Protests Rain on Trump's Parade
01:27:37 Share

Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. If only Congress worked like SimpliSafe. Smart, proactive, and able to take action before things fall apart. With AI-powered cameras and real monitoring agents who step in the moment something suspicious happens, SimpliSafe is redefining what home security looks like.

That's why John Lovett installed it himself. You bet I did. And really easy to do. Works so great. App's great. Easy to use. Completely recommend it. The customer service and support is very reliable. Just works.

Most security systems only take action after someone breaks in. That's too late. SimpliSafe's new ActiveGuard outdoor protection helps stop break-ins before they happen. If someone's lurking, agents talk to them in real time, turn on spotlights, and can call the police proactively to turn crime before it starts. SimpliSafe is named Best Home Security System of 2025 by CNET and trusted by over 4 million Americans. Monitoring plans start around $1 a day. No contracts, no hidden fees, 60-day money-back guarantee. Visit simplisafe.com to claim 50% off a new system.

with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.

Springs here. Flowers are blooming. Birds are singing. And allergies? Yeah, they're back too. Sneezing. Watery eyes. When they hit, you need a tissue fast. That's where Kleenex Ultra Soft Tissues comes in. Whether you're at home or on the go, Kleenex Ultra Soft Tissues have you covered. Allergist-approved Kleenex Ultra Soft Tissues are gentle on your eyes and nose, so you can power through allergy season without missing a beat.

Because while allergies are unpredictable, staying prepared is easy. For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about the deranged right-wing reaction to the political assassinations in Minnesota, the gigantic No Kings protests, and Trump's not-so-gigantic military parade, the president directing ICE to focus their raids on blue cities, and the latest grift from the first family, a shitty gold phone that's probably made in China.

Then later you'll hear my interview with Maryland Governor Wes Moore about his reaction to the latest news, the Democratic Party's future, and his own. But let's start with Israel's preemptive war against Iran, a war that Bibi Netanyahu very much wants America to join, and Trump says, quote,

Israel's surprise attack has not only targeted Iran's nuclear infrastructure, but the regime itself. Missile and drone attacks have so far left more than 200 Iranians dead, including at least nine nuclear scientists, the chief of staff of Iran's military, and the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iranian retaliatory strikes have so far killed more than 20 Israelis. The U.S. military has participated in trying to shoot down Iranian missiles. And we're moving a second carrier group to the area. But that's all we know so far about our involvement. It's also been reported that Trump refused to give Israel permission to assassinate Iranians.

Iran's supreme leader over the weekend. Nuclear talks between Iran and the U.S. were called off on Sunday. Can't imagine why. But Iran is now reportedly signaling through intermediaries that it wants to ramp down the conflict and resume negotiations with the U.S. if the U.S. will agree to stay out of the conflict.

And that's the major fault line here. You have some crusty Newt Gingrich Bush-era neocon types saying we need to push for regime change, while the isolationist MAGA crowd says we should stay the hell away from yet another war in the Middle East. Trump took a question about this at the G7 in Canada on Monday. Here's what he said. What have you heard? What have you heard from the Iranians? They'd like to talk, but they should have done that before. I had 60 days and they had 60 days and...

on the 61st day, I said, we don't have a deal. They have to make a deal. And, uh, it's painful for both parties, but I'd say Iran is not winning this war and they should talk and they should talk immediately before it's too late. Oh, a new war on Trump's watch. Uh, I thought, I thought we were supposed to have no more wars. Uh, well, yeah, they never would have happened if he was president when it comes to October 7th or, uh,

the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yeah, and now I guess Iran and Israel. Tommy, can you walk us through the intramaga debate on this? So you got it right. They're the crusty neocons. John Bolton, Trump's former national security advisor, is one of them. Fox News guys like Mark Levin, a radio host.

They want the U.S. to get directly involved in offensive military operations. I say offensive military operations because we're helping with defense. We're shooting down missiles. And the reason that's important, though, is because most of the most important Iranian nuclear infrastructure is buried deep underground or to the side of a mountain. And the conventional wisdom is that to take out that infrastructure like at Fordow, you need

a weapon called the MOP, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. This is like 30,000 pound bomb that only US planes can carry because it's so big. The B-2 self bombers, the only thing that can drop it, like the Israeli Air Force's mostly fighter jets. So that's why those neocons want the US to get involved. The folks they're fighting against are like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I think on the merits- Our best friends.

On the merits and on the politics, like I'm team Tucker, Steve, MTG here, fellas. Like, so on the merits, I think they have correctly identified when they did so before this week that this wasn't really just about weapons of mass destruction. This was a regime change war.

which has been confirmed by all these reports that Trump is vetoing plans to kill the Iranian Supreme Leader. So check for Tucker there. And then the politics, I just think that like Tucker and Bannon and MTG are way more in tune with the MAGA base than like the gang at National Review. And no one wants another war in the Middle East. And no one is going to believe another

intelligence-based, trust me, we're the experts pitch about why we need to go decapitate the leaders of another Middle Eastern country.

Yeah, there was reports today that Trump has been sending signals to get to the Iranians that, hey, as long as you do not harm U.S. service members, we are not going to get more involved. Doesn't mean they're kind of getting that to Iran to keep them from bombing U.S. bases or to go after U.S. ships. It seems like Trump gets the politics of not wanting to be dragged into this. But it's also, you know, it's first of all, it's not clear that he's

It's not clear what they're posturing versus what they're actually planning to do versus what he's saying in hindsight to justify what Israel did after the discussions last week. It's just very hard to understand what's really going on.

I feel like we have, you know, this started saying, okay, the Iranians were so, so close to getting a nuclear weapon. It could have been any day. So really, this is a preemptive strike to protect Israel from them getting a nuclear weapons. Then it was like, well, maybe they're like a couple months away, but, you know, they had, they were got to get nuclear weapons. So whatever. And now Netanyahu said in an interview with John Carl on Monday that killing the Supreme Leader would, quote, end the conflict, not escalate it. Mm-hmm.

Is regime change now like an acceptable justification for preemptive war? Because I thought like we had this like international community, international law, we got the United Nations. And I wasn't aware that if you think a regime may get nuclear weapons at some point, you can actually eliminate the entire regime. You just go bomb them. I will say also the timeline –

for how quickly Iran could get a nuclear weapon has been kind of jumping around and when it comes out in his mouth I mean the the Trump administration's timeline as articulated by Tulsi Gabbard was that it would take a year for Ron to get a nuclear weapon There's a bunch of different phases of this There's the enrichment phase where you have to enrich enough uranium to get it to weapons grade and then you weaponize it and then you need a delivery mechanism so it's a little bit technical and wonky but

I don't think this was like a this weekend problem. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's it's yes the the like how close they are to it versus what is the actual rationale for doing this when Netanyahu says Often their goal is to talk while continuing to develop their program no matter what so is this because they were imminently on the break of getting a nuclear weapon or is it because they saw an opportunity to degrade Iran's capability and took it and are using ad hoc justifications and

Yeah, but to your point, I mean, like the idea that killing the Supreme Leader changes everything or like fixes the problem is crazy. There's not some pro-Western, pro-Israel opposition group sitting in Iran waiting to march towards Tehran and announce their commitment to democracy and pluralism.

Like that's just not what's going to happen here. You kill the Supreme leader. Guess what happens? They replace the Supreme leader. And that replacement decision is made by a bunch of hardline clerics and IRGC and the political elites. And you get someone who is basically the same, or maybe the IRGC stages a coup and they take power. And I think,

Recent history suggests that the guys with the guns end up in charge. And so that's why Tucker was saying on his show, or Tucker wrote this like kind of op-ed length screed on Twitter where he said, so why is Mark Levin once again hyperventilating about weapons of mass destruction to distract you from the real goal, which is regime change, young Americans heading back to the Middle East to topple yet another government. He also said that a war with Iran would amount to a profound betrayal of Trump supporters. It would end his presidency. I really think like Tucker's making some good points here.

I noticed someone retweeting a video of Bibi Netanyahu in 2002 telling America, quote, if you take out Saddam, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. Do we think that a new regime in Iran will have enormous positive reverberations on the region? Worked great in Iraq, worked great in Libya. What could possibly go wrong? It's really worth looking.

looking up Netanyahu's testimony before Congress where he was advocating for the invasion of Iraq. Oh yeah, that's what that was. He could not have been more wrong. What's also just sort of confusing is, okay, the rationale is to

is based around degrading the nuclear capability, then why are you going after state television? Now, you can make an argument, I'm sure they would, that that's a mouthpiece for a dictatorial, murderous, terrorist regime. But it's not a means to degrade their nuclear capability. So what is this going to... Because on the other side of it, it's, oh, this stops the second they stop having a nuclear...

But that has nothing to do with having a nuclear program. I mean, is there an example in the Middle East in recent history of a nation where... It's coming from this. Of a nation where there was an oppressive regime like there is in Iran and the regime fell. It was either ousted or fell on its own like, you know, Assad. And it was replaced by some stable government. I mean, the only example right now could possibly be Syria with the guys who just took over who are former ISIS...

