Trump Targets School JUST Outside Boston
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We've got all four of us here today. We are doing a mailbag. We're going to take some of your questions. Hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend.

But we woke up. It's Friday. We're recording this. And we woke up and, you know, Donald Trump made a bunch of news. So we might talk a little bit about that at the top if you guys want. It's not often I wake up and there's like multiple breaking news New York Times notifications on your phone about Donald Trump. Really? Not like most days? Well, this one was like a couple right in a row because first he threatened the EU. No.

They had it coming. Right, yeah, which is one of his favorite punching bags with a 50% tariff because apparently the trade negotiations aren't going well with Europe. So starting on June 1st, he wants to recommend a straight 50% tariff. So...

It's going to be tough to drink those French wines, Tommy. No. Zut alors. I need a better one of those. No. And then right after that, he said, I've long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India or anyplace else. If that's not the case, a tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,

I mean, most of the weekend I'm walking around with an Apple, an iPhone in one hand and a glass of wine in the other hand. That's like both of my modern man. Wow. Look at this. Yeah. What are you doing? Just scrolling and sipping, scrolling and sipping. Yeah. Flawlessly wove those two. I was thinking about it. I'm like wine and wine and iPhone. No, I do think the tariffs are happening to you.

I think you're right. Also, all of our kids desperately want to work at Foxconn. That's where this is going. Yeah. And then, of course, Dan and I talked a little bit on Friday's episode about...

the threat to Harvard and trying to revoke their ability to enroll any international students whatsoever. Harvard sued. There was a temporary injunction granted this morning, Friday morning. But it's still chaos. I don't know if you guys have read some of the stories there about these students who, students who are already there, who don't know if they're going to be able to finish school. Students who are incoming students to Harvard, international students who have already like turned down other colleges, who

and were ready to go to Harvard and now don't know if they can. Anyway, Trump versus the world. What do you guys all think? It is very cruel to those students. Could be a good day for somebody who got waitlisted. It's like 6,800 kids. 27% of last year's class, I think, is international students.

I just saw a story, I saw a Harvard professor tweeting about how among those at risk of not being able to go to Harvard this year are IDF veterans. So to combat anti-Semitism, we are telling Israeli combat veterans that they can't go to Harvard. That makes total sense to me. Is that what we're doing? We're combating anti-Semitism by kicking these foreign students, including Israeli students out of Harvard?

That is the ostensible purpose. It's hard to keep it straight, but yes, that's why. There's also a DEI element to it. They're saying they also employ DEI policies. So it's anti-Semitism promoting pro-Hamas sympathies on campus and DEI policies. Yeah, and what the letter from...

What's her face? Christine Ohm said is that they were demanding from Harvard video footage records of all the international students potential disciplinary action. So basically, like, have they ever, you know, participated in a protest? That's that's sort of what they're looking for. Not just illegal activity.

protected speech protest activity they're demanding any footage of protests that might involve international students yeah it's just a break you know Harvard responded it's bracingly unconstitutional they're not pretending at all that this has anything to do with their international student program or any kind of illicit or illegal conduct by Harvard that would justify uh shutting down the program they are explicitly saying for this other reason

that we care about, which is anti-Semitic protest on campus, we are going to use all the levers of power we have at our disposal to fuck with you. So the judge blocked it because Harvard basically is saying this will do a ton of harm even before we're able to litigate it, but it's also just bracingly unconstitutional. Yeah. And then the markets are taking the tariff threats well. Well, I think the markets, I think they're shrugging off the EU portion of it because, I mean, the problem with Trump making these threats now is Europe has already watched him cave.

Like multiple times. He caved to them. He caved to China. Like, what's this, like, round, what, two or three of these terror threats? The new thing, waking up and threatening a foreign country or a block of them, I think I'm kind of used to by now, waking up and threatening one of, like, the crown jewels of the U.S. tech industry.

or like one of the biggest US companies period is insane. And the idea that Apple is going to shift manufacturing from China to the United States is nonsensical. They're trying to shift from China to India in part because of like US government pressure that we want

all these major companies to diversify supply chains and not be captive to the Chinese Communist Party. Now, the Chinese are making it very difficult to shift those supply chains and manufacturing out of China through a bunch of restrictions that are too boring to get into. But the idea that Apple wouldn't just like eat the 25% tariff and make our iPhones $100, $300 more expensive,

as opposed to trying to completely redo the company in the United States is ludicrous. Does Trump think that there's some like magic factory in a box button that Tim Cook is not pushing? Like even if he were to say tomorrow, like, yes, we're going to make more, it would be years upon years before you could start making the iPhones in the United States.

