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Speaker 4: As Americans, we're constantly grappling with a fundamental question. Do
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Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America.
Speaker 3: I'm John lovit Im Tommy Beetor.
Speaker 2: John is taking some much needed time off to tweet
Speaker 2: with his family. On today's show, Donald Trump is working
Speaker 2: the refs at the World Cup. If we're heading to
Speaker 2: a NATO summit in Turkey. We've got two big developments
Speaker 2: in the Democratic Senate primaries and main Grand platinir faces
Speaker 2: serious and disturbing allegations of sexual assault in Michigan. Mallory
Speaker 2: mcmarrow drops out, making that one a two way race.
Speaker 2: We also look at the conservative freak out over a
Speaker 2: patriotic speech in New York Marizona Mandani, and we asked
Speaker 2: the question the mainstream media is afraid to ask. Is
Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell alive currently I've.
Speaker 3: Been wondering that too, depend on which Twitter you read him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's an important question. Yes, all right,
Speaker 2: let's get to the news, starting with the World Cup
Speaker 2: last week, when the US played Bosnia and hurts A
Speaker 2: Govina star forward Flow Balligan got a red card for
Speaker 2: stepping on a defender's ankle. I said Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Speaker 2: because I remember that. That's how it was said in
Speaker 2: the nineties when Bill Clinton was a bombing from the sky,
Speaker 2: so that during that era. I remember that from when
Speaker 2: I was a kid.
Speaker 3: Remember that NATO.
Speaker 2: But I remember that Nato. But now I'm being told
Speaker 2: it's Bosnia and hurts a Goovina.
Speaker 3: It's tough.
Speaker 2: UNDERFIFA rules, when a player gets a red card, they
Speaker 2: have to leave the game, their team has to finish
Speaker 2: the match with only ten players, and the player who
Speaker 2: got the red card has to sit out the next game.
Speaker 2: But we found out on Sunday afternoon that FIFA was
Speaker 2: suspending that second part of the punishment for Balligan after
Speaker 2: a call from Trump to FIFA President Johnny Infantina. Now
Speaker 2: in a long Twitter post on Monday, Infantino said the
Speaker 2: decision had been made by the association's independent judicial body,
Speaker 2: but declined to give any specifics. Then again, this is
Speaker 2: the guy who warded Trump the first ever FIFA Peace
Speaker 2: Prize last December. Whatever happened on the call, it seems
Speaker 2: unlikely that Trump's deep knowledge of the sports changed any minds.
Speaker 5: I think the referees call was horrible, and nobody talks
Speaker 5: about that. They talk about the red card like it's fine.
Speaker 5: Nobody talks about the referees decision to red card. I
Speaker 5: didn't know what the hell of red card was. When
Speaker 5: I found out, I said, you gotta be kidding. This
Speaker 5: guy just hands up. Okay, your best player is not
Speaker 5: going to play next week. Good in the next game.
Speaker 5: I said, wow, that's a lot of power. That's terrible.
Speaker 5: So yes, I asked for a review by FIFA. I
Speaker 5: had nothing to do with the decision. What I did
Speaker 5: have to do is I said, I think they should
Speaker 5: be reviewed because I watched the play and he didn't
Speaker 5: do anything wrong.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the red card seems pretty wrong, but so
Speaker 2: does Trump's meddling. What do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm no.
Speaker 6: Ref but the red card seems like it was bullshit.
Speaker 6: A lot of people I follow talk about the stuff
Speaker 6: all the time. I think it was it worth a
Speaker 6: yellow card. Lionel Messi did something very similar in a
Speaker 6: different game in this World Cup didn't get carded at all.
Speaker 6: It's also seems like they use the video review improperly
Speaker 6: so on like a karmic level, this is the right outcome,
Speaker 6: like Flowbalgan deserves to play, He's an incredible player. What
Speaker 6: makes it like headspinning is all the reporting after the
Speaker 6: red card was that there was no way to review. Yes, right,
Speaker 6: so we all were like, oh man, we're just we're
Speaker 6: screwed here. And then apparently it turns out like the
Speaker 6: president could just call the head of FIFA his old buddy,
Speaker 6: and so I am like, I have a lot of
Speaker 6: feelings about this. I'm annoyed that the conversation about this
Speaker 6: team and their success because they're awesome, they're so good,
Speaker 6: is now kind of like tainted by this bullshit. I
Speaker 6: think it is obviously bad, like well for the Trump
Speaker 6: point of view, like it's not necessarily bad for him
Speaker 6: to advocate on behalf of his country, right, Like you
Speaker 6: could imagine another president doing this in a way that
Speaker 6: just seemed less corrupt like here. Starmer apparently weighed on
Speaker 6: the start time of the England Mexico game because he was.
Speaker 3: Worried about that.
Speaker 6: So I think, like, mostly this is just really really
Speaker 6: bad for FIFA. It's par for the course for them,
Speaker 6: because they're a terrible corrupt organization. Twenty fifteen, a bunch
Speaker 6: of people were indicted on like one hundred and fifty
Speaker 6: million in bribes and kickbacks related to the World Cup.
Speaker 6: The former head of FIFA, Set Bladder, was banned from soccer.
Speaker 6: He's now on Twitter criticizing this decision. So that's when
Speaker 6: it's getting a little weird. But like, it's just impossible
Speaker 6: to separate this decision from the very long standing, very weird,
Speaker 6: very corrupt relationship between Trump and Johnny and Fantino. Trump's
Speaker 6: a corrupt person. We know that his like one speed
Speaker 6: when he wants something is brute force. So we don't
Speaker 6: know what happened any of these calls, but we know
Speaker 6: that he got the outcome that he wanted.
Speaker 2: So a lot of the coverage has been around the
Speaker 2: call itself, but this was there was a shocking amount
Speaker 2: of administrative focus on the red card in a very
Speaker 2: short period of time. Andrew Giuliani, who's Rudy Giuliani's son
Speaker 2: was appointed to lead some kind of World Cup task
Speaker 2: for see. Apparently, according to the Politico, has been talking
Speaker 2: to Trump several times a week about the World Cup.
Speaker 2: You have Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, who.
Speaker 3: Was at the game saying sitting next to Infants.
Speaker 2: Was sitting next I didn't realize it was just saying
Speaker 2: right next to him, saying that he was offering White
Speaker 2: House lawyers to assist the US team and trying to
Speaker 2: fight this. There was other threats from the US team
Speaker 2: and from the administration behind the scenes around other ways
Speaker 2: they could challenge this rule and through other kinds of
Speaker 2: means that I guess the pressure mounted, and then there
Speaker 2: was this call on top of it. Yeah. It on
Speaker 2: the one end, it does feel like another story where
Speaker 2: you have the president he's he's focused on the biggest fireworks,
Speaker 2: the ballroom, the reflecting pool, the statues, the arches, all
Speaker 2: that he's focused on sports, not on the actual substance
Speaker 2: of the job and the things that people want him
Speaker 2: to pay attention to. But I had the same feeling
Speaker 2: as you, which is of all the ways in which
Speaker 2: Trump could be a bully, bullying to have an advantage
Speaker 2: removed from Belgium. The expense of a corrupt group of
Speaker 2: European chauvinists is like not that big of a sin.
Speaker 3: No, no it's not, and like for what it's worth.
Speaker 6: The New York Post had this reporting that US Soccer
Speaker 6: was already preparing to fight the decision. They were especially
Speaker 6: focused on the var system, the video review system, and
Speaker 6: that it was improperly used to make this call, and
Speaker 6: they were preparing to appeal to something called the Court
Speaker 6: of Arbitration for Sports. Yes, I don't know what that is,
Speaker 6: but apparently it would have taken the decision out of
Speaker 6: FIFA's hands. So maybe they acted to preempt that. So
Speaker 6: there's a chance here that Trump is taking credit for
Speaker 6: something that was already in motion, which is something presidents get.
Speaker 3: To do, good or bad.
Speaker 6: All that said, Belgium has a right to be pissed off.
