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Speaker 1: I'm John Favor, I'm John Love It Tommy Vetory. On
Speaker 1: today's show, we'll talk about the news that Trump appears
Speaker 1: to be giving up on his one point eight billion
Speaker 1: dollar insurrectionist slush fund. He also seems quite uninterested in
Speaker 1: ending the Iran war, saying he quote couldn't care less
Speaker 1: whether talks breakdown. We're also going to talk about Tuesday's
Speaker 1: big primaries this week in Iowa and here in California,
Speaker 1: as well as more turbulence in Maine for Graham Plattner
Speaker 1: and more turbulence for Jade Vance and his quest to
Speaker 1: become Donald Trump's number one boy chosen successor. Then New
Speaker 1: Jersey Senator Andy Kim talks to me about the horrifying
Speaker 1: conditions he witnessed at the Ice Attention Center in Newark,
Speaker 1: where the senator was pepper sprayed by federal agents. Before
Speaker 1: we start, you guys see the uh that CBS is
Speaker 1: Scott Pelley accused Barry Weiss of murdering sixty minutes.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a really fun meeting to have attended.
Speaker 1: It was an all staff meeting convened by Weiss's new
Speaker 1: handpicked executive producer, Nick Bilton. No Weiss at the meeting
Speaker 1: said him.
Speaker 3: It's your first day at the office. You're trying to
Speaker 3: find the bathrooms. You're seeing which where your badge works
Speaker 3: and where your badge doesn't work. Next, Scott Pelly is
Speaker 3: saying you piece of shit. I will fucking wreak your
Speaker 3: dead corpse over the bones of Don Hewitt.
Speaker 1: And obviously love It's was hyperbole, but not as much
Speaker 1: as you might obviously close reading Oliver Darcy's status as
Speaker 1: the whole transcript of the meeting was it was something anyway.
Speaker 1: I just bring that up because if all of you
Speaker 1: want to support the growth of an independent pro democracy
Speaker 1: media company that Barry Weiss can't murder, at.
Speaker 2: Least not yet.
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Speaker 1: Check it out at criokeed dot com slash friends. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the news. With the Middle East still
Speaker 1: a mess and gas price is still high, the President
Speaker 1: is once again working hard to communicate to the American
Speaker 1: people how little he cares about these things. Here he
Speaker 1: is during a hard hitting Fox interview with his daughter
Speaker 1: in law Lara Trump, focused like a laser on his
Speaker 1: true passion interior design.
Speaker 4: This will be the entrance into the ballroom, and the
Speaker 4: borough will be right here. No, the ballroom is a
Speaker 4: gift to America from me and.
Speaker 1: From Apple and from lots of great people. And how
Speaker 1: often are you coming out here to check.
Speaker 5: The progress a lot.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have the inauguration here. Oh wow, this stone
Speaker 1: can last a million years.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Most people would put brass on top of a piece
Speaker 4: of wood. It would be called laminading, and then in
Speaker 4: about three years you see the.
Speaker 6: Grass falling on the floor. You know, with laminated, this
Speaker 6: is solid.
Speaker 4: Same thing with this.
Speaker 2: This is all solid, beautiful solid.
Speaker 1: It's it's the putting. Look.
Speaker 3: We've suffered a lot under this guy, the putting labels
Speaker 3: on the rooms outside the office. You know, the whole
Speaker 3: point of it, man, is we know it's a cool room.
Speaker 3: It's actually a great thing. You don't need to label it.
Speaker 2: Did you guys read Ashley Parker's story about Trump is
Speaker 2: a gay icon in the Atlantic. You will love it.
Speaker 2: It's made so funny. It's so good.
Speaker 1: They're having the inauguration out there.
Speaker 2: No, they're not, by the way Congress decided.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, yeah, what's the dream means like
Speaker 3: the balls and some of the you know.
Speaker 1: The balls that would happen around the inauguration. I mean,
Speaker 1: says him. He's not there anymore.
Speaker 2: Right, he won't be.
Speaker 1: He shouldn't be that involved in the planning of it.
Speaker 1: You know, one would hope does he He's he's just
Speaker 1: gonna stay on as like physical plant director.
Speaker 2: It's a chaperone for JD. You're going home.
Speaker 1: No. So that was on Fox over the weekend for
Speaker 1: Fox viewers who wanted just a little more on what
Speaker 1: the government is doing about this terrible economy. On Sunday morning,
Speaker 1: they get to hear this from top White House economic
Speaker 1: advisor slash a Democratic Party plant, Kevin Hassett.
Speaker 6: People are spending more on gas, but they're also spending
Speaker 6: more on everything else, not just groceries, but restaurants and
Speaker 6: so on. And I think that that's a sign that
Speaker 6: you would see when people are optimistic about the futures.
Speaker 1: Now, Tommy, you put this in Slack yesterday, I think
Speaker 1: on Sunday, and I was like, isn't that the clip
Speaker 1: from last month when Kevin hasn't said this? And then
Speaker 1: I had to click on it and realize that he
Speaker 1: basically said the same thing again, but maybe worse this time.
Speaker 2: No, they just keep putting Magga, Dennis and Menace on
Speaker 2: TV to stay stupid shit. I mean, they just like
Speaker 2: they could not seem more out of touch if they tried.
Speaker 2: They spending more on gas and groceries does not suggest
Speaker 2: that you're optimistic about the future. It suggests that you
Speaker 2: need gas and groceries and those are non negotiable items.
Speaker 2: They're not taking out loans to start a business, Like
Speaker 2: what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: It does like, oh, you know, hey, man, Like most
Speaker 3: people are just they're just not really paying that close
Speaker 3: attention to aggregate consumer spending, right, Like that matters to
Speaker 3: you in your morning meeting.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, But then like the Laura Trump interview, I mean,
Speaker 2: Trump clearly wanted to talk about the brass thing he
Speaker 2: put on the wall. He could he could write Laura
Speaker 2: Trump's questions for her if he wanted. It's his daughter
Speaker 2: in law doing the interview, and he like, they clearly
Speaker 2: went out and they pitched this, like he just he
Speaker 2: wants to tell us I don't give a shit about
Speaker 2: anyone or anything about in a world except for myself,
Speaker 2: my arch and like he seems annoyed almost that we
Speaker 2: don't believe him at this point.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because we also on Friday's pod covered
Speaker 1: Bessent in the briefing room when some reporter asked him
Speaker 1: about like people's savings being lot of people dipping into
Speaker 1: their savings and he's like, well, according to the economic literature,
Speaker 1: that could be two things. One the doomer view that
Speaker 1: you just took, which is that people aren't confident or
Speaker 1: they're spending so much because they are confident. That's why
Speaker 1: they're dipping. They're saving.
Speaker 3: Yes, people are people are wrecking, people are racking up
Speaker 3: credit card debt because they're betting on themselves. That's what's
Speaker 3: going on. That's what's going on. Just thought of it,
Speaker 3: thought of it too late. Phantom of the ballroom, that's
Speaker 3: what he's sort of aiming fans something like that. I
Speaker 3: sort of imagine I said it earlier.
Speaker 2: The University image. They made this joke earlier. The University
Speaker 2: of Michigan's consumer Sentiment Index is at a record low
Speaker 2: of forty four point eight in May of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: That's lower than cos covidom.
Speaker 2: So the biggest concern, by the way, is cost of
Speaker 2: living and gas prices.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know what the solution is, turn that
Speaker 1: frown upside down. All you doomers believe believe in Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and his wild Look. If a man can can
Speaker 1: do that with brass, imagine what he can do for
Speaker 1: your savings.
Speaker 3: Thatsn't going out there with the two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: dollars bill too. Like the whole thing it is crazy.
Speaker 3: It is he wants to lose them.
Speaker 2: You see him holding up the story being like, whoever
Speaker 2: edited this or did a terrible job, A pissy cadavery.
Speaker 3: He looks, so he has such a terrible like kind
Speaker 3: of his whole facial expression, just like just it's so unlikable,
Speaker 3: just the holding up the story with the money on it.
Speaker 1: So obviously none of this is going too well politically
Speaker 1: for Trump. But unfortunately for him, even his renovations and
Speaker 1: corruption are running into some stiff headwinds. On Friday, a
Speaker 1: federal judge blocked Trump's plan to close the Kennedy Center
Speaker 1: for renovations and also ruled that he can't just rename
Speaker 1: it for himself. There was a very long truth social
Speaker 1: post where he was ranting about that that I have
Speaker 1: to tell you, I honestly couldn't get through it all.
Speaker 1: It's just he was very upset. Sorry, but basically he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm giving up on the Kennedy Center. That's it, forget it.
Speaker 1: It's like, all right, quat cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hey man, yeah, leave her alone.
Speaker 1: The same day, another federal judge in Florida reopened Trump's
Speaker 1: IRS settlement with his own DOJ because of what she
Speaker 1: called quote grievous allegations that the one point eight billion
Speaker 1: dollar insurrectionist slush fund was quote premised on deception. Then
Speaker 1: another federal judge in Virginia temporarily blocked the transfer of
Speaker 1: money in or out of the fund while she waits
Speaker 1: to hear arguments in a lawsuit challenging it. Finally, after
Speaker 1: all these reports that both Republicans in Congress and White
Speaker 1: House aides were pushing Trump to just give up on
Speaker 1: the slush fund altogether, it appears as if he's done
Speaker 1: just that. Two senior administration officials told Axios that Trump
Speaker 1: will dropped the slush fund, with one saying quote, it's
Speaker 1: dead for now. D o J also posted a statement
Speaker 1: saying it'll quote abide by the court ruling blocking it,
Speaker 1: even though that block is only temporary. Do you guys
Speaker 1: we haven't heard from Trump as of this record.
Speaker 3: We got to hear from the big Boy before it's done.
Speaker 3: It's not done till the big Boy speaks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even then, But do you think he's backs
Speaker 1: down this easily? And and I think more importantly, do
Speaker 1: you guys think this is still a political issue for Republicans?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: For Also, Senate Republicans actually were pretty bothered by this.
Speaker 3: In a close to our meeting, of course, John Thune
Speaker 3: was actually out there saying, you didn't like this very much,
Speaker 3: which is impressive for him. Of course, the only thing
Speaker 3: Senate Republicans could manage to do is quietly oppose it
Speaker 3: and then bravely leave town.
Speaker 1: That was their way of protesting it.
Speaker 3: It was we're not going to give him more money
Speaker 3: for immigration that we don't need if we're going to
Speaker 3: leave town to signal our our unhappiness with it. I
Speaker 3: assume and hope that we'll still have votes on it
Speaker 3: this week. I think there's no given that it's only
Speaker 3: temporarily on hold, and Trump clearly wants to do this.
Speaker 3: I think Democrats need to get Republicans on record that
Speaker 3: they would oppose having this kind of a slush fund
Speaker 3: be legal now or in the future, and so let's
Speaker 3: get them voting on that, because even if they're privately
Speaker 3: saying it, they'll have to publicly do something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the for now bothered me. For now, part of
Speaker 2: that report bothered me. I'm hopeful that you know, when
Speaker 2: you're primarying John Corny and you're primary and Bill Cassidy,
Speaker 2: and when Tom Tillis hates you all Republicans in the Senate,
Speaker 2: maybe they will prevent this from ever passing or coming
Speaker 2: to be. I don't know. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: guys read the big New York Times piece from over
Speaker 2: the weekend about how the slush fund came together, but
Speaker 2: it read like the blueprint for a future reco case.
Speaker 2: It was like Boris Epstein on the outside, like coordinating
Speaker 2: things the Trump kids want immunity for, like all IRS
Speaker 2: audits for their tax returns in the future. The professional
Speaker 2: staff at DJ are either horrified or quitting. And then
Speaker 2: the White House political staff was just cut out of
Speaker 2: the process because they probably knew that it was toxic
Speaker 2: and it's like the most corrupt sounding shit imaginable, and
Speaker 2: so I don't know, knowing Trump, it's probably not the
Speaker 2: end of it.
Speaker 1: Schumer is going ahead with, or he said he's going
Speaker 1: ahead with making sure they have to vote on it
Speaker 1: and do it. The vote is going to be on
Speaker 1: you know. Originally, I think the first time we talked
Speaker 1: about Democrats potentially proposing amendments on this, it was like
Speaker 1: to restrict the fund or whatever. There was a couple
Speaker 1: proposals out there to just ban the fund completely forever,
Speaker 1: and that's what Schumer's going with, reportedly, he said today.
Speaker 1: And I think that's great because like what Republican now
Speaker 1: is going to vote against the ban now that Trump
Speaker 1: has said, or at least the White House has signaled
Speaker 1: that they're giving up on it, so Trump doesn't say
Speaker 1: anything between now and the vote. Like, if you're a
Speaker 1: Republican voting on this, you can either vote against the
Speaker 1: ban and really fuck yourself in the midterms because now
Speaker 1: that White House is abandoned it, but now you're on
Speaker 1: record supporting it, or you can vote for the band
Speaker 1: and then the band becomes law and then it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if Trump backs off because now it's against the law. Well, right,
Speaker 1: there's a pretty good position that, Oh.