Al Qaeda guys, but time will tell. But it's really been fascinating, not only watching the Intramagga debate, but also the attempts by the White House to spin it both ways. You know what I mean? It was Trump sincerely trying to have Steve Witkoff do these talks with the Iranians and cut a nuclear deal, or was this whole thing subterfuge the whole time and it was all in bad faith? Either way, if you're Iran, what is going to bring you to the table now?

that Donald Trump was too weak to control Netanyahu and prevent him from bombing you, or that he was lying to you all along and the talks were a ruse to somehow facilitate this Israeli bombing campaign. Yeah. And then on Trump's domestic politics, right? He wants to be on the side of the Tom Cottons of the world who are all cheering Israel on. He wants to be seen as the ally Israel needs to those kind of pro-war, pro-Israel hawks, while at the same time signaling that he doesn't want to be more involved, that he's not interested in the U.S.,

becoming kind of an offensive participant in this for the kind of more dovish isolationist parts of his party. Trump wants to be for what's happening. Whatever, you know, he's always like, this thing goes south. We're going to hear from him that he tried to stop this. And he told Bibi that this was a horrible idea. And why is Netanyahu, he'll turn on Bibi so fast if this goes south. And if it goes well, then it's...

You know, this he'll probably admit that it was that they lied all along, that they didn't really want to deal with. This was a whole thing to like get. You know, he's just he's just going to be for whatever's popular. That's like that's his whole foreign policy. Yeah. I mean, Trump basically attacked Netanyahu after October 7th and like was just talking shit about them in the immediate wake of this horrific incident.

uh existential attack on Israel he was like God never would have happened he blamed Netanyahu for failing to prevent it all things that are true but to your point like he will turn on him in a second if his operation goes south and remember his problem with Gaza was not the the fact that uh so many civilians were dying it's that like uh it's too public they gotta just they gotta Netanyahu's gotta finish it and you gotta keep it keep it behind keep it behind closed doors I don't want to see so much of it right I don't care about the people

This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you need to promote and get paid for your services in one platform, create a professional website to showcase your offerings, and attract clients.

Thank you.

Squarespace email campaigns offers built-in tools to help you connect with clients, market your services, and expand your business. Utilize email automations to promote engagement, nurture leads, and save time. Seamlessly incorporate your offerings into eye-catching, ready-made templates designed to boost bookings and sales.

Schedule emails to reach your audience at optimal times, keeping your business top of mind and driving long-term growth. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash crooked to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash crooked.

The Cricut store has a bunch of great new merch, including a couple of fresh designs for the classic Friend of the Ponte and a shirt with an eagle on it. Eagles are cool. We're not letting gun nuts co-op them. This merch drop is part of a big upgrade at the Cricut store. The site got a makeover and so did the merch itself. All Cricut merch is now made from a higher quality, better materials, updated fits,

We really wanted to make sure that when you buy something from the Crooked store that you know you're getting like a great t-shirt that you'll want to wear. Even if, you know, you may like the design, but you want to be able to trust that when the short comes, you'll be really happy with it. And that's what the team has been doing to make sure everything that we make is something that you'll be happy that you bought. So go check out the Crooked store if you haven't gone in a while. There's a bunch of great designs. We have an incredible design team making really cool stuff. And it's on some really great sweatshirts and t-shirts. So go to crooked.com slash store to check it out.

All right. Big story in this country over the weekend was the assassination of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman, a former speaker of the Minnesota House, along with her husband by a man named Vance Bolter, who arrived at their front door in the middle of the night dressed as a police officer. Bolter had just done the same thing at the nearby home of State Senator John Hoffman and his wife.

both of whom miraculously survived the shooting. The killer also had a notebook in his car listing more than 45 other potential targets, all of whom were Democrats, including Governor Tim Walz and Senator Tina Smith. There were also Democratic politicians in other states, other members of Congress, other governors, abortion providers. There were also papers in his car that suggest he may have been planning to target one of the No Kings protests on Saturday.

Police finally apprehended Bolter on Sunday, but not before a 24-hour period where Republican senators and Trump influencers tried to spread the completely fabricated story that the killer was a left-wing extremist who targeted Democrats for voting against the party on immigration. Mike Chernovich and others even suggested that Tim Walz might have, quote, ordered the hit. Tim Walz ordered the hit himself. Sick stuff.

What did you guys make of the reaction to this tragedy and the tragedy itself?

So there's an unrelated story about Elon Musk and Doge and about how they came to start saying that 40% of calls to Social Security were scammers. It was just made up. It was just made up, but it was useful. And so there's this consternation inside of the Social Security Administration. The staff want to put out a statement saying it's not true. Katie Miller, who now works for Elon Musk but was then at the White House, picks up the phone, calls Social Security and says, the number is 40%. Don't contradict Elon. Don't contradict the president.

If there is information that does not comport with their perfect, comfortable expectations, worldview that doesn't help their political project, it is dismissed. That is true for every kind of policy question. That is true for every political debate. And it is even true in the middle of an unfolding assassination plot that is taking place in real time before this guy is even caught, right? Somebody I went to college with, they were on the list.

And they get woken up in the middle of the night saying, you got to get out of your house. You got to get out. It's not safe, right? Like these are real, this is unfolding. It is really happening. And it's a real event affecting real people. But because this exists online and it is immediately a political project, they go right to what is useful. What helps me in this moment, right? Even if it is a lie, even if it is disgusting, even if genuine lives are at risk in the moment when they're doing it. Yeah, I...

I watched it unfold on Twitter. And at first I was like, you know what? Mike Chernovich, Pizzagate guy. Worst of the worst. Alex Jones. I was like, do we really need to make a big deal of these crazies doing what they always do, which is spread lies and garbage and filth? Then you see Mike Lee, senator from Utah. What happened to that guy? Who is fucking crazy. But this is maybe some of the worst shit that he's pushed around. He still has a pinned tweet about

up on his Twitter feed saying that like, oh, nightmare on Wall Street and a picture of the shooter. And also like this is Marxism is a mental illness. And this was Marxism. This is what happens when Marxists don't get their way. There were three different tweets from him. Bernie Moreno, senator from Ohio, also said that it was left wing extremists that caused this. Elon Musk said,

Elon Musk said it as well, that it's left-wing extremism. I mean, there's this whole thing that happens now when there's political violence in this country where everyone rushes, and it's very sad. We all rush to see like, okay, whose side was the person on? Is it a left-wing person? Is it a right-wing person? And then what happens is if it's not your side, then it's mental illness, right? The person was just mentally ill. And if it's the other side, then it's, oh, see? Yeah.

And like that's sad and that's like awful that we got to that point. But for everyone like tweeting that shit, Moreno, Mike Lee, all the rest of them,

What you are doing is just making life more dangerous for elected officials and people in politics by tweeting that. You're just doing it. You're just making stuff more dangerous. And like, there is no reason to do it. There's no reason to start lying. There's no reason to jump to conclusions before the police conduct an investigation. There's just no reason to do that. Yeah, my general expectations for political decency are ridiculous.

rock bottom. But remember after Trump was shot in Butler, there's a lot of these reports about how he's more spiritual now. It changed him in some way, right? I mean, obviously it does bullshit at the time, but you would look getting shot. You would think would, would trigger in him like a modicum of empathy when he hears about an incident like this. And he would just maybe lob in a call to Tim Walls.

and or the families of the victims and just say something decent but instead he was asked if he was going to call tim wallace and he was like nope he's a terrible governor incompetent person because maybe i'll call him you know it's like nothing has changed in this man and the the the conspiracy theory stuff from mike lee and the worst people on twitter it just it like makes you completely hopeless about the information environment on social media in the wake of

any tragedy, any real problem, like any crisis. - Yeah. - We're just cooked. - It also used to be that when they throw conspiracies, we were pretty sure that they were wrong, that they were wrong, right? But there was like, you know, maybe a 2% chance that someone could possibly believe the conspiracy was right.

This is so dumb, the shit that they were putting out there. This makes sense. Oh, they Tim Walls ordered an assassination because this person voted against Tim Walls on, you know, making sure that undocumented immigrants do not get Medicaid. Right. That was that's the theory.

And then the list is out and it's like, oh, yeah, Keith Ellison, the attorney general, and also Tim Walz and a U.S. senator and a bunch of other Democratic politicians in other states were also on the list, like had nothing to do with that vote. So that doesn't match up at all. But none of this stuff changes the conspiracy. They just they just to your point about the cameo, they just go forward. Well, that the thing is, all the facts are showing like definitively.

definitively that they're wrong and they just keep going. Well, so Mike Lee posts something more sensible on his official account, but this post stays up. I think he pinned it for a while, even after it was like, he doesn't delete it. He doesn't apologize. Doesn't take it back. Amy Klobuchar, who is friends with Melissa Hortman told MSNBC that she was going to confront Mike Lee directly about it. And I hope she does. Because like she should,

You know, it's all fun and games on the Internet. People should make floor speeches. They should go down to the Senate floor and yell at Mike Lee. I think they already have started doing that. Great. Tina Smith apparently confronted Mike Lee and was asked about her talk with him. And she said, I think that honestly he seems a little surprised to be confronted.

