that not only shine on their own, but also pair seamlessly with nearly any other article product. This thoughtful design approach makes it incredibly easy to mix and match, helping you create a space that feels cohesive and stylish. Article takes great care in curating its collection, focusing solely on high-quality, meaningful pieces. that will stand the test of time. There's no filler. Every item is chosen for its craftsmanship, design, and lasting value. Article offers fast affordable shipping across the U.S. and Canada with options for professional assembly if you prefer a hands-off experience. Articles customer care team is available seven days a week, offering knowledgeable support and even free interior design services to help you get your home just right. With Articles 30 days satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence knowing that if you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily return it.

Articles offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more to claim visit article.com slash crooked and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com slash crooked for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. So Anderson also asked Stella Tucker Carlson whether she'd been contacted by anyone investigating the shooting. In the federal government, she said no. Possible that's changed by now, but it does seem like there still isn't much of an investigation to speak of. Glenn Thrush and Alan Fuhr at the New York Times published a story on Thursday about how Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche have declined to authorize the standard federal investigation into the shooting of Renee Good and haven't made up their minds yet. on the Alex Preti shooting. This is apparently causing major tension among federal prosecutors in Minnesota, glad to hear that, who were instead being asked to investigate protesters and Democratic politicians. According to the story, prosecutors confronted their boss, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, a Trump appointee, and said they were considering quitting in protest as six others did two weeks ago around the Renee Good shooting. Like... What do you think Todd Blanche and Pam Bondi are like, we're just not going to do a, we're not going to do a criminal federal investigation. We're just not going to do that now. I think Todd Blanche and Pam Bondi are two people who are not loyal to the Constitution, the country, principle of justice, but they're loyal to one man. And that man is Stephen Miller. And look, this is, like, it is. You know, I think we thought it to be at the outset of Trump 2.0 that the Department of Justice would be bad, quite bad. But it would still be the Department of Justice. It would be filled with career prosecutors who would do what career prosecutors have always done. And that all of the political vengeance, let's get James Comey and... Letitia James and everyone else was sort of like a side quest, right? Yeah. But this, when you get to a situation where the Department of Justice does not investigate the person who shot people and killed them, but the people who got shot and killed, then it's proof that the whole thing is fundamentally rotten to its core. And nothing they can do can be trusted in any way, shape, or form. Yeah, I think what I hadn't. fully grasped is that like I always knew that they would you know they would try to go after their enemies because that was the advertisement and they have done that and they've they've stumbled in that so far they haven't had a lot of wins on that thanks to the courts and their own incompetence and the fact that they didn't haven't really had anything on them so they stumbled on that but the willingness to um Just not go after anyone who commits any crimes on their side.

And the danger there. And, of course, it started with the pardon of the January 6th rioters. And now we're seeing it here, too. That is potentially even more dangerous than the trying to use the law to go after his political enemies. The federal government is covering up two murders. That is what is happening here. You know, I was thinking of this, I was like, we spent all summer on the Epstein files and covering up the Epstein files. And, like, they're now covering up two murders that just happened. murders. They're just not going to federally investigate. They're just sweeping that under the rug. So if you were pissed about the fucking Epstein files not coming out, like this to me is murdered Americans, government murdered American citizens, federal agents, murder American citizens. And they're like, no, no criminal investigation here. We're going to do an internal investigation led by the agency where the federal agents worked. And we're just going to, we're going to look at use of force policies. And that's it. I don't think we have fully interpreted what the response to these killings by the federal government means for just day-to-day life in America, where I've said this before, but you have these two killings that happen on video in broad daylight in front of lots of people, and they lie through their teeth about it in the most obvious and ham-handed ways, but which raises the question about. what's happening on the things that aren't caught on video, what's happening in the detention centers. But even beyond immigration enforcement, you know, people are like, you know, one of the questions is, are they just going to take pages out of the Epstein files because they're bad for Donald Trump or bad for someone else in the administration? People are like, oh, you guys are crazy. Why would that be crazy? That's not crazy? Like, why would we trust a single thing that was said about? the boats that were blown up or what happened in Venezuela or whether your tax information is safe, whether your social security information is safe, any single thing happens in the government. Like they, if they can lie about things that are caught on video, like literally nothing they say can be trusted. And the presumption, like I think we have this view where it's like Donald Trump lies all the time, but it's sort of like dumb lies about bills he didn't pass or economic statistics that don't exist. But like the whole thing is corrupt at every level and that the presumption from everyone interpretant information from the media to the public to analysts, everyone else is that nothing they say can be trusted on anything, right? All the data could be completely rigged and in some way should perform. Like just that is all on the table based on what we've seen out of Minnesota in the last couple weeks here. You know, and we haven't even talked about this, but someone at an event attacks Ilhan Omar. And I'm pleasantly surprised that the FBI and the government, that he's been charged, this guy, because I was like, are they going to charge him? Are they not going to charge him? Because basically the message, because Donald Trump's response to it was, well, she probably staged it. Who cares? Are the capital police, the people responsible there? Do they have jurisdiction? I saw that the FBI actually brought, like the FBI got involved. But now I'm waiting for the shoe to drop and, like, you know, we'll probably find out in like a week or two where it's like, oh, the FBI agents that charge the guy or the prosecutor that charge the guy, they just got fired by Pam Bondi. Like, I'm surprised they were able to do it. Like that, that is the other risk is that crazy people who want to hurt other people, even if they're not crazy, people who just want to hurt other people, will be like, well, if I do it in Donald Trump's name.

If I, you know, if I do it to one of his enemies, then I'm going to be okay. I'll get a pardon. If I get prosecuted, I'll get a pardon. Right. Right. Well, on the brighter side, we should talk about the public reaction to these killings, which have really broken through, I think, the political bubble to the rest of the country in a way I haven't seen anything breakthrough since Trump took office again. There's been a bunch of polling that shows around 75% of Americans have seen at least some of the video of Preddy's killing. A new UGov poll has only 18% of people saying the killing was justified. Obviously, 18 is too high, but honestly, in this country at this moment, I'm like, okay, I'll take 18. A new Fox poll finds about 60% of voters saying ICE is being too aggressive. Drew Harwell at the Post also had a really great story looking at all these different... apolitical online spaces where this is suddenly a major topic and influencers who never comment about politics or who rarely get involved or stay quiet because they don't want to, they're worried about their friends, they're all speaking out. And this is from like gaming forums to, you know, golf influencers. He even mentioned a subreddit where people play their cats like bongos and didn't know that exists. But the person who's running that subreddit, Spoke out, even if the people were pissed on the subreddit. You know, a lot of the previously Trump supporting or at least Trump curious podcasters who broke with him over the Epstein files are also speaking out. Here's what it sounded like if you tuned into the most recent episode of the flagrant podcast with Andrew Schultz. Ice murdered an American citizen in cold blood. And then the Trump administration called him a domestic terrorist. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Like plain and simple. Yeah. I see the administration trying to spin it. And it's fucking disgusting. I think it's important to speak up because I've spoken to a lot of people who are seeing it and they think it's abhorrent. And they go, I just, I don't know if I feel comfortable talking about it. I don't know if they feel like exposure to Trump or whatever like that. I think those are the moments where you got to speak up, especially. I'm just talking about regular people that were sympathetic to some of the immigration reform that Trump was talking about. And then are realizing, no, this is not what they wanted at all. And now they're just kind of quiet because they're worried about like getting licks or getting public lashings or criticism on the area. It's like, get it. Good for Andrew. So question is, does this last? Is the political damage lasting? Is the awareness of what's happening? Does that last? I've been thinking a lot in the last week about January 6th and how after January 6th, it just felt like as horrific as it was, you also felt like, okay, finally, everyone sees this.

