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Speaker 4: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Faber, I'm John
Speaker 4: love It.
Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Detour.
Speaker 1: On today's show, Trump says the ceasefire with Iran is
Speaker 1: on quote life support. We'll talk about why and what
Speaker 1: comes next is he heads off to China. We'll also
Speaker 1: talk about his new plan to make Venezuela our fifty
Speaker 1: first state.
Speaker 4: It's a perfect plan, perfect plan.
Speaker 1: The followup from the Virginia Supreme Court's decision to throw
Speaker 1: out the Democrats, New Maps, AOC taking on Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: and what she might run for in twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 1: and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and his wife Rachel Campos
Speaker 1: Duffy getting back to their roots with a new reality
Speaker 1: television show.
Speaker 4: Yeah excited.
Speaker 2: Great.
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Speaker 1: list friends. All Right, it appears that last week's siren
Speaker 1: emojis about the US and Iran closing in on a
Speaker 1: one page memo to end the war have given way
Speaker 1: to this week's siren emojis about Trump possibly resuming military
Speaker 1: action in Iran. Live by the siren emoji, Die by
Speaker 1: the siren emoji.
Speaker 2: We're talking about reporters.
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's who usually gets them. Well, actually
Speaker 1: no reporters do now. Also just random influencers and accounts,
Speaker 1: but any accurate information whatsoever.
Speaker 5: It lends a much credibility.
Speaker 2: It does.
Speaker 3: It starts with judge, the sirens started Judge, isn't true,
Speaker 3: the siren doesn't make sense as a news break.
Speaker 4: Then reporters started doing it.
Speaker 1: And then just random influencer just you know, trying to
Speaker 1: gather information that's not in any way that just shows
Speaker 1: up in your four U algorithm, like Joey Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg is reporting it.
Speaker 4: It is all caps anyway. Anyway.
Speaker 1: All of this comes after Trump rejected Iran's response to
Speaker 1: the one page memo they kept telling it was one page.
Speaker 1: Get all on one page, anyway, rejected, which Iran waited
Speaker 1: ten days to send and included demands for US reparations
Speaker 1: and permanent Iranian control over the Strait of hor Moves.
Speaker 1: Trump called that quote totally unacceptable and inappropriate, before elaborating
Speaker 1: on his initial reaction in the Oval on Monday.
Speaker 7: I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support,
Speaker 7: where the doctor walks in and says, sir, your loved
Speaker 7: one has approximately a one percent chance of living.
Speaker 8: It's unbelievably weak. We say, I would call it the
Speaker 8: weakest right now after reading a piece of garbage, said
Speaker 8: I didn't even finish reading it. It was just unaccepted.
Speaker 8: You know a lot of people said, well, does you
Speaker 8: have a plan. You have to say to him, I'm
Speaker 8: the best.
Speaker 9: I have a plan. You know, it's a very simple plan.
Speaker 9: I don't know why you don't say it like it is.
Speaker 9: Iran cannot have a nuclear We to allow the removal
Speaker 9: all the enriched young Well, they did it two days ago.
Speaker 8: They didn't.
Speaker 9: Okay, they did two days ago. They say you're going
Speaker 9: to have to take it.
Speaker 7: We were going to go with them, But they changed
Speaker 7: your mind because they didn't put it at the pay
Speaker 7: I've had to deal.
Speaker 9: With them four or five times.
Speaker 2: They changed your mind.
Speaker 9: They're very dis honorable people.
Speaker 2: The leadership exhausting.
Speaker 4: Who would have thunk it.
Speaker 1: He's learning a lot of lessons over and over and
Speaker 1: over again, maybe not learning.
Speaker 10: It drives me crazy when he says I have a
Speaker 10: plan Iron cannot have a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 4: No, that's a goal.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's what you want.
Speaker 4: What a plan?
Speaker 2: The plan is how you get to that? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Right, that's a destination.
Speaker 2: You need, You need a root, you need a journey.
Speaker 1: So far as we start week eleven of the war,
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like that plan is bearing fruit.
Speaker 2: It's also funny that he didn't read the whole one
Speaker 2: page of Momo.
Speaker 3: Yeah finish well, Yeah, get to the bottom of the thing.
Speaker 3: Maybe there's some good stuff through some pictures.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tommy, why do you think the layst deal fell apart?
Speaker 1: And what are the options does Trump have at this point?
Speaker 10: I mean it just all the details weren't public, But
Speaker 10: I think that the US sent over a bunch of
Speaker 10: hardline nuclear demands in the Iranians were like, nah, we
Speaker 10: just want you to stop blockading, the straight o'h her
Speaker 10: moves and give us all this shit and that's our take.
Speaker 2: And so now we're back. So all the options are bad.
Speaker 10: I mean, he can restart the war, which is extremely
Speaker 10: unlikely to lead to regime change, but we'll certainly lead
Speaker 10: to economic chaos in the region. He can keep the
Speaker 10: blockade going and hope that the economic pain breaks the
Speaker 10: Iranian regime before breaks the global economy.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's going to work either.
Speaker 10: And then he can find a way to declare victory
Speaker 10: and slink away, which seems like the most likely option,
Speaker 10: but Aron will probably control the straight oh horor moves
Speaker 10: in that case.
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in his how he keeps talking about
Speaker 1: the leaders in all these different ways. First he likes
Speaker 1: the new leaders because they're better than the old leaders.
Speaker 1: They killed all the old leaders. Then he also does
Speaker 1: sometimes we don't know who the leaders are. And then
Speaker 1: this one was they're awful, they're dishonorable people, they're lunatics.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's also we've been through so many rounds of reporting
Speaker 3: in which where Trump felt we were on the precipice
Speaker 3: of a deal, then the talks fall apart. But if
Speaker 3: you take out the spinning coming from the administration. Is
Speaker 3: it possible that really they've just been far apart the
Speaker 3: whole time because the ven diagram of On one side,
Speaker 3: you have Trump requiring a deal that is better than
Speaker 3: the JCPOA, the Obama deal because he said that deal
Speaker 3: with the worst you'll ever made. On the other side,
Speaker 3: you have Iran in a stronger position when the war began,
Speaker 3: wanting a better deal than that, including consequences to the ES. Yeah,
Speaker 3: to the US, reparations for the cost of the war,
Speaker 3: and the power it's gained from having control of the
Speaker 3: straight or removes. Those circles don't overlap. So what are
Speaker 3: we doing here exact? Just we keep and then the
Speaker 3: reporting is so credulous, and so it feels like we're
Speaker 3: having this up or down, up and down roller coaster,
Speaker 3: but really we're just dealing with the like kind of
Speaker 3: strategic reality of this stud fucking war. Yeah, it comes
Speaker 3: me out personally same.
Speaker 1: Well, it also sounds like, and you know they said
Speaker 1: that they in all these plans and proposals that Iron
Speaker 1: keeps sending back or responding to, it sounds like they
Speaker 1: just want to keep control of the straight up her
Speaker 1: moves no doubt, and why wouldn't.
Speaker 10: Or they want sanctions relief, or they want one together,
Speaker 10: they need a financial lifeline. But it's also like they're
Speaker 10: they're sending over their maximal's position. We send over our
Speaker 10: maximalist position, and then we just get mad and walk away.
Speaker 10: That's not how negotiations work. Get in a room, hash
Speaker 10: it out, give a little on each side, and maybe
Speaker 10: we can come to some conclusion. But they're just like
Speaker 10: they're not even trying. Trump's like I didn't read the
Speaker 10: one page memo all the way to the bottom.
Speaker 1: Bob Kagan, the hawkish neocon Iraq war supporting Bob Kagan,
Speaker 1: that one just wrote a piece of theo.
Speaker 2: I just caller Bobby Bobby.
Speaker 1: He just wrote a piece in The Atlantic titled Checkmate
Speaker 1: in Iran that starts, It's hard to think of a
Speaker 1: time when the United States suffered a total defeat in
Speaker 1: the conflict, a set back so decisive that the strategic
Speaker 1: loss could be neither repaired nor ignored.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: He then ticks through every conflict since Pearl Harbor and
Speaker 1: basically makes the case that Trump's fuck up and Iran
Speaker 1: will be more consequential than all of them.
Speaker 4: Would you guys think I just want.
Speaker 3: To just before we get to get it, and that
Speaker 3: the neo, the Neo Khon High Dudgeon of the two thousands,
Speaker 3: I still do not miss.
Speaker 5: Like, look, this is a very big bunder.
Speaker 3: I think it is a little it's a little premature
Speaker 3: to be saying it's it's worse than Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 1: Like, oh see, I thought Pearl Harber was actually one
Speaker 1: of the easier ones because because Pearl Harbor is thing
Speaker 1: was like, we came back and we won that one,
Speaker 1: pretty decision.
Speaker 3: Sure in hindsight it looked pretty good, but a year
Speaker 3: or so after Pearl Harbor things were pretty.
Speaker 4: Up in the air.
Speaker 1: You're gonna go to Iraq because that one was He
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, then we left. Then eventually we left
Speaker 1: Iraq stick more and I'm like, oh did we ya?