Awesome. Great. Good for you, Tina Smith. I love that. These people have to defend their bullshit live and in person on television. You hide behind your Twitter account and you send out your bullshit tweets and then you just slink away as everyone starts believing it. No, you need to defend this in front of an audience. It's just...

The Trump assassination attempt, the arson attack on Josh Shapiro, the shooting at the D.C. Jewish Museum, the firebombing of people in Colorado, January 6th, Gabby Gifford, Steve Scalise. Like there's just a lot of this and there is so little to protect politicians. I mean, the president gets Secret Service, but like Mitt Romney, remember that exit interview he did?

He talked about one of the reasons he was quitting politics was he was worried about attacks from, I mean, I think he specifically named like Trump super fans on him or his family. And he talked about the massive cost of security and like, he's a rich guy. He can afford it. But like a state representative in Minnesota, they've got no resources. Well, there's no way to protect yourself. You're not doing this job. Like you don't, you're not gonna be able to protect yourself. And also what,

What upside is there for people to get into politics if a Minnesota state rep is getting targeted? That's what really worries me. I mean, the Times did a story on just, you know, elected officials all across the country being very scared about this based on this episode of political violence and all the other ones that you just mentioned. And, you know, one Ohio state senator posted on Facebook, honestly, I'm struggling with this news. I'm worried for my family. I worry I'm putting them in harm's way by being in office. It's a terrible feeling. Like that's just, that is,

Yeah, it's awful. Part of this too is, so in the sort of whatever, the uncovered list that this person had, there's also a bunch of like people finder websites for finding people's home addresses. And, you know, we...

uh, for a long time, we just, there was just an assumption that the pub, the homes of the addresses of public officials would one way or another be public, whether it's on a filing document or their voter registration, or simply just through, um, the fact that so much of this information is already public, but like that isn't like, we do not have to accept that. Like, yeah, it's hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube, but we should have privacy laws to protect, uh,

for people. That's a small step that is hard to make work, but it could at least help over the long run to kind of make it possible to get this information off of the internet. We need a national privacy law. That feels like a hard thing to do, but like we have to make it harder for this kind of home, like for where people live needs to be harder to get at. And that's just like

making people, now part of the problem there, right, is like there's some amount of public accountability for where people live, right? They have to live in the district. It matters if, you know, when, what's his name, when Dr. Oz was campaigning and it was like, what's his actual address? This big home, is it that big home? Like it's a part of politics, but like, there's just like compromises that need to happen there. The other part of this too is, you know, we, as you were saying this, John, that like we,

you know, you kind of in this bleak moment, it's a cycle. All right. What were the motivations? Were they good? Were they, were they ones we were on our side or their side? Right. And it's like, we don't step back and look at the kind of underlying conditions that would lead somebody regardless of their ideology. The ideology is just a, it's just an ultimately a rationale for whatever kind of active kind of political violence, which is rooted in whatever feeling of powerlessness, a desire to kind of get revenge, whatever it may be. And, uh,

like social media is a part of that, right? Like we see growing support polling-wise for political violence, polling-wise for just the justification for assassinations, justifications for the killing of the CEO of United Healthcare. I was out there over the weekend, a lot of people with very ironic Luigi signs, right? And like that all contributes to

a sense that we live in a violent society where violence is part of politics, where the other side may use it, so you should use it before they do. And in sort of a broad way, right, it leads people to feel both powerless and radicalized, but also in acute ways, right? These people that pop up, like they are being radicalized in acute ways by these same kinds of mechanisms. And I just like, we need to be honest about that. We need to think about that. We need to figure out ways for leaders

to kind of attack that culturally and also like the underlying problem of what happens to people when they radicalize online. Yeah. And that's why you, that's why you got to condemn violence and extrajudicial violence where, and political violence, wherever it happens, whoever commits it, whoever it's against. And doing so does not like,

stop that violence from happening, but not doing so creates an environment where it starts to be a little more likely and maybe someone else thinks it's okay and who's not doing well. And it's just that you just got to condemn it when it happens. And politicians and leaders in both parties need to do that.

A little gun control would be good, too. Yeah. A little more gun control. The other thing, too, though, is, like, there's a political scientist who's an expert in political violence talked about this in the Times about how actually what might be most useful is for Democrats and Republicans to make statements together. But one big fucking problem is that Donald Trump just pardoned all the insurrectionists and sent a signal that there's a certain kind of political violence that he's a huge, huge fan of, right, and is one of the biggest stokers of political violence in our country, kind of constantly calling his enemies vermin and all the rest. And so, like, the...

the kind of it's just uh well and when trump was shot literally everyone condemned it every single democrat every republican former president's car like you know it was like it was everywhere everyone did and in this case like we can't get trump to say yeah i'm gonna call tim wallace i'm gonna i'm gonna wish him well it's it's completely very yeah

The news about the shootings broke on the day of the No Kings protests, which continued as planned, even in Minnesota, where Governor Walz tried to warn people away from participating because of the No Kings flyers found in the killer's car. Across the country, an estimated 5 million people showed up, which makes it one of the single largest protests in American history. Overwhelmingly peaceful, very few arrests. The protests were planned to coincide with Trump's military parade in Washington, D.C., which turned out to be fairly subdued and sparsely attended.

Uh, one guy in attendance told the guardian he thought Trump was politicizing the army and that the parade was quote, just kind of lame. Trump himself may have briefly fallen asleep. Uh, what'd you guys make of the no Kings events? Uh,

Well, Tommy, you were with me. Yeah, they were fun. Love it, love it. You were downtown. Went to West Hollywood so I could bring my daughter, Lizette. As we were parking, we walked up. A bunch of people jogged by, ripped and shirtless. And she kept saying, why is he nicky-nicky? Why is he nicky-nicky? I was like- We were in WeHo. Welcome to West Hollywood, honey. Had a good time in WeHo, yeah. I went downhound. You guys went hung out with the fans. We were in WeHo.

It was fun though. It was like joyful, you know, people singing songs, good speeches. I don't know. Every protest I've ever gone to is, it's a, it's a joyful affair. It's people happy to be together, especially in person, especially after COVID. I don't know. It was good. Yeah. Like we went downtown and, uh,

We were in front of City Hall. And at first, it didn't seem like it was just sort of gathered right on the steps of City Hall. But then as we were there, more and more people started coming. And there were these sort of marches coming from all directions, kind of filling the park. And then we kind of followed that. And first of all, it was interesting, right, because you saw what looked like what I was

what I would say is sort of like a women's march adjacent group of people, right? There was a lot of, there was a kind of like the no Kings kind of resistance libs. They were out in force, but there were also tons of anti-ICE pro-immigrant protests that have been sort of showing up at downtown for the last couple of days. And it all kind of blended together into what looked to me as like the most adverse protest I've ever been to in Los Angeles or ever. And yeah,

And we walked down just sort of seeing where all the different protests were going. And we ended up wandering down to the federal building where a lot of the kind of confrontations and sort of the sort of more kind of the vandalism has happened, some of the violence and kind of back and forth with the police have happened. And we went to the federal building and there were the Marines standing in front of the federal building, just fucking standing there. There was a police officer with them. And so when somebody would kind of walk to kind of press the line a little, the cop would talk to them. The Marines really didn't, at least that I saw.

But, you know, some people were shouting at the Marines angrily, some people kind of more forlornly being like, you shouldn't be here, right? You saw like everything there. But what I felt seeing them, the Marines, God, like in the same way, like the

Trump forcing the military to kind of march in front of him on his birthday, sending these fucking guys to a federal building. And you're like, why are they guarding the federal building? To protect them from the protesters. Why are the protesters there? Because they're angry about the Marines. And it just like, I just felt bad for them. - It's like a self-licking ice cream cone. - Yeah, exactly. I just felt bad for them.

The whole thing felt combustible. You just felt like, oh, this is where it's going to happen because as all these protesters that came for the main event start leaving, they will just be left behind. Some of the more kind of like the people that have been kind of fucking throwing shit and making kind of trouble over the last couple of days. And sure enough, that is what happens. And that happened as the night wore on. But like for the most part, it was incredibly moving and inspiring to be done.

I will just say, too, huge credit to our friends at Indivisible and other groups who organize these protests. That is, I mean, that is a very tough thing to organize and to pull off well. And from what I saw at our protest, there was also like a discipline involved. You know, the first speaker was like, it's going to be peaceful. We want to make sure that everyone can speak who's speaking. Also, like, turn to someone next to you who you don't know. Shake their hand. Yeah, I didn't like that part. Yeah.