And this people don't like it. Republicans speaking out saying it's horrible. So like maybe this is going to be a turning point. And then look where we are today on January 6th. So I don't know. What do you think? So I think this is the moment that is broken through, not just more than anything in Trump's term. I think the only two things that are comparable from a political perspective are. the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and maybe the Biden debate performance in January 6th. Nothing else has broken through like that. And George Floyd. And, yeah, I was going to say since, since January 6, right, since Trump left office. But obviously George's point. And a lot of things, and for a lot of reasons in how politics and media change in Trump 1.0 would break through all the time. But this is a rare monocultural moment. And I think we can't expect, I think in after, I think our mentality. in Trump one point in Trump's first term through January 6 was none of these Republicans really like him. They're just pretending to go along because they got he was thrust upon them. This is a temporary affliction. And when he's gone. they're going to be they're going to not as they return to normal not or not be good but trumpism would there was an aberration we learned after january 6 that that's not the case right that this is that trump ism was here to stay and as long as trump was on the scene he was going to be the leader of trumpism or magism i think the way to think about this from a political perspective and i'm going to put on my optimist hat here I think these are, there's two fundamental things that are happening here. I don't think probably is they're all going to ditch him. I don't think people are going to take off their mega hats and start listening to Pod Save America or, you know, MS Now or whatever. But I think the two things have happened is one, there is a fundamental cultural vibe shift here where, and this is what you got to, which is people decided after 2024 to either stay silent out of fear or out of apathy, that nothing mattered. And a lot of people, not just famous people, not just influence, not celebrities, not athletes, but also just people in your lives who went to protests in 2017, went to the Women's March, were constantly posting on Facebook or Twitter about politics, thought it was over when Trump lost in 2020, frustrated with Biden, and then Trump came back to stop giving a shit. You've seen more from people who checked out of politics over the last couple weeks here than at any point in the last five years. 100%. And I think this creates a permission structure for more people to speak out. Because the reasons why Trump has been so successful in destroying our democracy over the last year is because there has been silent acquiescence from so many people in American society. Business, celebrities, athletes, academia, law firms, all of that. And so I think that cultural shift is real and I hope it's lasting.

Because I think once people see the emperor has no clothes and that it's okay to speak out, it's hard to undo that fact. The second thing, and this is more my pedantic political hack hat, is immigration has been Trump's superpower for a decade. His immigration approval has always been six to seven points above his job approval. even people who did not like Trump thought he was very strong immigration. And it gave him this political strength that if he could make politics be about immigration like he did in 2016, like he did in 2024, he could succeed. That has changed. His immigration approval and his job approval about the same now. He's underwater. And it's even bigger than just immigration. The shift here is... he ran as a strong man who would end the chaos, right? End the chaos of the board. He said it all the time. Biden was too old. It wasn't strong enough. I'm going to end the chaos. He took the chaos from the border and brought it into the interior of American life. And that is the complete undoing of the core premise of his political power. And so, you know, are his approval number is going to stay at 37 like they are in the pupil today? Maybe they'll probably go back up some as the elections get closer. But he is a weaker politician because immigration is no longer the weapon in his political arsenal that it once was. And that's a real important shift. He is just a weaker, less potent political figure than at any point. Yeah, because, you know, even if you're, you know, most voters still, their top issue, probably affordability. And, um, price of grocery is still high price of housing still high and so what are you supposed to say if you uh if you like trump it's like well um you know he didn't do anything about about costs and inflation like i thought he would but at least there are public executions in the street what like what you know for the obviously there's the hardcores who are there no matter what but like for the people who took a flyer on Trump in 2024 for maybe the first time. Like, you got to look around and they're like, what are you still here for? Yeah, and many of them aren't. That's why his numbers are what they are. That's why his approval rating was 47 heading into the election and it's 37 in Pew today or 41 in his average. Like the people who did like Trump but took a bet on him have walked away and this is a big reason. I also think to your point about the cultural shift. Like, I think there was an overcorrection, right? Jesus, yes. Well, I'm saying just from prominent people. Yeah, right? Who have big, because, and, you know, they will say, because I've heard it too, it's like, oh, people don't want fucking celebrities speaking out about politics. Like, that's what got us into this, you know, like, that doesn't work. And the right, mocks that and stuff like that. It's like, I don't think that prominent people speaking out now is going to solve our problems. But the lack of speaking out. is, like you said, it is acquiescence. And it allows Trump to do what he does. And speaking out, I think, is not a cure-all, but it's friction. It creates friction. And it also, you know, prominent people do what they say. That does send messages to other people. And I think it's different than, like,

A Democrat saying like, oh, I'm going to win if I have Beyonce come out at my rally in an election where there's just two people who are running for president and everyone knows that they're voting for one of the two people. And so whoever Beyonce is for is not necessarily who you're going to be for if you weren't already for them, right? But this isn't like that. This isn't about an endorsement of a candidate. This is about something happening in the country. And when you speak out about that, it does let other people feel more comfortable saying something as well. It's also attention. It's so hard to get people to pay attention to things. And one thing is that people with large platforms. have is the ability to get people's attention, right? Ariana Grande tweeting about a general strike on this or LeBron James posting the Bruce Springsteen song or Bruce Springsteen writing a song. And like we had celebrities out the wazoo in 2024. Trump also had celebrities. He just had people with more with a more modern sense of cultural cachet who were better actually at attention hijacking because they were. native to the platforms where you reach the people who get less who don't follow the news but it's just like people are certain they're they're in their algorithmic bubble all the time and they're not seeing a lot of the stuff that's happening and then all of a sudden the people they've invited into their algorithmic bubble like in Alex Earl or and Andrew Schultz or someone like that because they've curated a non-political algorithmic bubble will start to organically see some information about things happening. And they'll say, oh, that's notable, right? Like I saw the video. I thought it was fucked up. It's good to know that other people think it's fucked up as well. Yeah. It's a sign that it's just, it's signaling. It's important.

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B-I-L-T dot com slash crooked and make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. So you can already see the pressure this is all putting on Republicans. Susan Collins put out a statement on Thursday saying she had spoken to Kristi Noem, quote, to get ICE to reconsider its approach to immigration enforcement in the state and made an announcement that ICE has ended its surge in Maine. So that's good. Question now is whether Susan Collins and enough other Republicans will actually work with Democrats to rein in ICE as part of the government funding negotiations. When we talked about this on Tuesday's show, the state of play was that Republican leadership wasn't going to grant Democrats' request to separate out the Department of Homeland Security funding bill and actually work on ICE reforms before passing it. Now, apparently, the White House has said that they should. The latest as of this recording on Thursday afternoon is that the Senate will vote later tonight on a provision that would... freeze DHS funding for the short term, a continuing resolution, while both parties negotiate ICE reforms, which would then allow the rest of the government to stay open. What do you think about this? I know right now they're negotiating whether it's, you know, they, it's a CR for DHS that's like one week, two weeks, four weeks, five weeks. I think they might have, I hear rumors they might have landed on two weeks, but what do you think? I think there's two things here. One, the fact that Senate Democrats stood firm here to at least push the issue and to try to get time to negotiate something. is a credit to all the people who put pressure on them to do that. Because this thing was on a glide path to passage. And then it passed the House and seven Democrats voted for it. And they felt the rage of a thousand sons for doing it. And I think there were Democrats who were legitimately even absent pressure. The pressure mattered. But we're legitimately more moved to this position. Like Mark Warner would have been on our podcast like a few days earlier saying he was probably going to vote for it. And he. laid out to the reasons why that you and I talked about, about how this wouldn't actually stop ICE from doing what they're doing. And so I think it's a sign that we always have to keep putting pressure on people. And we don't know how this is going to end up. We don't know what they're going to get. So it's too early to say whether this is a win or anything else. I just think it's also really, really notable that Trump and the Republicans do not want this fight right now. Yeah. Imagine you just said to yourself two weeks ago, a week ago, Democrats are going to put on the table shutting down the Department of Homeland Security, shutting down the government over ICE 10 months before the election.