Yeah. And it's basically what happened to the Mattel guy, the CEO of Mattel, because he said the same thing. He's like, oh, we're moving out of China. We're going to try to move more production and manufacturing into India. And Trump's like, no, no, no, no, no. You don't get to move from China to India. You have to move here. And if not, no more Mattel toys. Yes.

So that's what we're dealing with this Memorial Day weekend. I was actually more alarmed by the EU tariffs because what's he fucking doing? Is he actually going to go through with this? It's like more of the same chaos that could have like far reaching consequences. With Apple, it's like,

all right, the most profitable company in the history of planet Earth. They've made an incredible amount of money making iPhones in China and selling them at tremendous profit in the U.S. Like, do I think this is the way the U.S. president should behave? No. But like, do I care that much? I really don't. But I do think it speaks to how little Tim Cook has gotten for his obsequious bowing before Donald Trump. Like, is it working? Is your charm offensive in your donation? Is it working? Doesn't seem like it's

working. It's not working, but the net effect of this is that Apple sells like 75 million iPhones in the US. What's most likely to happen is that they all cost $300 more. So yeah, that would really suck for a huge chunk of the country. You have a huge political impact. They will make us eat the cost. It's a big deal. You can definitely... No, I know. It's just annoying. Okay, so let's get to the questions. These are from Discord, from our subscribers. The first one is from CallMeTRL.

Although I think this one's probably from Elijah. What can Dem voters do to push the party to elect younger reps to leadership positions? Cough AOC Oversight Committee. Cough to move on from this seniority system they have. That was Connolly's last words. Oh, come on. What? What? Oh, I didn't realize that. Well, I know he died of cancer. I just that's very specific. But I'm sorry. That's obviously inappropriate. And I think we should leave it in. All right.

Dan, Dan, what's your answer? That's a good joke. I'm still in shock by what just happened there. Sorry. It begins with electing more younger Democrats, right? That is the first thing. There are going to be primaries. We're going to have open seats for the Senate coming up in a whole bunch of states. If you want younger Democrats, we should elect those. And pressure should be put on leadership to have a different system. There is a value in experience, for sure. Yeah.

Like, the longer – if you've been in Congress a while, you know how these things work. You develop issue expertise, and that matters. But we have to think about other things. Politics is also performance. And we have to think about people who can communicate, who can speak to the large part of our core base that we're losing, which is young voters. And so we need a system that isn't simply the – the longer you've been in Congress, you automatically get the spot.

And so it's put pressure on Hakeem Jeffries, put pressure on Chuck Schumer. If you think we need younger leadership in the Senate, put pressure on senators. You can do that by calling their office. You can do that through protests to look for younger leadership. And that begins with getting someone to challenge these leaders. You actually need that to happen, particularly in the Senate. You know who's really good at finding young leaders is Matt Gaetz. Oh, yeah.

You know, this used to be worse. I think before the 70s, it was like just de facto. If you were the most senior member on the committee, you got the job. Then in the 70s, the party granted the caucus the power to vote on these things. In 2020, Dems put in place six-year term limits for chairs. So we could do more of that. There could be ranked choice voting for committee chairs. You could reform the steering committee, which is a leadership setup committee that recommends voting.

people for these spots. You could put more emphasis on policy expertise or whatever. There is an open question, though. Like, does this really fucking matter? Like, people care what AOC thinks a lot more than name a random committee chair. I can't, even though she was passed over. So it's a fair question. I do agree that the committee chair issue is less of an issue than the fact that a number of House Democrats have died in office. That seems...

over the last year or so. Three have died this year. The last eight members of Congress or senators to die while in office have all been Democrats. Yeah. But, you know, ultimately, like you said, Dan, we've got to run younger candidates. And if you don't see younger candidates running, run yourself. Right. You know?

All right. This is from Patrick W. As someone who worked in the Senate during the first Trump term, I don't remember the moderate Dems, aside from Manchin, voting so often with Republicans for Trump nominees or for bad bills like Lake and Riley, the Genius Act, etc. What is going on with senators like Gallego, Slotkin, Warner, Rosen, that they feel like voting with Republicans and Trump so often in this moment?