Speaker 5: YadA there?
Speaker 10: For that was my big note too, like I want
Speaker 10: to build the biggest ten possible. But his idea that
Speaker 10: a RAQ was mitigated by like a strategic change and
Speaker 10: then all's well, that ends well because like Saddam's not
Speaker 10: there now.
Speaker 2: I yeah, that was a little much for me.
Speaker 3: But this is all like throw clearing around what was
Speaker 3: truly a bracing and like just dismal read on the situation,
Speaker 3: including laying out like just how few options Trump has
Speaker 3: because part of the reason he called off military strikes
Speaker 3: wanted a ceased fire is because of the leverage Iran
Speaker 3: had when it was striking oil and gas infrastructure in
Speaker 3: the reason in the region. How he can try to
Speaker 3: declare victory, but that still leaves the strait of or moves.
Speaker 3: How like that all the options that Trump has are
Speaker 3: fucking terrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, They're all terrible.
Speaker 10: And also the Israelis have also just been crystal clear
Speaker 10: that they don't think the war's over. I mean, if
Speaker 10: you watch Nan Yaioh in sixty minutes, he said as much.
Speaker 10: There's also the war in Lebanon. If you want a
Speaker 10: weaker ceasefire, I could point you to one, the one
Speaker 10: in Lebanon where they're bombing each other all the time
Speaker 10: and there's constant fighting like daily, there's casualties all the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 10: So I agree with this assessment that these Iranians are
Speaker 10: not going to get up the straight over moves unless
Speaker 10: they get sanctions really for something like really big for it,
Speaker 10: and that we look weak and we look kind of
Speaker 10: feckless and unreliable.
Speaker 5: It's also like the gall.
Speaker 3: Of Trump saying, oh, these people are dishonorable, like you
Speaker 3: used previous talks as a smoke screen to uh to
Speaker 3: bomb the leadership. You have ripped up the previous agreement,
Speaker 3: and you may not have liked it, but it was
Speaker 3: negotiated in good faith by the United States, which you
Speaker 3: can you know, which whose authority came from Obama to you.
Speaker 3: So you've kind of undermined our credibility there. They have
Speaker 3: no confidence that Trump won't change his mind in a
Speaker 3: couple of months and resume bombing if they accept a deal.
Speaker 3: They have no confidence that Israel won't bomb Iran if
Speaker 3: it'd used it in its interest, even if there is
Speaker 3: a deal. So just like the the the kind of
Speaker 3: the the the kind of the way in which we're
Speaker 3: like stuck in this morass because Trump went into this
Speaker 3: so half cocked.
Speaker 4: It's just it's it's.
Speaker 5: It's just sort of gruesome minutes when you step back
Speaker 5: and look at it.
Speaker 1: I think there were times in this conflict where people said, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember thinking this at one point, Oh,
Speaker 1: he could end up just going back to like Obama's
Speaker 1: Iron Deal, right, and then call it a victory, but
Speaker 1: it's going to be like around me, like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: you all criticized Obama for this. I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: clear now that there's no way he gets a deal
Speaker 1: that's better or even the same as the Iran deal.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be worse because when the Iran deal was made,
Speaker 1: Iran didn't control the Straight of Four Moves like this
Speaker 1: piece made me think about the not I knew about
Speaker 1: the strategic importance of the strait, but just from Iran's perspective,
Speaker 1: now they've got the control. Even they get some sanctions relief,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have to get a lot more sanctions relief
Speaker 1: and a lot when they're calling it reparations or whatever,
Speaker 1: than they ever were before because they got the straight
Speaker 1: they have full control over it.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Maybe they go for a deal where they charge some tolls,
Speaker 1: maybe they share control with other, you know, Gulf nations
Speaker 1: of this problem. But it seems like the scenario now
Speaker 1: where Iran willingly signed some kind of a deal where
Speaker 1: they fully give up the Straight of Horror moves and
Speaker 1: it goes back to being like an international waterway seems
Speaker 1: very slim.
Speaker 10: There's no chance they just got this incredible toy, and
Speaker 10: they're going to play with it for as long as
Speaker 10: they want until it breaks or someone takes it away.
Speaker 2: There's just no chance.
Speaker 10: But also it could get worse, like if Ye Trump
Speaker 10: decides to go back to war, the economic cost could
Speaker 10: be just a resumption of what we've seen. But also
Speaker 10: the Houthy rebels could get involved.
Speaker 2: There in Yemen.
Speaker 10: They could start firing at ships in the Red Sea.
Speaker 10: They should could choke off you know, the Saudi's have
Speaker 10: been sending a lot of their oil and guests that
Speaker 10: they can't get out through the Straight or her moves
Speaker 10: west through a pipeline and then it'll get out through
Speaker 10: the Red Sea or through the Suez Canal. If the
Speaker 10: hooth He's get involved and they choke off those access
Speaker 10: points too, like prices could hit three hundred dollars a arrow.
Speaker 2: It's a disaster.
Speaker 10: And also, by the way, we're not even talking about
Speaker 10: the reason we're in a we're there, which is the
Speaker 10: nuclear material, the nine hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium.
Speaker 10: Sometimes it's dust, sometimes it's critical to get out. It
Speaker 10: is still sitting in Iran. And also all of that
Speaker 10: material was enriched after Trump pulled out of the JCOP
Speaker 10: jcpoas with's a problem he created and now is probably
Speaker 10: not going to solve.
Speaker 1: I like the scenario that he mentioned where they were
Speaker 1: we were going to go in together with the Iranians,
Speaker 1: like just a group field trip to go to dig
Speaker 1: under the rubble and to find all the nuclear dust together.
Speaker 1: I'd go, I thought that was a real that's a
Speaker 1: that's a show I'd watch. I also like, and this
Speaker 1: is so this is around giving up the straight like
Speaker 1: through some negotiation. Then there's the other option of trying
Speaker 1: to take it by force, but that that requires like
Speaker 1: you know, uh US Navy ships potentially getting fired on
Speaker 1: and around small boats firing on other ships too. And
Speaker 1: then Kagan points out in this piece too, even if
Speaker 1: they are not firing on the ships, they can retaliate
Speaker 1: against Gulf energy infrastructure like they did however many weeks
Speaker 1: ago before the ceasefire. So like, they have plenty of
Speaker 1: options around, and clearly they are fine taking a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of punishment because you know, as the Trump administration
Speaker 1: likes to point out, they don't give a shit about
Speaker 1: their own people.
Speaker 4: They kill, protests and all kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: They surely are not going to care if they're going
Speaker 1: to inflict a ton of economic pain on their country,
Speaker 1: Like it's not like they care a lot about their people,
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're gonna have They're gonna have the appetite
Speaker 1: for a lot of pain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the part that's sort of like chilling about
Speaker 3: where we're at because we're in this sort of stalemate
Speaker 3: in which Trump looks like a loser. He can try
Speaker 3: to declare victory, but they'll still be the ongoing cost
Speaker 3: of us having kind of shown our might and Iran
Speaker 3: remaining in power and now controlling the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaker 3: Or there's escalation and we've already done, We've already you know,
Speaker 3: launched a massive campaign against Iran and the regime held together.
Speaker 3: What escalation looks like, how far they'd have to go,
Speaker 3: because the next the next escalation is toward the regime collapsing,
Speaker 3: and that's a combination of economic pressure to squeeze them.
Speaker 3: That's more an intense military action, and like it all,
Speaker 3: and while that is happening, even if it were to
Speaker 3: happen relatively quickly, you're still talking about Iran unloading whatever
Speaker 3: it is it's willing to do in the Gulf and
Speaker 3: so just they are terrible options in front of America's
Speaker 3: were person.
Speaker 10: And this was totally like Trump is a drunk guy
Speaker 10: at the bar who's been lifting a lot and decided
Speaker 10: to pick a fight with the crazy guy who is
Speaker 10: cauliflower ere and that guy is kicking the shit out
Speaker 10: of him and is willing to go a lot further
Speaker 10: to win this fight than Donald Trump is and take
Speaker 10: a lot more pain and it's not gonna well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and by the way, you also killed his father,
Speaker 3: I guess, and there's no gold toilet for him. Like
Speaker 3: it is like there was something someone said once a
Speaker 3: long time ago, which is like, uh, if someone is
Speaker 3: willing to fight you, it means they have less to lose. Yep,
Speaker 3: And uh, I don't think trum have ever learned that
Speaker 3: because something that's ever been a real fight.
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Speaker 1: Good news though, for all you drivers wondering if we're
Speaker 1: ever going to see three dollars a gallon gas again.
Speaker 1: Trump said Monday he's considering suspending the federal gas tax
Speaker 1: to it, which is currently about eighteen cents a gallon
Speaker 1: for gasoline and twenty four cents a gallon for diesel.
Speaker 1: President said he'd suspend the tax for as long as
Speaker 1: it takes, which seems like not that long if you
Speaker 1: believe Kevin Hassett, which of course you should, uh, who
Speaker 1: just said oil prices will drop quickly before the midterms.