And that Republicans, like our assumption would be Republicans would leap at that. This would be like Trump's dream. And they didn't want the fight, but shows how the politics of immigration have changed. It shows the deal. Last time there was a shutdown fucking crazy people like me were the only ones. Yeah, it is right. John, never wrong, always early. Yeah, that was insane back then. But right now that makes sense. But it's just it's like the fact that they don't want this fight says. Well, the politics have changed and showed, like, I think the legitimate discomfort within the Republican Senate caucus over what ISIS is doing. It's probably more optics and politics than morality there, but maybe it's some of the former two. Apparently Trump is, Trump does put out a truth saying he supports the funding deal. It's just this temporary deal because he doesn't want the government to shut down. Well, the House has to come back and pass this thing on one day. And that is. Quite challenging. And then I think the question is, like, what do Democrats get in the, in the negotiations here and how much they push for? Because I do think, so obviously they're not going to get, we're defunding ICE. Even if you permanently shut Department of Homeland Security down because you don't agree to any of the reforms because they're not big enough, again, ICE has, you know, plenty of money from the big, beautiful bill to go continue their operations, right? So it's just. Sometimes I worry that because Democratic politicians are concerned that there will be such backlash from the base about them not fighting hard enough and asking for enough or getting enough that they like don't tell you what's possible. And like we should know. right now that it is like it is not possible to defund uh ice in this negotiation it is possible to try to push for some like fucking basic reforms that should have been in place anyway uh like following the law most of them but like it is possible to do that but this is a you know this again we have to win the midterms and we have to win the Yeah, I think people should have right size expectations here. As infuriating as I'm sure that is, we have such little power here compared to what we will have if we have the House and the Senate. in 2027. Right. So like anything we get is a plus. We should push for as much as we realistically can. The ideas are out there about warrants, masks, federal use of force policies applying to ICE and CPP. All I think would be huge improvements. If you get those in Shrine and Law, that would be a huge deal. You still have to get it through. They're a house full of fucking lunatics who are demanding in exchange for their vote just to keep the government open. They want to add the SAVE Act, which is an insane election conspiracy theory bill to it. So we're not dealing with rational people here.

Speaking of election conspiracies. Perfect segue. Yeah, you nailed it. Trump's FBI spent Wednesday searching the elections headquarters in Fulton County, Georgia, where they somehow got a warrant to apparently look for evidence about the 2020 election being stolen. They left with as many as 700 boxes of ballots from 2020. Even more alarming. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was spotted at the scene. Totally normal. Here's what Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff had to say about the raid. This should have people across the country absolutely shook. This is a huge deal. So much of the big lie that led to the January 6th sacking of the United States Capitol originated in his lies about the state of Georgia. This is a shot across the bow at the midterm elections. So if you remember at Davos last week, Trump was ranting at one point about the 2020 election being stolen from him. And he said, quote, people will soon be prosecuted for what they did. That's probably breaking news. And then he had a posting spree on Wednesday night and this morning where he shared a bunch of absolutely fucking crazy content, appearing to accuse Barack Obama of working with the CIA on some kind of election plot. 2020 election. So he's already accused Barack Obama of treason on the 2016 election, even though he won that election. But now somehow Obama's involved in the 2020. Which was an impressive feat considering didn't have any power then. Yeah. So how fucking nuts is this? Can we talk about how Tulsi Gabbard has been deputized, the director of national intelligence to go relitigate? Donald Trump's already proven false a billion times by a million lawsuits claims about the 2020 election. This is, I guess this is a tribute to the late great Reiner, but this is the equivalent of Tulsi Gabbard standing outside of Donald Trump's householding a boombox in the air, which is trying to win back his favor since she has been cut out of absolutely everything. Look, this is bananas. The fact that she's there. incognito in a baseball cap. The fact that the director of national intelligence can't go to the scene of an operation without being photographed by the news media is maybe a sign that she's not in the right position. Got to work on her spy craft. That's right. For being the nation's top spot. Oh, she did have so much, so much, uh, intelligence, so much experience in, uh, spy craft before this. So she was, she was a perfect fit for the job. I think the way to think about this is, how dangerous it is when the entire federal law enforcement apparatus is at the behest of a deranged despot. All right. So let's just think, let's project for it. Like, think about 2019 when Trump is on the phone begging Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation into Hunter Biden so he can then accuse Biden of being corrupt. Like, because back then he couldn't get his Department of Justice who just opened an investigation into Hunter Biden. So now we flash backwards. Let's flash forward to it is 2028. Pick your Democratic nominee of choice in your mind. Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whoever else. They're running against JD Vance.

FBI raids their home three weeks before the election or they get indicted or a story appears that they are being investigated for, you know, fraud, conspiracy, you know, any sort of crime to try to tip the election. It's fucking, I don't know what, like, it's also there's all this, like, now they have the ballots from 2020 and. We don't know the chain of custody that those ballots have followed. We don't know who has those ballots down the federal government. And as we've been saying throughout the show, you can't trust a fucking word the federal government tells you now or the people in it. So who knows what they're going to do with these ballots? Who knows what they're going to cook up and try to tell us happened in 2020 or what kind of criminal charges they're going to try to. I'm like shocked by the way that a fucking magistrate judge signed off on this search warrant. But. Yeah, I was trying to, I would like this a little more legal analysis of how they did this. I think there wasn't one of the statutes. To a district scrutiny. Yeah, that's right. Wasn't one of the statutes that they, that they based this on ballot falsification? Yes, I think so. Yeah. Again, all of the, remember, there was a recount in Georgia. There were multiple recounts. Multiple recounts, multiple lawsuits. This has all been, I mean, whatever. Yeah. Okay, last thing before we get to my conversation with Joe Scarborough and the Only Friends preview, the biggest movie of the year. Possibly the film event of the decade has finally arrived, courtesy of Mr. Jeff Bezos, an alleged sex abuser Brett Ratner. It's Melania. Melania, the documentary. The First Lady made a promotional appearance for the film on Foxes the Five. Of course, let's listen. There's no question that the country needs a lot of unifying at this moment. Yes, it does, but I think he's unifier. He stopped many wars. Here, in the United States, it's a lot of opposition. And that's the problem. People not agreeing with everything that what he does. And, you know, they just need to come on the same page. Did the president get involved in any of the production or editing? Not at all. No, he saw the movie first day on, what, Saturday. And he loved it. Loved it. Just need to come on the same page. There's a lot of opposition. That's the problem. It's kind of actually a nice summary of this administration's general M.O. Her husband, the president, posted the tickets to the premieres are, quote, selling out fast, which you can tell from all the viral screenshots of empty theater seating charts all over the country. There's also at least one report that Republican operatives are buying out theaters and trying to give away the tickets. When are you going? Are you?

I'm going to wait for streaming. You're going to wait for it. I asked this today just to the story tonight. It's not yet. Oh, it's not yet. So it's not the same night. This is a theatrical run. I don't know what the window is followed by. There is the theatrical run of Melania. Which is. Fascinate. insane that there was one amazon shelled out 40 million dollars for the rights to the movie 35 million dollars another 35 million just for the marketing which uh the time says is 10 times what some other high profile documentaries have received i don't know if you know about documentary funding but 40 million and then 35 million on marketing not usually not usually the budget no for uh for a doc No, not at all. Marketing included commercials during NFL games, billboards. There's also a promotional popcorn bucket that you're going to want to get your hands on. I can't believe Amazon just really believes in the project, right? It's, you know, when you have, when you find a gem like this, how could you not do it, right? It could be their Oscar film next year. We don't know. Do you think the 16,000 people that Jeff Bezos is laying off at Amazon and all the reporters who are losing their jobs at the Washington Post? You think they're psyched to see the $75 million that he spent on Melania the Dock? Okay, let's just call it what it is. Like, this is a bribe. It's an insanely stupid bribe because these are idiots. The way this went was this was making the rounds. No one in Hollywood wanted to work with Brett Ratner for all the obvious reasons. And the film executives at Amazon passed on it. Reportedly, Jeff Bezos was having dinner at Marlago with at least Trump made Melania as well when Trump brought this up. He agreed to buy it. He agreed to pay this exorbitant amount of money, most of which went to Melania in a licensing fee, something like $28 million. So he's literally just put money in the Trump family pocket to do this movie. But here's the dumb part, which is you know no one's going to go see this movie. No. And you know that every single person who goes on to. Fandango or a movie website can look at the theater and see how empty it is. So it's very easy to tweet the screenshots out. Like this is why Apple, when they see movies like that George Cuddy Brad Pitt movie that they thought no one would see, they pull it out of the theater at the last minute since it doesn't happen to them. But they did it anyway. And they spent this money. They're doing it while they are. laying off people on Amazon while they are gutting the post in every shape or form turning into just a shell of itself and sending like closing the international bureaus and all those other things they're supposedly about to happen there all to bribe Trump like it would have been just easier and less embarrassing for everyone if he just cut him a check buy some crypto yeah