Speaker 3: Democrats are great, this is ridiculous. There's no good vote
Speaker 3: for the Republicans. They haven't in the past chosen this
Speaker 3: is a political ploy because there is no fund So
Speaker 3: I'm voting against this because Democrats are playing politics, just
Speaker 3: giving them an option to be crazy, of course, just
Speaker 3: giving that's another vote. It's another craven past there they're
Speaker 3: Republicans have said this is not necessary or it is
Speaker 3: too late. Those have been two positions they've taken in
Speaker 3: the past, and trying to stop Trump.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: The the other part of this too is like in
Speaker 3: fairness to Trump, you must be surprised that there's any
Speaker 3: pushback whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It sort of I think must have caught him up.
Speaker 3: Guards that centate Republicans have found a line because they've
Speaker 3: tolerated so much brazen corruption, the pardons and all the
Speaker 3: rest that led to this moment. Even as we're speaking
Speaker 3: ToJ is trying to vacate the convictions of the oathkeepers
Speaker 3: that Trump only commuted but didn't part. And so they
Speaker 3: still are kind of just going full speed ahead without
Speaker 3: having to worry about the Republicans of Congress.
Speaker 2: I love the Mike Pence was on the Sunday Shows
Speaker 2: being like, please don't pay the people that tried to
Speaker 2: hang me. Yeah, you know Donald's watch. I watched her
Speaker 2: to hang me. They set up up stocks in a news.
Speaker 3: He I watched part of that. Mike Pence, come on,
Speaker 3: Meet the Press. I don't know why this doesn't sound
Speaker 3: like me, but.
Speaker 1: But it was. He's served to you by accident.
Speaker 3: His book is about His book is about like the
Speaker 3: need to take on the right wing populist. While he's
Speaker 3: like up there just like praising Donald Trump and how
Speaker 3: on so many things he's doing such a great job.
Speaker 3: And then he's like, Now, I do have to say
Speaker 3: I am a big critical of his continuing to support
Speaker 3: the people that tried to.
Speaker 1: Kill me, But nobody's perfect. So unbelievable that he's still
Speaker 1: out here, out there like doing this thing. I think
Speaker 1: that there's a very small but non zero chance that
Speaker 1: the other all option for Donald Trump is saying, fine,
Speaker 1: I'll just pocket the cash. Then well he remember, remember
Speaker 1: he had that pissy post last week when there was
Speaker 1: a lot of political lowback on the slush fund, and
Speaker 1: he was like, I could have just kept the money.
Speaker 3: Well, that's why he's annoyed, right, because he thought, I'm
Speaker 3: going to do a ten million dollar lawsuit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I'm actually going to do something really.
Speaker 3: Cool which is going to be like beloved by all
Speaker 3: because I'm not going to keep the money.
Speaker 1: It was like too clever by half? Yes, yes, And
Speaker 1: then you.
Speaker 3: Can feel that this is the White House staff being
Speaker 3: annoyed at Todd Blanche for running this drug deal behind
Speaker 3: their backs.
Speaker 1: So good, amazing, All right, let's talk about around where
Speaker 1: Trump can't even seem to get a bad deal, let
Speaker 1: alone one that would justify the insane amount of money
Speaker 1: and lives the war has already cost military strikes have
Speaker 1: started again around state. Media said it was pausing negotiations.
Speaker 1: Trump told CNBC on Monday morning that he quote couldn't
Speaker 1: care less if the negotiations collapse, that they quote took
Speaker 1: too much time and started to get very boring. This
Speaker 1: was after he complained on truth Social about how negative
Speaker 1: quote chirping about the war from political hacks is making
Speaker 1: his job tougher and that we should all just sit
Speaker 1: back and relax because it will all work out well
Speaker 1: in the end. It always does. Trump then reverse course again, uh,
Speaker 1: and said that talks between the US and Iran were
Speaker 1: quote continuing at a rapid pace.
Speaker 3: Taking too long and getting kind of boring. Is also
Speaker 3: what he said the one and only time he went
Speaker 3: down on Havana. Never never made it, Never gonna make
Speaker 3: that mistake.
Speaker 1: Where that came to sorry me, just catching catching strays
Speaker 1: from the grave. Okay, Uh, Tommy, we were we were
Speaker 1: reliably told by Scott Jennings last Thursday that Trump had
Speaker 1: reached a deal with Iran that got us quote everything
Speaker 1: we want. What happened? Is it possible that Scott let
Speaker 1: us a stress?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Before I get the Jennings, I want to just
Speaker 2: read a little more of the transcript of the CNBC interview.
Speaker 2: Is this what Trump told Aman Jabvers from CNBC about
Speaker 2: the peace talks. I don't care if they're over. Honestly,
Speaker 2: I really don't care. I couldn't care less. If they're over,
Speaker 2: they're over. If they're not, you know, I think they
Speaker 2: took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to
Speaker 2: get very boring again. Thirteen service members dead, hundreds more wounded, tire,
Speaker 2: global economy is on the brink of collapse. Gas prices
Speaker 2: are at fifty percent, So he's bored. It's just hard
Speaker 2: to wrap your head around a politician and saying that,
Speaker 2: a president saying that and then not being a career
Speaker 2: ending moment kind of like on site. But here we are.
Speaker 2: Fox News will never air it. This will never have
Speaker 2: happened in the maga media world now. Scott Jennings, fuck
Speaker 2: know him from CNN. You know him, you hate him,
Speaker 2: And he's a hack. He's a fool. He mindlessly regurgitates
Speaker 2: whatever talking points he gets sent from the White House,
Speaker 2: including blatant disinformation. So I expect nothing better from him.
Speaker 2: But i'd like, I do hope that this disaster makes
Speaker 2: the Axios and some of other news outlets. They kind
Speaker 2: of cut and paste whatever to some senior administration official
Speaker 2: told them, whether it's Jared Kushner or the Press Office
Speaker 2: or whomever, just help, like, rethink how you're doing your job,
Speaker 2: because I get the journalism is very competitive. I get
Speaker 2: that reporters are battling for every mini scoop these days.
Speaker 2: But at best you look silly. At worst, uh, you
Speaker 2: are upon in oil market manipulations, right, This happens every Sunday.
Speaker 2: And then ultimately you're pumping out this information to the
Speaker 2: entire world. Like I remember, economies in Southeast Asia like
Speaker 2: have stopped because they have no oil and gas and
Speaker 2: so on. The question of where do we stand on
Speaker 2: a deal, I don't know, Like one the deal was off,
Speaker 2: the deal was on. We're on the cusp of a deal.
Speaker 2: Then we're bombing the Iranians again. Trump just said he
Speaker 2: talked directly with a Hesbola representative. You guys see that today.
Speaker 3: That's new, that's interesting, And then said and said that
Speaker 3: that Hesbela and Israel they're cool.
Speaker 2: There's a far and Lebanon. Now the Iron talks are
Speaker 2: proceeding quickly. Then then I was like, no, what are
Speaker 2: you talking about? So who knows?
Speaker 1: I also, I mean, you tell me, Tommy. But like,
Speaker 1: I don't think that all the pre spinning of what
Speaker 1: the deal is going to include from the White House
Speaker 1: is actually helping the negotiations that much, and in fact
Speaker 1: maybe hurting them, because every time they get close to
Speaker 1: a deal then and Around's probably thinking, okay, like we're
Speaker 1: gonna do this, maybe you know, And then Trump goes
Speaker 1: out and is like, we destroyed them. We got the
Speaker 1: best deal ever, we got everything we ever wanted. And
Speaker 1: then the Iranians are probably like, well, fuck no, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do this.
Speaker 2: Now. Trump is gonna have to give on something, whether
Speaker 2: it's you know, the duration of the deal, like sanctions relief,
Speaker 2: unfrozen assets, something, but he refuses to look weak. He
Speaker 2: doesn't want to look like he gave a jcpoa like
Speaker 2: agreement to the Iranians. So you're right, I mean, he
Speaker 2: it sounds like his staff are kind of giving. And
Speaker 2: then he goes out and says, actually, no, we're going
Speaker 2: to take the dust to We're going to not give
Speaker 2: him any money, like all the reports are bullshit and
Speaker 2: running it's okay, okay, fuck you then yeah.
Speaker 3: I felive there's two things happening. One is what an
Speaker 3: actual deal will ultimately look like, if there is one,
Speaker 3: and then there's how Trump, how the Trump administration talks
Speaker 3: about the deal, and then what's reported. This has been
Speaker 3: This has been sort of the media has been getting
Speaker 3: led around by Trump from when Vance went to Pakistan,
Speaker 3: because Vance goes to Pakistan, and then within tweight within
Speaker 3: you know, eight hours, twelve hours, the reports are stalemate
Speaker 3: talk and it talks at an impasse, talks are falling apart.
Speaker 1: There haven't really been talks.
Speaker 3: And we've spent the next last several weeks having deal
Speaker 3: falls apart, verge of a deal. Deal falls apart, verge
Speaker 3: of a deal, when what would be happening in a
Speaker 3: normal administration is the long grinding negotiation of a complicated
Speaker 3: deal in which which there gives and takes and and
Speaker 3: like you know, and and and puts and whatever. And
Speaker 3: instead it's the kind of through the Trump prism. And
Speaker 3: so all these outlets are hearing, i guess, from the
Speaker 3: administration officials from who knows, saying we're on the verge
Speaker 3: of a deal. They report that out faithfully, and then
Speaker 3: it falls apart. The very next day, the reality of
Speaker 3: there will be hopefully there will be a deal. It
Speaker 3: will look something like the jcpo A, and then Trump
Speaker 3: will declare it the best, the best deal in history.
Speaker 3: Like one hopes that that's what will eventually get to
Speaker 3: and then this all this up and down shit will
Speaker 3: have just been sort of like silly Trump chaos on
Speaker 3: the way there.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess I think.
Speaker 2: What's triggering the hell out of me though, is like, ultimately,
Speaker 2: like there will be reporting on that will value with
Speaker 2: the merits of any deal, but that deal could have
Speaker 2: been gotten without a disastrous war that led to the
Speaker 2: deaths of thousands of our onions, the service members, the
Speaker 2: entire economy. And it's like, I'm not worried about this
Speaker 2: table losing that context. I am worried about the broader
Speaker 2: media like helping Trump sell a deal by like doing
Speaker 2: this constant incremental reporting by retweeting, you know, Scott Jennings
Speaker 2: saying this is a win for the Trump administration, et cetera.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, this is a disaster, no matter what
Speaker 2: happens next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the honest thing to report on this or
Speaker 1: if you were some kind of a conservative pundit, the
Speaker 1: honest thing to even say is glad it's over now.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't worth it, and not in exactly those words,
Speaker 1: but like that is the tenor of whatever deal we're
Speaker 1: going to get, is that, like there's no way we
Speaker 1: came out better than we started.
Speaker 3: Because the even like just on the on uranium enrichment,
Speaker 3: what I saw over the weekend early today was what
Speaker 3: was on the table was a twenty year moratorium, which
Speaker 3: is what up from the ten year moratorium. So that
Speaker 3: you claimed you this was the worst deal in history.
Speaker 3: Your deal is just a slightly longer timeline on one
Speaker 3: piece of it with other concessions. That was their starting position,
Speaker 3: and they worked down to fifteen Maybe it's even who knows,
Speaker 3: who knows, but it's just like obvious like that he
Speaker 3: is just there will be a hard If there's a deal,
Speaker 3: it will be a deal that isn't some amazing victory
Speaker 3: for Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: He'll call it that.
Speaker 3: He'll get his twenty four hours to say that, and
Speaker 3: then we'll live with the consequences of having fought the
Speaker 3: stupid fucking war.
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Speaker 1: slash Crooked. And if I see you in a free
Speaker 1: Morning Person hat, I will punch you in. As you're
Speaker 1: listening to this, voters in Iowa and California are voting
Speaker 1: in some very consequential elections. Let's start with Iowa, where
Speaker 1: State Representative Josh Turk and State Senator Zach Walls are
Speaker 1: in a tough primary fight for the state's open Senate seat,
Speaker 1: which will be hugely important. This one has become yet
Speaker 1: another meta commentary on Chuck Schumer and the d SEC
Speaker 1: trying to influence key primaries, in this case in favor
Speaker 1: of Turrek. Schumer hasn't publicly endorsed Turk, but his like
Speaker 1: aligned pack has contributed, so his Jillibrands he was, you know,
Speaker 1: it's reported that he was sort of a Schumer recruit,
Speaker 1: much to Turk's dismay. Yeah, you should end indoors Walls, Tommy.
Speaker 1: You interviewed both Turk and Walls on the show for
Speaker 1: people just catching up. What are each of them bringing
Speaker 1: to the table. What were your general impressions?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so Joshturk, he's a state rep in
Speaker 2: Western Iowa and Council Bluffs. He was born with spina bifida,
Speaker 2: uses a wheelchair. He's a two time Paralympic gold medal
Speaker 2: winner in wheelchair basketball. And he's just like his life story,
Speaker 2: he's just an incredibly gritty, determined guy. Like he got
Speaker 2: cut from the men's team six times before he actually
Speaker 2: won the gold medal. He just kept coming back and
Speaker 2: come back and competing, and like there's videos of him
Speaker 2: he literally like climbs out of his wheelchair, climbs up
Speaker 2: the stairs with his hand, drags a wheelchair up after him,
Speaker 2: and then knocks on doors like that's how he goes
Speaker 2: door to door. So like gritty dude clearly benefiting from
Speaker 2: being Schumer's pick and an associated nine million dollars vote
Speaker 2: vets ad by that has drastically increased his name ID
Speaker 2: because no one knew who any of these guys were.