Anyone want to take that? So you guys want to hear some Republicans in the first Trump term that got big, big votes? Mm-hmm. Jim Mattis, you want to guess? 100-0. Unanimous? No, no, no. Thanks for yes-anding this. Way to be a team player, pal. 98-1. I mean, no, I say... Who was against Jim Mattis? I think it was Senator Gillibrand, I believe. There was a question at the time of whether someone who was...

just in uniform. You're supposed to be statutorily out for five years, I think, before you can be sec def. Elaine Chao got 93 to six for DOT. That's Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell pressing the flesh. It is. I think like immigration, the specific area where Democrats felt like they were offsides politically. And a lot of them are, these people are in border states. So they voted for terrible bills because they thought that's what their constituents want. The genius act is in my view, an indefensible act.

weird decision. I mean, it's about the regulation of stable coins. It got 69 votes in the Senate. I think Democrats are scared of crypto money. And also they want to be perceived as pro-crypto among crypto fans. But, you know, Trump is literally selling access to the highest bidder as we speak, or that was last night. Sorry, but.

Yeah, I think the argument that they have made, because at first the Democrats, or a lot of Democrats, I think most of them, even the pro-crypto Democrats in the Senate were against the Genius Act. And then they made some changes. And so the people who are for it are saying, well, it's some regulation of stablecoin is better than no regulation at all. And there's all these consumer protections built in. And opponents like Elizabeth Warren are saying not enough protections built in. And also it's not doing anything about Trump at all.

and the Trump problem. I believe the, but the regulations now say that no member of Congress or senior administration official can start a stable coin while in office. But if you already got one going. Right, exactly. Like, come on. So, not a great bill, but I would take issue with the premise only in that

At the beginning of Trump's term with some of the cabinet nominees and things like Lake and Riley Act, we were in a political environment where I think a lot of Democrats were like, OK, we got to work with Trump when we can and oppose him when we must. And I think now, with the exception of the Genius Act, I don't think many nominees are getting through the Democratic Senate, except for some reason.

Cory Booker voted for Jared Kushner. Yeah, that's the one I wanted to bring up. Charles Kushner was a longtime donor of Cory Booker. Cory Booker put out a statement right before Charles Kushner's conviction that

But it's an unbelievable vote. It's just absolutely an insane thing to do. Cory Booker put out some statement about how the reason he did it is because Charles Kushner helped pass the First Step Act when Cory Booker was doing that in the first term, which is an absurd premise. And I think it was – I understand that people thought at the time that we should work with Trump when we can and oppose him when we should. That was idiocy then and it's idiocy now.

Yeah. I don't know enough about the Genius Act and the stable coins about – and I can buy an argument that some regulation is better than none. But if you're voting – no one who has cast a vote for a single Trump nominee has felt good about that vote afterwards. Yes. How does everyone feel about their 99 fucking votes for Marco Rubio? Yeah.

We had Ben Holland basically saying to Rubio's face this week, like, I regret that vote. And then Rubio's like, that's how I know I'm doing a good job. Which doesn't make any sense because were you mad he voted for you when he got the vote? You're just coming up with a fucking little retort. Fucking Marco Rubio. But it did feel like what they were trying to do is the same reason they were getting behind people like Mattis because of this idea like, no, you need responsible people there to hold Trump to

to his feet to the fire, make sure there are serious adults. If he's not there, who's going to be there in his place? But then that was what Marco Rubio's role. That's what Besson's supposed to be doing. Right. But they're just not. Charles Kushner, what are we doing here? Yeah, not a great guy. All right, this is fun. Who are your rankings of most disappointing and surprisingly not disappointing Trump 2.0 appointees and characters? And then this person said, Burgum's kind of wholesome. I

I think we just named a surprisingly disappointing one, which is Marco Rubio. That was the top of my list. Right. He's throwing people in jail for writing op-eds. He's helping. And he's proud of it. Lead deportations to El Salvador. Like he is, he was the most normie cabinet selection out there. And he's done more to erode democratic norms than maybe anyone else.

Look, I didn't expect good things from Christine Ohm. But if you would have told me that within weeks of Donald Trump become president, she would do a fascist photo op in front of prisoners at a Salvadoran mega prison to justify illegal extrajudicial kidnappings, that would have been, I think, surprising to me. Well, it's also very specific. Yeah.