Yeah, this is just a, this is a dumb and humiliating way, publicly humiliating way to do it. For everyone, especially for Jeff Bezos, yes. Yeah, well, good. When we come back, my interview with MS Now's Joe Scarborough. This episode of Pod Save America is brought to you by Graza. Everyone knows that I like to cook for my friends. And lately, what's taking my food to the next level is Graza. Graza is my olive oil of choice. It's delicious, easy to use. Extra virgin olive oil at an affordable everyday price. Graza is always fresh. They pick, press, and bottle all their olives in the same season. You can even see the harvest date on every bottle. Graza has not one, but two extra virgin olive oils to stock your kitchen. And you can choose between squeeze or glass bottles. They're sizzle, their everyday cooking oil that's perfect for roasting, sauteing, and anything you cook. They also have drizzle, a super punchy flavorful finishing oil that's great for dipping bread, whipping up a salad dressing, or even drizzling over ice cream. It's seriously my favorite olive oil to use. They don't even mention it here. So I use the drizzle. I use the sizzle. I also use the frizzle. which is the high heat oil. And that one's great too. So I have all three and I use all three. I made a Caesar dressing from scratch the other day with the drizzle olive oil from Graza. I do genuinely use it. And they come in great bottles. The bottles just make it really easy to use. I use the squeeze ones. They're great. With Graza, you'll get 10% off your first order of any olive oil on their site, but I recommend the Graza Duo. You'll receive two bottles of extra virgin olive oil, the sizzle for cooking, and drizzle for finishing with an extra kick of bold flavor. So head to Graza.co and use Crooked to get 10% off and get cooking your next chef quality meal. That's graza.co, Code Crooked. Hey there, it's Ryan Sechrest for Safeway. Save up to 50% off your favorite self-care brands this summer stock up on wellness products like Cortisone 10 ultra-soothing cream, dual-collax stool softener gels, Claritin 24-hour allergy tablets, Nature's Truth, Magnesium, Cortisone 10 cooling spray, dual-collax stimulant tablets, and Nature's Truth, elderberry gummies. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery. Restrictions apply. See the website for full terms.

Joe Scarborough, welcome. Hey, it's great to be here. Good to have you here in studio. Yeah, this is fantastic. You escaped the East Coast for a little West Coast? I escaped the East Coast, going to do a couple of shows out here, and it's kind of perfect timing. It's cold from Florida up to New York, so it's good. So we're a year into Trump's second term. What is your level of alarm in relation to what you expected? I mean, you know, One of the reasons we kept saying that he was using fascist rhetoric was because he was using fascist rhetoric. So I still don't really understand these comedian turned, like left-wing comedians turned like brocasters that are just shocked. From a guy that said he was going to shoot Liz Cheney, wanted to see Liz Cheney shot nine times in the face with a firing squad that said that there were not only going to be mass deportations, but they were going to be bloody. This is not surprising to anybody. I think my surprise has been more. just how completely missing Congress and the Supreme Court's been. Now, Congress, I sort of expected that because they were scared during the first term. I will say I'm a bit more surprised with the John Roberts Court. What do you think that's about? You know, I follow it pretty closely. And I will say, I have, you know, I was really proud of what they did during the, the. 2000 challenge, you know, 63 and O, it's pretty good for the federal courts. But I don't really understand because, you know, a lot of Trump appointees, a lot of George W. Bush appointees, the guy in Minnesota who is a rock star. Yeah. Like there, it seems to me a lot of these federal judges are some of the only conservatives from. my time when I was in the Republican Party that haven't lost their bearings. Yeah. But I don't understand about the John Roberts Court. I don't understand why it's taking him so long to make a ruling on tariffs. That's, that is really black and white. Yes. The president is using like his emergency powers improperly and illegally. Also. First year law students could tell you if you send Marines to Los Angeles, that is against the law. That is unconstitutional if you have the guy that's sending them out saying, I'm sending them out to do policing, to do demand. That is so clear cut. So why it took until the last day of 2025 for the Supreme Court to even issue a temporary ruling on that, I don't understand. And. I've got to say one other thing, too, and I do obsess over this because it's so anti-American. It's so un-American. When Brett Kavanaugh writes in September of 2025, that agents can stop people based on their race, based on their accent, based on where they were.

That's extraordinarily unconstitutional. I think that's Dred Scott level, like disappointing. I will say it took three months. He finally cleaned that up at the end of the year. But I don't understand. How did that happen? So I guess I'm not shocked by what Donald Trump is done. I'm shocked by what? Congress has done, what the court has not done, what tech bros have done, what the corporations have done, what media, large media companies have done. I mean, that's been the shocking part to me. Do you, are you still talk to folks on the White House? Yeah. What's the mood there right now? Not good right now. They understand. They completely understand after the second execution. If I can say that. It's like the Gary Larson, and I'm making no light of this, but it's like Gary Larson, you know, you had a witch that was like, I better not get into this. I'll stop right there. I'll tell you the Gary Larson thing later. But yeah, by the second execution, they figured out this was not a good political move. They don't, and they don't, I say it's not a good political move because it took that for Republicans, some Republicans, to finally say enough, a guy was executed in the streets of America. Yeah. It's absolutely savage. It's shocking. And also as like a guy who grew up a, quote, small government conservative, where are these so-called conservative libertarians in the Republican Party? We literally have masked troops going through our cities and shooting people because of the first amendment. I mean, because they're exercising the first of their rights. What I can't tell is. Clearly, there's people in that White House who can read polls, can watch the coverage, hear from Republicans once in a while. This is what disturbs me. Keep going. Because this is what disturbs me. They should know better. They do know better. And then they're realizing this is a political problem for them. Right. But, you know, arguably the most powerful official in the White House, Stephen Miller. Right. Like, this is his brainchild. This is his life's work. I think he is. Very smart. He has figured out the four years that they weren't in the White House, he took to figure out, like, you know, how he could advance his agenda next time. And he can also read polls. I think the difference is he doesn't really give a shit that it's unpopular. Right. And he just wants to push it through. And so my fear is that this is, you know, they're backtracking. They want to do some window dressing. They want to fix the PR problem. But then when attention moves on to the next outrage and the next thing, Miller is still. you know, just he's going to find quieter ways that are just as damaging to carry out this agenda. I think that's a very reasonable thing to assume is going to happen. I will say this past week there has been, I think, more of an understanding inside the White House that going back to what they thought they were going to be able to do is not a viable option. And I think at this point,

Donald Trump's focus now has to be on the polls. He's already said, if Democrats take control, I'm going to be impeached several times again. He's already told the media, I don't even think we should have elections in 2026. You saw what happened yesterday in Georgia. You saw Pambandi going, you know, we may draw down if you turn over your voter rolls. I think this is the new obsession and they understand they can't have a repeat of Minneapolis between now and election time because there was such an overwhelming reaction. But, you know. Maggie Haberman, who's been covering him, actually even longer than I have. Maggie knows Donald Trump. And, you know, what she's always said about him when people ask, why does he do this? She's like, because he can. And this year, nobody has stopped him. Republicans haven't stopped him in Congress. The Supreme Court hasn't stopped him. This is the first of the people of Minnesota. stopped him. Just like actually, You know, some leaders in Europe stopping the week before. I heard you on Jimmy Kimmel's show say that you, last time you spoke to Trump was right after Minnesota. Right after the call. After the call. After the call. Asked him about that. With walls. With walls. What was what was his mood like? Did he seem like this was like he understood the gravity of the situation? Or was this like a. I'm dealing with it and that's that. Yeah, no, I think he, again, it's so hard to read him just because he'll say one thing one day and then the next, you'll get something completely different. But he said it needed to be done. He was like, yeah, it needed to be done. This is just too much. They've gone to for, you know, the killings are terrible. And then, of course, he. says Renee Goods killing is actually probably worse. Right, because big Trump fans. Because, yeah, they're big Trump fans. Thank you. Yeah, just a different level there. I don't even understand it. But I do think there is an understanding that things got so out of control. that it was damaging them politically. You know, internal polls showing that Trump's support has dropped as precipitously as Biden's did after Afghanistan, the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan. You mentioned like what he's focused on. From the outside.