Speaker 1: Once quote the gusher opens, where's the gusher?
Speaker 3: I guess in the strait Chuck Schumer's office now they
Speaker 3: heard about the gas tax bill.
Speaker 5: He excites him.
Speaker 2: Sorry, just because he.
Speaker 5: Loves it, you know, he does the press conversation again.
Speaker 1: No, yes, for sure, for sure discussion suspending the gas
Speaker 1: tax a good idea or great idea?
Speaker 10: Yea, suspend the gas tax, release all the strategic petroleum reserve,
Speaker 10: get rid of all the sanctions on Iran and maybe
Speaker 10: Russia while you're.
Speaker 2: At it, go nuts.
Speaker 10: Prices will stay high, but now we won't be able
Speaker 10: to pay for highways or mass transit.
Speaker 4: It's a great idea.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, we already can't pay for those things anyway,
Speaker 3: and over the last sort of half century, more and
Speaker 3: more of our roads are paid for without the gas.
Speaker 3: The astats is supplemental, but we still pay for ourselves.
Speaker 3: I mean, having a gas tax is a good idea
Speaker 3: of the politics of suspending it or great, just do it.
Speaker 1: This is said said like someone who was on Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton's primary campaign in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 5: Well, if I don't even remember, we were forcing you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had to think about that too, because it's
Speaker 1: like the mandate fight. Who was no, you guys when
Speaker 1: we did the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, Hillary was
Speaker 1: saying we should suspend the gas tacks, and Obama was saying,
Speaker 1: that's just a that's just a gimmick and it's bad
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't do it, and it's just it's not
Speaker 1: really going to affect your prices that much.
Speaker 10: Is that when John McCain sent tire gauges to us,
Speaker 10: And that's something different.
Speaker 3: That was that was when that was when we were
Speaker 3: going to sell properly. That was when we were making
Speaker 3: we want people to check.
Speaker 5: He just suggested people check their tires. There like fucking
Speaker 5: piece of shit. We like running on these soft tires.
Speaker 3: Cushy's cushing can fill up my tires, communist bastard.
Speaker 5: But the uh yeah, I look.
Speaker 4: The way it is, it does it. It doesn't actually
Speaker 4: bring down the prices.
Speaker 3: No, it's it's what it's eighteen twenty sixteen to eighteen
Speaker 3: cents a gallon and then a little bit more for diesel.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a bigger deal for truck drivers. Commercials
Speaker 3: like it does make a big difference for people, and
Speaker 3: it like that, But.
Speaker 1: Those are ridiculous. The drump said he would do this,
Speaker 1: can't do it without Congress. There's some bipartis in legislation
Speaker 1: that was floating around. It might get a little more
Speaker 1: lift now that he said it. But he can't do
Speaker 1: it on his own, or I guess he's not supposed
Speaker 1: to do it own on his own. Who knows he
Speaker 1: can try anyway, And yeah, of course it robs the
Speaker 1: government of you know, revenue. It can't afford to lose
Speaker 1: because we have a lot of big ticket items that
Speaker 1: we need to pay for, like bombing Iran and building
Speaker 1: a ballroom and now apparently painting the Lincoln Memorial reflecting
Speaker 1: pool American flag blue, which along with some other repairs,
Speaker 1: is apparently going to cost thirteen point one million dollars.
Speaker 1: According to David Fahrenholds at The Times, this is an
Speaker 1: apparently it's an eighty eight percent jump in the cost
Speaker 1: of what it's going to take to repaint the reflecting pool.
Speaker 1: And you know why it jumped so high because Donald
Speaker 1: Trump decided to give a no bid contract to the
Speaker 1: guy who did all his pools at Bedminster.
Speaker 2: Which is Rudy Gulian. Honey, hope you feel better.
Speaker 3: It's all they're trying to sue it to stop it.
Speaker 3: And it was funny the guy that was suing is like, ah,
Speaker 3: we just look, it's a process thing. But also we
Speaker 3: just think they chose a bad color, which you know
Speaker 3: they did, you know through the tackiest fucking thing is
Speaker 3: the test blue. Like, come on, it doesn't look like
Speaker 3: a goddamn uh like splash mountain thing, like just kind
Speaker 3: of the best.
Speaker 10: Blue is North Carolina Carolina blue. Should just do that.
Speaker 10: You don't see colors.
Speaker 4: That'd be pretty bright in the reflecting pool.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm just making this up.
Speaker 10: Why did Kevin Hassett always he looks like Dennis the
Speaker 10: Menace just took down the biggest nitress balloon you've ever seen,
Speaker 10: and then he just spouts like economic bullshit on.
Speaker 4: The It's like he's spous the best, he's the best.
Speaker 5: Get him out more, get him out there.
Speaker 1: Uh, thirteen million dollars for the reflecting pool. They're boating
Speaker 1: on the ballroom this week. I remember that's a billion
Speaker 1: dollars that they want to add in security.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of security.
Speaker 4: Did you see what what are we doing to that?
Speaker 1: Speaking of speaking to your boy, Chuck Schumer, huh uh.
Speaker 1: He coined a new term for Republicans because the ballroom.
Speaker 1: Did you see what it was, Oh, I didn't no
Speaker 1: ballroom Republicans. He's calling them ball He's calling the party
Speaker 1: ballroom republicans.
Speaker 2: Kids.
Speaker 4: I know it's one of those.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's a it's definitely definitely not using a
Speaker 1: scalpel there, more of a more of a sledgehimmer. But
Speaker 1: maybe he he throws out ballroom Republicans and then everyone
Speaker 1: it's like a signal and everyone says it in a
Speaker 1: better way, but everyone knows what the message is because.
Speaker 4: He shot me.
Speaker 3: Shots made this point last week that because this billion
Speaker 3: dollars is in the budget, they're all gonna have to
Speaker 3: vote on it. And I think that's great. It's a
Speaker 3: yes or no yeah on the fucking ballroom terrific, terrific.
Speaker 1: The idea that they're saying, oh, it's security security, secret
Speaker 1: Service needs it, Well, would they need it if you
Speaker 1: didn't have the fucking ballroom?
Speaker 4: Probably not.
Speaker 3: Hey, well, it's like you knocked down the East Wing
Speaker 3: and you got to rebuild it, did you?
Speaker 5: Did you not?
Speaker 3: Was it a different American in which there wasn't security
Speaker 3: when you knock down.
Speaker 1: A building, that line item in the budget, when you
Speaker 1: were doing up the budget for the new ballroom.
Speaker 5: You knew what the thing was going to fucking cost.
Speaker 3: It's like now it's like every fucking now it's like
Speaker 3: a football stadium where uh, you know, there's these donors
Speaker 3: are going to have to go to the big unveiling
Speaker 3: because they're the ones responsible. But the vast majority of
Speaker 3: the cost of the taxpayers, because it's building that if
Speaker 3: the actual kind of construction is three hundred million, but
Speaker 3: securing the facility as a billion dollars costs that were
Speaker 3: inevitable and required in order to ever use it. It's
Speaker 3: a taxpayer ballroom, just one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: Just trying to add it up.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: We got there's the ballroom, there's the Trump Kennedy Center.
Speaker 1: There's the arch. We haven't even started building the arch yet.
Speaker 2: We'll get going.
Speaker 1: We got the and now the reflecting pool. They are
Speaker 1: also that that UFC fight. That's gonna that's gonna take
Speaker 1: some doing to put up that and take it down
Speaker 1: on the White House lawn. Now some of this is
Speaker 1: like privately funded scaping. It is, of course, the it's
Speaker 1: the it's the worst of all worlds for Trump, the
Speaker 1: best of all worlds for us in the politics. But
Speaker 1: it's like some of it's being funded by major donors,
Speaker 1: corporate donors who now get special access to Trump because
Speaker 1: of their donation.
Speaker 4: And then the rest is the taxpayers foot the billings.
Speaker 1: It's like a good mix of shady influence of corporate
Speaker 1: allies of Trump and just you know, good old fashioned uh,
Speaker 1: just you know corruption.
Speaker 2: The reflecting pool brought.
Speaker 10: To you by So when you're reflecting on your life,
Speaker 10: you like to think about the drones, like.
Speaker 3: Hey, we got really the reflecting pool wasn't a problem.
Speaker 3: Now I'm open to the possibility that they could use
Speaker 3: a ball room. I don't think it would have been
Speaker 3: my priority, right, but the reflecting pool is just doing
Speaker 3: its thing.
Speaker 2: It was just it's not the wrong color. It looks great.
Speaker 5: It's classic. I do think. Listen, I've said this before,
Speaker 5: no offense to Steven Spielberg. I think that World War
Speaker 5: Two memorial.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: This is my position, which I think is I don't
Speaker 5: want I don't want it. I don't want the final design.
Speaker 2: Trickle down ballroom.
Speaker 3: He was part of the class because it was part
Speaker 3: of the post saving Private Ryan Tom. It was in
Speaker 3: the it was part he was helped raise money for it,
Speaker 3: and he was kind of a big booster of it.