Of course. Don't touch me, you sweaty, sweaty person. But I had a couple of friends. Some people go to WeHood to be touched, not Tommy. I did have a couple of friends ask me like, so what's the point of these protests? Like Trump's, you can't beat Trump again. He's already president. It's year one. And I get that, but I think like,

Building this capacity and sort of exercising the muscle right now of, you know, on a beautiful day in June, getting five million people out in the country to protest Donald Trump is going to be important in the coming years, especially if, you know, Trump continues to push us away from democracy and towards democracy.

authoritarianism because you're going to want to have this capacity. And I think it is also very valuable for people to get out of their fucking houses and offline and actually see people in real life who are also feeling the same way you do about things. Yeah, definitely. Also be nice to the, uh,

poor military guys who are deployed in California I know I really especially the active duty guys the Marines like I bet they were like what 18 to 20 they look so young the active duty guys are so young when you see them in person like the the National Guard you tend to be older they're like people with other jobs are in their 30s they're from California but they're not happy either none of them want to be on those streets it sucks for them just as much as for us like having them here in our in our city

And it just felt, you just feel how unnecessary it all was. Just like, they are there because Donald Trump doesn't give a fuck about them. They are a prop to create the illusion of whatever. And that just sort of made me feel really sad about the whole situation. But also like, you know what? Like, yeah, millions of people are showing up and it is raising the

It raises the price for what they're trying to do. Even if it is not a specific response to a specific raid, like all these people showing up, it raises the price on whether they try to do mass deportations, they go to kind of farm country, whatever they're trying to do. Speaking of the military, what'd you guys think of the parade in DC? The army turned 250 and Donald Trump decided to co-opt their birthday for his own.

He got himself a little parade. I did not like watch any of it unfold live. I saw clips on Twitter. But what did you guys think? I didn't watch one second of it. And the clips I saw, I mean, obviously they were mostly clipped by people with partisan political agendas, right? As happens on Twitter.

I don't know. It made me wonder if we all hyperventilated about it a little too much and whether the lead up was a little silly and made everyone involved look silly. And it was just a stupid parade that was a waste of time and money and whatnot. But yeah, I had the same feeling. I couldn't tell. John and I talked about this on YouTube a little bit too, but like that, that like when I actually saw it, I was like, oh my God, like, you know,

America doesn't do authoritarian North Korea-style military parades. And so even when Trump tries to do one, it ends up just looking like Veterans Day. You know, and like, you know, just there are people in a park. Some people, I think, because they're Trump supporters. Some people because there's just a thing happening. It all looked very sort of unethical.

in the end. Maybe that's also in part because the military does not want to participate in an authoritarian display of military power on behalf of our autocrat. So you end up seeing guys with fives and the tri-corner hats. It's hard to get mad about that. Hard to be sad when you see those guys. I always thought it was a wasteful, dumb thing to do. And also that, you know, the idea here is to fulfill Trump's clearly authoritarian intentions, whether it was an actual threat. His

The threat seemed lessened by the fact that the week prior, there were actual federal troops, federalized National Guardsmen and Marines on the ground here in L.A. because of protests. So that seemed like much more of a threat than the parade. Yeah. And to be honest, sort of stole the spotlight from the parade being threatening. The L.A. deployment and us kind of like living in that kind of upped my anxiety about the military parade, which ultimately I agree with you is the reverse. Yeah. It was just like, who cares?

Yeah. And I think the I think the five million people peacefully protesting also helped to like that as an outlet for people's anxiety over the parade and the fact that they smartly did not hold one in D.C. Which I think was, you know, I didn't totally get that. And I once I saw it all unfolded, it was really, really smart. It took the microphone from him. And by the way, just a lesson of protest over the last decade. We are now at the 10 year mark of fucking Trump coming down the escalator. Protests take the microphone away from Donald Trump like never.

His parade was not the big story. The protests were a much bigger story because it was more interesting, exciting and newsworthy. - Except on Fox News. - Except on Fox. - Which did not cut to the protests any time in their three hour broadcasts. - Protests, they weren't talking about Iran and Israel most of that time. They weren't talking about the political assassinations in Minnesota. It was just like the most important thing in the world right now is this fucking parade. - Look at the treads on that tank. It was all that kind of crap. - It's so wild. - Ridiculous. - They're embarrassing.

Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Summers here and seasonal businesses are hiring everything from mule packers to drama camp leaders. This means that people with these specific skills are in high demand and they are not easy to find. I've been looking for a mule packer everywhere. Whether you're hiring for one of these roles or any other role, how do you find top talent before the competition gets to them?

And right now, you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. In fairness, it's their fault for putting MulePacker in the ad. Yeah, it's their fault. They knew what they were doing. We didn't do that. We didn't suggest MulePacker. Those crafty bastards. The fine folks at ZipRecruiter. Yeah, fine folks over there. ZipRecruiter, what they do over there is they also utilize powerful matching technology to quickly identify top talent for your job openings, like MulePacker. This smart technology shows you qualified candidates immediately after you post your role, performing a deep dive to find the right fit.

Again, invoking that mule packer. Looking for a standout candidate, ZipRecruiter enables swift connections. Utilize ZipRecruiter's pre-written invite to apply feature to directly engage top prospects. We've used ZipRecruiter. Haven't found many mule packers, but found a lot of other great positions to hire for using ZipRecruiter. It makes life a lot easier than just going through resumes yourself. Hiring is difficult. ZipRecruiter makes it much easier.

easier. Gear up for summer with ZipRecruiter's high-speed hiring tools. See why four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Just go to this exclusive web address right now to try ZipRecruiter for free, ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. Again, that's ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire.

This Supreme Court term asks the question, what if the highest court in the land had the overall vibe of a contentious Real Housewives reunion, but also with the power to destroy democracy? Yes, that is exactly where we are. The Supreme Court is setting fire to decades of precedent, handing presidents near dictatorial powers. And now the conservative justices are turning on each other. It's chaotic. It's dangerous. And yes, it is kind of hard to follow without a legal degree.

That's where Strict Scrutiny comes in. We're legal scholars who make sense of the court's biggest decisions with clarity, context, and a healthy dose of raised eyebrows. Because if the Supreme Court's going to act like a Bravo cast, someone needs to read them and the Constitution. New episodes drop every Monday. Follow Strict Scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube.

One of the big issues that brought people out to protest is Trump's mass deportations, which have become very unpopular very quickly. Late last week, Trump even acknowledged that his immigration raids were hurting farmers and the hospitality industry. And the administration issued new guidance to ICE, telling them to pause raids and arrests in the agricultural, hotel and restaurant industries.

But then on Sunday, Trump made it clear that his deportation policy isn't really about targeting criminals and protecting farmers and hospitality workers. It's about targeting immigrants in blue states and protecting them in red states. He directed ICE via Truth Social to quote,

expand efforts to detain and deport illegal aliens in America's largest cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, because, quote, these and other such cities are the core of the Democrat power center where sanctuary cities play such a big role. You don't hear about sanctuary cities in our heartland. At the G7 on Monday, Trump responded to a reporter's question about his post.

You did a post last night where you said you want ICE to really target Democrats. I want them to focus on the cities because the cities are where you really have what's called sanctuary cities, and that's where the people are. I look at New York. I look at Chicago. Look at L.A. L.A., those people weren't from L.A. They weren't from California, most of those people. All blue cities, all Democrat-run cities, and they think they're going to use them to vote. It's not going to happen. I'm sorry.

I mean, it's been reported that Trump only changed his mind on the farm workers after lobbying by his agriculture secretary, who is getting help from some of the big farmers and producers, many of whom in red states, also business owners. What do you make of Trump's back and forth on this?

Yeah, I mean, it feels like it's policy in progress. You know, I'd like farm farms, construction sites, restaurants, meatpacking plants, they will all shut down if I deport every undocumented person who works there. And so I'm sure he's getting calls from CEOs and business interests and business lobbying groups to tell him that much and tell him to dial it down a little bit. But on the political front,

We've been saying this all for the past week. Trump wants a fight with liberal cities. They think it's good politics. His staff is giddy when he starts a fight with California or Gavin Newsom. They run to the DC tip sheets to tell them how great it's going for them. And then the polling comes out and it shows the opposite.

But I did find like what was remarkable about that true social statement was Trump not kind of like dropping the pretext that it was about safety and security and just saying that Democrats, quote, use illegal aliens to expand their voter base, cheat in elections and grow the welfare state while real Americans are cheering ice on. Like that's just not a compelling rationale, I think, for most people to explain an ice raid. Undoubtedly.