Speaker 2: And then Zach is a member. Zach wall is a
Speaker 2: member of the Iowa State Senate. He's from Iowa City.
Speaker 2: He was sent a minority leader for a couple of years.
Speaker 2: Our listeners probably saw him speak in twenty eleven, even
Speaker 2: though they don't remember it or knew it was him
Speaker 2: at the time. He was a nineteen year old. He
Speaker 2: delivered a speech asking Iowa legislators not to pass a
Speaker 2: constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions that went
Speaker 2: super viral back in what twenty eleven, And it was
Speaker 2: a great speech, really powerful speech, like super charges his career.
Speaker 2: So I interviewed both. I liked him both a lot.
Speaker 2: Everyone seems to think that Josh is likely to win.
Speaker 2: A lot of people I know who work in Iowa
Speaker 2: politics think he is more electable because he's one and
Speaker 2: more conservative parts of the state. The what's gonna take
Speaker 2: on Congressman Ashley hints in for Jony Ernstie because she's resigning,
Speaker 2: and no matter who wins, Iowa is like ground zero
Speaker 2: for politics this next cycle, because you got Rob sand
Speaker 2: who could be the next governor, you have this open
Speaker 2: Senate seat, and then there's like three competitive House races,
Speaker 2: a bunch of other state wide things. So like Iowa
Speaker 2: is absolutely crucial. So this was one we're gonna be
Speaker 2: watching going forward.
Speaker 1: I will say that I've been impressed by both of them,
Speaker 1: by both Josh Turk and Zach Walls. And you know,
Speaker 1: some of these Senate primary fights are particularly intense, and
Speaker 1: I know this one is two I do not, Like
Speaker 1: I was kind of joking about Josh hurt, probably wishing
Speaker 1: that Schumer didn't spend some pack money on him or
Speaker 1: necessarily recruit him. But like, I think that I understand
Speaker 1: why wall is. You know, Walls has tried to make
Speaker 1: this a race about sort of an outsider versus the establishment,
Speaker 1: as Turk is the establishment. I kind of think that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, Turk being picked by Chuck Schumer is not
Speaker 1: quite the same as Turk being part of the establishment
Speaker 1: or the establishment spending money on him. Like a lot
Speaker 1: of the money that spent on him, his vote vets.
Speaker 1: So it's like it's not, at least for me, it
Speaker 1: doesn't worry me that he's some establishment pick necessarily. I
Speaker 1: feel like the case for that isn't as strong as
Speaker 1: in some of these other cases. But I also, like,
Speaker 1: you know, Zach Wallas was in here too. I thought
Speaker 1: he was very compelling as well, So I like both
Speaker 1: of them, love it anything.
Speaker 2: I think, Look, there's some races where being seen as
Speaker 2: like the Schumer guy, the DC guy, I think has
Speaker 2: been a real cross to bear. I think that happened
Speaker 2: in Nane, which we'll talk about in a second. I
Speaker 2: just don't think it's been that in Iowa as much
Speaker 2: this time, in part because this vote that's by has
Speaker 2: been so big and so significant and helping push Josh Ford. Also,
Speaker 2: he's a known quantity in western Iowa. I think he's
Speaker 2: ever been worked in DC. Yes, so I think it's
Speaker 2: harder to lay that on him. But we'll see.
Speaker 1: We should also say that for people wondering the reason
Speaker 1: that votes vote Vets is spending money on him is
Speaker 1: not because he's a veteran, but his father was in
Speaker 1: Vietnam and potentially exposed to Agent Orange, and that's why
Speaker 1: they think Josh has spined a bit. But also I
Speaker 1: think vote Vetts is seen as doing Tchumor's political getting
Speaker 1: here also true, also true. All right, let's turn to California.
Speaker 1: The big race, of course, is the Jungle primary for governor.
Speaker 1: We have covered the campaign a lot. In between us.
Speaker 1: We've interviewed Tom Steyer, Katie Porter, and Matt Mahon. We
Speaker 1: also reached out over a dozen times to the apparent frontrunner,
Speaker 1: Javier Bsera, and even though they expressed interest, they unfortunately
Speaker 1: wouldn't commit to a time. Okay, same question for each
Speaker 1: of you who'd end up supporting him?
Speaker 5: Why?
Speaker 1: And uh who else did you like? If this were
Speaker 1: a ranked choice voting, who might you support?
Speaker 2: After that?
Speaker 1: Well, my ballot still hasn't been filled down.
Speaker 3: I'm still gettable, I'm still gettible. I am going to
Speaker 3: vote for time Ston because I would like to see
Speaker 3: if Psara, if the polls are to be believed, and
Speaker 3: they've been pretty consistent. Psara is going to move on
Speaker 3: one other will There's a chance Tom Steyer can be
Speaker 3: that second person. I would much rather have two Democrats
Speaker 3: battling it out for the future of the Democratic Party
Speaker 3: in this state than I would have Bisara versus a
Speaker 3: Republican who has not passed the threshold question of opposing
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's election lines like that, to me, is a
Speaker 3: threshold question. You could be frustrated with Democrats in the state.
Speaker 3: You can believe that Democrats have fucked up in California,
Speaker 3: but if you can't say that Donald Trump lost that election,
Speaker 3: if you can't stand up to him, then that is
Speaker 3: so fucking dangerous, and he's a nut for that. So
Speaker 3: that's where I'm at. I also really liked my conversation
Speaker 3: with Tom Steyer. I think he had good answers for
Speaker 3: some of the questions about where Democrats have gone wrong
Speaker 3: in California and some of the criticisms. I also really
Speaker 3: like Katie Porter, but she just hasn't risen to the
Speaker 3: top of the polse like shekind of slowly fell behind,
Speaker 3: And I think it sucks because I really like her,
Speaker 3: But I'm trying to be pragmatic with my vote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I missed. So if I could wave a magic
Speaker 2: wand and make some governor, would be Katie Porter. But
Speaker 2: she is down in the polls, and I'm having the
Speaker 2: same I have the same rationale. I want to vote
Speaker 2: strategically because I think Styre and Beisarah going to a
Speaker 2: runoff would be great. It would kind of be annoying
Speaker 2: if we had to deal with, you know, running in
Speaker 2: Steve Hilton, who's a random British short king who's like
Speaker 2: deep in the tech community. I think it's tights a problem,
Speaker 2: but the uh, I do love that that triggers you
Speaker 2: of all the all the criticies, but like, I also
Speaker 2: love that Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco are calling on
Speaker 2: each other to drop out still even though Hilton is
Speaker 2: like crushing Bianco and Trump is endorsed Hilton. But that's
Speaker 2: where I was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would if I were doing range choice, I
Speaker 3: would be Katie number one, no question, because that that's
Speaker 3: that's who that's before.
Speaker 1: But that's not the world we live in. I had
Speaker 1: a real hard time with this, and I voted a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago. I uh, I had California is
Speaker 1: a big state with the it's hard to govern a
Speaker 1: lot of problems. I don't really feel I would think
Speaker 1: I thought about Bassarah, but like I don't feel confident
Speaker 1: giving the top job to someone who's had he said,
Speaker 1: thirty five years in elected office to prove himself, but
Speaker 1: has received mainly bad reviews from his colleagues and the
Speaker 1: one execut especially in the one executive job that he's had,
Speaker 1: which was HHS secretary under Biden, and you know, just
Speaker 1: an exim like I think his housing policy, which was
Speaker 1: also like he's very late to introduce any kind of
Speaker 1: housing policy whatsoever until after ballots dropped, and then even
Speaker 1: then it was like more Nimbi than Styr or Porter
Speaker 1: or anything else. And now like I hope I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: and if he wins, then like great, maybe he'll be
Speaker 1: a great governor. But I was like, I just it
Speaker 1: prevented me from from voting Besarah Stier, like I'm more
Speaker 1: confident in Stire. But even then, like on the experience question,
Speaker 1: there is just something for me. It was like the
Speaker 1: combination of he's never had any experience in elected office
Speaker 1: or governing anything and is a billionaire who basically like
Speaker 1: you know, ran for president first flamed out there then
Speaker 1: spent just the GDP of a small country on this race,
Speaker 1: and like, I think he hit like I like his
Speaker 1: positions better than Bassara and a lot of the other candidates.
Speaker 1: But I'm just like, there's just something a little icky
Speaker 1: to me about it. And I am not as worried
Speaker 1: if it's Steve Hilton versus Bassara or Styr because the
Speaker 1: state's registration is going to take care of itself, and
Speaker 1: there's just I just I'm it's not a concern I
Speaker 1: have that Steve Hilton's going to become governor. So I
Speaker 1: just voted for Katie Porter because I like her, and
Speaker 1: it's like I realized that she has it is the
Speaker 1: least strategic head. It is the least strategic thing I
Speaker 1: could do. But Katie to me is like like I've
Speaker 1: known her a while. The temperament with her staff stuff
Speaker 1: is obviously like it bothered me a lot because like
Speaker 1: we've known her forever and I actually didn't know that
Speaker 1: until those stories came up. And I also don't think
Speaker 1: she's gonna win at this point, But I'm like, who
Speaker 1: do I want to be governor? She's thought about the
Speaker 1: job a lot. She has like a really well fought
Speaker 1: out policy platform. She's actually worked on passing legis and
Speaker 1: getting things done when she was in Congress, and I
Speaker 1: feel like she's just like done the work for the
Speaker 1: job more than anyone else.
Speaker 3: But if you would rather Tom, I feel the same way,
Speaker 3: But I would rather like as of right now, and
Speaker 3: I want to talk to Javierbasara if he's willing now,
Speaker 3: Like I think Javierbasia has said he wants to come
Speaker 3: on the show, but he's hoping that he and Hilton
Speaker 3: get through the other side, right And then of course
Speaker 3: we're doing an interview about a Democrat versus a Republican,
Speaker 3: which is very different than a conversation about a Democrat
Speaker 3: versus a Democrat.
Speaker 1: But as of right now, I think Tom.
Speaker 3: Stier has answered some of the harder questions better than
Speaker 3: Javier Bisarah. And if Sarah, I'm voting for him, and
Speaker 3: if I'm trying to get the best, because I believe
Speaker 3: you don't think I don't think Hilt's gonna be governor
Speaker 3: of the state. I want the best person to be
Speaker 3: the governor of California, and right now, if there's I
Speaker 3: want to see, and maybe also Pisarah having to beat
Speaker 3: Tom Starr would make him a stronger candidate too. So
Speaker 3: that's that's my kind of hope that we can get
Speaker 3: Tom Stire through this thing so that we have a
Speaker 3: better debate on howvier Sarah has to be put through
Speaker 3: his paces if he is going to win.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do feel like, you know, as sort of
Speaker 1: blah as this race has been for governor, I am
Speaker 1: very open and hopeful that both like that either Stire
Speaker 1: or Sarah will prove me wrong and become a great governor.
Speaker 1: And you're right, maybe if it's be Sarah and Steyer
Speaker 1: and a runoff, then there's even more time for them
Speaker 1: to duke it out and show their show that they're
Speaker 1: ready for the job. We also got a mayoral race
Speaker 1: going on here in La Love It. Interviewed challenger Nythia
Speaker 1: Rahman for the show who we all know and I
Speaker 1: supported Nythia donated to her, known her a long time.
Speaker 1: We also reach out to Karen Bass, who has come
Speaker 1: on the show before, but she opted not to come
Speaker 1: on before the primary. Nythia and Bass are in a
Speaker 1: close race with reality TV personality turned mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt,
Speaker 1: a registered Republican quasi endorsed by Trump, who said, I
Speaker 1: like him. I hear he's mag I like them, And
Speaker 1: Pratt was in New York over the weekend closing the campaign.
Speaker 4: Like this, Then, even testing your drugs on a dog
Speaker 4: is the least of the worst of what these demons
Speaker 4: are doing to these poor animals. They're lighting them on fire,
Speaker 4: They're raping these dogs, they're abusing them, they're breeding them
Speaker 4: to the point that they die because they've been so overbred.
Speaker 1: Sir, this is a Wendy's.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't doubt that there's horrible things happening to animals
Speaker 2: in some of these places, but what is It's very
Speaker 2: weird that he decided to go to New York for
Speaker 2: several days, I think, dropped thirty four thousand dollars on
Speaker 2: his hotel rooms, and left the state the week before
Speaker 2: the election.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's billboards all around, or at least I saw.
Speaker 3: I think I saw these two in downtown LA of
Speaker 3: him saying, if you're you know dogs, vote for Spencer Pratt.
Speaker 3: So he's trying to make this like the closing thing.
Speaker 3: Whatever reason they think this is something that's going to
Speaker 3: break through for them, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just think of this race, what do you think
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 3: Apparently Spencer Prat has already sold the rights to do
Speaker 3: a reality show if if he becomes the mayor. Here's
Speaker 3: Here's I think this applies to both the governor's race
Speaker 3: and to the LA Mayor's race, which is when you
Speaker 3: watch the debates, there is a and like Steve Hilton,
Speaker 3: Bianco pet Pratt, they are capturing what is a very
Speaker 3: real frustration with democratic governance in this state, with mismanagement,
Speaker 3: with a kind of fecklessness and lack of emotion and
Speaker 3: passion for good government and making shit work work better,
Speaker 3: work faster, like answer people's concerns. I don't think the
Speaker 3: answers that these Republicans are offering, or that Spencer Proud
Speaker 3: are offering are what we need. But the fact that
Speaker 3: there's an opening speaks to the failure of Democrats, both
Speaker 3: on policy but also just as candidates to rise to
Speaker 3: the to meet what is like real and deep frustration
Speaker 3: with people in Los Angeles. They are all Democratic voters,
Speaker 3: for almost all Democratic voters, and they have real anger
Speaker 3: about what they feel is the decline in Los Angeles. Now.