One of the polymark gods. Wow. Whoever predicted that was smart. Quite a windup on that prediction. I think Besant too, I would say. See, I don't know. Has he been a moderating force? Kind of seems like at times on the tariffs. I don't think he's helped too much. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. We don't know what's going on. It's hard to know the difference between a pathetic, failed moderating force and someone who's going along with what a Lutnik wants. Well said. Well said.

Tulsi Gabbard, her entire worldview was defined by Iraq, and now she's firing intelligence analysts who disagree with a political judgment they made about immigration. Dan, what about you? Who do you got? I probably would put Marco Rubio as my most disappointing. I didn't have any real hopes for him. I just thought he would be sort of a shuffled off to the side, feckless loser the whole time, as opposed to really leaning into being a giant pro-Trump asshole. That was surprising. With four jobs? Yeah, I mean, I think...

Besant, I don't know what hopes I had for him either. He's mostly failed at what he was doing. He's worse at being Gary Cohn than Gary Cohn, which is saying a lot about the role that he had. You know, I would say Doug Burgum. I haven't really thought about him since the day he was confirmed and this question. So that seems like he's at least not doing something terrible. So I should feel good about that. Oh, that's on your... Yeah, okay. Oh, that's your surprising. That's my surprising, yeah. I think that I did not expect much from her at all, but Pam Bondi to me is like...

Almost as bad as I imagined Matt Gaetz being. Yeah. And if you catch her on TV, she's just like a White House spokesperson. Yeah. She's the attorney general. Empty vessel. But she's so obsequious in the cabinet meetings and she's just like spitting out talking points. She's just a Donald Trump staffer. That's it. She calls him president. Yeah. Not mister, not the. Thank you, president.

The way a child would. You know who's getting a lot of love in surprising places these days? Oh, no. Kash Patel. Roll the clip. Oh, wow. Oh, a surprise clip. If it makes you feel better, I mean, Gorka is not taken seriously by anyone who knows him, I think including his wife. He's a nice person for whatever it's worth. And I think his job literally is just to sit on the internet

and like send, you know, fiery replies to people on X. I mean, I don't think he actually has a job. Oh, well, then I guess he's the perfect guy for the job. There's someone else working on counterterrorism.

Tommy, fuck you for making me like Tucker Carlson there. I know. That was Tucker talking to a guy named Sean Ryan, who's kind of a military podcaster guy. Oh, yeah. I always see him. Really shitting on Zeb. So is there some sort of Zeb Tucker beef? I don't remember that. So apparently there was a backstory that was too long to include, but Gorka went after Sean Ryan over something and was a real dick about it. They also just think he's a clown.

He's like cosplaying as counter-terrorism. John Ryan's a former Navy SEAL turned CIA kind of contractor, dude. Any other pleasant surprises? Surprisingly not disappointed. Anyone else?

I know. We kind of talked about Kash Patel a little bit. I know. I didn't want to jinx anything. I don't either. You know, yeah. Dan Bongino and Kash Patel going out there and basically saying that Epstein killed himself. I mean, it's just sort of a strange way to go, fellas. But there's a kind of an odd moment of them kind of

trying to speak the truth to the base not clear why they I mean clearly felt so compelled by all the pressure they're under it tells you something about what their day-to-day priorities are but those guys could be worse it's just weird to me right now after the shoot the terrible shooting in DC of um those two staffers at the Israeli embassy like Dan Bongino's Twitter feed is just

given out good, credible information and very calm. And I'm like, what? It's weird to me only because Kash Patel and Dan Bongino seem less crazy than their boss. It's not like they're taking a cue from Pam Bondi. She's much more of just a Trump staffer than the two of them. And I thought it would have been reversed, maybe. It just raises the question about what the deep state has on both of them.

Oh, there we go, Dan. Exactly. Dan, you joke, but I listened to two hours of Tucker Carlson talking to that guy, Sean Ryan, last night, and this was a big chunk of it. Whoa, let's talk about that. Where do you find the time? Two hours? I did on 2X. Was it a four-hour podcast you did at 2X? No, it was two to one, two to one. Okay, but you still did an hour of Tucker Carlson and Sean Ryan at night with two children.

I listened to half of it this morning. It was compelling. It was good. It was a good audio. I'm going to step in to save you, Tommy. At 9.30 last night, I started the conversation between J.D. Vance and Ross Douthat. That was the annoying conversation. And I listened to that to go to sleep. It was so bad. What is wrong with you? But it did not help me go to sleep because it got me extremely angry at J.D. Vance. Well, no fucking shit. Like, what did you think? Just Ross soothing dulcet tones was going to rock you to sleep like a lullaby? Yeah.