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly what it is direct involved. It
Speaker 3: was not the designer of it, but he was a
Speaker 3: big face of getting it done.
Speaker 1: So the Democrat takes over. We're going to bulldoze the ballroom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: bulldoze the World War.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, I don't want that. I listen.
Speaker 4: The reflecting the reflecting pool.
Speaker 2: Is that where Jenny and Forrest gumpre united? Was that
Speaker 2: in the reflectable Yes? Yeah, it is, it is it.
Speaker 2: Don't mess with that, lamb.
Speaker 3: Look that this the the painting the reflecting pool kind
Speaker 3: of undoing that that's an easy one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: That that all the gold on the White House that's
Speaker 6: coming off, that's on the outside of the oval.
Speaker 4: That's like cursive old writing oval this way clips here.
Speaker 5: Why do you think this house? He's a fucking name tag.
Speaker 5: We all know you. Everyone knows what it is. That's
Speaker 5: the whole idea of it.
Speaker 10: Funny they did a big gold like in this house,
Speaker 10: we believe, kind of like.
Speaker 1: The mar A Lago a bomb pond umbrellas, the yellow umbrellas,
Speaker 1: those are all.
Speaker 2: Going those drive me. It looks just like mar A Lago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's that's a silly color. It's a long list.
Speaker 1: Well, if suspending the gas tags doesn't work and the
Speaker 1: and the gusher of oil doesn't open, Trump does have
Speaker 1: one other top gusher gusher gush. Yeah, it's a snack gusher. Uh,
Speaker 1: it is a snack, Yes, Tommy Trump does have one
Speaker 1: other trick off his sleeve. President told Fox on Monday
Speaker 1: that he is quote seriously considering making Venezuela the fifty
Speaker 1: first US state because there's quote forty trillion dollars in
Speaker 1: oil there and quote Venezuela loves Trump.
Speaker 2: Isn't this the Naga fever dream?
Speaker 10: Isn't he president because Joe Biden let in too many
Speaker 10: people from Venezuela in prisons.
Speaker 2: Where is Stephen Miller on this one? I don't understand.
Speaker 3: Like, I'm pretty sure every person in a Nezuelan prison
Speaker 3: would become an American. He would make he would make
Speaker 3: an unprecedented number of Venezuelan prisoners, quite an amnesty. Every
Speaker 3: person in the asylum, the worst people in Venezuela would
Speaker 3: all become American.
Speaker 4: It's a it's a good question, uh huh.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if, just to play this out, if
Speaker 1: this administration zeven Miller would make sure that they are
Speaker 1: second class citizens who have to stay in Venezuela. We
Speaker 1: know how they treat the citizens of Puerto Ricod. Maduro's
Speaker 1: advocate here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well they're not they're not a member, they're not there.
Speaker 3: They don't have state of down the first state as
Speaker 3: a matter of Congress exactly.
Speaker 2: Considering, oh you're considering it, so am I.
Speaker 1: You also need I mean, I know that we don't
Speaker 1: care about international law or the UN anymore, but it's
Speaker 1: a flagrant violation of international law. The people of Venezuela
Speaker 1: would have to, of course vote on this.
Speaker 3: Only a flavorant violation of an international law that Venezuelans
Speaker 3: don't choose to do.
Speaker 4: It, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Yeah, presuming we'd have to have some sort of vote on.
Speaker 4: It, which would be like that's that's quite a presumption.
Speaker 3: Also, also, boy creates a bunch of new interesting boarders
Speaker 3: that presumably would also need walls from Mexico.
Speaker 5: To pay for.
Speaker 4: I guess yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also he said that they love Trump, and I did
Speaker 1: look at some polling on this. It was in the
Speaker 1: Miami Herald actually a couple weeks ago. They did put
Speaker 1: a big Pole in Venezuela. In January, ninety two percent
Speaker 1: of Venezuelan and said they felt grateful to Trump for
Speaker 1: capturing Maduro. That was like a couple of days after
Speaker 1: after the capture, and a few weeks ago it's down
Speaker 1: to forty seven percent. Eighty nine percent of Venezuelan's reject
Speaker 1: Trump's continued backing of Rodriguez, and seventy eight percent think
Speaker 1: the country's on the wrong track under her.
Speaker 3: So honestly, honestly, him losing support for deposing Maduro that quickly,
Speaker 3: it's actually very American to me. It's like, Wow, whatever
Speaker 3: have you done.
Speaker 5: For me lately?
Speaker 2: Bitch? I'm one hundred.
Speaker 10: I'm sure that we've now officially thought about this longer
Speaker 10: and deeper the path for sure. Certainly there's an easier
Speaker 10: way to just steal all their oil than to make
Speaker 10: another state. Yeah, that's the endgame.
Speaker 4: Although we're doing that now, and we're doing that now already.
Speaker 10: The oil is not just like it's like in the Amazon.
Speaker 10: It's like very hard to access. Actually, it's real pain.
Speaker 1: I know, we you know, I was flirting with not
Speaker 1: talking about this at all, but we saw what happened
Speaker 1: with Greenland there's there's. NATO had exercises military exercise in Greenland,
Speaker 1: so we got pretty close on that one.
Speaker 10: Raphael Lemkin just wanted to shato at us about international
Speaker 10: law over here, like a.
Speaker 4: Mall clooney over there.
Speaker 5: Get the first. That was very very yeah, I say
Speaker 5: that shit from then.
Speaker 4: Take it to the world.
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Speaker 1: going to cookunity dot com slash crooked. All right, so Trump,
Speaker 1: staying on this subject, Trump's about to spend some quality
Speaker 1: time this week with fellow imperialist jijiin Bing. When he
Speaker 1: takes his first trip to China since twenty seventeen. Naturally,
Speaker 1: Trump will be rolling a few billionaires deep. Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and Tim Cook are joining, among others, probably because of
Speaker 1: their diplomatic skills.
Speaker 10: Can we pause on that? Hey, Tim, you're resigning. You
Speaker 10: don't have to do this anymore. Tim Cook, you know what,
Speaker 10: when just likes Donald Trump?
Speaker 4: I really do.
Speaker 1: I think anyone who's Tim Cook was just like do?
Speaker 1: I think Tim Kirk's just figured he just liked fucking screen. No,
Speaker 1: fuck Tim Cook, he sucks.
Speaker 2: Wown't help your iPhone?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: Help your Apple cares?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I see it, pride him, I guess. Okay.
Speaker 1: Anyway, uh So Tommy, an Asian diplomat in DC, told
Speaker 1: Politico they're worried that China might offer to help reopen
Speaker 1: the Straight in exchange for American concessions on Taiwan, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure if Trump read that would be a good idea.
Speaker 4: How big of a deal would that be? How concerned
Speaker 4: are you?
Speaker 10: I mean? I, first of all, I'm just skeptical that
Speaker 10: China could actually force Iran to reopen the Straight and
Speaker 10: kind of go back to the before times, because if
Speaker 10: you're like China buys ninety percent of Iran's oil, but
Speaker 10: still if you're around you're thinking, look, we get a
Speaker 10: couple a couple of million worth of bitcoin. I had
Speaker 10: every boat that goes by, we find a new buyer
Speaker 10: for that oil.
Speaker 2: Like, I don't know, I'm skeptical.
Speaker 10: I asked a China expert friend about this quote in Politico,
Speaker 10: and his take was like.
Speaker 2: It would likely be more like, how can you expect
Speaker 2: me to.
Speaker 10: Help you with the straight Oh, hermuz not sell my
Speaker 10: Iranian friends anymore weapons. When you're selling weapons to the
Speaker 10: Taiwanese and giving them diplomatic cover, that could certainly happen.
Speaker 10: And Trump, I think, basically said today that Taiwan arm
Speaker 10: sales are up for negotiation, which is a huge deviation
Speaker 10: from traditional foreign policy where that's just not a thing
Speaker 10: that is discussed with the Chinese. It's you know, congressionally
Speaker 10: mandated laws which.
Speaker 5: He signed, Like, right, yeah, he could.
Speaker 10: Well, this is an interesting thing. Is like I've always
Speaker 10: assumed Trump could give a shit about Taiwan. He cares
Speaker 10: insofar as losing access to their semiconductors would be an
Speaker 10: economic calamity, right, And.
Speaker 5: It would be a historic it would be historic ego wound.
Speaker 10: Yeah, but like he doesn't give a shit about freedom, democracy,
Speaker 10: human rights, religious freedom, hating communism, all the traditional like
Speaker 10: things that once animated Republicans on this. So I assume
Speaker 10: he would trade away Taiwan in a heartbeat for a
Speaker 10: good trade deal. But even but cheting ping, like he
Speaker 10: doesn't need Trump to be to make some historic shift,
Speaker 10: even rhetorically, Like I think if he gets what he
Speaker 10: if hears what he wants to hear behind the scenes,
Speaker 10: that's more than enough. Like, yeah, you do what you
Speaker 10: gotta do. I'm not gonna go after you. I mean,
Speaker 10: so we'll see. Like all that said, the Trump administration
Speaker 10: has greenlit huge arm sales packages of Taiwan. Now, the
Speaker 10: rub here is that those haven't been delivered yet. They're
Speaker 10: like twenty billion behind in the delivery of those weapons.