Someone who's just like watched this for too long now. It does seem like in this term. So he's worried about the poll numbers because he's worried about the midterms. But it seems like most of his focus now is like interior decorating, the renovations, putting his name on shit, trying to get prizes, getting people to come suck up to him. Like he's just, he's a host, right? Right, right. And he's just like having a good time in the White House. And then you have Miller. JD Vance, some of the people, just like driving a pretty extreme agenda that Trump agrees with mostly, but is not getting into the details on it. That's what it seems. I don't know if that's like... You know, we've noticed on the show he's been strangely disconnected. from the most important issues for Republicans in the House and the Senate. You know, during the government shutdown, I just don't think you ever saw it coming. And it seems like every morning we were talking about the government shutdown, we were talking about skyrocketing health care costs. We're talking about how Republicans are just crushing working Americans, middle class Americans. You know, there would be a picture of Donald Trump. You know, we'd be saying, meanwhile, Donald Trump on his Asian tour. And I had to say, Glad he's there. He needs to be in Asia. He needs. Presidents need to do this. That said, these are just savage pictures for House Republicans because, you know, he's gone from the Middle East to Asia to all over the world, obsessing over Denmark, obsessing over Venezuela. It's the last thing. I mean, as a former politician, and you know, obviously, inside the White House. The last thing you want is Americans to think you're more obsessed with what's going on over there than over here. And that's the impression that he's given. So, you know, weirdly disconnected from that. The horrid big, beautiful bill, whatever they called it, he never went out and campaigned on that. Republicans, that's so upside out for good reason. I mean, it's the worst bill that's, and I say this as a former Republican, a concern, the worst bill. I think that's ever been, like, put together. But he didn't campaign on that. He hasn't campaigned on affordability. They try to get him out on the campaign trail, and he says affordability's a hoax. I mean, I tell Mika, who right, rightfully, she catastrophizes. But this is a difference between sort of conservative temperaments and... Progressive temperaments, at least those that I have seen up close, she catastrophizes. And I just get angry. And, and, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, it's, you know, it's, it's going to be okay because I said, this is all so disturbing every day. And it seemed so damaging to our republic. But I suspect somebody that had a little more emotional distance on this that maybe wasn't American would be saying it is really awful. But that guy is doing more to destroy the Republican Party long term than anybody else could do. And I think he is. For sure. For sure. The catastrophizing thing is interesting because I deal with this, I think, all the time. And I think when we.

talk on this pod and talk about stuff. I don't love catastrophizing. I don't want to ever unnecessary alarm people, partly because I don't think that's good for everyone's system. And I also think that if everything is in an 11, then you can't differentiate what's really, what's the worst. Everything's 11, nothing's in 11. Exactly. But at the same time, you look over the last decade and all of the... All of the craziest predictions of what Donald Trump might do, I don't know if they match, you know, like I don't think anyone was saying, oh, and then he's going to try to invade Greenland. And then there's going to be federal agents shooting Americans in the street, and they're going to try to cover it up. And so it's like constantly the concerns and catastrophizing of whether it's the center left, never Trump Republicans, whatever it may be, end up. coming true. And I try to figure out, like, how to deal with that tension. Right. How do you think about that as someone who talks to people about the news every day? The way I think about it is I, when my wife says, how bad is it going to get? I go, oh, it's going to get really bad. But when people ask me, how do I handle this? So we got to do it a day at a time. Yeah. Let's take what's in front of us. And let's separate the signal from the ground noise. Yeah. When I was first in Congress, you know, I get angry, wave my arms. And, you know, I gave a speech in Pensacola and an old general who, our old admiral, who was in charge of naval aviation and training came up to me. He goes, son, you got to learn to separate the signal from the ground noise. And I will say. over Trump's first term and during the campaign, I didn't do that. And so if you're calling a candidate a fascist every day, and like you said, if it's at an 11 every day, then, you know, if everything's 11, nothing's 11. So we've tried to separate the signal from the ground noise. When he said, I'm going to seek a third term, I'm like, no, he's not. Yeah. He's just trying to piss you off because Donald Trump's political superpower is getting people like us to overreact or to react to what he does. And then he feeds off of that. He points at us, goes, look, they've got Trump derangements and look how crazy they are. Look, they said, I was going to do this. So that's the first part of it is. First of all, take more of an approach. The Gavin Newsom's sort of taking now, poking, poking at him. But the second thing is, and again, I'll keep saying this because I do think there's sort of this temperamental difference with a lot of conservatives how they approach politics and progressives. The exception being Barack Obama, guy you worked with. Barack Obama, like, raised a lot of money. What did you do with that money? organized on the ground in Iowa, organized on the ground. And so when I see people in marches, the Republican in me is like, don't march. Go knock on people's doors. Get their cell phone numbers. Like get a phone bank going. And of course, I don't denigrate marchers. I'm not doing that. I promise. I'm not. But that's just sort of the mindset. And that's what Barack Obama, I remember Barack Obama when he first came on the scene. I was like, oh.

You know, these old white guys are like, you know, oh my God, I'm so. You know, they're reliving the civil rights move. And I go, he's not going to beat the Clinton campaign. There's no way, right? And so then he gets a lot of fundraising. Okay, it's, you know, a lot of. old white liberals who were trying to relive 1968, 69. This is a new civil rights movement. This is our Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which, yes, I love Chris Matthews, but every night, yes, this is our Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. It's like, Bobby's here again. But I will say, what made Barack Obama so different is when I read a New York Times story in the summer of 07 and said he's piling all of his money into organization, I go. This guy's going to win because that's what you have to do. So my answer is, what do you do about it? Like get upset. Fear of the worst is going to happen and then figure out what you do to stop it, to short circuit it. And to organize because I think the organization, the remarkable organization that Barack Obama had and the focus on that is something that's been missing. from the Democratic Party since he left. It has. I think you need... someone and some set of values and vision to organize around to get people excited. I think that's part of it. It's not like you can't just pour money into it. But it was interesting. I talked to Lydia Paul Green last week. She's from Minnesota, and she wrote a piece in the Times about what's going on there. And we were talking about the people on the ground. And she said protesters. And she's like, actually, I don't even like saying protesters because it's more... organizing than it is just protesting. You see some of the protesting. She's like, but it is people going to their neighbor's house, bringing them food, making sure that their kids have a rides to school. And they're getting to know. strangers and people and who are their neighbors and sort of forming a tighter community that way. And to me, that is even more politically powerful than one show of force in the streets, which I do think is, you know, sometimes necessary. Right. But I do think that like what's lasting is the organizing muscles that are getting built right now. That is that is so powerful. When I first ran in 94, nobody knew who I was. I knocked on 10,000 doors. I built up volunteers. We had phone banks. You know, we called people so much that they would scream if you call me again. Yeah. I will never vote for him. Yeah. And they go, what do you do? I go, call them again. Just keep calling them, you know. And we organized and going up against people that had more money and everything else. And it's that is the key because you're right. You build this community. And it is the small things, like you said.

going to your neighbor's house who you maybe have never met ask them if they need anything and you know like yeah and that's that's what what has to be done especially in these days you know when i ran in 94 um I was struck that you couldn't organize around neighborhoods because I grew up, you know, in the 60s and 70s. I was born in the 60s, but grew up neighborhoods were still sort of a good thing to organize around. Nobody was home. Like I'd go knock on doors. Nobody was home in the afternoon. So you had to go to different organizations. Now with social media, it's even worse. But you've still got to do that. That's one of the things in... during 2000 in 2020 yes democrats weren't knocking on doors right yeah and i think and i just sat there going oh my god this is this is horrible because you know there are a lot of people that came to florida pre-covid they were organizing they were going to make a difference and i said well so what did you do once covered they left they just left and i remember hearing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez uh saying right before the campaign we had a knock on doors i i Put on a mask if you want to wear a mask. But we, and that's the only way to do it. Yeah. And I actually say, I get to say, progressives seem to understand that. I'm talking a lot about the catastrophizing. The great thing about progressives, a couple of great things about prep first. They're very patient. And I thought during. Biden's term thought they were extraordinarily pragmatic, really impressive time and time again. And I know Nancy had a lot to do with that because she a once in a lifetime talent. But progressives were very disciplined there. But the second thing is they know how to organize. And people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie, they understand you can't just. put something on Instagram and, you know, think that shit's going to happen because it doesn't. It happens when they go out, knock on doors. And again, like you said, you know, give people a message that they can believe in. I mean, I always, you know, I think the image of the left that sometimes reflected in the media, and this is the same with center left Democrats, Senate right Democrats. The biggest difference is between the people that you see on social media. who are only spending their time doing politics on social media, and then people who've actually had to talk to voters and organize communities, whether they are far left, center, right, whatever it may be. Because if you've ever had to actually go talk to someone and persuade them, you're going to approach politics more strategically and effectively than if you're just keyboard warrior all the time. And what did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez do? And the reason I'm going back to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is because she does a lot of things right. What did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez do after Donald Trump one? She sought out voters in her district that voted for Donald Trump. Yeah. And mom daddy did that. Right. And her. And her. And her. So what did you vote for Donald Trump? How could you vote for Donald Trump and me? Explain that to me. That's what Democrats need to do. Yeah. Figure out. Okay, how do we pull them back on our side?