Speaker 6: Other teams have a right to be pissed off. They
Speaker 6: want one clear set of rules. They never get it
Speaker 6: from FIFA. Imagine though, if this was the twenty eighteen
Speaker 6: World Cup in Russia, putin lobs in a call to
Speaker 6: FIFA to overturn some ruling, we'd all be like ripping
Speaker 6: our hair out and screaming about injustice and corruption and
Speaker 6: oligar key. FIFA has made similar exceptions, including one for
Speaker 6: Christiano Ronaldo to make sure he didn't miss a game
Speaker 6: in the tournament. So I think just like the way
Speaker 6: to ultimately understand FIFA is it's basically a criminal organization
Speaker 6: that just cares about money, And like the way to
Speaker 6: understand Infantino is he just sucks up to the most
Speaker 6: powerful person he needs at all times. So I think everyone,
Speaker 6: of course assumes that he viewed this as doing a
Speaker 6: favor for Trump, even if it hurt his reputation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's like I can see, like you can
Speaker 2: imagine Obama at a press conference getting a question like
Speaker 2: that was bullshit, man, like that sucks, and then yeah,
Speaker 2: but you this is where having independent, trustworthy organizations is important, right,
Speaker 2: because sure, an American leader should put pressure for the
Speaker 2: American team, but you need to trust that the other
Speaker 2: side of it will not let that influence the decisions.
Speaker 2: But you can't trust that here. You also can't trust
Speaker 2: that Trump is not abusing his relation ships and his
Speaker 2: financial entanglements with Infantino and all the rest. So anyway,
Speaker 2: Trump made soccer about him somehow.
Speaker 6: For what it's worth, we're recording this at like three
Speaker 6: o'clock on Monday Pacific times of two hours before the game,
Speaker 6: so we don't know the outcome right now. We'll find
Speaker 6: out excited to watch and I just.
Speaker 2: Want I watch angel City, all right. I am a
Speaker 2: season ticket holder, so I'm not I am like getting
Speaker 2: into soccer.
Speaker 3: Have you been watching these games?
Speaker 2: You know? Here's what my problem is with the way
Speaker 2: that we because you have it on and I see
Speaker 2: you getting into it. I finally with soccer, I either
Speaker 2: want to watch the whole game or I want to
Speaker 2: see highlights at the end. But I have trouble dipping
Speaker 2: in and out because for me, it's about like the
Speaker 2: way like you can watch a team. And even if
Speaker 2: I didn't understand this till I started watching soccer, that
Speaker 2: even if a goal isn't scored during an entire half,
Speaker 2: you're still like understanding the way the teams are going
Speaker 2: up against each other. And I feel like it's hard
Speaker 2: to get that when you're just looking up for a computer.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I have to say this has been one of the
Speaker 6: best World Cups I've ever seen. Every game has been
Speaker 6: like down to the wire and exciting. There's been all
Speaker 6: these late goals, there's been like lake goals called back,
Speaker 6: incredible header, some of the best goals I've ever seen,
Speaker 6: Like the Cabo Verde goal to tie it up the
Speaker 6: second time in overtime against Argentina was like one of
Speaker 6: the most incredible shots ever. So just like the storylines,
Speaker 6: the gameplay itself, the big players delivering in big moments
Speaker 6: has just been incredible. And that's why it was like
Speaker 6: particularly annoying to all of a sudden have to talk
Speaker 6: about Trump again because it was just a reprieve from him.
Speaker 6: He like, interestingly, despite the Cup being in the United States,
Speaker 6: what's Canada and Mexico too, He just like hadn't made
Speaker 6: himself a part of it. He will at the end
Speaker 6: till I'll give out the trophy to the winner with Infantino,
Speaker 6: but like he'd kind of stayed away from it, and
Speaker 6: now it's just like him again.
Speaker 2: And some of the worst like concerns about what would
Speaker 2: happen with people traveling to the US, haven't. I mean,
Speaker 2: we haven't seen that much of what we the worst possible,
Speaker 2: like people being stopped, being unable to come see the games.
Speaker 2: You did have this moment with the Iranian team protests
Speaker 2: in the US, which I thought was in my way
Speaker 2: were in Mexico and they did it, but I thought
Speaker 2: it was like particularly moving.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we were real dicks to the Iranians for no
Speaker 6: good reason, like we would let them stay in the
Speaker 6: United States and make them like fly back and forth
Speaker 6: from Mexico to games. There were some issues with like
Speaker 6: one of the African refs was denied entry into the
Speaker 6: country for some like vetting reason that seems like mostly bullshit.
Speaker 6: But the level of anxiety going into the World Cup
Speaker 6: was way higher.
Speaker 3: Than kind of the level of the problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: In fact, it's like the opposite. It's like all these
Speaker 6: foreigners coming to America kind of nervous and feeling like
Speaker 6: they love it and like going to waffle House for
Speaker 6: the first time and making viral videos, and it's just
Speaker 6: been like this fun, like joyful melting of cultures.
Speaker 2: We have beautiful cultures combining in the US. Meanwhile, Trump
Speaker 2: is heading to Turkey for the annual NATO summit, and
Speaker 2: Trump intervening with one of his reputedly corrupt pals to
Speaker 2: remove what would have been an advantage for Belgium seems
Speaker 2: like a pretty good metaphorm for European frustrations with American andngemony.
Speaker 2: There will be a lot of discussion of defense spending
Speaker 2: and of ending the war in Ukraine Russia. Russia was
Speaker 2: striking at civilian targets in key of this week, and
Speaker 2: Ukraine is actually less able to defend itself in part
Speaker 2: because of a shortage of interceptor missiles made worse by
Speaker 2: Trump's war in Iran. What are you watching for in
Speaker 2: this summit and what are you hoping for around this?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean you got at the top line, which
Speaker 6: is like the signs that the divide between the US
Speaker 6: and Europe are widening or narrowing. Trump is still furious
Speaker 6: about the lack of support from Europe when it came
Speaker 6: to the war with Iran, and Europeans are still rightly
Speaker 6: furious that we started a war with Iran and made,
Speaker 6: you know, harm them in the process. So we could
Speaker 6: see more discussion about whether the Trump administration is going
Speaker 6: to pull US troops out of Europe to punish countries
Speaker 6: like Spain that opposed the war. Remember, like at some
Speaker 6: point Pete Hegseth was floating that We're going to like
Speaker 6: pull troops out of Poland than Trump heard about it,
Speaker 6: he got mad.
Speaker 2: So it's like been all over Rubio that too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Ruby apparently spiked it as well, and like kind
Speaker 6: of the best, Like you know, there's competing world views
Speaker 6: out there. There's like that it's time to move on
Speaker 6: from America worldview that you're hearing from Mark Karney in Canada,
Speaker 6: and then Mark Ruta, the NATO Secretary General, is more
Speaker 6: of the ass kisser, like keep Trump on side, Skuy.
Speaker 6: So the other thing Trump loves to do with these
Speaker 6: NATO summits is browbeat these countries about defense spending. He's
Speaker 6: now demanding that countries spend five percent of GDP on
Speaker 6: defense by twenty thirty five. Now, before him, Obama, Bush
Speaker 6: others were critical of NATO countries for not spending enough,
Speaker 6: but they wanted to get to like two percent.
Speaker 3: Ten is five percent is absurd.
Speaker 6: That said, it's like a fake target because three point
Speaker 6: five of the five percent goes to military spending, and
Speaker 6: then one point five percent is defined his security related
Speaker 6: investments and that could mean like roads, right, yes, cybersecurity.
Speaker 2: So for the record, I wanted to talk about NATO.
Speaker 2: I was pumped and in part because so last year
Speaker 2: this was the summit where Mark Ruta, who's the Secretary
Speaker 2: General of NATO, this is where he called Trump daddy.
Speaker 2: I think it was a low moment for him. It
Speaker 2: was not great, and it came to represent like the
Speaker 2: root to strategy, which is you just suck up to
Speaker 2: him in public and you do your best to mitigate
Speaker 2: the damage in private. But in the year since that summit,
Speaker 2: you have Trump threatening tariffs over Greenland, you have the
Speaker 2: war in Iran, the administration has proposed and actually enacted
Speaker 2: some triop drawdowns, are threatening more. And then six months
Speaker 2: ago that's when Mark Karney gives this speech laying out
Speaker 2: I think for the first time in a really I
Speaker 2: think in a way that felt like a legitimate alternative.