Speaker 3: Like I think Nithia uh cares deeply about the city.
Speaker 3: I think that she is thinking hard about how to
Speaker 3: actually address these issues. I think what has been a
Speaker 3: challenge in both in that debate. I think with her
Speaker 3: on the campaign trail is you know, when I talked
Speaker 3: to her, she made this point which I really resonated
Speaker 3: with me that like, there's this feeling when you talk
Speaker 3: about Karen Bassik, where's the energy, Where's the hunger, Where's
Speaker 3: like the speed, where's the sense of urgency rights? That
Speaker 3: was about the fires, but every everything else, and I
Speaker 3: wanted to see more of that from Nythia, And to
Speaker 3: be honest, I feel like as a candidate she hasn't
Speaker 3: shown the same kind of spirit that she's promising to
Speaker 3: bring if she becomes mayor. But I do think that
Speaker 3: she has thought a lot about how to address her
Speaker 3: housing issues. She's thought a lot about what is has
Speaker 3: allowed production to leave Los Angeles. I am voting for Nythia,
Speaker 3: and my hope is that bass and Nythia make it
Speaker 3: out of the primary so that the two of them
Speaker 3: can go head to head and then I think that'll
Speaker 3: be like a great contest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm full disclosure. I'm a Nythia donor, mostly
Speaker 2: because your wife asked me to be. But I voted
Speaker 2: for Nythia too at the reason I'm mad about the
Speaker 2: status quo too, Like I share a lot of Spencer's
Speaker 2: rage about the fires, especially the communications issues after the
Speaker 2: fires are during the fires. I don't think he's the
Speaker 2: answer to those problems, but I share his anger at
Speaker 2: the frustration and the problem. It wasn't just that Mayor
Speaker 2: Bass was out of the country when the fire started,
Speaker 2: although that was extremely bad and kind of in my view,
Speaker 2: was hard to forgive. But it's I think hard to
Speaker 2: overstate how bad the communication was from the city during
Speaker 2: that period and how scared it was to live here
Speaker 2: when the sun would go down and the winds would
Speaker 2: pick up and you'd lie in bed being like, am
Speaker 2: I endangering my children by sticking around the city? You know,
Speaker 2: like that's where people's heads were, and there was just
Speaker 2: like the communication wasn't just bad. Remember that night when
Speaker 2: there was like four mistaken like fake amber alerts telling
Speaker 2: people who evacuate when they didn't need to, right, Like
Speaker 2: that shit is unforgivable. So that is why I voted
Speaker 2: for change. But if we're being honest, like I do,
Speaker 2: think Nithias has struggled in this race. She has struggled
Speaker 2: to articulate like clearly what she would do. She seems
Speaker 2: to struggle to connect with voters on the campaign trail,
Speaker 2: and then the debate was quite bad. Like Spencer Pratt
Speaker 2: I think defined her as like a co incumbent at
Speaker 2: the debate and she didn't seem like a challenger. And
Speaker 2: so if she makes the runoff, and I really hope
Speaker 2: she does, she's got a lot of work to do
Speaker 2: to get things back on track and to you know,
Speaker 2: run a lot harder against whoever her opponent is and
Speaker 2: take back that kind of like insurgent like I'm not
Speaker 2: the status quot message.
Speaker 1: It has seemed to me like in this race, we've
Speaker 1: ended up with three archetypes of Canada. It's that we
Speaker 1: see across the country and have for the last like
Speaker 1: decade now, which in Bass you have someone who's very
Speaker 1: much establishment along with all of the lack of energy
Speaker 1: that comes with that, and she's kind of just, you know,
Speaker 1: exactly like you know, running around bragging that like we've
Speaker 1: reduced homelessness by seventeen percent, and everyone's like walking around
Speaker 1: and you can see like seventeen percent and doesn't look
Speaker 1: like seventeen percent, And is that a big number? And
Speaker 1: has also been more nimbiyond housing, has sort of gutted
Speaker 1: a lot of the housing reforms or hasn't pursued them,
Speaker 1: hasn't been a great communicator, and you know, is just
Speaker 1: kind of in the job and doesn't communicate well or
Speaker 1: a lot. And then in Nythia you have someone who
Speaker 1: was like she this is like what I was just
Speaker 1: saying about Katie Porter, right, who has really thought about
Speaker 1: these issues, who I think is a wonderful public servant
Speaker 1: and I think could be a really good public servant,
Speaker 1: but like has not met the sort of performance for
Speaker 1: late requirements of a candidate. And it is unfortunate that
Speaker 1: you can't just be ready to be good at the
Speaker 1: job and be really smart and into the policy and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and that you also need to perform.
Speaker 1: But we've said this a million times on this show forever,
Speaker 1: like that's what you need. And we also have like
Speaker 1: a lot of Democrats like that across the country. And
Speaker 1: then in Pratt you have someone who, when there is
Speaker 1: democratic governance and a person in power does not fix
Speaker 1: the problems that an area is facing. It is fairly
Speaker 1: easy for a right wing populist who's good at getting
Speaker 1: attention and no one's better at getting attention than a
Speaker 1: reality TV star to come in and tell everyone, yes,
Speaker 1: you are pissed, I'm pissed too, and if you elect me,
Speaker 1: then you can like stick it to the people in charge.
Speaker 1: Even though his plans are not just cruel, they're just
Speaker 1: stupid and that he can't do them. They're against the law,
Speaker 1: Like he doesn't have the power to do a lot
Speaker 1: of the shit he's talking about. He's just making a
Speaker 1: bunch of fucking, you know, empty promises that he's not
Speaker 1: going to be able to fulfill if he wins. But
Speaker 1: no one cares about that. People care about like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's angry and I'm angry and that's enough.
Speaker 3: It was so cool Wrinititia just like you know what,
Speaker 3: fuck it and drove down and said I'm gonna run
Speaker 3: for mayor. And that was it was so exciting because
Speaker 3: it was like, you know what, she's nobody else is
Speaker 3: stepping up. People, no one, everyone is frustrated with Karen Bass.
Speaker 3: There's a collective judgment that Karen Bass just like just
Speaker 3: didn't bring u like the the energy and direction that
Speaker 3: the city needs. And she's going to jump in and
Speaker 3: be the one to do it. And I've wanted that
Speaker 3: same energy in the campaign but just hasn't been there,
Speaker 3: like with Bass, Like you know she I when I
Speaker 3: talked to her, I love her. Leave it. A couple
Speaker 3: of weeks right before she came out, she she ran
Speaker 3: claiming she was not going to be an MB. She
Speaker 3: put out some housing policies that were pretty good, but
Speaker 3: then they got watered down through consensus.
Speaker 1: Also sounds like what the Sarah did.
Speaker 3: Right and then you and then she comes out against
Speaker 3: SB seventy nine because that's what the city council is doing.
Speaker 3: U took her years to put to put in charge
Speaker 3: somebody to make someone the bizarre of filming and in
Speaker 3: La right like she's.
Speaker 1: Just built deputy may for housing and so like that
Speaker 1: that to me, And you know, part of.
Speaker 3: Why I think the campaigning does matter and why we
Speaker 3: why I think I want to see Nithiap be a
Speaker 3: stronger candidate and a stronger campaigner is because in this moment,
Speaker 3: like in our in politics today, how you campaign showing
Speaker 3: that you can do it. That's a big part of
Speaker 3: what it is to be a mayor, like someone who's
Speaker 3: gonna be out there every day, like hitting the message
Speaker 3: someone's going to be like making news all the time,
Speaker 3: showing people what you're doing, showing people what matters, right, Like,
Speaker 3: it's not just about a kind of performance.
Speaker 1: It's not just a show.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, I will say there's been a ton of uh,
Speaker 1: you know, commentary on this race and analysis people talking
Speaker 1: about it. I have no fucking idea what's going to
Speaker 1: happen because it knows what this selector looks like. I
Speaker 1: know it's just And for people who don't know LA,
Speaker 1: it is fifteen percent registered Republican right, And so even
Speaker 1: if you know Spencer Patten, some of these polls is
Speaker 1: getting like twenty percent away, between twenty and even as
Speaker 1: high as thirty percent, that's still like nowhere what you'd
Speaker 1: need to win a general election, certainly, and maybe not
Speaker 1: even to advance in the primary. Also, the way LA
Speaker 1: is set up, Santa Monica has its own Like if
Speaker 1: you're in Santa Monica or West Hollywood or Beverly Hills
Speaker 1: or Pasadena, like you're not voting for mayor of LA.
Speaker 2: A lot of people think they're proud voters, and then
Speaker 2: they're going to get to the polls and figure out
Speaker 2: that they're not eligibly going to be very.
Speaker 1: They're in LA County. It could end up so he
Speaker 1: could either surprise us and do really well, or it
Speaker 1: could be this election where just a bunch of people
Speaker 1: who don't pay attention to politics at all in other
Speaker 1: parts of LA just like dutifully vote for Karen Bass
Speaker 1: or Nithia, Like I just I don't know, so pretending
Speaker 1: that I know what's going to happen, it is.
Speaker 2: Just yeah, crazy, It's just it is an interesting window
Speaker 2: into just sort of the zeitgeist of the electric I mean,
Speaker 2: where there is an anti incumbent rage across the country
Speaker 2: right now, but we're in California state where there's all
Speaker 2: democratic governance, and so Spencer Pratt is from channeling that
Speaker 2: in a different direction. It's interesting to see. It's also
Speaker 2: interesting the way he is kind of exposing the incoherence
Speaker 2: of the MAGA and the MAHA agenda. Like I remember
Speaker 2: when they were very mad about the COVID vaccine, and
Speaker 2: now Spencer Pratt is like, I will take all the
Speaker 2: drug addicts and I will lock them up for five
Speaker 2: days or whatever and force them into treatments Like oh okay,
Speaker 2: well that's different than the freedom agenda that we were
Speaker 2: talking about under Robert f NN you But okay, well
Speaker 2: they don't.
Speaker 1: Well the way it's a freedom for me.
Speaker 2: Not for the not for them.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys are excited or looking
Speaker 1: into any other races in California, But Michael Tubbs for
Speaker 1: Lieutenant governor, remember Crooked contributor and Form Cricket guests is
Speaker 1: running for the lieutenant governor. Love Michael and and her
Speaker 1: buddy Jake Levine is running against Brad Sherman Congress from
Speaker 1: Brad Sherman in the California thirty second which is Palisades
Speaker 1: and upwards towards Zino in that area. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's why we're giving him a good challenge.
Speaker 3: And the hope they're right is that that he can
Speaker 3: keep Sherman because Sherman is well known in that district
Speaker 3: and is expected to like sort of a and old.
Speaker 2: He's old.
Speaker 1: But if Jay can get it to keep him under
Speaker 1: fifty and then they can go on to a Oh
Speaker 1: one other thing for people watching the returns, A lot
Speaker 1: of Democrats, including John Lovett here, have held onto their
Speaker 1: ballots till the very end, and California is always notoriously
Speaker 1: late in counting ballots and so it's a high probability
Speaker 1: that this will have a red mirage in the voting
Speaker 1: as the returns come in. Especially this year, someone did
Speaker 1: a party breakdown. I think it was Galen Druke that
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two the final party breakdown was fifty
Speaker 1: percent d twenty nine point five percent are nineteen point
Speaker 1: nine percent other right now, the party breakdown and the
Speaker 1: ballots that have come in, and this is like election
Speaker 1: day basically forty five point nine percent, thirty three point
Speaker 1: five percent, twenty point six percent, So it's already like
Speaker 1: it's it's off. And so the first ballots that are
Speaker 1: gonna be countered the ones that are already in, and
Speaker 1: so now the electric could also be more red. But
Speaker 1: I am I am already worried about the Spencer Pratt
Speaker 1: and who knows. Donald Trump could jump into and be
Speaker 1: like we won and then suddenly we're being overtaken as
Speaker 1: the ballots are counted later in the week. So everyone
Speaker 1: should prepare for that.
Speaker 3: One possibility I think is like pretty high on the
Speaker 3: list of possibilities is on election at you have Biserah one,
Speaker 3: Hilton two. Now for a couple of days, it goes
Speaker 3: with Sarah Styre, and then all of a sudden, Hilton
Speaker 3: is saying, I was knocked out by the Denver machine.
Speaker 2: The good news is yeah, that message I think will
Speaker 2: resonate nationally. I think California voters are pretty well conditioned.
Speaker 2: How stupid and long it takes us to count ballots.
Speaker 2: I wish it was faster, but this.
Speaker 3: This is like the whole thing. It's like, that's how
Speaker 3: it is in California. We do it the stupidest way
Speaker 3: fucking possible. Why why every other states can count ballots
Speaker 3: in a couple of days. Why does it take here
Speaker 3: to weeks?
Speaker 1: Fucking stupid. I think it's all the mail, right, because
Speaker 1: if you can, if you can drop it in a
Speaker 1: mailbox on June second, on the day of the primary,
Speaker 1: then like it takes at least a couple of days
Speaker 1: for the mail to get it. Yes, but then that
Speaker 1: is not still long, still keeps going. But there's all
Speaker 1: there's some built in just because of them. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's what you gotta get rid of, those mail in ballots.