Supposed to have a guy you're trying to get in a Twitter fight with every three days. I don't know what the last straw was for Martin Luther to kick off the Reformation, but it has to be a Catholic conversation more irritating than that, I suppose.

I yeah. Anyway, we won't get we won't break that down. We won't break that. All right. New question from Kev. When a Democratic president gets back in office, do you think it is their responsibility to strip back some of the presidential powers that have been taken over the past two decades? Or is that not possible with an ever paralyzed and ineffective legislative branch? I had Tommy and Dan both say they wanted to take this one.

Oh, my answer is nope. Use the power you have to do stuff that makes people happy. I'm not saying that President Pete should crush his enemies with DOJ, but we're not going back to normal. Let's do some shit. I thought that you were going to say for war powers.

Um, what do you mean? Like, like have Congress actually? Yeah, like the fact that we're still, you know, that the presidents are still using the authorization for Afghanistan and Iraq to just like launch whatever. It would be great if Congress would repeal the AUMF. I'm absolutely for that.

But I think just in terms of the leaning on executive action, not waiting for Congress, no, we're not going to let Republicans obstruct us to death ever again. I have a different take on this. Let's hear it. I'm fine with continuing to have a broad-based definition of executive power because Congress is paralyzed. I think in 2028, Democrats should run on an agenda that makes the president more accountable for their actions.

We should support making the Hatch Act apply to the president. We should have a legal solution where it sets out where presidents can be prosecuted to sort of hem in the immunity decision. We should pass laws that say presidents can't have meme coins, stable coins. There's like a whole set of things that we should –

Trump has found all these loopholes in the system. He has exploited them mightily. It is in our interest to be – we're not going to ever take advantage of those things, hopefully. So we should run to close all those loopholes. I think it should be a big part of our agenda. And I think a president – Lie about it. Not do it. I think you should do them.

And not to the meme corner. I think it's not going to be that hard. Look, we're in this sort of vicious circle where it's like heads we, tails they win, heads we lose, which is, you know, we abide by all these structures that slow down government, restrict the president's ability to operate. Then Republicans come in, they can do whatever the fuck they want. Like we can't, we can't prove to people that government can work effectively and like serve their interests if we're so hemmed in when we finally have power. But at the same time, I do think

The presidency is now this sort of symbol of total government failure. And the only antidote to that is not reforms that make Congress more effective or make the agencies move more quickly, but just to accrue more power to the president. And it's a tough spot for Democrats to be in. But I think Tommy is right.

We first and foremost need to prove to people that government can work within the bounds of the law, within the structures provided by Congress, but that it can be dynamic and effective and fast moving. And I think for a long time, Democrats weren't willing to kind of ruffle feathers, break through walls in a way that proved that to people. And I think that's like the first order priority. Yeah, I'm being a little bit glib, but I do think like, and obviously like I would love to, I would do like comments on ethics reforms, but I do think like Trump was

With like Doge, for example, it was ineffective and stupid, but it made him look like he was active in doing things and actually cutting spending. And I think we have to figure out our version of something like that that makes us look like we're not just going to get obstructed. There needs to be like a little bit of that kind of like fast moving energy with like, you know, a moral and like ethical and ideological goal we support. There's somewhere between the lawyers stopping everything from happening and having the judges stop everything you tried to do. And Trump, we Democrats have erred on the former and Trump has fallen into the latter.

Yeah. I would probably pass legislation or try to pass legislation to Trump proof the bureaucracy and independent agencies just give a little more protection just based on what the courts have ruled so far. The courts have sort of stood up to Trump on some of the deportation stuff, but they are not standing up to Trump on like firing, except for the Fed, I guess, firing heads of independent agencies knowing that some of these independent agencies are going to be like Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, right?

We want to protect that beyond the next Democratic president, next time there's a Republican. So I would try to push for reforms there. And then maybe clean up the Insurrection Act, the Alien Enemies Act. So make sure that if we get another Republican president, those aren't on the table. Get rid of that one. You're overlooking our big win on the P-Club. What's the P-Club? The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Oh, we won on P-Club? A federal judge, Trump fired two Dems on that board. The federal judge said, no, no, no, no.