And by the way, I'm not being critical of the Democratic Party because, hey, I like, plenty of criticism. I like democracy. I like democracy. That's warranted. Let me tell you. We got it. You know, this is like, I figure this is like a war cabinet. If I'm, you know, if I'm. Clement Attlee, I will, I will hang with Winston Churchill. We got to beat the Nazis. I'm talking, of course, of World War II. Not the Nazis now. For when this ends up on Fox. Exactly, exactly. Everybody's wonderful. If you're a Republican member of Congress right now and you're running for election in this environment with this president, in this version of the GOP, like what is your strategy from now until November? I wouldn't run. I've told people that are Republicans that call me up, I go, don't run. You can't run. Because if you run, you can't break from Donald Trump. You can't break from Donald Trump. You can't crush you. But then if you just go along with it, I mean, obviously it's horrifically morally, but you're also just going to, you could get crushed. You get crushed, but also why would you want to spend your life every day saying Donald Trump said this today? How do you justify it? Oh, I didn't see that. Oh, I can't imagine. Wait, I don't know how many Republicans in Congress you still talk to, but like, why? That is what, why are they, like, is the job that great? Are they worried that they, the next job they're not going to get? Because he's going to, like, what is it? I can't understand it. I can't understand a lot of it because I held the job. And I like the job. But the job wasn't worth putting up with bullshit. Yeah. And these people are doing it. I will say when I see Thom Tillis, who now is speaking up, but when I saw Thom Tillis at Davos, still kissing up to Donald Trump, I've been, I've talked about this on the pod with Thom Tillis because I'm like, appreciate that he's saying a few things here and there, but he's still like, oh, it's he's getting bad advice. It's not, and his, the president's wonderful legacy would be tarnished. I'm like, what do you got to lose? Well, so, so this goes to my other theory, which is Joni Ernst, it was sort of open secret that one of the reasons Joni Ernst voted for Pete Hegseth is she. let people on the Hill know that she and her family were threatened. She was scared not to vote for exit. So when I see Thom Tillis, who has nothing to lose, still saying what he's saying, I've just got to, I've just got to think that he's not intimidated by Donald Trump because Donald Trump can't hurt anymore. He must be worried about his safety. I don't know. It's a scary place to be. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't, it just, but, but again, the bigger point is, The congressional pin's not worth it. It's just not. I will say what I would love to do if I were 30, 31, 32 years old. I would love to run this year as a Democrat. It would be so fun. I mean, it would be, it would be you could savage. I would call for 30 debates.

And I would take an old fashioned up. And I would just, I could go in drunk. And I'm not even a drinker. But there are so many opportunities for the Democrats to do it. But Minneapolis is heinous. It's horrible. But man, I would just talk economics. I would talk about Minneapolis and obviously the threats to American democracy. But as far as seizing sort of. the middle back from Republicans. A family, I think I saw in the Wall Street Journal, a family that makes like $120,000 a year, their premiums are $45,000 for health insurance. You've got big insurance companies that, first of all, you know, skyrocketing premiums. A doctor will say, you need this for your health or your child's health or whatever. And then big insurance companies will deny it. And then you get home from the doctor and you get all these bills that have hidden costs. And so between health care, between housing, the fact that, you know, I saw a poll yesterday that something like three out of four young Americans, people from like. 18 to 29, don't think the American dreams possible. Don't think they'll ever be able to us. When I was younger, I'm from a very middle class family. I got my first house at 26. Wasn't really that much of a stretch. Now, you know, people, I say kids, because I'm so old, you know, people in their 20s aren't getting houses. And their 30s aren't getting houses. There is, the great divide now is between people that buy and people who rent. And rent is getting more and more out of reach. So between grocery still going up, rent, health care, the fact that billionaires got... The biggest tax cuts ever, multinational corporations got the biggest tax cuts ever, monopolies. You know, I called, I'll use his name, I called Ari Emanuel, like during, you know, before COVID. And I said, hey, Ari, I just, I never invest in stocks. I don't trust Wall Street. But I know you do. And I go, what should you, what should I invest in if I invest? He goes, invest in the monopolies. And I'm saying they're quite for the guy. What are you talking? The monopolies! Amazon, Apple! And he went down the list. Microsoft. He goes, they're monopolies. You can't lose my. And, you know, but that's the first time I thought about it. One of the reasons I'm such a huge Lena Con fan. Yeah. Because there are monopolies that need to be broken into a billion tiny pieces. Let me ask you that because, like, You were conservative Republican congressman. Right. Over the years, how much have you changed your political views versus the world has changed? I think... And the party has changed. So...

You know, I always was a populist sort of conservative populace. So I always was talking about taxing multinational corporations. And we had something called the Mexican bell out that I was against because it wasn't a Mexican bell out. It was a bell out of Goldman Sachs. So that part's very natural. So I'm one of those guys. We talked about Bernie before. When I hear Bernie talk, I'm like, yeah, I said about half of that stuff from the conservative side. I think the biggest change is because the political world's changed so much, I used to have more of a sort of hands-off approach. My belief was that what the local government could do, the local government should do. And everybody else should stay out of the way. What the state should do, say what the federal government should. So on social issues, whether it was abortion or whether it was marriage equality, I'd be like, you know, seriously, do we, you know, I'm not going to tell people in Vermont. what they need to do. You know, when, I was at a town hall meeting, you know, one of my first was like, abolish the Department of Energy, abolish it. You know, and everybody's cheering, cheering. And, you know, they asked me something, what about education? Abolish the Department of Education and send all the money back. And then somebody stood up and they go, what about those gay people in Vermont? You know, because they had just passed common law marriage, which was radical at the time. And I just stopped. I was like, Why do you care what gay people in Vermont are doing? I said, why don't we, why don't we have an agreement? We're not going to tell them what to do with their lives. And they don't tell us what to do with our lives in Northwest Florida. And then, of course, I'm right, you know, turn that frown upside down. But that's what's changed the most. I used to have this sort of federalism approach. sort of a 10th Amendment post civil rights, federalism approach, where let's let the states do what the states do. But when I felt that way, you know, George Voinovich was governor in Ohio. Jeb Bush was governor in Florida. Mitt Romney was governor in Utah. And then John Huntsman, and these were people that I felt, you know, kind of like Spencer Cox, who has been, I think, fairly compassionate on the trans issue. conservative, but still compassionate. Come on, guys. Send some great stuff about social media. Yeah, I said some good, really great stuff about social media. So, but that's how I saw Republican governors back in the 1990s. I can't feel that one anymore. I can't trust what Greg Abbott's going to do. I can't trust what's going to happen in a lot of deep red states as far as on issues involving people's rights, their livelihoods. What is it like a post-Trump? version of the Republican Party look like to you that is healthy and viable and like and that you could see it actually happening not like fantasy camp republic and yeah now you know it i don't think it can happen because i've gotten past being shocked and stunned and deeply saddened by what donald trump does yeah and now i'm shocked and stunned and deeply saddened that an overwhelming majority of americans are perfectly fine with republican republicans are perfectly fine with what ice is doing and you sit there to go how the hell