Speaker 10: But like people like Marco Rubio is making sure that
Speaker 10: the packages get authorized, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: And then they're they're gonna be talking about Ai a
Speaker 1: lot as well. Apparently it seems like a good outcome
Speaker 1: on AI. It seems like it could be. There's reports
Speaker 1: that they may open a channel of communication to make
Speaker 1: sure that like Cold War style with like nuclear weapons,
Speaker 1: like make sure there's.
Speaker 2: She gives them a chatbot.
Speaker 4: This is me.
Speaker 2: I like you want want those two going deep on AI?
Speaker 1: No shit, but I would I would like our country
Speaker 1: cooperating with China on making sure that we are keeping
Speaker 1: a line open on AI when it gets scared.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I tried to bringy about it was last week.
Speaker 3: Feels like time flies. But uh, like there's obviously a
Speaker 3: space between like hamstringing whatever advantage we think we have
Speaker 3: and allowing to sort of unfettered development. Like there clearly
Speaker 3: would be some kind of there's a way to have
Speaker 3: an agreement about some kind of limits, uh, to prevent
Speaker 3: sort of catastrophic outcomes with AI, And like that seems
Speaker 3: like exactly what we would want them to be working.
Speaker 3: And they said they were going to talk about it.
Speaker 10: I do think that's just not AI. The nukes, the
Speaker 10: nuclear decision making process, no AI on.
Speaker 1: That, and they have they have they have both agreed
Speaker 1: so far. Do that split that off? But there's a
Speaker 1: lot more. There's lock that plenty of other problems that.
Speaker 4: Could end the world. Uh, you know, bio weapons.
Speaker 1: All right, we haven't had a chance to talk about
Speaker 1: the shitty news we got on Friday about Virginia where
Speaker 1: the state Supreme Court overturned the referendum that voters just
Speaker 1: passed to create new congressional maps ahead of the midterms.
Speaker 1: Tommy and Dan covered the news when it broke on
Speaker 1: the p s a YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: I have to say, we crushed it.
Speaker 4: That's why you should go subscribe for free.
Speaker 10: Subscribe to pot America on YouTube free if you want
Speaker 10: to see Dan looking spicy on Friday. Okay, he does
Speaker 10: most of the YouTube's he pops the top.
Speaker 4: Oh he does topless YouTube that Friday. Yeah, for Friday,
Speaker 4: and then.
Speaker 3: Under the table camera. That's for the subscribers.
Speaker 4: I'll talk about a polar coaster here dom one of these.
Speaker 3: Nice Anyway, nobody put this in the comments a message box.
Speaker 5: That's the only way Dan'll know this happened.
Speaker 2: Shy be fucking cool, fucking narcs.
Speaker 4: Anyway, what was I going to say?
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, there's been some more developments on the potential
Speaker 1: redistricting can fallout in Virginia and other states ahead of
Speaker 1: the midterms. Uh, here's glass half empty. Nate Cone, of course,
Speaker 1: calculated that Republicans could now lose the popular vote by
Speaker 1: more than two points and still keep control of the House.
Speaker 4: Uh, then there's glass half full.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Martin is out with the column arguing that Republicans
Speaker 1: still might lose many of the newly drawn districts, which
Speaker 1: by definition will be more competitive. Amy Walter at Cook
Speaker 1: Political basically said the same thing.
Speaker 4: I think you guys probably talked about that on Friday.
Speaker 1: I think she thinks that when all of a sudden done,
Speaker 1: the realistic game is probably like five seats in a
Speaker 1: good scenario.
Speaker 10: Yeah, they could net like eleven or twelve, but probably
Speaker 10: won't right take.
Speaker 1: And that's because of the Democrats still winning those tough districts,
Speaker 1: not because they would still get to redraw them. And
Speaker 1: j mart argues that they're handing Democrats a generational opportunity
Speaker 1: to mobilize outraged black voters. Case in point, Republican Representative
Speaker 1: Ralph Norman said on Monday about the state's lone Democratic Congressman,
Speaker 1: Jim Clyburn, who's one of the longest serving black members
Speaker 1: in the House. Quote, I like him personally, but he
Speaker 1: does not represent the rest of South Carolina. Well that's
Speaker 1: you know, Jesus, That is part of the point of
Speaker 1: representing one district in a state, as you represent some
Speaker 1: people in the state and not all the people in
Speaker 1: the state. How are you guys processing the news generally
Speaker 1: and specifically on the question of whether this is all
Speaker 1: as bad as people think?
Speaker 4: And on that point.
Speaker 1: Some breaking news while we were recording this, the US
Speaker 1: Supreme Court did rule they lifted the injunction on Alabama
Speaker 1: that they had in place before, now allowing them to
Speaker 1: pursue their new maps.
Speaker 10: In that sting dick heads, they voted forward their new
Speaker 10: you know map proposal in the middle of a tornado
Speaker 10: warning they just kept going. Just loves to evacuate. They're like, no, no,
Speaker 10: no stripping away black people's uh voting rights.
Speaker 2: It is more important to us.
Speaker 4: So what do you guys think? How bad?
Speaker 3: So I seen a couple of different numbers, but basically,
Speaker 3: even with these new maps, if we have you know,
Speaker 3: if we went by I let's say four percent right
Speaker 3: nationally the House, the House margin is four percent, then
Speaker 3: we still win the House.
Speaker 2: I get.
Speaker 4: That's an important one.
Speaker 1: Just to yeah, just put an exclamation point on that,
Speaker 1: because that was if if Louisiana, Alabama in South Carolina
Speaker 1: will go, which now seems like, we are definitely hit
Speaker 1: with that scenario, and they say, if we won the
Speaker 1: popular vote by four in that scenario, Democrats still.
Speaker 3: Win the House, right, And so I'm all for doing
Speaker 3: like a round of worry and recrimination. But I would
Speaker 3: say that in this political environment, the deeper, the deeper
Speaker 3: problem would be not having confidence that against a president
Speaker 3: with this approval rating, with both kind of on the
Speaker 3: politics and on the policy, has been as bad a
Speaker 3: president as you could ever imagine, as destructive of force
Speaker 3: as you can ever imagine, enabled directly by Republicans who
Speaker 3: deserve to be held responsible for this president's misadventures. We
Speaker 3: ought to be able to beat that four percent. We
Speaker 3: should focus on that, because if we do that, then
Speaker 3: not only do we overcome their advantages in the gerrymander,
Speaker 3: we can win those Virginia seats that on the old map,
Speaker 3: and we can actually prove that some of their maps
Speaker 3: were drawn to aggressively and make make them more nervous
Speaker 3: the next time they look at doing this to try
Speaker 3: to redraw the maps, because the Republican incumbents will start
Speaker 3: to think, oh, if there's even a slight wave, I
Speaker 3: could lose my seat.
Speaker 1: I mean Democrats won the House popular vote by eight
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen. So if we're thinking and hoping and
Speaker 1: expecting this cycle to be better than even twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: then we should have no problem in the House. And look,
Speaker 1: if we're not winning by eight, if we're only winning
Speaker 1: by four, then something else went wrong exactly more than redisserting.
Speaker 1: Like you said, if after all this, Democrats win by
Speaker 1: four or five or six in this kind of year
Speaker 1: and so worse than we did in twenty.
Speaker 4: Eighteen, maybe they like the ballroom. Maybe they like the ballroom.
Speaker 1: Maybe they like five dollars gas. Maybe people are like
Speaker 1: upsets then had so much money left over after they
Speaker 1: filled up their tank.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people hate it. They hate having other options with
Speaker 3: what to do with the money. But yeah, one and
Speaker 3: I would also say, if also this does galvanize people
Speaker 3: and we are able to win the House, suddenly we
Speaker 3: have people showing up in the Senate races that might
Speaker 3: not have otherwise, and it sort of, you know, Republicans
Speaker 3: can be hoisted by their own petards.
Speaker 1: Nate con points out the challenge is the Median District
Speaker 1: House district now in the country will have voted for
Speaker 1: Trump by five and a half points. Sweet, So that
Speaker 1: means to win back the majority, you're winning a lot
Speaker 1: of not all, but you have to win some significant
Speaker 1: amount of seats that you know Trump won by five
Speaker 1: to five.
Speaker 5: And look, which we've already been doing in every right.
Speaker 10: Yeah, the swings from from twenty four to these specials
Speaker 10: have been like, on average, I think thirteen points. You know,
Speaker 10: these are base elections. Democrats are already more motivated. Hopefully
Speaker 10: they will all learn about this, be angry about it,
Speaker 10: even more motivated to turn out. And the good thing
Speaker 10: about Trump is he just things are as bad as
Speaker 10: they've ever been for him politically, and he's like, gimme
Speaker 10: a shovel. I'm not done digging billion dollar ballroom, one
Speaker 10: point five trillion dollar Pentagon budget. Let me drive my
Speaker 10: stupid car on a fountain. For some reason, he's just
Speaker 10: like wasting his time on stupid shit.