Speaker 2: All Right, the sucking up approach while trying in private
Speaker 2: to persuade him doesn't seem to be working. There was
Speaker 2: a really deeply reported story in the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 2: about the European view of America, and there was a
Speaker 2: lot in there, but the experience of Europeans coming to
Speaker 2: the US beseeching Trump to defend Ukraine, him seeming to agree,
Speaker 2: and then an hour long conversation with Putin wipes the
Speaker 2: fucking thing clean and so we're at this moment where
Speaker 2: there does seem to be a real possibility of Europe
Speaker 2: actually viewing this is not a Trump problem but an
Speaker 2: America problem.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's really it's troublely look the on the Ukraine piece,
Speaker 6: I mean, Trump is going to meet with Zelenski. We'll
Speaker 6: see what comes out of that. It' Zelenski's wish list
Speaker 6: is like, I want to be able to manufacture patriot
Speaker 6: missile interceptors in my country.
Speaker 3: Feels like a win win.
Speaker 6: The Ukrainians have done all this really important stuff with
Speaker 6: drone technology and using that to using drones intercept drones,
Speaker 6: so you're not spending like three million dollars on an
Speaker 6: interceptor missile to take down a thirty thousand dollars shit
Speaker 6: head drone. So there's the areas of coordination there, like
Speaker 6: hopefully Trumble just do no harm when it comes to Zelensky,
Speaker 6: not pull back support intelligence support for them. Hopefully we'll
Speaker 6: like recommit to a serious peace process and stop whatever
Speaker 6: this joke is that's being led by Steve Wikoff and
Speaker 6: Jared Kushner and the Russian oligarch of the day that's
Speaker 6: seemingly just about deal making for those guys. There's also
Speaker 6: this whole like subplot a NATO about Turkey and whether
Speaker 6: Airdwan is a reliable partner, whether the US should sell
Speaker 6: Turkey F thirty five. The Israelis really don't want that
Speaker 6: to happen. And then there's just like the petty shit
Speaker 6: like cure. Starmer and Trump don't really get along. As
Speaker 6: Starmer's last NATO Georgia Maloney and Trump the Italian leader
Speaker 6: prime minister. There was a back and forth where he
Speaker 6: claimed she wanted a picture with him, and she was like.
Speaker 3: What the fuck are you talking about? So we'll see.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's just this could be nothing, or it
Speaker 6: could be him just picking a fight with a bunch
Speaker 6: of Euros.
Speaker 2: There's a way, which is they're just sick of it.
Speaker 2: That just seems like they're sick of it. And because
Speaker 2: the root of thing, right is, hey, guys, uh, he's
Speaker 2: demanding five percent. You can count a bridge. Just shut
Speaker 2: up and say you're doing it right.
Speaker 6: It's by twenty thirty five, it's never going to happen.
Speaker 6: He's prey long gone.
Speaker 2: Just say you're going to meet the commitment, put forward
Speaker 2: some way of proving it right like that, and then
Speaker 2: and will he wants the flattery in public, he wants
Speaker 2: the great headline, and we can slow roll it and
Speaker 2: deal with it after he's gone. But there seems to
Speaker 2: be in like a like the a shift in which
Speaker 2: they're just no longer willing to play along as much
Speaker 2: as they were before. And in the Wall Street Joeneral
Speaker 2: report there was that Europeans are also removing American tech
Speaker 2: from their systems. They're urging civil servants to no longer
Speaker 2: use Microsoft teams or office. They're spending hundreds of billions
Speaker 2: of dollars to try to boost Europe's own private space firms,
Speaker 2: AI companies, and data centers. And it seems like I
Speaker 2: was interested in this big part because it seems as
Speaker 2: though Trump's his bravado, his bullying, It is predicated on
Speaker 2: America being indispensable and it's too hard to shift away
Speaker 2: from US. Yeah I can. That is only true if
Speaker 2: they treat it as if it is true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, true.
Speaker 6: I mean I think they're kind of waking up to
Speaker 6: how many different ways they're reliant on the US. Like
Speaker 6: the NATO piece is obvious, Like the US is what
Speaker 6: like seventy percent of NATO, Right, if the US pulls
Speaker 6: out of that. If we refuse to honor the Article
Speaker 6: five commitment within NATO, NATO kind of falls apart. So
Speaker 6: that's been an anxiety for a while. I think they're
Speaker 6: also concerned about their reliance on like the big ticket
Speaker 6: weapons systems, Like you're seeing quotes being like, is there
Speaker 6: a kill switch in the F thirty five if we
Speaker 6: buy those? YEA, there is, I can just turn them up. Oh,
Speaker 6: I still love this country, and I hope there is.
Speaker 6: But also, like recently, we've seen this completely incoherent approach
Speaker 6: to AI models, like the Mythos model from Anthropic. One
Speaker 6: day the administration just cuts it off to any foreign partner.
Speaker 6: Then a couple of weeks later they turned it back on.
Speaker 6: And I think these European countries understand that like this
Speaker 6: tech is going to get embedded to everything they do,
Speaker 6: their economy, weapons systems, everything, and they have no AI industry,
Speaker 6: and I think they're worried about that, and they're trying
Speaker 6: to like scramble to catch up a little bit. And
Speaker 6: then I would imagine they're looking at US replacing NASA
Speaker 6: with like Elon Musk and kind of worried that their
Speaker 6: ability to launch stuff into space going forward runs through
Speaker 6: that guy, right, Like it's just.
Speaker 2: Like two mercurial people. You're relying on the US for defense.
Speaker 2: You can't trust them anymore. You're relying on Elon must
Speaker 2: to provide access to starlink. He is capricious about that.
Speaker 2: And then on the other side of it, right, and
Speaker 2: then they see Mark Karney, right, and Countada is even
Speaker 2: more dependent on the US than the Europeans are, and
Speaker 2: he's sort of charting this other path. But it's not
Speaker 2: just that if NATO would go away and then they
Speaker 2: would be in trouble, NATO would go away, and then
Speaker 2: they would have to spend not five percent, but ten percent,
Speaker 2: fifteen percent. They'd have to have a real defense, which
Speaker 2: currently we subsidize.
Speaker 6: Well, what's so funny about this is like, basically NATO
Speaker 6: exists to deter a Russian invasion and then but Trump
Speaker 6: sort of doesn't seem to care about Russia invading other countries.
Speaker 6: So why are we spending all this time browbeating European
Speaker 6: countries to increase their defense spending to five percent if
Speaker 6: he fundamentally doesn't really care about the.
Speaker 3: Existence of the organization. That's like the internal incoherence.
Speaker 6: This whole thing it's just like he feels like we're
Speaker 6: getting ripped off and he likes to yell at them,
Speaker 6: and that's become his shtick.
Speaker 2: Right, it does seem like that's the resistance, right because
Speaker 2: they they made the commitment last year. I know they
Speaker 2: all did, but almost all the countries did makea was bainerfulness, right,
Speaker 2: they didn't to get to five percent, And now this
Speaker 2: is a meeting about proving they're going to do it.
Speaker 2: And there's never a day at which they've successfully assuaged
Speaker 2: Trump and now we can get to the work of
Speaker 2: rebuilding the alliance. In the year since they made those commitments,
Speaker 2: that's when he threatened to put tariffs on because of Greenland.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and if you're the UK, I mean, like you
Speaker 6: have this demand from Trump to increased defense spending. There
Speaker 6: clearly is a need for them to improve, modernize and
Speaker 6: beef up their military. But they're also like their economy
Speaker 6: has been bumping along kind of stagnant for a decade,
Speaker 6: so they have all these pressing economic domestic concerns too,
Speaker 6: and you just get pulled between the two. And then
Speaker 6: you know, Mark, you know, Trump just sizes to bully
Speaker 6: you every once in a while and like marccartney gave
Speaker 6: a great speech in Dava was talking about this sort
Speaker 6: of post America world. I think the challenge is like, Okay,
Speaker 6: in practice, can he really cobble together this alliance of
Speaker 6: middle powers to really push back on the US and
Speaker 6: become another power center.
Speaker 3: It just remains to be seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And just every dollar is not the same dollar.
Speaker 2: It is not good for the US, and it's quite
Speaker 2: costly for Europe to have to build redundant capabilities to
Speaker 2: the United States, that is, instead of the US. I
Speaker 2: mean it is Donald Trump does not care about our
Speaker 2: national interest, but it is better for US as a
Speaker 2: country if they are buying if whatever, two percent of
Speaker 2: their spending involves purchasing a lot of our support versus
Speaker 2: four percent of their spending right being independent.