Undocumented immigrants don't vote. How many times are we fucking going to do this again? This whole theory, the whole replacement theory is so ridiculous. They don't vote. And by the way, Trump won naturalized immigrants in the last election. So stupid. The, the, like,

Saying that he's not gonna go after farm workers or hospitality workers. Those are two of the three big categories Tommy mentioned the third construction It's interesting as I mentioned that yet I'm sure people will his fucking real estate Developer buddies will get him on the phone and the next thing you'll know is that we're not gonna go after we need the construction workers because by the way They're already construed shortages of construction workers, but it's like what does Trump want? He wants

to declare victory, he wants images of mass deportations, but he doesn't want the mass deportations to impact the economy. So it's like almost what he wants is deportations without deportees, right? He wants to be claimed to be successfully doing the thing of kind of this kind of campaign against immigrants, but then he doesn't want the economic consequences. So California, we're a so-called sanctuary state.

The population of undocumented immigrants in California has been going down. It has gone down. It went down by 100,000 from 2019 to 2022. Texas passes a law banning sanctuary cities in 2017. Undocumented immigrants living and working in Texas goes up. Florida passes a law in 2019. In the three years since passing that law, Florida's population of undocumented immigrants goes up by 400,000. Why? It is not because of the politics. It is despite the politics because people go to where they can afford to work and

and to live. California is too fucking expensive. So for the same reason that Florida and Texas brags about their economy all the time, they are drawing all these undocumented immigrants. And so what has happened? They have created a situation where the most hostile places actually have a growing economy built on the backs of a growing population of undocumented labor.

And so then you have now Trump saying, I'm going to go after what the blue cities, that's where the immigrants are. It's just not true, right? There are no sanctuary cities in Florida. There are no sanctuary cities in Texas. The politics of the cruelty of what they're doing to immigrants or immigrants feeling less safe in those places has had no impact on this, right? Because this is an economic problem. It is not a kind of, you can try to enforce your way out of it without hurting the economy. It's just not possible.

So Trump acknowledges that these undocumented immigrants are vital to our economy and he thinks that they should be protected. And he also just wants to make sure that people who are here illegally, who've committed crimes, get deported. So one idea for him is the people who are here who are undocumented perhaps are.

If they're working, we can give them some kind of a like a path where they can then become fully citizens. And then folks who commit crimes, we can deport them back. And then we can have a sort of tough security at the border to make sure we don't have more illegal crossings. Thanks. That's one idea. Now, the reason that we don't have that is because Stephen Miller, who's actually running most of Trump's policy, is telling him that they're all criminals and because Stephen Miller actually wants all.

every undocumented immigrant and most documented immigrants out of the country. And he's been very clear on that. He doesn't want legal immigration. They just added another, they're thinking of adding another 36 countries to the travel ban list. It used to be Muslim majority countries. Now it's just, you know, a lot of countries in Africa, people of color, right? Steve Miller just doesn't, he just doesn't want immigrants here because he hates immigrants because he's hated immigrants since he was in fucking high school in Santa Monica. And he would, you know, shout racial slurs at them. So like, that's the kind of dynamic here. And Trump's looking at himself like,

I want the good ones and I don't want the bad ones. And he's just too stupid to realize what the fucking difference is. Well, he's even said that, right? He's even said some version of like, they should be able to stay. There should be some sort of a way for them to stay. He's describing comprehensive immigration reform. But then, you know, Stephen Miller then says, go to Home Depot. They start going to the Home Depots. What does that do? That terrifies people to go to work.

It makes it so that people don't show up to do their jobs because they're afraid and it shuts down construction. It shuts down businesses. Politically, he should just take the win. Like you shut down the border, go to the border once a week and brag about it in states where the local law enforcement will work with ICE, deport people who are arrested, deport actual criminals in the sanctuary cities where they won't work with you.

let the governor deal with it. There's just an obvious smart political win for him that doesn't involve picking a fight with Los Angeles and New York, but clearly they just want the fight. They want the news cycle. Miller wants the fight and Miller wants them all gone. ICE's own figures, CNN just had a report on this today, and this is from ICE, less than 10% of the roughly 185,000 people booked into ICE custody from October through May 31st

have been convicted of serious crimes like murder, rape, assault, or robbery. Less than 10%.

So this whole idea that they're going after the worst of the worst and, you know, DHS put out another statement this morning saying we're only going after the worst of the worst. We know exactly who we're going after. That's not true because The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Miller said you don't have to have lists of people that are you're targeting anymore. Just go out and make a bunch of arrests, 3000 arrests a day. And then they start signaling a home and signaling this. Oh, don't worry. We're going to go after the employers next. Don't worry. We're going after the employers that that'll that'll that'll help us pick up this problem.

pick up the deportations or the self-deportations. And then you say, well, okay, you're going after employers, but the president just said to leave agriculture alone. And the president just said to leave hotels and restaurants alone. That's the two biggest sectors or two of the three biggest sectors. So then you're only going to-

Then I'm sure he doesn't want to leave you alone. Because it's all just being made up. They're making it up as they go. Yeah. All right. Before we get to my interview with Wes Moore, I do want to touch on an exciting new product launch from our friends in Trump world. On Monday, Eric Trump announced that his family is getting into the mobile phone business. That's right. For just $500, you'll be able to get yourself a shiny gold T1 phone from Trump Mobile. Yeah.

And for a monthly fee of just $47.45, you can sign up for the 47 plan that includes unlimited talk, text, data, and so much more. Tech journalists are pointing out that the America First phone looks an awful lot like a model already made by the Chinese company Wing Tech and available on T-Mobile.

but it is gold. It is gold. A reporter at 404 Media tried to pre-order the T1 smartphone and said the website failed, went to an error page, and charged in the wrong amount for the down payment. Were you guys able to put in your pre-orders yet? That's so funny. Charging in the wrong amount is such a nice little shift. These things are so stupid. First of all, there's not going to be a real Trump cell phone network. It's a virtual mobile network. Remember Patriot Mobile? They were selling like

anti-woke cell service. And then when you really dig into the details, they just buy, they license in bulk access to AT&T, T-Mobile, all the so-called woke providers that they're railing against in their ads. So you're just getting played. And then there's just literally no way that Trump

team can build these phones in the US, unless this rollout is like five years too early. There's just no infrastructure to build a smartphone in the United States right now. And so if you look at the website, it says Trump Mobile, its products and services are not designed, developed, manufactured, distributed, or sold by the Trump organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals. So they're clearly just licensing out some Chinese phone and then pretending they have their own network. And then in practice, Trump is now...

like a fake telecom phone operator, but also oversees the FCC, which is... Which is no longer independent. Totally ethical and normal. He's taken away the independence of the FCC. He's got a Trump stooge in charge of it. And now he's in the mobile phone business. But I just...

Yeah. Like I, I saw the announcement. I did not think he was building a 5g network of his own. And I did not think he was making a phone in the United States because nobody does that. We don't, we don't do that. Um, so I was like, yeah, okay. So he's doing like a kind of whatever. He's not building a 5g network of his own because RFK junior is like, don't do that. That's a good point. Yeah. Those are bad. It's going to mess with your boop, you know, makes you gay, makes the frogs gay. 5g makes the frogs gay. But the, uh,

But yeah, but the like, what are you guys doing? You guys, you're gonna, you're buying, maybe they're assembling them or doing something to make it made in America or assembled in America at some point, which I don't even think they figured this part of it out yet. It doesn't totally seem like, by the way, everyone's like, oh, this is definitely the phone. Are you sure that's the phone? Or did somebody grab a picture of a phone off the internet

and put a fucking gold thing on it. And they have no idea what the phone's going to be yet. So like this whole thing is so stupid. I don't even understand who this grift is for. It's more expensive than some of the cheaper, like similar kind of fake phone brands. So it's like, so this is for like some small subset of Trump super fans. Like what?

I think it's like licensing too, because I read that they're working with some of the carriers. So it's not like they're inventing their own Verizon or T-Mobile. They're like working with some of these companies to license the mobile carriers. Yeah, it's just a white label on just another service. It's just ridiculous.

And I just don't know. Like, I just truly like, I don't know. Like, I'm a pretty big Barack Obama fan, but I wouldn't buy a phone from the guy. Remember the Obama phones? Remember that scandal? This is now a real Obama phone thing. Those are allegedly given out free to people. Yeah, the whole grift is I think they partner with some...

idiotic provider, someone who's gonna buy these phones in bulk, they slap their name on it and they take a 20% rip on whatever the sales are. - Right, there is a company that says they can do this. There's a company that says they can do this. That company charges something on top of what it costs to get the service. And then Trump and the family charges a service on top of that. And so whatever the delta is between the cost of whatever,

T-Mobile or whatever, Boost Mobile or whatever, that's the profit they make off the backs of some dumb fuck, MAGA dumbass buying this phone off of the internet. So anyway, exciting announcement from us. Buy your own crooked phone. We gotta do this. God, what a stupid time. What a stupid, dangerous time. Look, you know, you gotta have a phone that aligns with your values. Ugh.