Could a majority of Republicans think what's going on is okay. They do right now. So I don't know how there's this base. I mean, I've always been a big believer that when Ronald Reagan comes along in 1980, the party becomes what Ronald Reagan is because he's such a big force. Same thing with Barack Obama. Barack Obama comes along. The Democratic Party is Barack Obama. Same thing with Donald Trump. I've always believed when Donald Trump leaves. Just like the Obama magic, the Reagan magic, it's not transferable. Even Bill Clinton being able to get away with everything. Not even transferable to Hillary. Nope. Like, he's Bill Clinton. He gets away with everything, you know? So these are not like fungible commodities. So it depends on who the leader of the Republican Party is coming up. Would you bet JD Vance is the nominee if you had to pick right now? I don't think so. I think somebody, I know this is shocking. Yeah. I think it might be somebody worse. Worse in JD Vance. Worse in JD Vance. That's what I think too. And by the way. JD Vance. I think either JD Vance by default because no one else could get it together, but if it's not JD Vance, like I don't think it's Marco Rubio. I think it's like a Tucker Carlson type. That's exactly what I'm thinking. If Tucker Carlson doesn't decide to run, which I don't know if he would or not, but somebody from... that wing of the movement. I don't think I even want to say party right now. And you look at what's happening in the Republican Party. And right now, the great divide, sort of the Nick Fuentes. Yeah. Divide. And then, you know, they've, that's where the energy is. They have, you know, the event, the turning point event, and Ben Shapiro gets up. And, you know, the Jew gets up and say, maybe we shouldn't attack Jews. And then the rest of the event, people are attacking the Jew that says we shouldn't attack Jews. And they're all like hammering Ben Shapiro. And you sit there going, you know, this is going to get a lot darker before it gets better. So I really don't think that there's, I think the Republicans are going to have to lose quite a few times before they either. They either reform themselves or move into a new party. Who do you think the strongest Dems are for 28? I don't know. Yeah. I really don't. It's like, you know, I just don't know how Gavin Newsom plays in... New Hampshire. Yeah. I really wanted Josh Shapiro to be the VP because I don't know. I like the idea of putting Pennsylvania in your camp and then going, okay, now I only have to worry about winning Michigan and Wisconsin. And then I win, right? Right. But I don't know. I mean, I don't know if if.

I don't know how Josh Shapiro will be when he goes, whether it's New Hampshire or it's South Carolina. You know, those are two guys who are going to have to do well in black churches in South Carolina. I know. People forget Democratic primary and Democratic presidents who win. You've got to be broadly acceptable. Yeah. to the base and inspire the base and excite the base and broadly acceptable to the rest of the country. And, like, you can't pick one. You got to do both. And it's really two different skill sets, which, of course, Barack Obama had both of them, Bill Clinton had both of them. So you do it. You've got to be able. to appeal to white progressives in New Hampshire. And then you've got to go down to the churches in South Carolina and in Atlanta and across the South. You can't be saying different shit either, especially in this environment. You've got to be you in both of those places. You've got to be you. And the one thing I found is that it was so fascinating. that Elijah Cummings was a good friend of ours, married Mika and me. We went to the funeral. And I won't mention too many Democrats saying, but national democratic figures would go up and they all gave their eulogy. And it's just like, this happens especially in a black church. You walk in, man, and you know who has the crowd. And who doesn't have the crowd. And there are a couple of national politicians who've run for president that walked up. And it's just like, they were from Mars. And then Bill Clinton, fighting Parkinson's walks up. And he's like, Elijah coming. And I just sat there. And I said, wow. This is why. Bill Clinton did what Bill Clinton did, and Barack Obama did because it's a lost art. It is a lost art. They can appeal to, they can walk into people's living rooms in Ashwa or in a gym and connect with those people. And then they can walk into a church in, you know, Greenville, South Carolina, and do the same thing. It's just. Yeah. You either have it or you don't. And so that's the thing. Who, let me ask you, you know better than me. Who sort of has the feel? No one yet. No one yet. And I'm done pretending that someone does. Yeah. And, you know, like you have a whole campaign. You can grow into the role, right? So like I'm fully open to the fact that someone who we're all talking about now emerges as just a much stronger candidate than anyone thought. Right. But as of now. I don't, I think, I think there's a lot of like good, solid Democratic politicians who, in their current role, I'm like really proud that they're in that role and I like them, but like no one that I think is at that next level. And I think that because of the political environment right now and the urgency of the moment, you actually, the bar is just higher for a Democratic politician. It is higher. It's also, it's higher for the type of candidate that Democrats need because.

everybody's nervous and looking over their shoulder. And you've got to know who you are. You've got to not, you know, you've got to not play a part or play a role because you think this time requires it of you, right? And I think to Joe Biden's credit in 20, like one of the reasons he won is because Joe Biden did know who he was. Right. Was comfortable in his own skin. Right. I do remember at the time, though, everyone's like, you know, after four years of Donald Trump, we don't need anyone exciting. We don't need anyone who's going to give these big, inspire a lot of people. We just need someone just return to normalcy. Right. I don't agree with that. And I didn't agree with it then. I really don't agree with it now because I'm not saying you have to govern. like from ideological standpoint that's far left or center left or whatever it be. But I think you have to inspire people and connect with people in a way that is different than just and the madness of Trump just vote for this, just vote for this Democrat. And that's it. Yeah, I think in 26 something beats, or nothing beats something. Yes. I think this year, Democrats can win that way. I think in 28, I don't think. That's the case. And I think there's an extraordinary opportunity for Democrats to step forward. And look, again, just what's happened since I left Congress, whether you want to look at the, you know, we went from balancing the budget four years in row to having like a $38, $39 trillion debt brought to in large part by Donald Trump and George W. Bush. And so you can look at that crisis. You can look at the AI crisis. You know, we saw what. sort of the tech revolution did to post-industrial America. It just absolutely gutted it. Then AI is going to just be savage. It's going to be even worse. It's going to do for white-collar workers. As the AI founders are telling us. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's going to do to blue collar. Well, actually, it's sort of a double gut punch. White-collar workers are going to be. just absolutely devastated by by AI and a lot of blue collar jobs are going to go away because robotics and they are obsessed I mean you know people that that that that run industry and corporation they're obsessed with getting ahead by doing that and and a lot of people are just not going to get jobs by attrition so that that's got to be approached in the right way. I think that's critical. I think like and and and then this affordability crisis. Like we're we are losing the middle class. We're losing the American dream. And we're losing it because for the past 30 years, you've had Democratic administrations and Republican administrations being a lot more sort of focused. on Wall Street and focused on, you know, the bottom line for corporations, then then worried about again.

the rest of the country. Yeah. Joseph Scarborough, thanks for stopping by POTSave America. And you got a new newsletter, not really new now, but I know that you're a newsletter right now. It's kind of new, yeah. The tea spilled? The tea. The tea. It's the tea baby. Everybody should subscribe to the tea. Everybody should subscribe. Everyone knows Morning Joe. Check out Morning Joe. Thanks for stopping about it. Thank you. Greatly appreciate it. All right. Last thing before we go, when we ask our subscribers and potential subscribers what you'd want to see from a friend of the pod subscription, the most popular answer is always more Dan. More Dan. That's right. That's actually, that was number one. That is a fact. More Pod Save America. Well. You got it. More Pod Save America. On Thursday, we launched Pod Save America Only Friends. It's a biweekly show. We've got a rotating cast of PSA hosts, some other hosts from Cricket. It's a chance for us to get some of the stories and takes that don't make it into the Tuesday and Friday pods. So all four of us, Pod Save America hosts, got together for the first episode. And you're going to hear a few minutes of that now. If you like it, we hope you'll sign up at Crooked.com slash friends. Welcome to Potta of America Only Friends, the new Crooked subscription show that is basically Potta of America, probably a little looser, for subscribers only. And then there's a subtle suggestion that one episode in the future might have full frontal. Yeah, it's up to Dan, nudity intake. We're still working out that provision. There's some serious negotiations going on with my contract. Yeah, because I'm the intimacy coordinator. So that's sort of confusing because I'm conflicted, you know. Yes, it depends on how badly we need the subs. So we're all here for this inaugural episode. Going forward, the show is going to be a rotating collection of POTSave America hosts, some special guests. I'm in the sticks today because I guess I was up early. That's really what happened here. Bless you. Here's another example of just how out of control ice has gotten in the Twin Cities. So this is a video of an ICE agent trying to force his way into an Ecuadorian diplomatic facility. Let's watch. Relax. Relax. Relax. Relax. Relax. I did I get into it. If you touch me, I was grabbed. If you test me, I was glad. Okay. Okay. You can on that. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So if you couldn't hear it, there's ICE agents trying to rush into the facility. The embassy employee goes to the door and the agent tells the employee, if you touch me, I will grab you. I'm not sure what that means. And the employee replies, you cannot enter here. This is a consul of the state foreign government property. It's like, boss, boss, I found this building. It's filled with Ecuadorian nationals. They're just sitting there. They're acting like their appeal. They're like the laws here don't apply to them. Sit in ducks. Honestly, some right-winger on Twitter were after this. We're posting like, this is unbelievable. We got to have Trump shut the Ecuadorian embassy down. They're impeding investigations. They're impeding law enforcement operations. Like, are you fucking, you just, you don't get it, huh?