Speaker 6: Well, and that's sort of the rub in a lot
Speaker 6: of this is like when Trump is demanding they spend
Speaker 6: five percent of GDP on defense spending, most of that
Speaker 6: money is going to get shoveled overseas to US defense
Speaker 6: contractors to raytheon and stuff. And it's like a terrible
Speaker 6: economic investment for the leaders of these countries. It's not
Speaker 6: really a return on that dollar. It's not flowing through
Speaker 6: their economy. It's just going over to the US because
Speaker 6: Donald Trump wants it.
Speaker 2: So keep an eye on, you know, let's see if
Speaker 2: NATO's around. By next episode, Pod Save America has brought
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Speaker 2: Now, we also have a lot of domestic politics to
Speaker 2: get to, starting with new and terrible allegations against Ram Plattner.
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal reported at the end of May
Speaker 2: that Platner had been sexting with women who were in
Speaker 2: his wife just months before launching his campaign. Platiner then
Speaker 2: told a private meeting of anxious Democratic senators that despite
Speaker 2: the rumors, there were no other shoes to drop. Then,
Speaker 2: on June four to five, days before the primary, The
Speaker 2: New York Times published a story in which women who
Speaker 2: had dated Platner talked about a bunch of troubling incidents
Speaker 2: and dynamics. Platinir then won the primary handily. Then, on Monday,
Speaker 2: shortly before we sat down to record this, Political published
Speaker 2: a story in which one of the women in that
Speaker 2: time story, Jenny Rassikon, a Democrat, gave more details about
Speaker 2: her experiences with Platner. She said that in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: he showed up at her house drunk without being invited,
Speaker 2: went in forced her to have sex with him against
Speaker 2: her will. She told Political that she withheld those details
Speaker 2: because she did not want to be known as a
Speaker 2: rape victim. Moments after the story published, the Platiner campaign
Speaker 2: posted a response video. Here is what Platner said.
Speaker 7: I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious and false
Speaker 7: allegations against me. Any accusation of non consensual behavior is
Speaker 7: categorically false, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but
Speaker 7: mindful the political reality it will inflect. We are taking
Speaker 7: the time to reflect on the best path forward for
Speaker 7: the state that I love, the people that I love,
Speaker 7: the movement I belonged to, and the goal of defeating
Speaker 7: Susan Collins.
Speaker 2: So just so people know, if he withdraws by July thirteenth,
Speaker 2: he can be replaced on the ballot. Tommy, what was
Speaker 2: your reaction to the story.
Speaker 6: The allegations of the story are really bad and troubling.
Speaker 6: They seem credible, they're backed up by documentation, and so
Speaker 6: obviously the impact politically is not just what's in the story.
Speaker 6: It's this cumulative impact of a series of articles and
Speaker 6: allegations about him, and the feeling that he just has
Speaker 6: not been fully transparent and honest about some of the allegations.
Speaker 6: Like you mentioned, I mean, there was this meeting in
Speaker 6: Washington a while ago where these questions were put to
Speaker 6: him directly, and the answer I think sounds like it
Speaker 6: was just no. And now there's all this reporting. So
Speaker 6: I think my takeaway from that video is that he's
Speaker 6: going to drop out of the race. I think he
Speaker 6: has to drop out of the race. Like you said,
Speaker 6: if he drops by the thirteenth, the main Democratic Party
Speaker 6: will choose a replacement by July twenty seventh. I have
Speaker 6: no idea who they're going to choose. I'm very worried
Speaker 6: now about the prospect of winning the seat. If the
Speaker 6: party can get its act together, we ultimately could be
Speaker 6: in a stronger place politically than we would be with
Speaker 6: Plattner and all this baggage if these stories had come
Speaker 6: out later. I think the challenge is going to be
Speaker 6: you had all these voters who turned out and voted
Speaker 6: for Graham Plattner, despite the Reddit posts, despite the tattoos
Speaker 6: in you know, the story, and all the other scandals.
Speaker 6: They were turning out to signal that they wanted something
Speaker 6: different and that they were angry at the establishment. And
Speaker 6: I don't know who in Maine can like speak to
Speaker 6: that anger but also has been vetted by the party
Speaker 6: and has been through the political process, because like, look,
Speaker 6: as much as Janet Mills's supporters deserve to be angry
Speaker 6: and deserve the I told you so, as they're saying today,
Speaker 6: the problem was that Maine voters were not supporting her.
Speaker 6: They didn't want to vote for her, and so this
Speaker 6: wasn't like some online vibes issue. It was like what
Speaker 6: the electorate was saying in the state where it matters.
Speaker 6: So I think I don't know where they go from here.
Speaker 2: And she suspended her campaign before any votes were cast, right,
Speaker 2: so there wasn't an alternative in the primary. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: has to end the campaign so that we have a
Speaker 2: chance of defeating Susan Collins.
Speaker 3: I think the story is horrible.
Speaker 2: I find it starting from when you interviewed him about
Speaker 2: the tattoo. He has not always been transparent about it.
Speaker 2: That has become increasingly true that his denials have just
Speaker 2: not been backed up with what came next. Even here
Speaker 2: in the story, which is deeply reported, backed up by
Speaker 2: contemporaneous evidence and previous conversations, it conforts with what he said,
Speaker 2: which is that he was drinking a lot, and the
Speaker 2: story describes him as being drunk, potentially not remembering it
Speaker 2: the next day. And so then we have a video
Speaker 2: of him categorically denying something which it doesn't seem he's
Speaker 2: really in a position to deny. So he has to
Speaker 2: withdraw to give us a chance. And what I took
Speaker 2: away from watching this video, from reading this story is
Speaker 2: it is clear that this is somebody that has not
Speaker 2: maybe even been honest with himself about what was going
Speaker 2: on in the dark phases of his life. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: that is not for us to deal with in a
Speaker 2: Senate race that will determine the control of his head.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Look, obviously a big lesson here is that vetting is
Speaker 6: really important, and some of the vetting gets done by
Speaker 6: campaigns themselves, and then ultimately it will be done by
Speaker 6: the media if the campaigns don't figure.
Speaker 3: That part out.
Speaker 6: But like, we should be clear about what kind of
Speaker 6: stuff comes up in vetting, Like the Reddit posts should
Speaker 6: come up in vetting, Like online accounts that should come
Speaker 6: up in vetting. I've never heard of a campaign like
Speaker 6: kind of calling excess to sort of suss out stories
Speaker 6: like this, right, I mean, I think what happens is
Speaker 6: campaigns have conversations with the candidate.
Speaker 3: They ask them a series of questions.
Speaker 6: If the candidate is not candid back to them, then
Speaker 6: they're in a very difficult position. And like when I
Speaker 6: interviewed Platner about his Reddit posts and the tattoo, like
Speaker 6: I was not aware of any of these allegations. None
Speaker 6: of this was public yet. Just for the record, because
Speaker 6: I would have asked. I still don't think there's evidence
Speaker 6: that he intended to get a Nazi tattoo on purpose,
Speaker 6: or that he had like Nazi leanings. In fact, I
Speaker 6: think the Reddit archive like shows the opposite. But like,
Speaker 6: like you just said, like I have come to believe,
Speaker 6: over time and over learning more information that he just
Speaker 6: wasn't being honest about when he learned that what the
Speaker 6: tattoo was or what it looked like. And I don't
Speaker 6: know if he was being honest with himself or the
Speaker 6: campaign about it. And so I think, like the question is, like,
Speaker 6: what do you do with that information? What's the lesson here?
Speaker 6: I hope it's not that we don't try to run
Speaker 6: people from outside of politics, because I think like that's
Speaker 6: a good thing. I want people who weren't just like
Speaker 6: raised in a political system to run for office. I
Speaker 6: think it's good to have new perspectives. Also, they've clearly
Speaker 6: been vetting problems within the party too. Like Eric Swallwoll,
Speaker 6: who's in Congress for a decade, there were horrifying allegations
Speaker 6: that came out about him. He was in leadership, he
Speaker 6: was like close with Pelosi, right, So like he was
Speaker 6: an establishment favorite who had some horrible allegations in his past.
Speaker 6: But yeah, I mean, like it's it's horrible, it's awful,
Speaker 6: it's really sad. A lot of people believed in him,
Speaker 6: believed in this campaign. I know they're going to feel
Speaker 6: devastated by this. A lot of peop would be really angry.