Speaker 1: Like Trump says, thank.
Speaker 2: God we have mail in ballots. Our ballot is very long.
Speaker 2: It's compare lots of things so long. Search there's lots
Speaker 2: of positions you've never heard of. It's very thank God
Speaker 2: for them. But mail.
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Speaker 1: We also had more news over the weekend in the
Speaker 1: main Senate race, where Graham Plattner is likely to win
Speaker 1: the nomination in next week's primary. Stories in The New
Speaker 1: York Times in The Wall Street Journal reported that as
Speaker 1: his campaign began last year, Platner's wife, Amy Gertner, told
Speaker 1: a campaign staffer that Platner had exchanged sexual messages with
Speaker 1: several women, and this was after Plattner and Gertner were
Speaker 1: married in late twenty twenty three, but that they had
Speaker 1: stopped before the campaign began, and Platner and Girtner had
Speaker 1: gone through therapy. The entire situation is very messy. The
Speaker 1: staffer that Platner's wife told Genevieve McDonald has since left
Speaker 1: the campaign, and and she was the one who originally
Speaker 1: talked to the Wall Street Journal, and she's talked to
Speaker 1: the New York Times, and she's become a public critic
Speaker 1: of Platner. Plattner said that at least some of what
Speaker 1: McDonald told the New York Times wasn't true, but both
Speaker 1: he and his wife, Amy Gertner, and the campaign have
Speaker 1: all confirmed the existence of the messages. And then Janet Mills,
Speaker 1: who suspended her campaign in April, said in an interview
Speaker 1: on Sunday that actually she's still on the ballot. And
Speaker 1: she also just posted the first tweet from her campaign
Speaker 1: account since the tweet where she suspended her campaign, and
Speaker 1: it was a happy Pride Month tweet. Well that's sort
Speaker 1: of neither here nor there. I tried try or don't. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't half run for office.
Speaker 2: Come on what are you doing here?
Speaker 1: Well, you could make the argument that she kind of
Speaker 1: half ran.
Speaker 2: In the first sation of the status quoes.
Speaker 1: All right, what do you guys think about this latest
Speaker 1: development and how it might impact the race?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the main risk for Platiner is
Speaker 2: the cumulative impact of these stories and scandals along with
Speaker 2: the reddits, because I think main voters were I have
Speaker 2: shown to be quite willing to give him the benefit
Speaker 2: of the doubt for the past reddit posts and accept
Speaker 2: his explanation that I was in a bad place, this
Speaker 2: happened in the past. I've grown, I've changed and moved on.
Speaker 2: You know. I think voters like, Okay, we get that
Speaker 2: this latest what are we calling it sexting scandal like
Speaker 2: just stuff was very recent. We're talking like twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: and so I think these days sexual allegations of where
Speaker 2: it's just infidelity or infidelity adjacent like don't tend to
Speaker 2: be campaign ending, especially when Amy Gertner said this is
Speaker 2: a private matter, we worked through it, I love him,
Speaker 2: I have a great marriage, etc. But I do worry
Speaker 2: that the cumulative nature of this stuff might make voters
Speaker 2: think one like, is this guy good guy? And two
Speaker 2: what else do we not know about him? And so
Speaker 2: I think Plattner's campaign can weather this. They will likely
Speaker 2: weather this. I would recommend less criticism of the media
Speaker 2: for covering the story thin it's a valid story to cover, and.
Speaker 1: The New York Times and Wall Street Journal ultimately got
Speaker 1: the story right.
Speaker 2: Right, And I would just say, you know, I think
Speaker 2: you have to own it. You have to own that
Speaker 2: this was shitty behavior. It was a mistake that we've
Speaker 2: moved that the two of them have worked through privately,
Speaker 2: and then in a few days from now, that's when
Speaker 2: you sort of pivot to the message about getting back
Speaker 2: to issues, because that's right, that's is what voters want
Speaker 2: to talk about. But there's going to be a period
Speaker 2: of time where folks talk about this because it just broke.
Speaker 2: And I think you can't scold the press for covering
Speaker 2: a thing that was valid enough that your spouse brought
Speaker 2: it forward to your campaign staff to talk to them about,
Speaker 2: so you know, it's fair game. Obviously, if Susan Collins
Speaker 2: was slinging nudes on Snapchat, like, we'd be talking about it,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So by the fault we might be we uh sorry,
Speaker 1: all that said, like, I do think what plants got
Speaker 1: that hammer and sickle tattoo too, Jenevieve McDonald, the former
Speaker 1: Platner staffer, did here is really shitty on a human level.
Speaker 2: It's unethical. If I were Amy Girdner, I would be furious,
Speaker 2: and so you know that part of it's pretty gross.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like if it Canada just had the Reddit stories,
Speaker 3: like I was going through a really tough time in
Speaker 3: my life and I posted some heinous shit. It was
Speaker 3: like and I regret it, but I've been through a
Speaker 3: lot of therapy. It had to do with my PTSD
Speaker 3: and I'm on the other side of it. You'd be like, okay,
Speaker 3: Like people grow and they change the tattoo. You'd say,
Speaker 3: this was stupid tattoo. I didn't understand what it meant
Speaker 3: at the time. I'm covering it up, Like, Okay, early
Speaker 3: in my marriage, I was really I was in a
Speaker 3: really shitty place and I was having these I was
Speaker 3: I don't know what he was doing, sexting whatever. But
Speaker 3: my wife and I have worked through it and it's
Speaker 3: a private matter. She's with We're together because we love
Speaker 3: each other, and that's all that should really count. You'd
Speaker 3: say Okay, I feel like you add them all up together,
Speaker 3: and then there's all these insinuations that there's more coming,
Speaker 3: more coming, more coming. You see why people would be concerned.
Speaker 3: What I find like sort of hard about my mind
Speaker 3: abound this is that, like why do we care about
Speaker 3: red flags? Right?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 1: All these are not What kind of center is he
Speaker 1: gonna be?
Speaker 3: Is he a good person? Does he have our values?
Speaker 3: Does he have a good character at root? Or is
Speaker 3: he a flawed person who's made terrible mistakes who's trying
Speaker 3: to become a better person. Or is the insinuation that
Speaker 3: all of this adds up to evidence that he will
Speaker 3: be a bad senator who's actually not going to do
Speaker 3: the things he is claiming he's going to do, That
Speaker 3: he's going to be a fetterman, right, that he's gonna
Speaker 3: disappoint us in some way, that he has like fundamental
Speaker 3: flaws And I don't know the answer to that. What
Speaker 3: I'm amazed by is how many kind of active, hyper
Speaker 3: engaged democrats online who would do shape how we talk
Speaker 3: about these things, claim to know with such certainty about this,
Speaker 3: right like they know they know, and they're so shocked
Speaker 3: that other people don't agree with them, and I I'm
Speaker 3: not a main voter, but a lot of this is
Speaker 3: do you think he's a bad person? Do you think
Speaker 3: that he's going to lose because of these stories? Which
Speaker 3: is just another way of saying you think the voters
Speaker 3: of Maine will think he's a person of bad character.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I just I find that it's
Speaker 3: a lot of people kind of fighting over not whether
Speaker 3: or not Graham Plattner is going to do the things
Speaker 3: he says he's going to do, and it's the person
Speaker 3: he claims to be now more kind of re litigating
Speaker 3: their arguments and anger at the factions of the party
Speaker 3: that they're always in dispute with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was in thinking about this. I was trying
Speaker 1: to separate out like my personal feelings about this with
Speaker 1: like my political analysis of what it means. And personally
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, I think infidelity is a mistake
Speaker 1: and it shows poor judgment. I also for me, it's
Speaker 1: like it's not a deal breaker if a candidate with
Speaker 1: past infidelity issues has worked through those with their spouse
Speaker 1: to their spouse's satisfaction, which is the case here. It's
Speaker 1: like still not great, but it's not a deal breaker
Speaker 1: if it's a deal breaker for other people. I don't
Speaker 1: judge that either, Like you make your own determinations. I
Speaker 1: think in terms of like the timeline when everything happened,
Speaker 1: it is very clear to me, and I think it's
Speaker 1: probably clear to everyone now that Graham Platner did not
Speaker 1: think he was going to be a candidate for office
Speaker 1: up until the minute he was a candid for office
Speaker 1: and lived his life accordingly, and probably you know, other
Speaker 1: people say, well, I didn't make mistakes like he did,
Speaker 1: and I didn't get that kind of debt too correct, right,
Speaker 1: Like he he lived his life not thinking he would
Speaker 1: ever be a candidate for public office, and then he
Speaker 1: ran for office, and then they were like, all right,
Speaker 1: what's in the past, and all the stuff's coming out,
Speaker 1: including at the time he decided to run for office,
Speaker 1: these messages which his wife brought up to the campaign.
Speaker 1: So again, all of the accusations and all the stories
Speaker 1: about Platner have been from about behavior and things he
Speaker 1: did before he started running for office, right, And so
Speaker 1: for me, I think, okay, the whole like I've changed
Speaker 1: and I have grown. It's not about like I was
Speaker 1: a kid and did crazy things. It was I was
Speaker 1: never going to run for office, and now I'm running
Speaker 1: for office and I'm trying to be your senator. So
Speaker 1: what kind of senator are you going to be?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Politically, my analysis of this is you're right that like
Speaker 1: these things start stacking on top of each other, and
Speaker 1: I think that the larger issue for people becomes trust,
Speaker 1: right because and this is where the is more going
Speaker 1: to come out? Or why didn't the campaign, Like first
Speaker 1: of all, some people like, why didn't the campaign tell
Speaker 1: us this if they knew this. I don't think campaigns
Speaker 1: are necessarily in the business of dumping all of the
Speaker 1: opposition research they do on their own candidate.
Speaker 2: It's not incredibly personal, painful stuff.
Speaker 1: Right into the public like that doesn't usually happenly.
Speaker 3: Not on this one.
Speaker 1: She came up, Hey, just so you know, this is
Speaker 1: something that happened in our past.
Speaker 2: But we're good.
Speaker 3: It's on an issue, we're together, we're happy. That is
Speaker 3: never of course they don't come up. That's a private manner.
Speaker 1: Right, But I think that Look Andrew Kaczinski on the
Speaker 1: tattoo story, like who's reporting I trust a lot and
Speaker 1: is a very good reporter, has the you know, the
Speaker 1: story that maybe Platner knew what the tattoos signified sometime
Speaker 1: after he got up up before he ran and that,
Speaker 1: and you know, Platner's been a little sort of sketchy
Speaker 1: on just explaining that, and now this one, it was like, well,
Speaker 1: I think that she she told the you know, she
Speaker 1: lied to the Times, and the time story wasn't right,
Speaker 1: but it was. So there is this What I worry
Speaker 1: about and what I think about if I was them,
Speaker 1: is like, there is a trust issue now that could
Speaker 1: become a bigger trust issue. And I do think that
Speaker 1: the campaign and Platinum might think these issues don't matter
Speaker 1: or they're private or whatever, but he has to now
Speaker 1: work to build people's trust and keep people's trust between
Speaker 1: now in November, because people, even people who like him,
Speaker 1: are going to start to question, well is he telling
Speaker 1: the full truth about everything?
Speaker 2: Is there more?
Speaker 1: Are they transparent?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: Like, and that to me does bear on what kind
Speaker 1: of senator you are. So I think the most important
Speaker 1: thing for them is to like go and do the
Speaker 1: work and like earn people's trust and take all the
Speaker 1: tough questions and give all the explanations you need until
Speaker 1: people are bored asking the questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you gotta probably be a little more
Speaker 2: transparent on this one. Also, you know, I hear what
Speaker 2: you're saying on how you're sort of think about this.
Speaker 2: I don't think most people, though, draw a line when
Speaker 2: you decided to run to office for kind of like
Speaker 2: when they judge your decision making or the morality of
Speaker 2: the city. I think I think if like the tattoo
Speaker 2: is a bridge too far to you, I understand that
Speaker 2: I'm not to tell you otherwise. I mean what I
Speaker 2: you know, when I talk to him about this when
Speaker 2: we sort of they showed us the video, The thing
Speaker 2: that I always stuck with me was he took his
Speaker 2: shirt off and sang that song at his was it
Speaker 2: brother's wedding, and his sister in law is Jewish, So
Speaker 2: like you have to be a real asshole to do
Speaker 2: that and display that tattoo kind of knowing full well
Speaker 2: and being fully cognizant of what it meant at that wedding.
Speaker 2: That to me was a convincing explanation. But I've read
Speaker 2: Andrew's reporting to that maybe there's some questions at the timeline.
Speaker 2: I think that's a fully, a totally reasonable thing to
Speaker 2: wonder about. I think the threshold question is are there
Speaker 2: other things in this guy's past that suggest he ascribes
Speaker 2: to Nazi or fascist ideology? And that's where the Reddit
Speaker 2: archive is actually quite useful. Yes, is what it shows
Speaker 2: is the exact opposite. I know, right, And then that's
Speaker 2: where I think people kind of refuse to kind of
Speaker 2: engage with this broader body of factual information that we
Speaker 2: have when we want to assess what this man believes.