Speaker 1: And look, the bigger long term problem here that will
Speaker 1: outlast Trump is the concentrated power of the state legislatures
Speaker 1: in red states, which they have because they have gerrymandered
Speaker 1: their state legislative districts in such a crazy fashion and
Speaker 1: in many cases, like in North Carolina, know that if
Speaker 1: the full state elects a Democrat as governor, which happens
Speaker 1: in places like North Carolina, Wisconsin. Then the state legislature,
Speaker 1: which never has to worry about competitive elections or Republicans losing,
Speaker 1: just takes all the power away from the cow so
Speaker 1: liked at some point whatever Project twenty twenty nine, whatever
Speaker 1: long term thing we're doing, like, we have to figure
Speaker 1: out a way to win back power in some of
Speaker 1: these state legislatures in some of the Southern states and
Speaker 1: other heavily Republican states that have gerry mattered themselves on
Speaker 1: a state level. Forget about the federal level into such
Speaker 1: a play when and we know from the constitution right
Speaker 1: that it you know, in dios.
Speaker 4: State legislatures with a lot of power.
Speaker 10: When it comes with elections, certain alienable rights like like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that that is And on that note, if
Speaker 1: Democrats do control Virginia, I don't know if you guys
Speaker 1: saw the mini new cycle about Virginia Democrats considering whether
Speaker 1: to it was a mini new cycle. Mini it's like
Speaker 1: a mini war, which we talked about this morning. It's
Speaker 1: already over anyway. They were considering whether to change the
Speaker 1: retirement age for state Supreme Court justices uh so to
Speaker 1: bring it down in order to get rid of all
Speaker 1: the state Supreme Court justices on the Virginia Supreme Court
Speaker 1: and appoint new ones in time to uh change the
Speaker 1: maps and then have the new democratically appointed uh Democratic
Speaker 1: partily party appointed state Democrat state Supreme Court justices approve
Speaker 1: the new maps and in time for the midterms.
Speaker 3: First of a well, at first they'd have to get
Speaker 3: a bunch of new they'd have to replace those justices
Speaker 3: because they've been retired by the government at the age
Speaker 3: of I think in decrepit fifty four.
Speaker 10: I mean, first of all, shout out for create points
Speaker 10: for creativity.
Speaker 4: It's for creativity.
Speaker 10: A local news, some local news outlet in Virginia floated
Speaker 10: this idea, and all of a sudden we're talking about it.
Speaker 3: Real dog another thing says a golden retriever can't be
Speaker 3: Speaker of the House.
Speaker 10: Situation is without a doubt, undemocratic, terrible precedent, the kind
Speaker 10: of thing that voters would absolutely despise in this climate,
Speaker 10: absolutely would do it appropriate.
Speaker 1: You know, the governor of Louisiana is just talking about
Speaker 1: on TV how he's like thrown out ballots and he's
Speaker 1: not my fault from courts fault you did cancel on election?
Speaker 10: Do we really think Abigail Spanburger, Governor Spanburger would have
Speaker 10: wanted to, you know, kind of hemorrhage all the political
Speaker 10: capital she built up with independent Republican voters doing this
Speaker 10: early on.
Speaker 2: I doubt it. I bet she has other things she wants.
Speaker 1: Did you see Greg Sergeant's piece in the New Republic?
Speaker 1: When it the reason they're not doing it? So May twelfth,
Speaker 1: which is the day you're listening to this, that is
Speaker 1: the deadline set by the Department Elections for having congressional
Speaker 1: maps in the system in time for early voting in
Speaker 1: June ahead of the August primary. So they couldn't passed
Speaker 1: the lot to lower the retirementho to get rid of
Speaker 1: the judges, to point all the new judges to reach
Speaker 1: over the maps to send it back to court. Because
Speaker 1: the technology because because the technology is so old, it
Speaker 1: takes a lot of time to input new districts into.
Speaker 6: The computers that the computers we lose.
Speaker 4: Are we putting the maps? Like are we like faim?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Is it punch cards? Like I don't know what we're doing?
Speaker 5: Like how big is it? Is it a room?
Speaker 3: Does it overheat, Like I don't understand, wait, Claude, but
Speaker 3: the idea that we could potentially lose the house.
Speaker 2: Because Virginia the computers called upon Rginia.
Speaker 3: The Virginia government's computers are too slow to be a democracy.
Speaker 5: That's what the potential there.
Speaker 10: Sergeant just call an old person by accident, like a
Speaker 10: luddite who doesn't think it was like the guy that
Speaker 10: runs the State Senate, he was the one that was.
Speaker 5: Saying the judgment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, no, no, no, he got a real
Speaker 2: guy on the phone.
Speaker 5: I don't think. I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't think Greg Sargy got by like he was
Speaker 3: a real person. But that guy was like, hey listen,
Speaker 3: it was yeah, I love the idea.
Speaker 5: It was love love your idea. Yeah, I mean, look,
Speaker 5: my my take on.
Speaker 10: It was, Okay, bikinis got all the state legislation on
Speaker 10: all the districts.
Speaker 5: All the districts have just magnificent, magnificent yavas.
Speaker 2: The look at these canons.
Speaker 1: Look okay, it's just just so Virginia State Senate Majority
Speaker 1: leader Scott Serve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just meant it was he old and doesn't
Speaker 2: no computers.
Speaker 4: That's fair. But I just want to.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm calling him the Jim Comey of fucking Virginia. No,
Speaker 5: I don't, I don't. I don't think that's fair. No,
Speaker 5: look the thing about it.
Speaker 2: Is eighty six guy.
Speaker 4: He's the one who picked up the phone.
Speaker 5: Never don't make them.
Speaker 4: Could have been Spenburger. She didn't pick up the phone.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well smart, No, that's why she's governor. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 5: not taking that fucking call. Oh the crazy.
Speaker 3: I will get rid of all the just judge judges
Speaker 3: because the democracy.
Speaker 5: To save democracy. I've gotten rid of all the judges.
Speaker 5: They're worse than us. Everybody get behind me. We're going come.
Speaker 4: On, Gavin Newsom's breathing down or.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Gavin Newsom about it. We could have the raft
Speaker 3: and send them off to fucking Hawaii. That that fucking institutional,
Speaker 3: fucking fact. We could have had all democratic districts, all
Speaker 3: democratic districts.
Speaker 5: What kind of.
Speaker 2: Coward we see?
Speaker 1: Why is Gavin new some such a coward? Yeah put
Speaker 1: that out there. But I'm just kidding. But Governor, if.
Speaker 3: You told me right now that we there's no time
Speaker 3: isould we don't know what the future holds. We can
Speaker 3: still win the House. We should fight to win the House. Yes,
Speaker 3: this made it harder. But the idea that.
Speaker 5: If you, if we knew, like with with.
Speaker 3: With certainty, that our only path to to to having
Speaker 3: some check on Trump was doing.
Speaker 1: This updating machines with updating the machines, updated with Tim
Speaker 1: Cooks software, up updating the fucking updating now updating to
Speaker 1: see fifteen point two, so we can upload the maps.
Speaker 3: So the new judges that are young and vital, just
Speaker 3: the thirty two year old new Democratic judges could have
Speaker 3: proved the map, I'd be like, Okay, I get it.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's worth the risk of word second year, but
Speaker 3: everything can get worse. And look, I believe Republicans are
Speaker 3: leading us down all these escalatory paths all along the way,
Speaker 3: every step of the way.
Speaker 5: But this would be a new one and it would
Speaker 5: be on us.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, about democrats, is any it's it is clear that
Speaker 6: any state where Democrats have control either of the governorship
Speaker 6: or the governorship and ideally the state legislature, if we
Speaker 6: do not act to maximize the number of seats that
Speaker 6: we win between now and twenty eight, because the cycle.
Speaker 1: Is already pass Virginia will have a chance to do right,
Speaker 1: which you have to. If you decide to take a
Speaker 1: pass on that, yeah, then you're fucked. But like I
Speaker 1: expect New York, Virginia and Colorado, but are getting the act.
Speaker 1: Minnesota can, I believe, Wisconsin can. Maryland I think can
Speaker 1: squeeze out another one at Illinois.
Speaker 5: But JB.
Speaker 10: Prisker probably will be bull dozing the courthouses, you know,
Speaker 10: I guess right.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: The the problem is the Virginia State Constitution, commonwealth. That's
Speaker 1: that's that that gives you know, the legislature the authority
Speaker 1: to appoint the judges, uh and and gives them certain
Speaker 1: terms so that you get a bunch of republic especially
Speaker 1: probably a fair for democracy be great for I mean
Speaker 1: great for the country.
Speaker 3: But they can't they can expand from sething to eleven
Speaker 3: seeds as you need actually like a big super majority
Speaker 3: in the legislator, I think to present prevent exactly this
Speaker 3: exactly sounds.
Speaker 4: A good model for America.