Speaker 6: There's gonna be a lot of anxiety about our ability
Speaker 6: to win this seat. And you know, hopefully that named
Speaker 6: Democrats can pick someone good to replace him quickly and
Speaker 6: get this righted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of I think people
Speaker 2: sort of doing their factional kind of points scoring about
Speaker 2: it too, and fine, people can have at it. There
Speaker 2: were people who felt like this was not a person
Speaker 2: that should have been trusted with a Senate nomination, because
Speaker 2: of the Reddit posts, because of the tattoo, that this
Speaker 2: was enough to say we should be looking in another direction.
Speaker 2: That has turned out to be true. But what has
Speaker 2: consistently been I think the way in which people talk
Speaker 2: past each other in these sort of intra party debates
Speaker 2: is you view Graham Platiner as unacceptable. Voters seem to
Speaker 2: find the establishment candidates even less acceptable. And there was
Speaker 2: there was a way to defeat Graham Platner with a
Speaker 2: viable alternative, and that wasn't presented during the race. And
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean critics as the Mcgraham Platner wasn't completely
Speaker 2: and totally justified. That doesn't mean there's anthing wrong with
Speaker 2: supporting Janet Mills. But now we have to figure out
Speaker 2: how to find that person who can represent the party
Speaker 2: in the Senate race, because the stakes remain.
Speaker 3: Control the signs.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and look, I think ultimately I just don't get
Speaker 6: the sense that Janet Mills really wanted to run. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and she was like pushed and pushed and kind of
Speaker 6: dragged into it and it came through, you know, and
Speaker 6: like she didn't seem like she wanted the campaign. I
Speaker 6: understand that there was also this insurgent candidacy happening and
Speaker 6: she just yeah, it's just the whole situation is just terrible.
Speaker 2: Even after the June fourth story, she said, I am
Speaker 2: still technically on the ballot, but didn't reactivate the campaign.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's a terrible situation and the story
Speaker 2: is horrible. And my thoughts go to, like, think of
Speaker 2: that person who finally felt like they didn't get their
Speaker 2: story out the first time the story ran, they felt
Speaker 2: they had to come forward and tell it an even
Speaker 2: more gruesome detail. And that is terrible and a brave
Speaker 2: thing to do. And I still hope we win that
Speaker 2: fucking seat.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: In other campaign news over the weekend, Michigan State Senator
Speaker 2: Mallory mcmarrow ended her primary campaign for US Senate, creating
Speaker 2: a two way race between abdul Lsied and Congressman Haley Stevens.
Speaker 2: McMorrow is seen as a rising star in the party,
Speaker 2: but she failed to gain traction in the race and
Speaker 2: had been stuck in single digits in recent polling. Stevens
Speaker 2: has the backing of Chuck Schumer, the DSCC, and Apak
Speaker 2: is positioning herself as the electable moderate to date, though
Speaker 2: she's running behind Lsaed, a progressive and former Crooked host
Speaker 2: and a friend of ours who's generating big crowds and
Speaker 2: enthusiasm by running against the establishment, supporting medicare for all
Speaker 2: and opposing military aid to Israel. Mallory was trying to
Speaker 2: position herself between Haley Stevens and Abdul. Why do you
Speaker 2: think that didn't ultimately work?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just to be clear.
Speaker 6: I also I'm biased, like Adul's a friend, he did
Speaker 6: a show on her network.
Speaker 3: I'm a donor to his campaign. So I just want
Speaker 3: to put that all out there.
Speaker 6: I think Mallory started as a long shot, like she
Speaker 6: was known online because of like viral speeches a few
Speaker 6: years ago, but I think state wide she had very
Speaker 6: low name ID and that's a real challenge.
Speaker 3: And I think you also.
Speaker 6: Had a duel as the like very clear Bernie Sanders
Speaker 6: endorsed progressive favorite, and then you had Hailey Stevens with
Speaker 6: the Schumer support, the institutional support, and the tens of
Speaker 6: millions of dollars and outside money that comes with it.
Speaker 6: I think they thirty two million has been spent on
Speaker 6: her palf so far. And then Mallory was left trying
Speaker 6: to figure out, like what is my middle path where
Speaker 6: I cobble off some votes from the more progressives by
Speaker 6: being more electable and some from the establishment, and it
Speaker 6: just it never quite worked. And then I think she
Speaker 6: made sort of what turned out to be a fatal
Speaker 6: error by attacking a duel for campaigning with this on piker,
Speaker 6: which made progressives think that she was not credible or viable.
Speaker 6: And then I think it got Abdul more attention than
Speaker 6: he had gotten in a very long time, and it
Speaker 6: just sort of like started this slow attrition in support.
Speaker 2: And so I think so I also loved her in
Speaker 2: with Haley, Yeah.
Speaker 6: And it made her seem more like the establishment, which
Speaker 6: was sort of played into the Abdual message. So I
Speaker 6: just think like she ultimately never could really find a
Speaker 6: clear lane.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There was some also, I would just say, like a
Speaker 2: fair amount of hostility towards Mallory McMorrow online and it
Speaker 2: reminded me a little about of when it was Bernie
Speaker 2: versus Elizabeth Warren toward the end of that primary, and
Speaker 2: it was like, oh, you know, we have our person,
Speaker 2: and so you're you're a threat to our candidate, and
Speaker 2: I'm sort of pretty hostile towards McMorrow. So yeah, now
Speaker 2: the question is, I think what happens to there weren't
Speaker 2: that many mcmare voters by the end, but there are
Speaker 2: still a lot of undecided people, and Haley is going
Speaker 2: to be making an electability argument against Abdul. Some of
Speaker 2: them will be around him being on the left. I
Speaker 2: think some of it will be subtly or not so
Speaker 2: subtly about him his identity.
Speaker 3: What do you think?
Speaker 6: Yeah, look, I think there's there's sort of this assumption
Speaker 6: that Mallory's votes are just going to go to Haley.
Speaker 6: I think that's wrong. Like I've heard from people who
Speaker 6: have seen a lot of polling that Mallory's votes are
Speaker 6: very much split. It's not an obvious boon to Haley. Stevens.
Speaker 6: We'll probably see another poll soon we'll have a better sense.
Speaker 6: But like the old theory of politics was the progressive
Speaker 6: lane was like thirty five maybe forty percent, you know,
Speaker 6: that was sort of the ceiling, and then the rest
Speaker 6: of the votes would go to more established kind of
Speaker 6: moderate normy them's this cycle, though, we're seeing the total
Speaker 6: rejection of the establishment on the left and on the right.
Speaker 6: We're also seeing progressive candidates all over the country In York, Colorado,
Speaker 6: lots of places do really, really well, and that would
Speaker 6: seem to benefit a duel. There are questions about Haley's
Speaker 6: abilities as a messenger. There are you know, foreign policy
Speaker 6: and support for Israel and APAC has been more of
Speaker 6: an animating issue than we've seen in a very very
Speaker 6: long time, and I think that speaks to a dual strength.
Speaker 6: So those are would be all arguments for why he
Speaker 6: could benefit or do well coming out of this move
Speaker 6: from Mallory, But we don't know. I mean, like there's
Speaker 6: a ton of money getting spent for Haley. She's a
Speaker 6: better known quantity in the state. And then, as you said,
Speaker 6: I think there will be a lot of talk about electability,
Speaker 6: fear of losing this seat, the strength of their opponent,
Speaker 6: and you're right, like a lot of that will be
Speaker 6: code for Abdul's a Muslim guy. But we'll just see
Speaker 6: what message resonates with voters. I mean, this primaries in August,
Speaker 6: I bet a lot of folks still aren't paying attention,
Speaker 6: so there is time, but it's going to be seen
Speaker 6: as like a huge proxy for a lot of the
Speaker 6: issues in the party about left right, Israel, Gaza that
Speaker 6: we'll talk about in a second.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been saying for a while now that there
Speaker 2: is this realignment on Israel, and it seems to be
Speaker 2: happening very quickly during this primary. On and Dan talked
Speaker 2: on the show Friday about Kamala Harris reaching out to
Speaker 2: Zoron and AOC and the leaders of the Uncommitted movement
Speaker 2: in Michigan as she prepares for potential twenty twenty eight run.