Speaker 1: And I will say this is why I personally and
Speaker 1: people have seen me do this online. But this is
Speaker 1: why I get more frustrated with people people's uh with
Speaker 1: people being upset at the at the tattoo thing more
Speaker 1: than if you're upset with all the old Reddit stuff
Speaker 1: and you feel like he's apologized for that, but the
Speaker 1: apology not accepted, then like that's your decision. And I
Speaker 1: understand that. If you're upset about this, this sexting scandal,
Speaker 1: then like I understand that, but you're right, the tattoo thing,
Speaker 1: the guy just posted on Reddit again like he was
Speaker 1: never running for office anonymously, has all these things that
Speaker 1: he said that he's now regretting that are some offensive
Speaker 1: whatever else. None of them even hinted that he has
Speaker 1: a subscribes to any of this kind of idea sounds
Speaker 1: like a COMMI and everyone's like Nazi. I saw it
Speaker 1: when we yeah, when we were when you were about
Speaker 1: to interview him, Tommy, and we saw the video. I
Speaker 1: was like, what's the problem. It's a skull and crossbones.
Speaker 1: Now everyone now can be like, you didn't know it
Speaker 1: was a buck and blae it was. It was a
Speaker 1: skull and crossbones. And I'm sure maybe if Andrew's story
Speaker 1: is correct, then at some point someone said to Platner, hey,
Speaker 1: that's skull and crossbones you've got. Did you know that's
Speaker 1: a Nazi tad To him, he's probably like, well, I've
Speaker 1: been screened for the Army twice and they screened tattoos
Speaker 1: for this and no one ever said anything. And I
Speaker 1: have a Jewish family. No one ever said anything. So
Speaker 1: maybe he then googled it and was like, oh, yeah
Speaker 1: it is. But again was probably like, well what do
Speaker 1: I like, I'm gonna go cover it up. I'm not,
Speaker 1: And then he does.
Speaker 2: Clearly something changed in they're thinking between when I talked
Speaker 2: to him and a couple days later. So when I
Speaker 2: talked to him, he's like, no, I did this this
Speaker 2: is the deal. It was a stupid tattoo as an infantryman,
Speaker 2: I was in Croatia, I was a dumb kid whatever,
Speaker 2: And a couple days later he got it covered up right,
Speaker 2: so like something occurred to him that oh, actually this
Speaker 2: is a real problem that I should fix it.
Speaker 3: This is where it's like to be able to sort
Speaker 3: of call him a Nazi. And it's like and then
Speaker 3: then it's like you say, well, hold on a second, Like,
Speaker 3: no one, you don't have to listen to anyone. You
Speaker 3: don't have to believe anyone, you don't have to take
Speaker 3: more information in, you don't have to have a nuanced view.
Speaker 3: You can just call somebody a Nazi if you want.
Speaker 3: The reason symbols matters is because they supposed to symbolize something, right, Like,
Speaker 3: we battle about symbols on social media because it's that's
Speaker 3: what the medium is for. It's for taking little tokens
Speaker 3: of something and drawing a conclusion about it. It's very
Speaker 3: small space, so we do it with symbols. But the
Speaker 3: symbol has to mean something. It has to be a
Speaker 3: red flag of something like do you think he's a Nazi?
Speaker 3: Of course you don't. Of course you don't you think,
Speaker 3: maybe think he's a stupid tido, maybe think he didn't
Speaker 3: care enough about it being a Nazi tattoo. That's a
Speaker 3: fair argument. Maybe he was pointed out and take it
Speaker 3: serious enough.
Speaker 1: That's okay.
Speaker 3: All of It's like just but like, can we just
Speaker 3: have an honest conversation about it rather than like it's
Speaker 3: a no for me because.
Speaker 1: Of the tattoo.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, you're free to do that. We're just
Speaker 3: gonna We're just gonna have the rest of the conversation
Speaker 3: even if you don't want to have it.
Speaker 1: Also, the other thing, and I think ultimately here, this
Speaker 1: is up to the people of Maine, and this is
Speaker 1: up to the voters of Maine. And if this whole
Speaker 1: time he was going down and down and down and
Speaker 1: down in the polls and people and people are not
Speaker 1: buying this, and I'm like, okay, then then he shouldn't
Speaker 1: be the nominee. And like even Mills stayed in the
Speaker 1: race because she wanted to fight it out. Well, so
Speaker 1: even even Mills now saying like I'm technically still in
Speaker 1: the race and whatever, like that's fine if she wants
Speaker 1: to campaign for the last week and and if she's
Speaker 1: on the ballot. We're gonna be talking about this race
Speaker 1: on June ninth. If the people of Maine now decide
Speaker 1: that they want Janet Mills instead of Graham plattin her
Speaker 1: because of this last scandal and everything else, then like
Speaker 1: they should do that, and then then the National Party
Speaker 1: should get behind Janet Mills and will be off to
Speaker 1: November problem which she quits going to.
Speaker 3: Say because she saw the writing on the wall, because
Speaker 3: because she because she didn't want to go down in
Speaker 3: her last race, which is fine.
Speaker 1: But Planner gets a ton of votes in the primary
Speaker 1: and still does really well, then like that's what the
Speaker 1: people of Maine wanted, and they met him and they didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't just online discourse, like they met him.
Speaker 1: So we gotta we got to kind of take the
Speaker 1: lead of the people in Maine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's a lot of like a, I know,
Speaker 3: we're all used to losing and being fucking losers, and
Speaker 3: we cook a loser mentality, and like a loser mentality
Speaker 3: is like I like, this is bad.
Speaker 1: We have to do something else. I'm scared.
Speaker 2: I don't like this.
Speaker 1: This is bad. I'm done with this. We can't do this.
Speaker 3: We have to do something else, and it's like, guys,
Speaker 3: he's if there, if there was someone else running, you
Speaker 3: could have a debate and maybe vote for somebody else.
Speaker 3: He's right now the only person that's kind of putting
Speaker 3: up a fight for this race. If you want to
Speaker 3: say that Janet Mill should get back in, if you
Speaker 3: want to say that he should drop out, whatever, say
Speaker 3: what you want. But really what you're saying is I'm
Speaker 3: worried he's going to lose.
Speaker 1: Well, people are so comparing to like that. Well, people
Speaker 1: push Biden out and they thought that Biden di is
Speaker 1: a thron bound like but that was the opposite because
Speaker 1: in that scenario, the whole country didn't want Biden, and
Speaker 1: Biden and his campaign were saying, yes, yes, you will
Speaker 1: get him no matter what. Well, that was this is
Speaker 1: a this is a this is a flip thing where
Speaker 1: where the voters of men are like, no, no, we
Speaker 1: like him, and then other people are worried about it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just a different the Biden thing is.
Speaker 1: So it could come to that when people when's their
Speaker 1: minds when nobody.
Speaker 3: Was challenging Biden and Biden was the nominee, and it
Speaker 3: still seemed like there was a chance he could win.
Speaker 3: That was actually when we when we would talk about
Speaker 3: how we were concerned he wasn't addressing his age issues.
Speaker 3: But he's going to be the person, so we've got
Speaker 3: to do everything we can to help him win because
Speaker 3: he's the only person that we're going to have. Then
Speaker 3: he eats shit in that debate. Joe Biden thought he
Speaker 3: was having a stroke. Didn't tell us at the time.
Speaker 1: Okay, babe, but.
Speaker 3: But but then it was now clear that he could
Speaker 3: not win, and so it was time to do something
Speaker 3: in an emergency because it was pragmatic. It was crazy,
Speaker 3: it was it was risky, but it was actually pragmatic
Speaker 3: because it was the only hope of winning the election.
Speaker 3: Nobody can make that argument right now, based on the
Speaker 3: polls around Grand Platter.
Speaker 1: They just can't. Yeah, all right, so that's that. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we won't talk about that anymore between now. In November.
Speaker 1: One more thing we couldn't resist. Over the weekend, The
Speaker 1: New York Times published a brutal and hilarious report titled
Speaker 1: is jd Vance the twenty twenty eight front runner? Trump
Speaker 1: has questions? According to the Times, Trump is quote not
Speaker 1: so sure about Vance. Trump has pointed out that Vance's
Speaker 1: political success has largely depended on Trump's support, that Vance
Speaker 1: takes too many vacations, that Vance opposed the war in Iran,
Speaker 1: and that Vance frankly sometimes doesn't look or act very presidential. We,
Speaker 1: of course, didn't want to be unfair to JD, so
Speaker 1: we thought we'd checked the tape of some of the
Speaker 1: moments in question.
Speaker 3: Let's let's play JD budge into conversations I want to
Speaker 3: have I want to have that for at least a
Speaker 3: couple of days. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: My wife has the right to skydippe, but doesn't jump
Speaker 1: out of.
Speaker 6: An airplane because she and I have an agreement that
Speaker 6: she's not.
Speaker 1: Going to do that, because I don't want my wife
Speaker 1: jumping out of an airplanefull. They say it's racist to
Speaker 1: do anything. I had a diet mountain dew yesterday and
Speaker 1: one today. I'm sure they're gonna call that racist too.
Speaker 3: But what is uh?
Speaker 5: This? What is Zach?
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to help me out with her name here?
Speaker 1: I lost my page here? Okay, all right now, you
Speaker 1: can't put me on the vice Press the United States.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, great, Oh my god, that's so funny.
Speaker 1: What did you guys think of the story.
Speaker 2: I love this story so much. JD Vance is just
Speaker 2: the gimpt from pulp fiction. Trump wheels them out that
Speaker 2: little box, humiliates, and puts them back in. The details
Speaker 2: are so funny, Like the man who spends one third
Speaker 2: of his time at mar a Lago thinks JD. Vance
Speaker 2: takes too many vacations. Delicious. I love that Trump thought
Speaker 2: the trophy incident that we just watched there twice was
Speaker 2: as embarrassing as we all did, and that it's just
Speaker 2: like exposed. JD is just like a phony, non sports
Speaker 2: fan loser.
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 2: Susie Wiles took away JD's phone privilege and texting or
Speaker 2: tweeting like he's some you know, like her teenage son
Speaker 2: got in trouble.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: That clip of Trump scolding JD for talking and meetings
Speaker 2: and not acting like some like CCP commissar is beautiful,
Speaker 2: like they set him up they would do, like his
Speaker 2: failure tour. It was the Iran talks, the Victor orbon
Speaker 2: campaign stop uh, and Theanna Republicans trying to job owned
Speaker 2: them into redistricting failure failure failure.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: He killed Pope Francis. People forget about that, but Jade
Speaker 2: Vance was so annoying to Pope Francis. Yeah, he did
Speaker 2: get us a better pup, which who he then now
Speaker 2: you a taxi, don't be a shut up and dribbled
Speaker 2: and like ultimately, like this is a win win for Trump,
Speaker 2: right because if whoever comes next to his jd or Rubio, whoever,
Speaker 2: if they win, Trump will say that's because of me.
Speaker 2: If they lose, he'll say, can't win without Trump. Right,
Speaker 2: So he's pumped no matter what. But it is so
Speaker 2: fun watching him just just fuck with these guys.
Speaker 3: One other thing that jumped out to is, uh, the
Speaker 3: article just states it as a fact that I didn't
Speaker 3: really it wouldn't have occurred to me as a fact
Speaker 3: that Trump is just spending more time with Rubio than
Speaker 3: he is with Jade Vance because Rubio is, of course
Speaker 3: not just Secretary of Sadies, he's he's National Security advisor.
Speaker 1: And JD.
Speaker 3: Vance can't ride on the plane with Trump because he's
Speaker 3: vice president. Vice president can't go on Air Force one
Speaker 3: with the President just doesn't happen, and so he's a
Speaker 3: little bit outside of things.
Speaker 1: I will say that the like the JD. Vance his
Speaker 1: whole life just having fomo.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, the Vance probably has more power in the
Speaker 3: Trump administration than Kamala Harris did in the Biden administration.
Speaker 3: I would say, uh, like he is more actively involved.
Speaker 3: He's in the room for big decisions.
Speaker 1: I think they've given him almost as annoying jobs though,
Speaker 1: for sure, for sure, but I think they actually listen
Speaker 1: when he says.
Speaker 2: Stuff, I'm gorn that's true.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 3: But I mean even though he was by the end,
Speaker 3: Vance was saying he was in favor of doing if
Speaker 3: we're going to big, big or go home, So even
Speaker 3: he tried to stand on the right side of that.
Speaker 3: But anyway, uh, I think like what Trump sees is
Speaker 3: what we see is like Vance can't help but reveal
Speaker 3: his nature.
Speaker 1: He can't help it. He can't help it.
Speaker 3: He can't go into a donut shop and be normal.
Speaker 3: He doesn't know how to talk to people because he's
Speaker 3: putting on a show. But they're like that, that like
Speaker 3: ambitious little nerd, that kind of like that that that
Speaker 3: thing inside of him, it just can't stop from coming out,
Speaker 3: and it makes everyone, including Trump, uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: And I love it. I just I just want to
Speaker 1: zoom in again on the social media part with my
Speaker 1: my Twitter pen pal jad Vance. This is what the
Speaker 1: Time says in meetings. Mister Vance frequently scrolls his phone
Speaker 1: and he uses social media to fight with his critics.
Speaker 1: The President frequently posts a truth social but he does
Speaker 1: not spend time replying to people online as mister Vance does.