Speaker 1: Actually yeah, yeah, but again we have to do things
Speaker 1: as a country, yeah, and not as individual states, which
Speaker 1: is why you need to eliminate jerry mandering as a country.
Speaker 2: Back of this quarter, what.
Speaker 3: You all about to say, the US Constitution does not
Speaker 3: require any specifics on expanding the number of justices in
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court, and that is just a custom. And
Speaker 3: now are we have we ever did bide administration ever
Speaker 3: finished that report?
Speaker 5: Whether we should do where?
Speaker 4: Where?
Speaker 2: We're on good wearing that report?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 4: You know, I think they did. It's on Garland's to
Speaker 4: do list.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: All right, anyway, why worry about twenty twenty six when
Speaker 1: we can speculate about two twenty eight? Nice AOC made
Speaker 1: some news over the weekend when she sat down with
Speaker 1: our pal David Oxroud at the University of Chicago Institute
Speaker 1: of Politics. Boy, was there an event that's just designed
Speaker 1: for us acts at the IOP with the interviewing AOC.
Speaker 1: Good times, We reviewed the IOP tape and I'll tell
Speaker 1: you all about it. No, Yeah, pretty good twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: joke where she provided the terminally online among us plenty
Speaker 1: of content to engage with, as people have been over
Speaker 1: the last couple of days. There was one response in
Speaker 1: particular she gave to the age old question of whether
Speaker 1: she's planning on running for president or senate in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight we should talk about in which she answered
Speaker 1: by pivoting to a Washington Post editorial last week going
Speaker 1: after her for saying that it's impossible to become a
Speaker 1: billionaire without breaking rules and abusing workers or paying them
Speaker 1: not what they're worth.
Speaker 4: Take a listen.
Speaker 11: It was very clear this was a veiled threat, right,
Speaker 11: So the elite saying, if you want this job, you
Speaker 11: just stepped out of line. They assumed that my ambitions,
Speaker 11: position and all. They assume that my ambition is a
Speaker 11: title or a seat, and my ambition is way bigger
Speaker 11: than that. My ambition is to change this country. Presidents
Speaker 11: come and go, Senate House seats, selected officials come and go.
Speaker 11: But single payer health cares, forever a living wages, forever,
Speaker 11: workers right, for forever women's.
Speaker 1: Right, which this president would come and go a little faster. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which you guys think I thought it was. In terms
Speaker 1: of non answers to questions about are you going to
Speaker 1: run for president?
Speaker 4: That's one of the best.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I went to the crowd to a guy named
Speaker 5: Chuck Chumor, who is.
Speaker 10: Like, yeah, we've all heard a million politicians duck that question,
Speaker 10: and usually it's some version of look, I'm not thinking
Speaker 10: about that right now.
Speaker 2: My priorities are on the state of Virginia. Mike Calendar.
Speaker 10: It's like she made it bigger, she made it about
Speaker 10: what she wanted to do with the people she wanted
Speaker 10: to help. I thought that was that was nice, was
Speaker 10: well done. Now, the nitpicking response that we kind of
Speaker 10: hinted at is the legislative acomplishments are more durable, but
Speaker 10: not they're not forever.
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court overturned ro versus way. But I think
Speaker 2: that's a little too literal. Yeah, yeah, we all know.
Speaker 1: I feel like we would have written the line forever
Speaker 1: and then and then, like the policy nerds or the
Speaker 1: lawyers would have been like, more durable is more, it's
Speaker 1: more accurate, which is correct.
Speaker 4: It would have been more accurate to say that almost
Speaker 4: ac is still hanging on.
Speaker 5: Nearly for Yeah, yeah, by the skin of its teeth.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: I did think it was completely wild to have a
Speaker 1: Washington Post editorial, not a column, but an entire editorial
Speaker 1: from the ed board owned by Jeff Bezos being like, hey,
Speaker 1: stop picking on billionaires.
Speaker 5: It's so funny.
Speaker 3: Well, he's like, I'm going to redo the editorial board
Speaker 3: so that it focuses on free markets and and uh like,
Speaker 3: you know, not attacking success. And it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: promises made, promises kept. I guess on what that editorial
Speaker 3: board would do.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I watched the whole thing, though I'd never heard
Speaker 10: her talk about the specific experience of going from candidate
Speaker 10: to overnight celebrity.
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting story, that's it. And how just
Speaker 2: like head spinning it insane that was, And.
Speaker 10: Then the part about what did you hear that story
Speaker 10: about why she didn't go to med school like her
Speaker 10: dad got sick passed away actually and her mom started
Speaker 10: working at these jobs. I mean, it's not just like
Speaker 10: the bartending story that makes her feel like more of
Speaker 10: a human being than any other politician. It's the very
Speaker 10: recent past and economic hardship shed I know, it's just
Speaker 10: a very compelling of that. It was worth watching the
Speaker 10: full hour, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say that the whole conversation about should
Speaker 1: billionaires exist? To me, is not the most productive use
Speaker 1: of time on either side of the debate, because it's like,
Speaker 1: here's the thing about billionaires. I just want to make
Speaker 1: sure that they are taxed appropriately. I want to make
Speaker 1: sure that they can't use their influence and power to
Speaker 1: change the laws and have a bigger megaphone than everyone
Speaker 1: else in the country just because they're rich. But like
Speaker 1: it seems like an academic dorm room debate to be
Speaker 1: like should they exist, should they not exist? If they exist,
Speaker 1: does that mean that they broke the law.
Speaker 4: Or not broke the law? Like, I don't know why
Speaker 4: we need to be debate in that place.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's I was thinking about there was
Speaker 3: something about the online debate that was very frustrating to
Speaker 3: me because there's a lot of people talking past.
Speaker 1: A few a few aspects of the online debate that
Speaker 1: we can get into most we can start with the
Speaker 1: billionaires one.
Speaker 3: And and I was trying to figure out what was
Speaker 3: bugging me about it, And it is, I think, because
Speaker 3: you end up in this conversation in which the terms
Speaker 3: are moral and fuzzy terms like earned, legitimate, deserved, and
Speaker 3: those are moral language. And I actually think the debate
Speaker 3: over the kind of morality of who can amass fast
Speaker 3: sums of wealth and how they do it is not
Speaker 3: like I don't think it's I think it's more than academic.
Speaker 5: I think the way we happ it is academic.
Speaker 3: But the what was interesting to me is the response,
Speaker 3: like it is absurd that Jeff Bezos's paper is writing
Speaker 3: a defensive of billionaires. And and what was interesting about
Speaker 3: the defense is they always land on celebrities like Taylor
Speaker 3: Swift and Seinfeld and and and people like well lego
Speaker 3: people and people that like, you know, nobody had to
Speaker 3: pee in a bottle for Taylor Swift to write the music, right,
Speaker 3: Like nobody had to sew sneakers with their little hands, right, So,
Speaker 3: like they do.
Speaker 4: See that documentary about the errorstore.
Speaker 6: Many how many children are working those gears, it seems
Speaker 6: like she had to be in a few bottles.
Speaker 3: Like but then so it's like, oh, because they really
Speaker 3: earned it, And what the the kind of underlying defense
Speaker 3: of it is like, well, Taylor Swift, by dint of talent,
Speaker 3: without exploitation, created more than a billion dollars worth of value,
Speaker 3: and like, I think I largely agree with that, but
Speaker 3: where I kind of what they they are talking past
Speaker 3: the deeper argument, which is a system in which one
Speaker 3: person can accrue all that wealth, Like even Taylor Swift,
Speaker 3: like she's protected by intellectual property law. She's been able
Speaker 3: to take her vehicles on the roads and all the rest.
Speaker 3: And it's not about like like the righteousness or the
Speaker 3: morality to me, Like, that's just not what I care about.
Speaker 5: I think it matters a lot in politics.
Speaker 3: It's like a system in which those benefits accrue so
Speaker 3: much is both wrong on the front end and the
Speaker 3: back end, the incentive structure and power structure of the economy,
Speaker 3: and then the tax structure on the back end. And
Speaker 3: so whether billionaires should or should not exist, if a
Speaker 3: lot of them do, it is because of something is
Speaker 3: fundamentally broken in the system and they have the ability
Speaker 3: to exploit that wealth that has kind of also wrecked
Speaker 3: our politics. And like that to me is what makes
Speaker 3: it worth having.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And for me that brings us to like, all right,
Speaker 1: so what are the policy considerations here? What are we
Speaker 1: going to what rules and laws are we going to
Speaker 1: put into place to make sure that the system is
Speaker 1: more fair?
Speaker 2: How do we tax wealth?
Speaker 4: That repax wealth?
Speaker 1: And it goes into regulations and lobbyings and and other
Speaker 1: corruption stuff as well, right, there's all that. And I
Speaker 1: also think I think about Ruben Diego and what he
Speaker 1: would always say after the twenty twenty four election is
Speaker 1: that Democrats with Latino voters failed the big ass truck
Speaker 1: test and that people people in this country want to
Speaker 1: be rich. Working class people want to be rich. And
Speaker 1: do they all want to be billionaires or do they
Speaker 1: think they billionaires? No, but they want to be wealthy.