Speaker 2: On Wednesday, another potential twenty twenty eight candidate, Brahm Emmanuel,
Speaker 2: the son of an Israeli independence fighter and a career moderate,
Speaker 2: will give a speech in Tel Aviv essentially threatening an
Speaker 2: end to American support for Israel unless there are major changes.
Speaker 2: Here's how Abdul talked about the issue recently.
Speaker 3: This is a moral ruleshock test.
Speaker 8: Like if you can't identify the systematic murder of tens
Speaker 8: of thousands of kids as a genocide, and then you
Speaker 8: want to say that you're a fighter for human rights
Speaker 8: and dignity, that's just hypocrisy. So I just think that
Speaker 8: if you can't call the most heinous violation of human
Speaker 8: rights what it is, it's hard for me to believe
Speaker 8: that you're going to go and fight the Trump administration,
Speaker 8: or fight the pharma CEOs, or fight the health insurance
Speaker 8: CEOs who are making my life unlivable.
Speaker 2: I do think he's describing the actual dynamic of a
Speaker 2: lot of Democratic voters, that this issue has become a
Speaker 2: kind of shibble with for a willingness to take on
Speaker 2: the establishment, willing to take hard political positions. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, it's his choice of words there is interesting, right,
Speaker 2: because a Rorsha test is something in which you see
Speaker 2: what reflects your view of it point in order that
Speaker 2: and that the thing itself is a way of eliciting
Speaker 2: what your view might be. And I do think that's
Speaker 2: happening here too. It's partly why I'm interested in what
Speaker 2: rom ultimately says, because I think what I think Abdul
Speaker 2: is describing the reality of how this debate is unfolding.
Speaker 2: But that is in part because Joe Biden and Kamala
Speaker 2: Harris left such a massive hole, both in terms of
Speaker 2: the policy and any kind of larger framework or message
Speaker 2: or story about what a progressive defense of support for
Speaker 2: Israel might be.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think that for a lot of
Speaker 6: progress to voters in the in the US, especially young people,
Speaker 6: it's kind of just like a threshold question about your credibility.
Speaker 6: If you can't look at what's happening in Gaza and
Speaker 6: say that's wrong, and say we shouldn't be funding a
Speaker 6: genocide or sending more weapons systems with that with a
Speaker 6: blank check over to Israel, then they don't believe you
Speaker 6: on anything else. I think the ram speech is particularly
Speaker 6: interesting to me. I'm going to talk to him next
Speaker 6: week on patse the World because net Yaho has an
Speaker 6: election in October at the latest. I think he's going
Speaker 6: over there in part to kind of stir some shit
Speaker 6: up in signal to voters in advance of that election, like, Hey,
Speaker 6: it's time to move on from Nennyahu. This guy's bad news.
Speaker 6: He does not he's not serving interests, he's not going
Speaker 6: to help you in Washington anymore.
Speaker 3: We'll see if that works.
Speaker 6: I do think, like looking thinking back to the Biden
Speaker 6: kind of era Gaza fights, I think there was a
Speaker 6: suggestion for a while that the campus activists were performative.
Speaker 6: You know, the people out protesting like they just that
Speaker 6: was their thing of them, right, And I didn't think
Speaker 6: that was true then and I don't think it's true now.
Speaker 6: And I think that your views again on Gaza, I've
Speaker 6: just become like a proxy for this much bigger threshold
Speaker 6: question about whether people believe you. And frankly, things have
Speaker 6: gotten worse since then because we had the war with
Speaker 6: Iran and all that Trump has you know, done to
Speaker 6: make things worse there, and so you know that's where
Speaker 6: it's like all getting swept up. And so I do
Speaker 6: think this is going to continue to be a huge
Speaker 6: issue in democratic primaries in this cycle, but also in
Speaker 6: twenty eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is where I do think like the ways
Speaker 2: in which I think pro Israel Democrats or historically pro
Speaker 2: does Israel democrats have been I think really caught flat
Speaker 2: footed and surprised by the level of intensity and importance
Speaker 2: that this issue has now taken. And you have seen
Speaker 2: a lot of those Democrats shift.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 2: You had Bernie and Chris Murphy putting out, putting up
Speaker 2: resolutions about cutting off military offensive military aid to Israel,
Speaker 2: and the number of Democrats being to support that ticking
Speaker 2: up But in the absence I think of a clear
Speaker 2: articulation of a view on Israel that is reflective of
Speaker 2: concedes the substance of the I think valid moral critique
Speaker 2: of US support for Israel, especially of military sport for
Speaker 2: Israel and conduct of the war in Gaza. But that
Speaker 2: talks about a position on settlements, that talks about a
Speaker 2: position on the future of Gaza two state solution, whether
Speaker 2: or not that is still something that is plausible. What
Speaker 2: it looks like to actually fight for something like that,
Speaker 2: what it looks like to hold Israel accountable? Right, It
Speaker 2: is true what Abdul says in that video that if
Speaker 2: you can't call is what Israel has done in Gaza genocide,
Speaker 2: then you are failing this moral test. But there are
Speaker 2: no politicians right now saying something like I believe Israel's
Speaker 2: conduct to the Ward is horrific. I think that they've
Speaker 2: committed ethnic cleansing. There are genocidal members of that administration.
Speaker 2: I will leave the definition of genocide to others, but
Speaker 2: I will tell you we will make sure that the
Speaker 2: West Bank is safe for Palestinians, and we will remove
Speaker 2: settlements as part of any deal. We will hold off
Speaker 2: any funding for Israel until it has withdrawn to the borders. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: there is a full throated pro Palestinian position that acknowledges
Speaker 2: Israel's right to exist and defend itself that I think
Speaker 2: could reflect the values of duels talking about it, but
Speaker 2: right now just doesn't exist. There's no one, no one
Speaker 2: really espousing that position that I'm hearing. Yeah, I think what.
Speaker 6: Is broken recently is for a long time, they were
Speaker 6: kind of like political and policy orthodoxies that were just
Speaker 6: kind of abided by in Washington. You know, It's like
Speaker 6: there was they were seen as most politicians did not
Speaker 6: stray much beyond you know, sort of like the forty
Speaker 6: yard lines of this debate. And then when Gaza started,
Speaker 6: like a bunch of people just started asking why why
Speaker 6: are we giving to their credit? Like places like Jay
Speaker 6: Street and other groups, we're asking these questions earlier, but
Speaker 6: like people just sort of wondering, why are we giving
Speaker 6: this country three point three billion a year in military
Speaker 6: support and then a bunch of additional funding after that.
Speaker 6: Why are we partnering with bib n Yahoo to launch
Speaker 6: this crazy war with Iran when it doesn't seem to
Speaker 6: serve our interests? Why are we why is the US
Speaker 6: Congress welcome in ICC indicted war criminals like and Yahoo
Speaker 6: and other you know Israeli political and military leaders. And
Speaker 6: yet we're having this big dumb fucking fight for a
Speaker 6: month about Hassan Piker's you know, Twitter to twitch stream.
Speaker 2: Why why is a democratic administration? Two of them supporting
Speaker 2: a government in which their leader comes to the US
Speaker 2: and insults US and basically does politics for the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: And you have APAK as an organization that has become
Speaker 2: completely sort of politicized and attacking Democrats who don't view
Speaker 2: exactly to their line.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean APAK primarily has started sort of intervening in
Speaker 6: democratic primaries, attacking the more progressive candidate about issues that
Speaker 6: have nothing to do with Israel, and that's rubbing people
Speaker 6: the wrong way. And I think there's a broader sort
Speaker 6: of waking up to the fact that at this moment,
Speaker 6: the two state solution is just not realistic in any way.
Speaker 6: And I think a lot of times when politicians talk about, well,
Speaker 6: we need peace talks and two states living side by
Speaker 6: side and blah blah, like it's just a way of
Speaker 6: like punting the question and having a thing to say
Speaker 6: that they all know is complete bullshit because the West
Speaker 6: Bank is getting chopped up every single day by more
Speaker 6: settlement construction. And you know, after October seventh, neither side
Speaker 6: as any faith in the process, nor do they necessarily
Speaker 6: support a two state solution anymore.
Speaker 3: That's all true and real.