Who were the Dems, Tommy? Were they friends of yours? Two.

I don't know, man. A couple of clobs, you know? A big win on the... Let's do a rapid response video on our big wins on the peak clob board. I think Tommy just did. Travis LeBlanc and Edward Felton. I think that's going to go viral. Oh, good. Eddie. All right, from Dan Levy. Suppose you somehow had the opportunity to interview Trump. How would you approach it? Would you ask tough questions and criticize his record? Or would you try to butter him up and trick him into saying something harmful, i.e. the quiet part out loud? Ugh.

All right. You know what? Honestly, we're going to have a little ceremony. We're going to bury that phrase in the ground. There's no more. How is anyone hearing any quiet parts? It's all loud all the time. Didn't have that on my bingo card. Bury that one with it. Louder for the people in the back. I would go with some simple questions. I think the Christy Noem, what is habeas corpus example is kind of how I would go with Trump. Like, what does the emoluments clause say, sir? And then when he inevitably flips out, I just want one journalist to be like,

You're the most powerful man in the world. Your party controls the entire government. Do you ever get bored of bitching and whining so much? And just see what he says.

That's good. Yeah, I would goad him into losing his temper. But I would also make sure that he couldn't leave the interview. He could try, but the doors were all locked. I think you want him to storm off. Paging Secret Service. No, we're just hanging out. He's just abiding by the rules. Yeah, but I think that goading him into losing his temper, especially around the

The jet, the corruption stuff. That's what really gets him. Like he really flipped out at Peter Alexander. That's great. That was very that was really sort of an interesting moment of him just being kind of like he had just shown his little videos and he was he wanted questions about the videos. And Peter went right to the plane. He's like, I just it was like it was like a show and tell kind of thing. Yeah, it was a presentation. Dan, what would you do? I would pick one subject and stick to it.

I think one of the problems with this is these reporters go in, they feel like they have to ask him every about everything. Like just in the example with the Terry Moran interview where Donald Trump is seeming like a complete lunatic lying or being completely misled about a picture of

with fake tattoos that he tweeted out of the Oval Office. And Terry Moran's like, I hear you. I hear your lies, but I got to get to Ukraine. I got to get to Ukraine. I hear the clock ticking. So just pick one issue, right? It could be corruption. It could be what's actually in the budget bill. It could be his illegal deportation or something. Just pick one thing and stick to it so that you can actually drill down as opposed to trying to cover the waterfront and you're allotted 17 minutes or whatever it is.

I also want one just thing I think has been effective with him, too, is sometimes be like, I never said that. All right. And that's not what I said. If you just have the printout of the, you know, just have the post. He fucking hates that. He hates being confronted by his words. And if you just have like it's right here, this is what you said. It's right here. Dan, is the new media section of the press room actually damaging or is it just kind of a weird sideshow? It's a weird sideshow. It's serving the purpose that Trump wants, which is to grant access to his biggest fans so that they will.

cover him even more positively. It's not changing the world. It's not upending what journalism is or anything like that. It's access for sycophants with large media platforms, and it's working the way it's intended. Yeah. It's smart. Democrats should do the same thing. Absolutely. You should.

Yeah. I look forward to the next democratic president having a new media section with a whole bunch of people except us. Yeah. Four more years. Probably the way that goes. I was like DMing Midas touch ask. We can borrow their badge. Fuck. We do know Brian Tyler. Yeah. I'm all done fast. Plus one. Please let me in. Uh,

All right, here's a tough one. Are there any conservative commentators that you respect? And who is your least favorite conservative commentator so far in Trump 2.0? And then this person gives us a leading Scott Jennings. I suppose this means conservative commentators who are still pro-Trump. I think you have. Yeah. I don't think we can be like Bill Kristol. Oh, yeah.

Honestly, I really don't. I don't. That's not where I'm at. Like, I really have a great deal of respect for the conservatives that said no. I think it's just been it's just been interesting. I think people's revealed themselves in the last decade about what what they really believed. And I really genuinely admire the conservatives that walked away. But the ones that are inside defending this, I just have no respect for it. There's no I don't know unless maybe there's some that are better than others, but it's hard for me to judge.

I mean, we have Fox on all day long and it's just sort of whatever the talking points of the day are, whichever host is on, we'll repeat them. Like in 2018, the claims that there was a white genocide in South Africa and white farmers were being exterminated was cabined off to the Tucker Carlson hour of Fox News. Now that Trump is talking about it, it's on every single show. That doofus sports guy, Will Kane, like everybody's just repeating that talking point, right? So I have the least respect for those useful idiots.