Sometimes the news is... That's what Eric Trump said. We need a phone that aligns with our values. What does that mean? I know I don't. I don't need my phone to agree with me. The phone's going to raid a... What's the phone going to do? Stop a trans swimmer? My phone doesn't have an agenda. What are you talking about? This phone stops trans swimmers.

This machine stops DEI hiring policies. I do want to get our hands on one of the Trump phones if it does come to pass just to see what it looks like. They did the watches. They did the NFTs. It's like they're just skimming off the top of their stupid political organization. Well, he's making a lot of money, I think. I guess. His last disclosure was like he's made like $600 million so far as president. He's finally a billionaire. Yeah. He's finally a billionaire. It's unbelievable. I know to them, I'm not a business guy, but I would just say stick to the crypto. You're selling vaporware. You're selling nothing.

Yeah. Getting paid all that. Don't stick to that either. Maybe try to be ethical. Maybe try to make money the real way.

All right, Jiminy Cricket over here. Fucking Jimmy Carter over here. I'm going to go sell my peanut farm. When we come back, you'll hear my conversation with Maryland Governor Wes Moore about how governors should be responding to this moment. But one quick thing before we do that, check out the latest episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. Stacey is joined by political commentators Aaron Parnas and Khalil Green to talk about why Democrats are losing young voters. They dig into how the right has figured out platforms like TikTok and YouTube and how Democrats are still playing catch up.

Listen to Assembly Required wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. When we come back, Wes Moore. Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombas. Summer's here and we're all chasing something. A break, a goal, a vibe. Let's not let bad socks and blisters ruin it. Bombas makes socks that keep up with whatever your summer looks like, whether you're running a marathon or just a few errands.

Seriously, you know that song that makes you want to go fast? Bombas running socks are just like that. They wick sweat, help you keep cool, and fight blisters. And it's not just running. They make specialized pair for hiking, tennis, golf, you name it. They even make socks that can make international flights bearable. Yeah, we're talking Bombas compression socks to help curb aches and keep those legs energized for all the sightseeing ahead. Plus, with wedding season in full swing, you're going to want to see their ruffle and dress socks that'll make you the best dressed guest.

Best of all, they don't just feel good, they do good. One purchased equals one donated to someone who needs it. Pretty neat, right? You can also order Bombas abroad. That's right. Along with the U.S., they now ship internationally to over 200 countries. Love Bombas. Have Bombas socks. Whole family does. They're comfy. They look cool. You can get them all different colors and patterns and they're just really comfy.

Head over to bombas.com slash crooked and use code crooked for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash crooked. Code crooked at checkout. Bombas.com slash crooked and use code crooked.

This Supreme Court term asks the question, what if the highest court in the land had the overall vibe of a contentious Real Housewives reunion, but also with the power to destroy democracy? Yes, that is exactly where we are. The Supreme Court is setting fire to decades of precedent, handing presidents near dictatorial powers. And now the conservative justices are turning on each other. It's chaotic. It's dangerous. And yes, it is kind of hard to follow without a legal degree.

That's where strict scrutiny comes in. We're legal scholars who make sense of the court's biggest decisions with clarity, context, and a healthy dose of raised eyebrows. Because if the Supreme Court's going to act like a Bravo cast, someone needs to read them and the Constitution. New episodes drop every Monday. Follow strict scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. Governor Westmore, welcome to the pod. It's great to be back. Great to be back.

So, Trump had a military parade over the weekend. It was held in your backyard. I saw that instead of attending, you went for a run with service members at Fort Meade. Having served in the military yourself, how'd you feel watching whatever coverage you saw of the parade?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I didn't watch any coverage of the of the parade. I'm not sure I really, really missed much, you know, and it looked like not many people watch it there in person either. You know, but but it's it is one of these things where, you know, I have a deep love for the United States Army because this is an organization that really helped to save my life. You know, I joined the army when I was 17 years old. Yeah.

I joined the army, I wasn't young enough to, I wasn't old enough to sign the paperwork. My mom signed the paperwork for me. But this was an organization that didn't just change the trajectory of my life. I think everything I learned, everything that I gained from serving in the military have been things that I still use to this day. These are my brothers and sisters for life, the people who I serve with in Afghanistan.

Um, and, and so I took the two 50th as something that was very deeply personal where it's a, you know, the fact that we could be out there and enjoy the freedoms we enjoy. Someone had to fight for those, right? Someone had to protect those freedoms. And oftentimes it was the people who are wearing are the uniforms that I wore, the uniforms of the people, uh, you know, who we, who we celebrate war. And also as a celebration of those who died in those uniforms.

And so I just thought that there was a much better way for us to be able to remember the importance of the United States Army. There was a much better way for us to be able to remember the importance of those men and women who raised their hands to serve in an organization that has helped to make this country as strong as it is. There's a much better way to remember those. And frankly, when you were watching an administration who's doing things like cutting the budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs, cutting benefits,

for veterans that is firing federal workers at just this breakneck speed, regardless of the fact that one in three federal workers are military veterans themselves. But then you think that a celebration of the army is throwing a parade on your birthday. I just find it to be, you know, just deeply tone deaf and frankly, deeply offensive.

Yeah, I was saying to a friend earlier that I sort of felt for the troops watching the parade. And I wonder, having, you know, served yourself and, you know, received the training you did, you know, not asking you to put yourself in the in the minds of every service member, but.

How do you think it feels in the armed services right now? You have, you know, federal troops in the streets of L.A. or Federalized Guard. You have Marines here as well. There was that speech at Fort Bragg.

the other week where Trump, they screened participants for loyalty to Trump and you had some service members behind him who were more pro-Trump and they were booing names of Democratic officials when Trump was attacking them and cheering when he was making fun of others. How do you think it feels to be serving in the military right now considering the political backdrop? It's sad and I do feel for them. I think your description is right. I think

I just feel horrible for them because that's not why we signed up. You know, I had the honor of serving with some of the most amazing men and women that I've ever met. And there was one question I never asked a single one of them. What's your political party? I never asked one of them how they voted in the last election. I never asked one of them, you know, what your voter registration is. Never. Never.

The men and women who I led, the men and women who I served with, the only thing that we had in our minds was our ability to take care of each other and to do everything in our power to make sure that we were bringing the other one home. That no matter what, that we would do everything in our power to make sure that you got back home to your family. And I think about just how different

Experience this is for these men and women who are who are serving in some cases again You know members the 82nd Airborne Division that was that was that was my unit in Afghanistan And it's just kind of unimaginable to think that that's something that that they're being asked Now about their political loyalties whether or not they're gonna get a chance to be seen on television or not I just think that the the work is too serious for that and

The consequences are too dire for that. And that these are people who have put their hands on a Bible and pledged allegiance not to an individual. Now, I never took a pledge. I never took an oath to the president of the United States. My oath was to the Constitution.

Right. My oath was to the values. My oath was to was it was to protect this country, to fight and win our nation's war, to protect our country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That was the oath that I took. It was never to an individual, no matter who the commander in chief was at the time. And and I just think it's really important that the way we honor the the service of these individuals who are part of the less than one percent to raise their hand.

of this country to be able to protect it and defend it and to give their lives if necessary the way you honor their service is by respecting the oath that they took and i just felt like that was a uh when the things that we've seen it wasn't just one incident it's just now kind of repeated a series of incidents uh just seemed to be a real deviation of of the oath that we all took

So also this weekend, it seems like an estimated five million or so people came out to protest Donald Trump, one of the single largest protests in American history. I've had a couple of people ask me, what's the actual goal of these protests and where do they go from here? What do you think?

You know, I respect people's First Amendment rights. And I think that we all have a right to the freedom of assembly, of a freedom of speech. And I think that people should pay attention, that there is a very real frustration to what's happening with this administration. And it's not, the really interesting thing about the protest is it's not a frustration to an individual incident.

Right. It's not a frustration saying, oh, it's the policy around immigration or, oh, this is a policy around the potential cuts to Medicaid or, oh, this is a protest to the way that we are. We are firing federal workers because the motivations for so many people who are out there marching is varied and it's different, but it's all tied up in one theme.

And that is this idea that no one is above the law and everyone has an obligation to defend it, protect it and follow it. That's the whole idea of no kings. Right. And so so that's the thing that I think is really is really powerful in some ways about the protests is there's not a single political issue that got people out there. But it is just on this idea that that that we believe that the president of the United States should actually follow the law.

And we believe that the people collectively, that our voice is much bigger and much stronger than just an individual or even a individual political party that's involved. Because I think even out there, you didn't just see Democrats, right? There were Democrats, independents, Republicans, you know, agnostics out there, but they're all protesting the idea of protecting a value.

And something that we as we as Americans take very seriously and very personally. And so I think the thing that we've got to remember in all this, though, and the question of where do we take it from here? We have to remember that that this energy and this push is not about a singular day. It's we have to keep the intensity up.

And we also have to remember that the results that people are hoping for and hoping to see in their own lives, that that's something that we're not willing to compromise on either. Like how we're going to be remembered in this moment, 10 years from now, is not how loud we yelled.