Speaker 1: I just love that they have separated out the kind
Speaker 1: of poster. Yeah, like reply, guy Trump's out there. He's
Speaker 1: posting like thirty times a night. Yeah, yeah, he's he's
Speaker 1: a producer. Really, he's just putting it up, and mister
Speaker 1: Vance is there just replying to people online. Susan Wilds
Speaker 1: and the other staff have all gotten together to tell
Speaker 1: him to have an intervention and say that that the
Speaker 1: fighting was beneath his office.
Speaker 3: See I did than anyone in that fucking building is
Speaker 3: going to tell anyone what's beneath the office.
Speaker 1: And yes they do.
Speaker 5: I know that.
Speaker 2: I believe it.
Speaker 1: I know, I absolutely believe it.
Speaker 2: But they made him say it was for lent.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: I liked it so much. I just kept it off
Speaker 1: my phone, giving up for lent.
Speaker 2: Sure. I love that. I love that I took it
Speaker 2: off my phone.
Speaker 1: Finally, you did this weekend. I'm part of you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the Plantner stuff that did it.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, that discourse is real.
Speaker 1: I saw starting blowing up. It was like, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna I was going to save my thoughts for Monday.
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't have a grand Platner thing.
Speaker 1: And then and then two fights going on. Dave Portnoy
Speaker 1: tweets at me and then Nira with like five tweets.
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like the quadrennial then phone quadrennial tweet review,
Speaker 3: where like, you can't be fight. You have to be
Speaker 3: able to hold one front and also win on another
Speaker 3: front at the same.
Speaker 1: But I've said this more. I was like the JD
Speaker 1: Evans thing. Yeah, I'll fight with JD Vance only no,
Speaker 1: not that this is the what I did this week.
Speaker 2: I was not good.
Speaker 1: Okay, not good. It's not fun nice to do, isn't
Speaker 1: it that? When we come back New Jersey Senator Andy
Speaker 1: Kim will talk to me about the conditions at an
Speaker 1: iced detention center in Newark, where he was also pepper
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Speaker 2: Center.
Speaker 1: Andy Cam, welcome back to Potsa America.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1: So for anyone who hasn't been following the story, there's
Speaker 1: a privately run ice detention center in Newark called Delaney Hall.
Speaker 1: Around three hundred people are being held inside. Some have
Speaker 1: started a hunger strike over the conditions. You tried to
Speaker 1: visit last Sunday, were turned away, got in on Monday,
Speaker 1: Memorial Day, and then by the end of the day
Speaker 1: you got pepper sprayed by federal agent. Can you just
Speaker 1: walk us through that whole experience and what you saw.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, Well, thanks for shying a light on this
Speaker 5: because this is a problem not just for us in
Speaker 5: New Jersey, but all over this country. This is a
Speaker 5: facility it has about eight hundred right now, several hundred
Speaker 5: of them participating in the hunger sprite and the broader protests.
Speaker 5: But I has been able to go there a couple
Speaker 5: of times, and look, you know, some of the things
Speaker 5: that I've heard most recently. You know, these are people
Speaker 5: that are, for instance, a man telling me that he's
Speaker 5: got stage three lung cancer, doesn't want to be there anymore,
Speaker 5: willing to go back to his home country, but not
Speaker 5: being allowed to do so, not getting the medical care
Speaker 5: that he needs. You know, there's a pregnant woman there
Speaker 5: telling me that she's not getting the medical care that
Speaker 5: she needs as she's gearing up to have a baby.
Speaker 5: And she's literally looking me in the eye and she's saying, like,
Speaker 5: do I need to be prepared to have a baby
Speaker 5: here in Delaaney Hall? You know, she has no movement
Speaker 5: on her case, you know, no understanding what's happened next
Speaker 5: in the courts. You know. The woman that was translating
Speaker 5: this for me, you know, turned out to be an
Speaker 5: eighteen year old high school senior who's in there by herself.
Speaker 5: I actually talked to her mom outside of Delady Hall,
Speaker 5: and she's worried, sick. You can imagine, you know, having
Speaker 5: your daughter, an eighteen year old high school senior in
Speaker 5: a detention facility by herself. You know, this is a
Speaker 5: young woman who was telling me all she wanted to
Speaker 5: do is go to the prom and graduate from high
Speaker 5: school this year. And so like when Trump's telling you
Speaker 5: these are the worst of the worst, telling you that
Speaker 5: he's going after the violent criminals, you know, I wanted
Speaker 5: the people across this country to just hear what I'm
Speaker 5: hearing inside the facility. And sure they're complaining and raising
Speaker 5: the concerns about the medical care or the lack of
Speaker 5: medical care, about the you know, the horrible problems where
Speaker 5: they're having with food. Like one man ran up to
Speaker 5: me with a milk carton and showed me what was
Speaker 5: inside and it was just congealed solid on the inside
Speaker 5: and was disgusting. And you know, they're raising concerns about
Speaker 5: the extreme heat that they're feeling, and I felt it too,
Speaker 5: as I'm sweating there in their room and it wasn't
Speaker 5: even a particularly hot day. But what they were also
Speaker 5: flagging is just like the lack of any movement on
Speaker 5: their cases. I mean, some of them in there for
Speaker 5: eight months, some of them in there for over a year,
Speaker 5: not having any movement forward in any credible way. You know,
Speaker 5: one man ran to the hallway and grabbed a piece
Speaker 5: of paper off the bulletin board and you know, showed
Speaker 5: it to me. And they showed me that like on
Speaker 5: one day, you know, when courts came back in the
Speaker 5: session after the Memorial Day weekend. On one day, on
Speaker 5: that Tuesday, this one Jaws had seventy four cases before
Speaker 5: her in you know, you know, in just one day,
Speaker 5: and like you know, like I did the back of
Speaker 5: the napemath, that's like about five minutes per case. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's a farce of a legal process. That's just you know,
Speaker 5: keeping them there while you know, while these conditions are terrible,
Speaker 5: not moving anything forward. And who's paying the bill. It's us.
Speaker 5: It's a taxpayer dollars that are that are paid, you know, Geogroup,
Speaker 5: you know, millions and millions of dollars to run these facilities.
Speaker 5: So that's you know, that's that's at least what I
Speaker 5: saw inside.
Speaker 1: First of all. That is just horrific, And it seems
Speaker 1: like the delay in hearing these cases is both a
Speaker 1: function of how many people they are detaining. Clearly not
Speaker 1: the worst of the worst, but a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: other immigrants, some of whom I imagine could be here
Speaker 1: legally as well as just the sort of failure to
Speaker 1: properly resource the immigration courts with enough judges and to
Speaker 1: properly resource these facilities. Is that is that what you
Speaker 1: took away from it as well?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Absolutely, I mean, like, look, you know some of
Speaker 5: this is absolutely just a lack of investment. I mean,
Speaker 5: like where like as they're surging up ICE and CBP
Speaker 5: through the reconciliation bill and I'm you know, down here
Speaker 5: the Capitol now because they're about to try to push
Speaker 5: another you know, sixties seventy billion dollar towards the enforcement side,
Speaker 5: But where's the energy towards towards the courts. You know,
Speaker 5: we already had millions of cases of backlog that was
Speaker 5: going to take a decade or so just to be
Speaker 5: able to get through. Like we all know that we
Speaker 5: need to invest in the courts, that we can have
Speaker 5: a judicial process that can hopefully take on these cases
Speaker 5: in a matter of days and weeks rather than years
Speaker 5: or even longer. And that should you know, that backlog
Speaker 5: is what is putting so much strain on our system,
Speaker 5: and it's costing us so much. So that's part of it.
Speaker 5: But like, look, you can't help but think through I mean,
Speaker 5: like this is Geogroup. You know, for those that don't
Speaker 5: you know, may not be following this, Geogroup's a for
Speaker 5: profit company that runs this facility, runs nineteen other facility,
Speaker 5: about twenty facilities around this country in charge of detaining
Speaker 5: over twenty thousand people for ICE. You know, this is
Speaker 5: a group that you know, is just making money off
Speaker 5: of this all. They're just printing money off of this all.
Speaker 5: You know, they're getting paid by the bed, by the day.
Speaker 5: You know, so they're not certainly complaining about this process.
Speaker 5: And like when you you can't help but think like
Speaker 5: look when Tom Holman comes from Geogroup into the White
Speaker 5: House to run this process, when they just chose actually
Speaker 5: today is the first day of the new head of
Speaker 5: ICE that they just picked and it came again straight
Speaker 5: from Geogroup. You know, Like you can't help but think
Speaker 5: like this revolving door of just profiting off of this,
Speaker 5: you know, human misery. You can't help but think like
Speaker 5: this is the point that they are trying to make
Speaker 5: things so bad for the detainees there that detainees just
Speaker 5: give up and sign whatever papers that they want or whatnot,
Speaker 5: and you know, and I felt that they're like there
Speaker 5: was just so little accountability, Like as you said, I
Speaker 5: tried to get into the facility on Monday, early in
Speaker 5: the day. I tried to get in. I actually even
Speaker 5: let them know ahead of time and God approval to
Speaker 5: be able to go into the facility. That day, I
Speaker 5: show up the gates and the Geogroup guards are just
Speaker 5: like Nope, like you're not allowed in.
Speaker 1: And You're like, I'm a US Senator and I've had.
Speaker 5: This this authorization by law as well as the permission
Speaker 5: to come out. I literally had to call Secretary Mark
Speaker 5: Wayne Mullett. I talked to him and told him, like,
Speaker 5: let me inside, like I have a right to be inside.
Speaker 5: And so finally they let me inside and I go inside,
Speaker 5: and I talked to the head of Geogroup in the
Speaker 5: facility and I told him, by the way, your guards
Speaker 5: just told me that I can't come inside. And he
Speaker 5: just looked at me. He said, you're a liar. He
Speaker 5: just literally to my face called me a liar. I
Speaker 5: mean like that, I give you that, not because it
Speaker 5: was insulting to me, but I give you that because
Speaker 5: I want you to understand, like that the kinds of
Speaker 5: dynamics that there are, like that that that situation was
Speaker 5: very indicative to me of the lack of just the
Speaker 5: lack of care about any accountability or transparency, Like they
Speaker 5: don't feel geog Group, doesn't feel beholden to the American people,
Speaker 5: certainly doesn't feel beholden to Congress. And that is, you know,
Speaker 5: that is because of just this dynamic between ICE and
Speaker 5: groups like Geogroup and cour Civic and these other companies,
Speaker 5: like they're just in a world and a league of
Speaker 5: their own. They're just like operating off on their own.
Speaker 5: And because you know, Speaker Johnson and others are just
Speaker 5: giving them that kind of carblanche. They were just in
Speaker 5: some you know, in some world of their own and
Speaker 5: feel nothing, you know. And then so when I and
Speaker 5: then when I came out from that facility and was
Speaker 5: alerted by my team and the people on the ground
Speaker 5: that there was now like a standoff of people outside.
Speaker 5: So not only is there chaos inside Delaneyal, but now
Speaker 5: I come out and emerge outside and see that there's
Speaker 5: a standoff between ICE agents. You know, they have a
Speaker 5: row of ICE agents that are armed they have an
Speaker 5: armored vehicle they and they're you know, just on a
Speaker 5: standoff with the protesters there. I mean, look, you know,
Speaker 5: like my idiot concern was like this cannot become Minnesota.
Speaker 5: We saw what happened to Renee Good and Alex pretty.
Speaker 5: I was terrified that, you know, we're gonna see that
Speaker 5: type of violence and potentially bloodshed in the streets. So
Speaker 5: I was trying to figure out, like, is there any
Speaker 5: any way to be able to off ramp this. Is
Speaker 5: there any way we can be able to the lower
Speaker 5: the temperature? And I was talking to to the head
Speaker 5: of ICE outside there, and at some point he just
Speaker 5: told me, look, look, we're going to just drive these vehicles,
Speaker 5: our vehicles out And I looked across the field there
Speaker 5: and I said, like, you cannot just simply plow your
Speaker 5: vehicles through a crowd of civilians, Like you have to
Speaker 5: try to figure out, you know, how we can try
Speaker 5: to do this without the violence. And look, I was
Speaker 5: trying to see if there's any arrangement. But like again,
Speaker 5: like it shouldn't be just on me, like when it
Speaker 5: comes to de escalation, like what role are their officers
Speaker 5: supposed to play? And that's what I think was so alarming.
Speaker 5: John Is like there was just like, at some point,
Speaker 5: just a feeling of inevitable violence, and it was just
Speaker 5: so jarring to me, Like the ease with which I
Speaker 5: just went out and drove their vehicles literally through a crowd,
Speaker 5: just not even like, not even putting effort to try
Speaker 5: to avoid that circumstance. It shouldn't be that easy to
Speaker 5: have violence in the streets of America, Like, it shouldn't
Speaker 5: be that easy for federal agents that are supposed to
Speaker 5: swear the same oath that I swear about protecting and
Speaker 5: defending the Constitution and supporting the American people to find
Speaker 5: themselves in a circumstance. So it's just like, you know,
Speaker 5: I saw this unfold and immediately, you know, my instinct
Speaker 5: was to run run into it and try to put
Speaker 5: myself between the ICE agents and the crowd. I was
Speaker 5: trying to keep that physical separation because that is where
Speaker 5: we saw so much of of the violence escalate in Minnesota.
Speaker 5: If I could at least keep them physically separated, you know,
Speaker 5: perhaps we could avoid the worst. But it was, it was,
Speaker 5: it was, it was so jarring. It was it was
Speaker 5: really scary just to see that type of violence in
Speaker 5: my state, frankly anywhere in the country, and to know that,
Speaker 5: you know, this is still could very well be, you know,
Speaker 5: a problem that we see continue in my state and elsewhere.