You just don't get it. For those who don't, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations says... Fuck a pussy. Oh, yeah, this guy. USA. Oh, no, international law. Call the Hague. Go on. Back and John up. U.S. agents can't enter an embassy without consent from the head of mission. Like, you can't execute a search warrant. You can't seize property. The protection for consulates are a little smaller, so that's probably a consulate. But basically, it's like... Like, you can't just bust into the buildings or threatening the staff and threatening to detain them. If, to speak in the language of something like that maybe the ice people would understand, lethal weapon three. They have diplomatic immunity. They're on the grounds of the consulate. That's right. It's odd that they were trying the consulate because I've been reliably told by Tricia McLaughlin and others that ICE only conducts targeted enforcement operations, that they're not just going around grabbing people, that everything is targeted. So I don't know. Well, it's a wide list of targets. Yeah, right. It's nice now that, you know, diplomatic staff from foreign countries in the United States have to treat. the border, the fence line to U.S. soil as, like, the DMZ, where if, like, you kind of go across, you have to have someone holding your back in case you're grabbed from the outside. Really, really great society. Can I go back to the Stephen Miller, gnome? sort of cover up the blame game thing. We should check the rules. Just to talk about one more thing. And I promise it's kind of fun and petty. So I thought that would be good for us. I mean, if Tommy will allow us to allow it? Will you yield the floor? First time. So Katie Miller, wife of Stephen Miller, podcast, a host extraordinaire. We have the same job, yep. Yeah, exactly. We have the same job. And what she did is she was posting the Axio story that you were reading from just to sort of defend her husband. And Ileana Garcia, who was the co-founder of Latinos for Trump, and she's quoted in a New York Times piece this week saying that Trump's going to lose the midterms because of Stephen Miller. And so then Katie Miller, her next tweet was she decided to say that Ileana was fired from DHS in the first term because she didn't show up to work. And then Ileana quote tweets Katie Miller and says, Invite me to your podcast so we can have a candid discussion about what truly transpired and how you labeled your then boyfriend a racist when you were upset that he treated you poorly and me as a mere token Hispanic for the administration. Let's discuss who was responsible for the leaks in the White House and how you helped carve the floor out from under then secretary Kirsten Nielsen. Wow. That sounded, I have to say that, that's very specific. That's very specific. The then boyfriend Stephen Miller, right? Yes, I hope that. For sure. Not a previous boyfriend. Maybe she had, too. Maybe there's, Katie Miller also didn't know what a liberal democracy meant. I saw that. That was cool. Or leftist. It was cool.

Not the brightest bull. Invite her on. Go on the show, Alianagar. Or you could come on this show and talk about it. Anytime. Back to the Ecuador incident. So there was an incident like this back during the George H.W. Bush administration. It did lead to a big diplomatic row. A row. Are you Jack Blanchard? Rowe, I would say. Is a row or is a row? Bucle up, guys. Oh. Diplomatic community. This is a great moment. It's just been refoked. Now, yeah, Danny Glover. Now, I do think it's worth taking a moment to appreciate that most of the, the premise of basically every movie. from 1980 to 2010 is the rules should not, the heroes don't follow the rules. Right. He summarily executes the South African diplomat. Now, in the film, we know he's done terrible things. He's a bad guy. Murders. Murder supporting the apartheid regime. But still. It's a sort of heroic moment at the end where he's just summarily executing the man. And you do cheer and you do root for Danny Glover. And he does hesitate. He does hesitate, feeling the two wolves inside of him. Yeah, we're kind of on the side of ice here by accident. There's a little ice, yeah. I do like the way he said, diplomatic immunity. Diplomatic immunity. It was enjoyable, so I don't want to play the clip. Okay, so Donald Trump wants to be talking about anything else besides ICE in Minnesota. On Wednesday, Trump threatened to bomb Iran again. That's cool. The Armada's coming. Armada's there. What was the quote is like, it's big and powerful? Larger and like purposeful. It was like very phallic. Yeah. And filled with semen. It's a submarine. It's coming ashore. Then he was joined by Nikki Minaj at an event to announce this new savings program for kids. Here's humble soybean farmer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talking about this new. plan. Do all the moms and dads out there watching right now? They should sign up now, right, for Trump accounts during this tax season? We've already had, just in the past few days, 500,000 families sign up. We believe there are about 25 million who are eligible. So go on the IRS website. It's form 45, 47, and everyone should do it. And it's a great way because you can also, you know, if relative, rather than giving a toy for birthday for a holiday, they can contribute to these accounts. I think we're going to see a substantial drop in people playing the lottery because you've won the lottery. You've got $1,000 and the power of compound interest, families can add to that. So this is really a new kind of philanthropy. It is... direct to children. What child doesn't want? The S&P index funds, right? Wait, so sometimes kids walk around chanting compound interest. Yeah, that's right. Well, let's wait, so what, this is, I missed, so what is he doing? What, what's happening here? Baby bonds is that you're going to invest on behalf of your cousin or some shit, but he's saying instead of getting him a toy,

You get them the donation. Yeah, a little donation. That was, you know, baby bonds was like the, you know, high neolib 90s ideas. Cory Booker's pushed baby bonds for a long time. I mean, like, you can't, you can barely find coverage of this today. Yeah. Which is sort of amazing and says all you need to do. He did the event with Nikki Minaj. I was going to say. But also it's like the Nikki Minaj. angle is her being like, I'm Trump's number one fan. God is protecting him and those pictures. And then the sound bite they got from it was that doofus talking about maybe there's less toys. The Nicki Minaj thing is funny because she goes up and she's like, I'm his number one fan. Even though everyone hates him and attacks me for liking him, I still do it anyway. I was like, oh, that's not a really nice endorsement. Yeah, I was thinking about that because... He don't sort Nikki Minaj instinctively into the same category as the people who, like the tech bros for whom like social media destroyed, like, rotted their brains. You do feel a little bit like the Democrats were the people that were attacking her over the years for various statements that she's made, COVID stuff, all the other stuff. And like that's a little, like, because if you really believed in something. How did we? Who lost Nikki Minaj? I don't know. We lost the hippiege, John. And say we lost Nicky Minaj and Joe Rogan. It's a long list. But, but you have to imagine that like. If you really love something and believed in it, you wouldn't say, like, I love this. And that's not changing. You would just would never say that. You wouldn't be defensive about it. Yeah, I just love it. The affordability push is going well. Did you guys hear when Trump was given his speech in Iowa? Some lady in the audience interrupted him when he started talking about how gas is only $1.95 or $1.85 in Iowa. And some woman shouts from the crowd, no, it's not. It's 263. Yeah. And it was $269 at the venue. It's like, it made me upset that your gas is more expensive. But, uh, On the other hand, they are killing Americans in the street. So it's just a... The argument has a new pullout that find that like 24% of white Trump voters were abandoning him over prices. And just this moment of watching the news and it's horrible and like is the attack on the rule of law and death in the streets. And did that undo Trump? It certainly was bad for Trump, but really was the price of gas and his failure to attack affordability. That will have been the thing. Real quick. One more little clip, it doesn't. We want to watch her. In case you don't know it, I'm actually a soybean farmer, so I have helped him too. Never not funny. Negative charisma. Again, that was a preview of Pod Save America OnlyFriends. Sign up to become a friend of the pod at Cricket.com slash Friends to get OnlyFriends and lots, lots more. That's our show for today. Thanks to Joe Scarborough for coming by. Lovett's going to be back in the feed with a new show on Sunday. Talk to everybody then. 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 producers are David Toledo, Emma Illick-Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics.

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