Right. It's not how many how many people showed up to our protest. It was the fact that were we able to deliver on the hopes that people actually have for what their government can provide. And I think if we do that, then we can turn this thing from just a from a from a moment to a much larger to a much larger movement.

So I'm sure you were horrified by the news of the political assassinations in Minnesota over the weekend. I didn't think it could get any worse until I saw the reaction from prominent right wing figures who spread obviously false conspiracies about the shooter's politics. U.S. Senator Mike Lee said this is what happens when Marxists don't get their way. Senator Bernie Moreno, Elon Musk both said it shows how the left has become violent.

Trump influencers like Mike Chernovich and Alex Jones even suggested that Tim Waltz was behind the assassination. You had tweeted how, you know, saddened you were by it. And you also said that we need a renewed commitment to civil discourse. How do we even begin to do that when that's the reaction from some of the most influential people in the Republican Party? Yeah, it's tough. It's tough when something so horrific happens.

happens to two people and and frankly I I don't care what your political affiliation is I don't care if you agree or disagree when you have two public servants who were who were taken out I mean literally targeted assassinations and then target assassination attempts for you know because of a political ideology

I, you know, you cannot tell me that that that the attempts that we saw and we've seen that we saw on Franklin and President Trump, that that should break your heart any more or any less.

Than what we saw in in minnesota and I think it says a whole lot about people who uh who think that uh that uh That somehow that uh, the politics was behind one and the danger of this political violence Uh is is more dangerous from one than the other, you know We we have to remember that um that in this time it is important for us to be able to um both turn down the the language and the rhetoric

And to know that, you know, that being a public servant should not mean risking your life. And we've passed legislation here in the state of Maryland that's focused on things like protecting our judges and protecting our election workers, because we've had election workers attacked. We've had we had a judge recently in the state of Maryland, over in Western Maryland, assassinated, killed in front of his own home.

So we've been very clear that this level of political violence and political vitriol is not just dangerous. It must be stopped. But we have to be able to have the courage to be able to call it out no matter what it looks like and no matter who's doing it. Is it something you've worried about for yourself, your own family? I mean, listen, I think it's something that for each and every one of us we worry about. I mean, I unfortunately, you know, I get...

FBI and intelligence reports every single week. I know how the level of threats have increased since I've been the governor, right? As the first black governor in the history of the state of Maryland, as only the third African American ever elected as a governor in this country's history. You know, I've seen the data.

about the increase in threats that have come. I also know this, that the thing we're asking of our public servants and the promise we make to our public servants is for people who are willing to raise their hands, for people who are willing to serve something bigger than themselves, for people who are willing to go into this work understanding the difficulties that it presents to you and your family members, at least that we can do.

is to make sure that you can feel safe in your own home, in your own communities, in your own skin, that your families can feel safe. And that it's not just the obligation, frankly, of law enforcement to be able to provide that. For us, it's up to the citizens, whether they are supporters of us or not, to be able to say that we can, even if we disagree with what a person is saying, it should never get to a point

that we are then threatening them or their families or their family safety. So we still have American troops deployed here in Los Angeles, and Trump just directed ICE to expand operations in blue state cities.

How are you planning to handle a potential expansion of immigration raids in a city like Baltimore or even a deployment of troops in your state or Trump trying to federalize the Maryland National Guard? There was a Washington Post story last week that said Trump wants the National Guard to play a bigger role in immigration enforcement going forward. Yeah, you know, as both the commander-in-chief of Maryland's National Guard and as someone who's worn the uniform,

You know, truthfully, I take that role very seriously. In fact, just this past weekend, I was with the members of our National Guard as they were training up

to be able to help protect our citizens if we call out orders for them to do so. And I'm a big believer that the people on the ground have the best understanding about what's happening. There's a reason that we have an escalation of resources that we can deploy, that I know how many local

uh law enforcement officers we have i know how many state law enforcement officers have i know what we have in terms of our in terms of our our national guard um and so that's why i think for the people on the ground we have the best understanding of what's needed and what's required in situations to make sure that our people are safe which for me is the number one priority to make sure that my people in the people in my state are safe and i take that responsibility very seriously but when it comes to immigration i also know that this is a very personal issue

You know, I was raised by an immigrant single mom and our immigration system is functionally broken. And there's one group who can solve it. And that's Congress. And the truth is the president of the United States could fix the immigration problem right now if he chose to. He could just simply go to the Speaker of the House and say, I need a comprehensive immigration bill on my desk next week. And it would be on his desk next week because he has the votes. He has the House. He has the Senate. He has the White House. And he's not doing it.

He's just simply choosing to use executive actions, many of which illegal, to be able to deal with an issue because he has no interest in dealing with the issue. And so it is very, very frustrating as the chief executive of a state and, frankly, as a commander in chief of a National Guard in the fact that we do have a broken system.

But the commander in chief of the United States Army does not seem to have an interest in actually fixing it, just has an interest in weaponizing it. Yeah, and not just weaponizing it, but it does seem like his policy is, OK, if you're a farmer, you're

or you're in the hospitality industry and you're in red states or places that voted for me, maybe we can back off on immigration enforcement and we'll just target blue states. That's been the case on many of his policies and many of the institutions he's targeted since becoming president. How do you see this as a governor of a blue state in terms of just sort of Trump using the office to sort of declare war on blue America? Yeah.

The way that I see it is none of this is terribly shocking. None of this is terribly surprising. We've been battle boarding for this type of scenario for a very long time. So the thing that we do is, you know, we control the things that we can control. And one of the great things about being a governor, honestly, John, is that, you know, we're able to show what an alternative looks like.

where we tell our people where we have a president of the United States who right now is with his whole Doge project is now actively just firing

federal workers and we have a greater level of exposure in the state of Maryland than anyone else because I have over 260,000 federal employees in my state. And while he is arbitrarily firing federal workers, we're spending our time making sure that our federal workers are supported by actually streamlining them into available state and private sector jobs and making sure that if I have a person who is qualified and interested, I want to get them as quickly as possible, get them in classrooms.

Right. Get them in hospitals, get them in places where we have a shortage to know that their skills are necessary and know that we have a society that that is going to benefit from their continued service. When we have a president of the United States who is who is spending their time, you know, being able to use a budget to to be able to shrink the economy. We saw a contraction of the U.S. economy in the first quarter for the first time that we've seen in years. And.

And in our state, we've actually gone from 43rd in the country in unemployment to now being amongst the lowest unemployment rates in the entire country by being able to focus on things like apprenticeship programs, by making Maryland the first state in the country to have a service year option for all of our high school graduates, by doing the largest mass pardon in the history of the United States of America and getting people back into the workforce, particularly people who've been excluded for the workforce for things like a misdemeanor cannabis conviction from the 1980s.

And so I think the thing that we've really focused on in our state is that this binary, this us versus them, this, you know, that the only way that I can win is if you lose. That we're just showing in the state of Maryland that we think differently. That we actually think that part of the goal is that we can build a society where, as I learned in the military when I was 17 years old, where we leave no one behind.

And that is the kind of society that shows that we don't have to just fall in line with what the president of the United States is doing, that we can actually provide an alternative. And I think the people of our state are responding well to it.

When Governor Newsom spoke about the raise in the troop deployment last week, he said, quote, Democracy is under assault right before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived. Trump is taking a wrecking ball to our founding father's historic project. Do you agree with all that? Are you at the same level of alarm? Well, I think you can't look at what's happening right now and think that this is normal. These are very abnormal times.

And these are times when we're watching just not just an overreach of executive authority, but in many ways, an illegal reach of executive authority. The thing I would also say about that, though, is this is I'm also very honest about our country's history. I'm also very honest about about our founding fathers and what their intent was.

And I'm not sure if I was part of their full intent when our founding fathers first put together the documents of this country and first put together the foundation of this country. I think this country is a constant evolution. I think this country has had a deeply uneven history. But that's actually the thing that also gives me hope.

is that I don't sit there and act like the country's history doesn't exist. I think the country's history is real and it matters. And this country has had a very brutal history for a lot of groups. I also know that the reason that I can stand here as the governor of Maryland is because there were Marylanders like Harriet Tubman

and Marylanders like Frederick Douglass, and Marylanders like Thurgood Marshall, who when they saw this type of breakage, when they saw this type of unevenness, when they saw these type of illegal activities taking place, that they fought. And they're willing to fight for, they didn't know me by name, but they fought for the hope of me. And that's the responsibility that I very much take on right now is that, you know, this country has seen these type of behaviors before.

This country has had these type of behaviors as part of its core foundation before. But I think understanding that history is also the thing that gives me a real sense of a real sense of of realism and frankly, hope that that that joy does come in the morning. But you got to fight for it. And that's exactly what what we've chosen to do here in Maryland.