Speaker 1: And so because you put your body in between the
Speaker 1: protesters and the ICE agents, the federal agents, eventually they
Speaker 1: started shooting pepper balls. I believe that there's one that
Speaker 1: struck by your feet, and and you know you inhaled
Speaker 1: it as well. Secretary Mullen and DHS are saying, uh,
Speaker 1: just a number of things that that don't seem to
Speaker 1: be true and certainly are not your account. That there
Speaker 1: is no hunger strike, that the complaints are about certain
Speaker 1: inmates not getting or certain people that are being held
Speaker 1: by the facility not getting their ethnic food of choice,
Speaker 1: That the conditions aren't bad, that nobody was directly struck
Speaker 1: by pepper balls. About you, what do you make of
Speaker 1: just the what they're saying about all.
Speaker 5: Of this, Well, well, first of all, just again, like
Speaker 5: I saw what I saw, Like I talked to the people,
Speaker 5: that there is a hunger strike going on inside and
Speaker 5: a larger protest, and there are certainly people that are
Speaker 5: not getting basic care, you know, like like again, they're not.
Speaker 5: They're not asking for the moon. They're they're they're asking
Speaker 5: for just a certain baseline of human dignity as as
Speaker 5: we're going, especially as we're again keeping them there for
Speaker 5: indefinite amounts of time. I mean, there was I was
Speaker 5: in the medical isolation area and there was a man
Speaker 5: there in a wheelchair. He hadn't left that room in
Speaker 5: four months because like that facility is just not meant
Speaker 5: to handle someone with a wheelchair. So they're like, you're
Speaker 5: stuck in this room now, like you know, and like
Speaker 5: not able to go to go and leave. He was like,
Speaker 5: can I at least be at a hospital? And frankly, look,
Speaker 5: there was actually someone who was sent to a hospital,
Speaker 5: a woman that was sent to a hospital for quite
Speaker 5: for no, quite a number of days. By the time
Speaker 5: I got there was like day twelve or fourteen. The
Speaker 5: family didn't even know where this woman was because Ice
Speaker 5: wouldn't tell her what hospital that she was at because
Speaker 5: of security concerns. So you can't tell them where your hospital,
Speaker 5: which hospital you're at. They can't tell them the nature
Speaker 5: of the you know, the severity of the problem that
Speaker 5: she had to be at a hospital. I mean, she
Speaker 5: was there for like twelve to fourteen days. That's a
Speaker 5: significant amount of time in a hospital and the family
Speaker 5: has no idea they can't visit them. And so I asked, like,
Speaker 5: like what can the family do to learn about this?
Speaker 5: And literally, like it breaks my brain thinking about this.
Speaker 5: Like Ice looked me in the eye and said, Oh,
Speaker 5: the family can foil this information. You know, just like
Speaker 5: thinking to myself, like what, like their family member could
Speaker 5: be in some life threatening situation at the hospital and
Speaker 5: you want them to foida this information about their loved
Speaker 5: one life. That's like the just the craziness of this.
Speaker 5: So like when you know, when Secretary of Malin or
Speaker 5: others say this, you know they're just in like damage
Speaker 5: control mode. They saw what happened in Minnesota when the
Speaker 5: American people actually saw what was happening, and the American
Speaker 5: people they're smart about this. They understand that there are
Speaker 5: just lines that should not be crossed, and whether that's
Speaker 5: for American citizens or anybody in this country. And frankly, look,
Speaker 5: a lot of the people I met with at Delaney Hall,
Speaker 5: they are married to American citizens and parents of kids
Speaker 5: that are American citizens.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: So that's what I think they're afraid of They're afraid
Speaker 5: that the American people will understand and learn the truth
Speaker 5: about what is happening in that name with our money,
Speaker 5: but without our say and without our approval. And that's
Speaker 5: just you know, that's just wrong, and that's what needs
Speaker 5: to be changed here. You know, we have the capacity
Speaker 5: to do so, it's just a matter of political will
Speaker 5: that since administration refuses to put towards this.
Speaker 1: I know that Governor Cheryl sent in state police to
Speaker 1: help set up protest zones and sort of ask demonstrators
Speaker 1: to lower the temperature. Some of the activists outside Delaney
Speaker 1: heard that is hurt policing them instead of the FEDS.
Speaker 1: Where do you come down on some of the tension
Speaker 1: between trying to conduct oversight, give people a safe space
Speaker 1: to protest, while also trying to maintain safety in you know,
Speaker 1: the general area.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, first of all, look, I mean this
Speaker 5: is chaos that is inherited from ICE that they have
Speaker 5: been filment and they look they've been threatening to bring
Speaker 5: many many more ICE agents to New jerseysically threatening you know,
Speaker 5: a surge similar to Minnesota. So I understand, look like
Speaker 5: you know, we're going to try to avoid that scenario.
Speaker 5: But look, you know, there are legitimate concerns at Delaney Hall,
Speaker 5: and as a result, there are legitimate, you know, legitimate
Speaker 5: reasons to be able to protest that, and I want
Speaker 5: to make sure that we are trying to address that,
Speaker 5: like we are allowing that kind of space. I get it, Like,
Speaker 5: you know, we can't have this unrest continue on. In fact,
Speaker 5: I'm hearing it from the families of the detainees saying
Speaker 5: that it's been preventing them from being able to visit
Speaker 5: their loved ones, That the attorneys are not able to
Speaker 5: get access because you know, because of some of the
Speaker 5: roads have been shut down and other things. So like,
Speaker 5: look like we want to make sure we're not getting
Speaker 5: in the way and losing sight of what we're really
Speaker 5: trying to address, which is the the detainees and their conditions.
Speaker 5: But like there's got to be a way that we
Speaker 5: can do this, you know, while while we are also
Speaker 5: making sure that you know, people have the rights afforded
Speaker 5: to them and the Constitution, especially for free speech. So
Speaker 5: like I'm I'm trying to work on this, trying to
Speaker 5: address this. I talked with not only the governor's team,
Speaker 5: but also you know, Mayor Baraka from Newark to try
Speaker 5: to think through like what other steps, what other ways
Speaker 5: can we do this that isn't going to just further inflame.
Speaker 5: You know what is already this horrible situation that ICE
Speaker 5: is you know, thrown our state into. But you know
Speaker 5: it is it is difficult, but I'm trying my best
Speaker 5: to be able to push forward and in a way
Speaker 5: that is going to make sure that again we're keeping
Speaker 5: the needs and apply to the detainees front and center here.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, you know, one opportunity to sort of
Speaker 1: make some change here is, you know, the Senate schedule
Speaker 1: to consider this seventy two billion dollar budget bill funding
Speaker 1: for ICE that would fund ICE through the end of
Speaker 1: Trump's term. Obviously, it doesn't seem like Democrats have the
Speaker 1: votes to stop it in the Senate because it's it
Speaker 1: would only require fifty one votes. But are you and
Speaker 1: or other Democrats plan to offer any amendments that you
Speaker 1: think might actually be able to pass with some Republican
Speaker 1: support that might rein in some of the abuses we're
Speaker 1: talking about, or or you know, make any kind of
Speaker 1: corrections to some of the things that you saw.
Speaker 5: Well, look, here here's what I lay layout for you.
Speaker 5: I mean, there are a whole slew of problems that
Speaker 5: are facing Delaney, and I want people to know, like
Speaker 5: it's not that delay Delaney is not some bad apple
Speaker 5: that is just you know, we just have to address that.
Speaker 5: This is a system wide failure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and problem.
Speaker 5: As I said, you know, Geogroup's got nineteen other facilities,
Speaker 5: you know, cor Civic and other I mean, like and
Speaker 5: then now you know, ICE is trying to build these
Speaker 5: warehouse detention facilities, and hopefully we can push back and
Speaker 5: stop this. But there's a broader problem, systemic, not just
Speaker 5: in the culture, but just in the broader process. And
Speaker 5: that's what I'm trying to expose, you know. And so
Speaker 5: there's three things in particular I'm trying to push towards.
Speaker 5: Both through the legislation, is through other means, you know,
Speaker 5: like first like let's get let's surge some medical support
Speaker 5: to DELAYY and these other facilities. Like there are clearly
Speaker 5: people who are not getting the care that they need,
Speaker 5: and Secretary Mullink can dispute that, but like again, it's
Speaker 5: not what I'm hearing, it's not what I'm seeing, and
Speaker 5: and I just don't see why anyone's going to stand
Speaker 5: the way and say, like, look, let's just try to
Speaker 5: see I mean, the DHS has a medical unit. You know,
Speaker 5: we can be able to surge up there in that
Speaker 5: kind of capacity right away. Like right now they have
Speaker 5: one doctor for one full time doctor for about eight
Speaker 5: hundred detainees. You know that many of them have significant
Speaker 5: medical concerns. So like that's what I'm trying to do initially,
Speaker 5: like let's surge up there. Let's have you know, number two,
Speaker 5: like let's have like a real investigation into these different
Speaker 5: claims that are about there, whether it's about the food
Speaker 5: or the other conditions. And number three, the detainings were
Speaker 5: very clear with me that it's not just about the conditions,
Speaker 5: it's just it's about having that movement forward on their cases.
Speaker 5: So I'm trying to again take what I'm hearing and
Speaker 5: figure out how to put it into action. You know,
Speaker 5: I've been talking to Secretary of Mullen this week, telling
Speaker 5: him what I'm hearing on the ground, trying to see
Speaker 5: what we can move forward, because they can do this
Speaker 5: on their own if they want it to right now.
Speaker 5: You know, they could demand you know, additional doctors, they
Speaker 5: could demand you know, efforts to be able to surge this,
Speaker 5: and that's what I hope people understand. Like Geo Group
Speaker 5: got a nearly billion dollar contract for Delaney Hall, so
Speaker 5: they could hire more doctors tomorrow today, but that's going
Speaker 5: to be less profit for them, right, Like could they
Speaker 5: could have better quality food or fix the extreme heat
Speaker 5: that I'm hearing, But then again that's cutting into their profits, right,
Speaker 5: so we can change that. So I have been and
Speaker 5: will continue to be pushing for amendments along these lines.
Speaker 5: Are just saying, like, let's have a baseline of medical
Speaker 5: resources available. I hope we can all agree that regards
Speaker 5: list of the circumstances that someone's in there, Like we
Speaker 5: want to make sure that they're getting some semblance of
Speaker 5: medical care for key needs. You know, I'm trying to
Speaker 5: push forward on something that is about de escalation trade.
Speaker 5: I literally submitted that amendment before I even went back
Speaker 5: to Delaney, all about how we can ensure that there's
Speaker 5: de escalation trading for ICE and CBP after what we
Speaker 5: saw at Minnesota, and every single Republican on the Homeland
Speaker 5: Security Committee voted against my amendment, you know, And then
Speaker 5: I went back to the Lane and saw and experienced
Speaker 5: what I did, so I'm pushing forward. But again, like
Speaker 5: this is something where we really need the American people
Speaker 5: to kind of come behind us on this. You know,
Speaker 5: the only times we've seen this administration back down or
Speaker 5: pullback has been when there's wide public outrage. You know,
Speaker 5: we saw that with Minnesota. We see that. Actually just
Speaker 5: today it looks like we're seeing it when Trump administration
Speaker 5: seems to be backed and off that one point eight
Speaker 5: billion dollars slush fund for January sixth rioters. I hope
Speaker 5: that's true, that that they're backing off of that, but like,
Speaker 5: you know, that's what we really need is for us
Speaker 5: to say, like, you know, this cannot be what is
Speaker 5: happening in our country and to be able to try
Speaker 5: to stop it and I know, you know, reconciliation and
Speaker 5: vote a Ramas in the Senate. This is not like
Speaker 5: must watch TV, Like this is not something that's gonna
Speaker 5: necessarily like you know, have people tuning in at whatever
Speaker 5: got out god awful hour in the middle of the
Speaker 5: night that you know, the Republicans forced us to vote
Speaker 5: on these But like I ask people please, like like
Speaker 5: for my stay for our country, like please tune in
Speaker 5: to what is happening, because what they're trying to do
Speaker 5: is give upwards of seventy billion dollars more for ICE
Speaker 5: and CBP. Not only is there no reforms and accountability
Speaker 5: in there like what Americans have been demanding since Minnesota,
Speaker 5: but there's not a there for you to help you
Speaker 5: with your healthcare. There's not a dollar in there for
Speaker 5: you to help you with your groceries or for the
Speaker 5: rising gas prices. There's nothing in it for you. It's
Speaker 5: just more money that's going straight into geogroups pockets to
Speaker 5: just continue this lawlessness that we see. This cannot stand
Speaker 5: and this is something that we have to do everything
Speaker 5: we can to let people know and try to push
Speaker 5: back against this in Congress.
Speaker 1: Senator, I know you have to run because you're working
Speaker 1: on this issue, but I just wanted to say thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us and thank you for everything you're
Speaker 1: doing to highlight this issue and including literally putting your
Speaker 1: body in the way at Delaney. So please please let
Speaker 1: us know how we can help and thank you again.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks so much for shining the light on this.
Speaker 5: It's so important.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Andy Kim for coming on, Alex Wagner and
Speaker 1: I with a new show on Friday. Pods in America
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