Speaker 1: And what they just want is to like have a
Speaker 1: you know, fair playing field, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: whatever cliche you want to bring out. But like people
Speaker 1: want to make a lot of money, and they also
Speaker 1: want to make sure that people who are absurdly rich
Speaker 1: like pay their fair share and taxes and don't have
Speaker 1: more power and influence than everyone else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and but I think like Democrats end up focusing
Speaker 3: on the tax side of it and not as much
Speaker 3: on like the deeper kind of like structures that mean individuals,
Speaker 3: like whether they have whether they have a union or not,
Speaker 3: whether they have other protections like let's say, non competes
Speaker 3: and things like that, all of which like kind of
Speaker 3: mean and as like more like all the productivity gains
Speaker 3: are sort of going up to the top which means
Speaker 3: the individual has less negotiating and bargaining power than they
Speaker 3: used to and their dollar doesn't go as far because
Speaker 3: of all of our failures across like housing and all
Speaker 3: the rest. And to me, like those are the questions
Speaker 3: that I think democrats struggle the most to answer. We
Speaker 3: have the least compelling answer on like upriver from the taxes.
Speaker 1: One last thing we have to talk about gas prices
Speaker 1: maybe four to fifty a gallon. But Transportation Secretary and
Speaker 1: Road Rules All Stars veteran Sean Duffy really wants you
Speaker 1: to get out and take a road trip, so much
Speaker 1: so that he and his wife and nine children have
Speaker 1: been apparently doing their own road trip over the last
Speaker 1: several months, which they've documented in a Gazi documentary series
Speaker 1: premiering soon on YouTube. Duffy's wife, Fox News host and
Speaker 1: fellow Real World and Road Rule star Rachel Campos Duffy
Speaker 1: That's where they met, described the project as really wholesome,
Speaker 1: good family stuff. That's an antidote to the quote porn
Speaker 1: Hub world, we're living in.
Speaker 2: The fuck kind of road trip to Chigos.
Speaker 1: Well, she was on Real World rot real. I can
Speaker 1: never say Real World Road Rules challenge.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anyway, here's a here's a clip.
Speaker 2: What a beautiful family.
Speaker 3: Hi is Jessy Adam, mister president, Yes, out of the
Speaker 3: President Trump.
Speaker 1: We're inviting you along with our family on the Great
Speaker 1: American road Trip.
Speaker 5: The Duffies. They've got tons of kids. Let mean, they
Speaker 5: have like eleven kids, nine and something?
Speaker 2: Is there a difference.
Speaker 4: Before kid Rock became kid Rock? You're traveling all the country.
Speaker 11: You're earlier basically an aerostar van.
Speaker 4: Dad's real world house. If I never lived in this house,
Speaker 4: none of you would be here. Was that that looks
Speaker 4: so boring? Was that antidote to porn? Hubbard?
Speaker 6: No, uh well, I mean you got a lot of kids,
Speaker 6: so something's working, all right.
Speaker 10: That's a that's so many. First of all, you can't
Speaker 10: road trip with nine kids. What are we drive in
Speaker 10: as a school bus? Because that looked like a little car,
Speaker 10: so we was leaving them behind it. A lot of
Speaker 10: also bullshit that they're really driving around the country. They're
Speaker 10: flying places and then driving around and filming it. Right,
Speaker 10: we assume you think of the moon that he was fake.
Speaker 1: No, you might be wondering who paid for this massive boondoggle?
Speaker 1: Five oh one C four called the Great American road Trip, Inc.
Speaker 1: Which says it fully funds its own efforts to celebrate
Speaker 1: and share America's story, and whose sponsors happened to be
Speaker 1: industries with a business in front of the Department of Transportation.
Speaker 4: So that's how cool.
Speaker 1: And the department later confirmed the tax payer dollars paid
Speaker 1: for the secretary's travel to a bunch of the stops,
Speaker 1: but not his families. And the whole thing is official
Speaker 1: business anyway, because he's the Transportation secretary and he was
Speaker 1: doing some transportation there.
Speaker 2: I guess your job is driving. Dude.
Speaker 10: Remember when the planes were all crashing and like Sean
Speaker 10: Duffy was the guy who's going to fix it.
Speaker 2: I just watched a guy get hit on the runway
Speaker 2: in Denver the other day. I don't know, maybe don't
Speaker 2: road trip around so much.
Speaker 4: Look, you know this, first of all, this would bug
Speaker 4: me less if a they didn't have a bunch of
Speaker 4: sponsors who have business in front of the Department of Transportation.
Speaker 1: That's what they were Democrats, right, John Well, No, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, I was actually gonna says, you know,
Speaker 1: you know who fucking wouldn't stop talking about Pete Bootage
Speaker 1: Edge and criticizing Pete and Chasten Rachel Campos stuffy when
Speaker 1: they spent two months. When Pete took two months Fortny
Speaker 1: leave because the twins were in the nick you yea,
Speaker 1: and she criticized him for that, and so it's.
Speaker 4: Like, okay, and now now you're going to go do this.
Speaker 10: It's crazy to film a seven month reality They said
Speaker 10: that he like popped in for a day here and
Speaker 10: a jay to like whatever if he wants to do
Speaker 10: it on his days off.
Speaker 4: It's none of these people are fucking doing a good
Speaker 4: job anyway. In the cabinet. It's all a grift.
Speaker 3: One guy, Sean, Yeah, he's one guy where it's like, dude,
Speaker 3: like you got like real legitimate ongoing like management problems
Speaker 3: at your department.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if and if butt Rocket Duffy can't fix it,
Speaker 1: who can?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: That's what his nickname was in the in the real world.
Speaker 2: But Rocket, why was it that?
Speaker 1: Because he would run around the house streaking and mooning people.
Speaker 4: There's there's there's.
Speaker 2: There's a rocket.
Speaker 1: I remember he did a front moon I think too
Speaker 1: out a window in one of the episodes.
Speaker 2: But this is on the.
Speaker 4: Rachel Rachel was Yeah, Rachel Camposlawton is a pretty good series.
Speaker 5: There's so much him, his youth.
Speaker 2: I don't know that there's too much reality TV.
Speaker 4: But Rocket's a great name.
Speaker 10: But Rocket Trump Sean Duffy, fuck Spencer Pratt torturing us
Speaker 10: in the mayoral race here like all these annoying reality
Speaker 10: people just popping back up and ruining the twenty.
Speaker 3: Six Seawn Duffy, I defended you as one of the
Speaker 3: lesser offenses in terms of the actual cabinet performance so far,
Speaker 3: and that remains the case.
Speaker 2: But rough is tough.
Speaker 3: I also look as a rule, like if someone's producing
Speaker 3: their own reality show, it's just more boring.
Speaker 5: That's just how it goes.
Speaker 3: You got the only reality shows like, oh it's wholesome.
Speaker 3: What do you think That's why people go to bravokon. No,
Speaker 3: they want to watch these bitches throw shit, you know.
Speaker 2: And get into He was also a lumberjack. Yeah, we're
Speaker 2: gonna chop some wood. That's part of the thing.
Speaker 5: He was a lumberjack.
Speaker 2: Wow, I don't know that that was a part of
Speaker 2: the real world Boston thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, huh, that's right. That was his that was his shtick.
Speaker 4: That that butt rocket.
Speaker 2: I don't remember butt rockets.
Speaker 4: I send you the video I was going.
Speaker 1: I thought I thought that was an old joke that
Speaker 1: was going to be like I've said it too many times.
Speaker 10: Also flagging that he was briefly NASA administrator. He has
Speaker 10: remember that, I wanted to keep the job.
Speaker 5: Let's get some other rockets up there.
Speaker 3: You know, he's got the expertise, he has a history,
Speaker 3: he's worked with He's worked with all kinds of rockets.
Speaker 4: Anyway, is that it. That's it. That's our show for today. Everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it.
Speaker 1: Was a gusher of a show. Dan and I are
Speaker 1: going to be back with the new show on Friday,
Speaker 1: so I want to check that out.
Speaker 5: I think we're starting. This is a new ending.
Speaker 3: There's a new end segment of Potsive America. I want
Speaker 3: to apologize for calling Kevin.
Speaker 2: Do some awoke.
Speaker 3: I want to apologize for suggesting that removing the gas
Speaker 3: tax would cause Chuck Chamber to come. I think I
Speaker 3: regret saying that. We're applying it now I read saying it.
Speaker 4: It was ass rocket.
Speaker 5: Sorry, Oh, well.
Speaker 4: Same thing. I was just being family friendly to pick
Speaker 4: up uh huh like me.
Speaker 5: You know, real rump rocket.
Speaker 3: And something that's something different. Speaking of Tim Cooko and
Speaker 3: a China What Fuck and the show We're out.
Speaker 4: Credits Potsive America is a crooked media production.
Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Ruben, McKenna Roberts,
Speaker 1: and Ferris Safari, with Ree Cherlin, Elijah Cone and Adrian Hill.
Speaker 1: Our team includes Matt de Groate, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor,
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