Speaker 6: I think where the like my only advice to like
Speaker 6: the more progressive candidates and people on the left is
Speaker 6: I do think one thing that has gotten lost from
Speaker 6: the conversation is like any sense of empathy and a
Speaker 6: lot of these answers about the trauma that Israeli Is
Speaker 6: felt on October seventh, or that youse in America feel
Speaker 6: and fear they feel about anti Semitism, And I think
Speaker 6: we just need that needs to be more a part
Speaker 6: of the conversation as we recalibrate these much harder policy issues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I would say acknowledging that is not a
Speaker 2: concession too, is not admitting to something right like like
Speaker 2: compassion towards Israelis is not to take anything away from
Speaker 2: no Benjamin yaw who's evil conduct of the war. Also,
Speaker 2: and as much as a two state solution seems like
Speaker 2: something you just say to get out of the question,
Speaker 2: it's not like a one state solution is very appealing,
Speaker 2: great answer either. So it really is like a you know,
Speaker 2: it's been a morass for a very very long time, Like.
Speaker 6: You have to do both, Like of course I have
Speaker 6: enormous empathy for people in Gaza, the suffering the Palestinian people,
Speaker 6: like having empathy for the Israelis who are hurt or
Speaker 6: or killed or kidnapped that day, or the people who
Speaker 6: are scared by the events of October sev Like they're
Speaker 6: not mutually exclusive.
Speaker 3: We can do both. And I think it's just it's
Speaker 3: gotten a little bit lost from the debate.
Speaker 2: And I would just also say too, like from the
Speaker 2: other side of it, like you can go back to
Speaker 2: Orbin describing the importance of a peace process in part
Speaker 2: because you would get to the point whe're at now
Speaker 2: where people would stop being willing to accept a two
Speaker 2: state solution right and start demanding a one state solution.
Speaker 2: That you know, when people criticize mont Donnie right because
Speaker 2: he gets the question like do you support the right
Speaker 2: of a Jewish.
Speaker 3: State to exist?
Speaker 2: And I support a state for equal rights to exist,
Speaker 2: those circles can be squared. There can be a state
Speaker 2: with equal rights that has a Jewish majority, But that
Speaker 2: requires a Palestinian state, which requires a US that is
Speaker 2: willing to put an extraordinary amount of pressure on Israel
Speaker 2: to remove settlements from the West Bank and make a
Speaker 2: two state solution possible. Because the alternative, which is increasingly
Speaker 2: what people are demanding, is one in which there is
Speaker 2: no longer a Jewish state in a region which there
Speaker 2: are a lot of Muslim.
Speaker 6: States, or you know, a state that is a facto
Speaker 6: apartheid state with different laws for different people, a different
Speaker 6: which is also religious unacceptable.
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Speaker 2: test it out, dream big, and wake up better. The
Speaker 2: headlines will still be there in the morning. You might
Speaker 2: as well wake up ready for them. Speaking of shifting
Speaker 2: and amorphous borders, we haven't discussed on the show, but
Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell has been absent from the Senate since he
Speaker 2: was hospitalized in mid June. His staff and others have
Speaker 2: tried to downplant. On July first, according to Dispatch audio
Speaker 2: reviewed by ABC News and other outlets, a person at
Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell's address was discovered unconscious and a cardiac arrest
Speaker 2: and EMT's performed CPR. This has led to rampant speculation
Speaker 2: that McConnell is somewhere in the twilight realm between life
Speaker 2: and death where he will be held and this is
Speaker 2: what the I think the conspiracy is, where he will
Speaker 2: be held until August third, because after August third, the
Speaker 2: November election would would before the next term, as opposed
Speaker 2: to for the remainder of McConnell's term, and Thomas Massey,
Speaker 2: who is obviously a free agent could run for the Senate,
Speaker 2: so goes to the conspiracy. Conspiracy theory, would you care
Speaker 2: to reckulously speculate.
Speaker 3: Man, I don't know.
Speaker 6: This wasn't really on my radar screen until today, but
Speaker 6: you know, then I'm seeing there was a reporter named
Speaker 6: Desiree Townsend who was quote tweeting Laura Lumer. So Laura Lumer,
Speaker 6: for folks who don't know, is this crazy far right
Speaker 6: activist who back in the day once chained herself to
Speaker 6: the offices of the Twitter building in.
Speaker 3: New York because they like can't like they got.
Speaker 6: Rid of her account or something or I don't know,
Speaker 6: I think a gay guy was there, Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 6: So she was like a fringe lyntic. But now she
Speaker 6: is very close to Donald Trump. There's all these reports
Speaker 6: about how she'll walk into the Oval office with a
Speaker 6: list of names of administration officials and get them all fired,
Speaker 6: including like high level people. I think she got like
Speaker 6: the head of the NSA fire. Right, So Laura Lumer
Speaker 6: is someone who has a lot of access at the
Speaker 6: White House. She tweeted a couple hours ago. Today, high
Speaker 6: level source close to the White House tells me Mitch
Speaker 6: McConnell is officially brain dead. He's not coming back.
Speaker 3: Now. That is obviously crass phrasing.
Speaker 6: But I and I don't normally believe her, but I
Speaker 6: do believe that someone close to the White House would
Speaker 6: tell her that. And then a journalist who apparently had
Speaker 6: like reported out or broke the story of Mitch McConnell's
Speaker 6: initial cardiac issues confirmed what she said. So there's just
Speaker 6: all this churn and it's not coming from like the
Speaker 6: kind of resistance left. It's coming from the far right
Speaker 6: spaces about McConnell's health, and there's just no transparency. And
Speaker 6: then his wife is in China for some reason.
Speaker 2: She was on a trip very soon after this had happened,
Speaker 2: which was a little bit strange. So yeah, but I
Speaker 2: will say, as far as ways for Mitch McConnell go
Speaker 2: out holding on to power, even even in the face
Speaker 2: of grim death, even in the face of the ultimate
Speaker 2: end itself, as he shuffles off this mortal coil, it's
Speaker 2: the way to do it.
Speaker 3: It's it's how it is.
Speaker 2: It is how he'd want to go. He'd want to
Speaker 2: go in some sort of nefarious plot in which he
Speaker 2: has kept alive to fuck Thomas Mass. I think that's
Speaker 2: exactly what he would want. And as much as I
Speaker 2: I don't approve of it, I approve of it. He died,
Speaker 2: He died with his boots on. Yeah, we don't know
Speaker 2: is the end.
Speaker 3: We don't know. We don't know if you're live or dead.
Speaker 2: Can't tell you something. When I worked for Hillary Clinton, Uh,
Speaker 2: when speaking of the issue we're previously talking about, Ario
Speaker 2: Charon had fallen into a comma. Remember he was a
Speaker 2: prime minister, is very a hawkish prime minister of Israel.
Speaker 2: He fell into a coma and I had to write
Speaker 2: this statement announcing that he had passed because we thought
Speaker 2: he was going to die at any moment, and it
Speaker 2: was going to be a statement from Bill and Hillary
Speaker 2: Clinton together and we went back and forth, and then
Speaker 2: it went up went over to the to Bill clint
Speaker 2: In office, and it came back and the line of it,
Speaker 2: the last line of it said, and Ario Scharon died
Speaker 2: with his boots on, And not a phrase I would
Speaker 2: have used. That is just what he wanted to because he
Speaker 2: was still serving as in a when he fell into
Speaker 2: the koma. He was working and then Ario Charon was
Speaker 2: in a coma for weeks, months, maybe longer. Was it year?
Speaker 2: He was in a coma for a very very long time,
Speaker 2: and we would have this internal debate being like, how
Speaker 2: long after you've fallen into a coma, are you no
Speaker 2: longer dying with your boots on?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what I'm saying, do you just leave the boots
Speaker 3: on the whole time?
Speaker 2: Because like, he didn't die with his boots on, because
Speaker 2: that was he may have fell down, he got into
Speaker 2: a coma with his boots on. But we can't keep
Speaker 2: this sentence and this was weeks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you'll probably be more comfortable with the boots off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the boots are off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his boots are the boots are off walking.
Speaker 2: Uh, speaking of being old, America turned to hundred fifty
Speaker 2: this week and Trump got to hold his big Freedom
Speaker 2: to fifty rally, the culmination of months of meticulous planning. Uh.
Speaker 2: There was dangerous heat, lightning, pandemonium, enough smoke to cause
Speaker 2: a Code red air quality alert. And then on the
Speaker 2: morning of the fourth of July, a white nationalist group
Speaker 2: called Patriot Front, featuring around four hundred masked men carrying
Speaker 2: Confederate flags and chanting Reclaim America, march to the Capitol
Speaker 2: good news. They decided to be climate contest and take
Speaker 2: public transit bad news. These Uber mentioned should have taken
Speaker 2: Uber because the master rays couldn't master the metro. Here's
Speaker 2: how it went. Given them minute crying, get out at.