Speaking of our country's history, back in May, you vetoed legislation that would have created a commission to study the issue of reparations for slavery in Maryland. Your basic reasoning has been we don't need another study. And, you know, it's time to focus on the work itself of tackling racial disparities. Obviously, you know, you've got some heat for that. Studies aside, though, do you believe reparations are justified?

Yeah. You know, when I when I looked at the bill and the length, the language of the bill literally lays out that we are going to do do do this, do the this study, this commission. And then in two years, they bring the recommendation to the governor. My point is this. I am the governor. I don't need two years. Let's get to work.

And I think about the work that we have done in the state of Maryland. No state has been as aggressive in these past two years on this worker repair that we've seen in the state of Maryland. That in the past two years, you know, we've invested over $1.3 billion going towards our HBCUs, which is a 60% increase than we saw from our predecessor. And we've gotten it done in two years.

that we have created over 1,600 new Black homeowners in the state of Maryland by making sure we're prioritizing investments to first-time homebuyers, that we have been able to invest over $800 million going towards Black-owned businesses, and by being able to do things from procurement reform, expungement reform, sign the largest mass pardon in the history of the United States of America, there is nobody who is questioning my commitment to this work or my commitment to the work of repair.

But what I am saying is this, is that there's been a whole series of scholarship,

on this issue. There's been a whole series of report. There have been, you know, four others in just the past 25 years in Maryland that have been along these lines. Right. And my only point is this is is this is the time. And I'm excited to do that work with the members of our General Assembly, with the members of the Black Caucus who have done really good work on this and a lot of stuff we've done together. And this is the time for continued action that that I am I'm I'm I don't need two years.

I'm ready to go right now. And that's the focus that I want to be able to take because the truth is, is that I know how much time I have left. In fact, you know, a clock sits on my desk that I now have 500, 500, believe now 21 days left in my first term. I'm not wasting one of them.

And I'm ready to be able to continue the work of repair that our state needs, because the truth is, is that the history of racism is littered throughout every single aspect of the state of Maryland. And people know this. It's time for us to be able to do action on it. It also sounds like you believe that the work of reparations can more effectively be done with some of the

the policies and some of the steps you've taken in Maryland to help target racial disparities as opposed to reparations, which is a politically loaded controversial word that may not have the political support necessary in comparison to some of the policies that you've taken on in Maryland. Is that right? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I think racism is not an act.

Right. Because I think I think I think actually lets people off the hook too easy because I think it's like, you know, a person's like, well, I don't I don't I don't wear a hood. I don't say the N-word. So I'm not racist. Racism is not an act. Racism is a system. Racism is a system that allows an eight to one racial wealth gap in the state of Maryland. And we have an eight to one racial wealth gap, not because one group is working eight times harder. It's a system. Right.

That is put in place that that racism that that it's not an act that that cause historical redlining. It's not an act that cause unfair appraisal values in historically redlined neighborhoods. It's not an act that cause business creation to be so dispersed and to be so divided. It's not an act that cause access to capital to be so limited, particularly in black communities, that this is a system that.

that has created that. And so I believe deeply, deeply that the work of repair is about repairing systems because you could have a conversation about how are we addressing individual acts all you want. If the people still exist in a system

That doesn't work. If people still exist in a system that is broken, if people still exist in a system that allows children not to get the education that they need, for racism to show itself in the air that people are breathing, in the water that people are drinking, in the homes that people are living in, in the way that they are policed, in the transportation assets they have and do not have, then the work of repair is not going to be done by addressing an act. The work of repair is only done when you're addressing systems.

And that's why I think the focus that we've had in the state of Maryland over these past two years, where we collectively have moved on these issues faster and more aggressively than anyone else in the country. And I don't think there's anyone who can claim anything different. Focusing on this issue of work, wages, and wealth.

That I am deeply aware of our history. That's why I'm so aggressive on it. But I also know I'm not going to let people off the hook by simply saying we're going to address it by addressing individual acts. I am attacking systems because I think that's the only way that we're going to be able to address this in a longstanding fashion.

So you've been very clear that you are not currently running for president. You've talked about focusing on the urgency of 2025 before we get to 2028. Fair enough. Your recent travel schedule has also included events in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan in a few weeks. Fair to assume also that you're at least thinking about it.

No, I'm not running. And it's not it's not fair to assume, because honestly, if you look if you look at where you will, so you will not run. No, no, no, I'm not. No. And here's and here's actually I think the important thing for people to remember with this is is I will go anywhere and everywhere.

to be able to not just talk about the good things that our state is doing, but also make sure that more people are coming to my state. You know, the states that you mentioned are important, but also it doesn't mention the other places that we've also gone that might not be quote unquote battleground states. But you know what I was doing? I was talking to businesses to try to get them to come to the state of Maryland, just like I was doing in those states. And when I say I'm not running and why I feel so confident

and very secure in that is I'm also very much a person who I, you know, when I, you know, I remember when I have a mentor of mine, the great Elijah Cummings, who was a congressman out of Baltimore, who was not just a dear friend, but a mentor. And when he passed away, there were a lot of people who came up and said, you know, you should really consider running for his seat. And it was very humbling to include people very close to him.

And it was very humbling. But I knew in my heart that's not what I wanted to do. So there was nothing that anyone could tell me to make me do it. I remember when I was getting ready, when I said to myself and I thought, I was like, I want to run for governor. There were a lot of people who tell me I shouldn't run for governor. They're like, you can't win. I don't know why you're doing this. This is going to end really, really badly for you. And I knew there was nothing that anyone could tell me to make me not run. So I am very comfortable running.

with, and confident with, and thankful for the fact that, you know, I'm a kid who literally, you know, had handcuffs on my wrist when I was 11 years old, whose mother didn't get her first job that gave her benefits until I was 14. And I'm now serving as the chief executive of my state. Like I am like, I'm playing with house money right now. Yeah.

And I'm loving the work that we're doing in Maryland because I think Maryland's just leading the country in so many different things in terms of raising wages, in terms of, you know, driving historic, uh, historically low unemployment rates, driving historic drops in violent crime, being able to actually create wealth and wealth opportunities for everyone in our communities. Like I'm, I love my job and I love what I'm doing. And I'm also very clear that, um, that, that, uh, when I decided something, um, no one can tell me different. Uh,

and I know I'm not running for anything else except I'm running for re-election next year, and I hope the people in my state give me an opportunity to have another four years. Well, then, last question for you. We need good presidential candidates in this party. In general, how do you think the National Democratic Party is meeting this moment? It's a hard question because I don't, honestly, I don't focus on it.

That much. I mean, you know, and I just being just being totally honest, like I wonder, I remember when I ran for governor, we ran against there's like 12, there's like 11 other people running for governor. They had we had statewide elected officials. We had two Obama cabinet secretaries. We have we had a former head of the DNC, literally had a former head of the Democratic Party who ran for governor. Yeah. And then me, the guy who would never run for office before in my life.

who is now saying, hey, I want to run for governor. And I ended up getting more individual votes than anyone who'd ever run for governor in the history of the state of Maryland. So I guess kind of my point is, is that I was never the party's choice before. The party didn't ask me to run. The party didn't come in and say, you're the guy who we want to be the next governor of Maryland. The people did. And so I've decided I'm not the best person to give the party votes.

advice as to what they should do because I was never the party's choice in the first place. But I do think that what does become really important in this moment is if you're not delivering results for people and if people don't find you to be authentic, they're never going to support you.

You know what I mean? Like the reason that we are doing really nation leading work around young men and boys here in the state of Maryland is not because we lost them as a voting bloc in 2024. And what are we now going to like now? The reason we've been doing this work since day one of our administration is because it was a core part of why I decided to get in this race in the first place.

And I think when you're looking at who voted for us and the fact that we did, we've done very well with young men and boys in our elections is because they know it's real and it's authentic. Right. The reason that we had the reason that we that we focused on having a service year option, making Maryland the first state in this country that has a service year option for every one of our high school graduates is not because it polled well. In fact, when I first moved virtually, it didn't poll well at all.

But it's because it's authentic. And I believe in it. I believe in this time of this political divisiveness and political vitriol that service will save us. And so I think that the, I don't know, the best advice I guess I can give, and again, I don't get my talking points from the party. But the thing that I would suggest that people do is be authentic.

And don't forget why you got in this business in the first place. And if you do that, I think the people will respond because I think they'll see that you care about them. You care about their families. You care about their legacy and that you are doing everything in your power to be able to make sure that that's going to be protected. And I guess like we saw in our campaign, in our race, that the people will reward you for it.

That's good advice. You should be giving more to the party. Governor Wes Moore, thank you so much for joining Plais de l'América. I appreciate it. Great to talk to you again. Thank you. That's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new episode on Friday. Bye, everyone.

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family.

Potsave America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Saul Rubin, and Emma Illick-Frank. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor, and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming.

Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hethcote, Molly Lobel, Kiril Pallaviv, Kenny Moffitt, and David Toles. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.