Speaker 9: You the point there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a great photo circulating of these guys in
Speaker 2: their masks on the train and this woman just sitting
Speaker 2: there like, what the fuck is going on here?
Speaker 3: So these guys that they couldn't figure out how to
Speaker 3: use the metro.
Speaker 2: I think that they were trying to use One person
Speaker 2: was trying to swipe them in. But I wonder if
Speaker 2: they got a bit flummixed by the fact that you
Speaker 2: have to I think tap in and tap out. I
Speaker 2: don't know if that's still the case in DC. I
Speaker 2: believe it is. I think that's must have been confused
Speaker 2: by the tap in tap out. That's the situation. Uh
Speaker 2: So that was Trump's July fourth, a fireworks display that
Speaker 2: seemed like the Capitol was being nuked and that filled
Speaker 2: the entire region with gave a pretty uninspired speech. A
Speaker 2: lot of the there was a lot of people fishing
Speaker 2: out to trite us from the sad reflecting pool, which
Speaker 2: has I think been through enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Really, and I think that closes the chapter on the
Speaker 2: two and fiftieth birthday America deserves for putting this man
Speaker 2: in charge.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was just the whole thing was just such
Speaker 6: a sloppy mess and a bummer. Yeah, you have people
Speaker 6: passing out, you got like, I mean again, Trump couldn't
Speaker 6: have predicted the weather. It's not his fault that it
Speaker 6: was one hundred and five degrees, but what is dangerously
Speaker 6: hot outside.
Speaker 3: The thing you do is you cancel your speech.
Speaker 6: Yes, you don't have your supporters line up for hours
Speaker 6: and hours and hours, and then you don't put secret
Speaker 6: Service in the situation where they're clearing out the National
Speaker 6: Mall because of dangerous thunder and lightning and the supporters
Speaker 6: are like accusing them of, you know, some sort of
Speaker 6: conspiracy theory to steal.
Speaker 3: From his big day.
Speaker 6: And the whole thing was just selfish and stupid and
Speaker 6: sloppy and half assed and it could have been really cool,
Speaker 6: and it's just a bummer it is now.
Speaker 2: Various Democrats had their own July fourth counter programming, including
Speaker 2: Zaron Mamdani, who gave a great speech just before the
Speaker 2: holiday that caused a bunch of conservatives to lose their mind.
Speaker 2: Here's a few moments from the speech which Mamdani delivered
Speaker 2: from Adesty's by George Washington, and with naturalized US citizens
Speaker 2: all around him.
Speaker 9: Ours is a nation working each day towards the perfection
Speaker 9: in which it was conceived, a nation striving each day
Speaker 9: to better itself. Therein lies the work of America, the striving,
Speaker 9: the bettering, the reaching towards perfection. What a privilege each
Speaker 9: of us has to live in a nation that every
Speaker 9: one of its inhabitants can shape. What a responsibility each
Speaker 9: of us possesses to prove ourselves worthy of all those
Speaker 9: who came before. What power each of us holds to
Speaker 9: bring America ever closer to the greatness so many have
Speaker 9: seen when they looked upon these shores. The greatness for
Speaker 9: two hundred and fifty years has been America.
Speaker 3: What a commy fuck.
Speaker 2: So I saw the reaction before I saw the speech.
Speaker 3: What did you think.
Speaker 6: You're like, oh, God, what do you say? And you
Speaker 6: watch it and you're like, oh, that's incredibly patriotic. It
Speaker 6: was like it was a very Obama message. To no
Speaker 6: surprise that I liked it, Like being patriotic and optimistic
Speaker 6: talking about America's.
Speaker 3: Flaws, but in a hopeful way.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's a very it's a tough needle to
Speaker 6: thread for a politician, especially if you're brown or black.
Speaker 6: And you saw it in the reaction where you had
Speaker 6: all these people accusing Zora Mandani of attacking his country
Speaker 6: or you know, being critical of it. It's like, guys,
Speaker 6: Trump literally says we were a dead country until I
Speaker 6: came back. You know, his view of America is unless
Speaker 6: he's in charge, it's dead, it's irredeemable, it's American carnage.
Speaker 6: We're making America great again.
Speaker 3: So it's just like this very.
Speaker 6: Frustrating, endless, stupid conversation about what it means to be patriotic.
Speaker 6: But I think, like I thought, it was a great speech.
Speaker 6: It was interesting that he decided to step up and
Speaker 6: do it because they had to know that this was
Speaker 6: going to be the reaction. But I imagine that it
Speaker 6: was just very important to him in this moment where
Speaker 6: Trump is trying to repeal birthright citizenship and all these
Speaker 6: kind of like pillars of what makes us a country
Speaker 6: that is great, that he wanted to be like a
Speaker 6: to voice the alternative view.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I saw I was like, oh, that's so interesting.
Speaker 2: He makes interesting. He's going to do something. He's going
Speaker 2: to make a news we're news a news making speech
Speaker 2: around July fourth, and he's doing it because the podium
Speaker 2: is open. When the podium he's taking it right, like
Speaker 2: it's just it's open exactly, And I thought I was
Speaker 2: like there was a bill ackman, uh, And a bunch
Speaker 2: of people were saying, oh, he's even sitting at the
Speaker 2: desk wrong, right, that yeah, because because the desk has
Speaker 2: draw drawers on both sides, and so they saw him
Speaker 2: sitting on the side where and they said, oh, this
Speaker 2: dummy doesn't have to sit at a desk. And it
Speaker 2: really captured to me, like just the the US, first
Speaker 2: of all, the assumption that everyone but them is stupid, right,
Speaker 2: and that there were so many conservatives jumping in to
Speaker 2: say that this speech was dark and hateful, that like,
Speaker 2: how dare this person but some of them saying, how
Speaker 2: dare this immigrant who's only been a citizen for eight
Speaker 2: years criticize my country?
Speaker 3: Fuck you?
Speaker 2: But they didn't want to listen, right, because it's a
Speaker 2: beautiful and patriotic speech and he's very like, you know,
Speaker 2: you did the same thing with that speech around the
Speaker 2: Knicks winning where he's just you know what, like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna there's a moment. My job as a leader is
Speaker 2: to make the most of moments as they come, and
Speaker 2: he's just so good at that. I think it drives
Speaker 2: him a little bit crazy.
Speaker 6: Yeah, especially people like Bill Ackman, where he's making an
Speaker 6: economic argument and going right at people like Bill Ackman.
Speaker 6: I think the line was like, the powerful think America
Speaker 6: is an arena of supremacy and the rest of us
Speaker 6: should be grateful for being allowed to visit. And he
Speaker 6: said how small they are, how weak? And I saw
Speaker 6: a tweet from Elon Musk from over the last couple
Speaker 6: of days where someone was telling him that he essentially
Speaker 6: saying you should oppose universal suffrage, and Elon said, I
Speaker 6: have wised up. So we've got this trillionaire, trillionaire oligarch
Speaker 6: suddenly coming out against all of our having the right
Speaker 6: to vote. So it felt important and timely because basically
Speaker 6: he was trying to say the powerful to try to
Speaker 6: divide us, to turn us against each other, and we
Speaker 6: can't let them do that. We need to come together
Speaker 6: and like fight for the working class and acknowledge America's flaws,
Speaker 6: but then continue to talk about how to make it
Speaker 6: great and greater.
Speaker 2: So it was it was nice to hear yeah, and
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the uh, the freak out over it, especially
Speaker 2: from people that I don't think they consumed it. I
Speaker 2: don't think. I think they just started going at it
Speaker 2: and assumed it was something that they wouldn't like, and
Speaker 2: like Fox News calls was you know, a dark and
Speaker 2: anti American, unpatriotic and have autic eyes. It's just a
Speaker 2: sort of a slop for the audience that you know
Speaker 2: won't see it either.
Speaker 3: Exactly, but not us.
Speaker 2: This is a slot for people who read the articles
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Speaker 2: thank you, and that's our show. Thanks for joining Dan
Speaker 2: and Alex Wagner. We'll back with a new episode on Friday.
Speaker 2: See then.
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