I don't respect them, but I find it interesting that Laura Loomer, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon are all willing to be critical of Trump on certain issues and at certain points. Again, I don't like them. I think they're bad people who do and say terrible things and are dishonest, but they speak truth to power more than like the bozos, you know, Laura Ingraham.

Yeah, it's the it is interesting where there's a lot of people who are for whatever Trump is for because they didn't really have that strong of an ideology. They really want power and money, success, whatever it is. So they just go along with what Trump wants. And then there are the people that really did have an ideological agenda they cared about to whom they view Trump as useful and powerful.

Where that pops up, you have these House Freedom Caucus members, a lot of them went along with this bill, but someone like Thomas Massey is willing to go on the floor and say, this is still a bad bill and you can't convince me otherwise. There is...

That speaks to a genuine belief that that person has. I think it's wrong, but- - Then he voted for it. - No, didn't Massey vote no. - Did Thomas Massey? - I think Massey voted no. - Oh, I thought they got all. - No. - Who's now? - It was two of them, Massey and someone else. Anyway, sorry. - I think Massey was trying to raise money off of- - Oh, that's right. - Trump went after him. - Dan, you said that you respect Scott Jennings. That's who you're- - No, no. Yeah, I think you misheard me. I agree with Lovett. There's none of them that I respect in any way, shape or form.

It is interesting. But the people I respect less are the Fox News people and Brett Baer in particular. Like the fact that we're in a world where Laura Loomer has more journalistic integrity than Brett Baer is something that I would hope would keep Brett Baer up at night in his very, very large mansion in Palm Beach, but I suspect it doesn't.

Brett Baier, like he really has become like kind of the lead Pravda guy at Fox News. He is the house organ. And it's not just that he interviews Trump. He interviews a cabinet official every other night for some sort of gauzy one hour thing. And when Trump went to the UAE in Qatar, he interviewed the prime minister and gave them both kind of like softball, hour long, whatever, like specials. Do you think that the reason...

the Palm Beach houses of these Fox News anchors keep getting bigger is because they're like the Winchester widow and they need to sleep in a different bed each night to evade the ghosts that haunt them for what they've done and from which they've reaped their great rewards. I was thinking that. Yeah, so this was my first thought this morning. Yeah, you were thinking that. Yeah. What's the Winchester widow? The

The Winchester widow, she inherited the fortune from the Winchester gun company from her husband, and she built this elaborate mansion, but never stopped constructing it because she would like to sleep in a different room because she felt she was haunted by the ghosts of the people killed by the weapons. And so it's this maze-like structure. Dark. What's the origin of the story? The Winchester widow. But that's it. What do you mean? I mean, did someone write it? Like...

Oh, I don't know. You mean like where did I hear from it? I don't know. I don't know what fucking rattles around. I read a book or I saw a TikTok. The latter. Yeah, it's the content people come here for. I'm Googling it for you. Maybe it's just because I listened to the interview last night. I thought Rostov did a good job

uh with jd vance did he yeah the daily part he didn't push back and i was this is the problem it's like i first of all it's a good lesson doing the interview about the interview you just did lame yeah we've we've thought a couple times about like should we talk about the interview after listening to five minutes of the daily doing that i was like absolutely not why am i listening to this i should listen to the actual interview between ross and jd vance and ross is famously against masturbation too so well yeah did that come up in the interview john

Can't agree with him on everything, you know? You're going to jerk yourself off on the daily. But he did, you know, he pushed J.D. Vance on immigration and some other like, oh, so you're a Catholic Christian and you believe this.

And J.D. Vance was fucking smug and awful as ever. I want to modulate my joke earlier, which was really just about J.D. Vance being irritating. I actually want to listen to the conversation. I think there's a lot of knee-jerk, Ross Douthat hate in the world that I'm not a participant in. I like him. Yeah, and I don't even know if he's like a—he's a conservative that's interesting because I don't think he's anti-Trump, but I don't think he's pro-Trump either. No, I don't put him in—I think he's—yeah, no, I think he's an interesting—

I actually don't put him in that category at all. But Scott Jennings is definitely my least favorite. Or maybe tied with Bacha Ungar Sargon. Oh, yeah. Tough one. Because she's sort of a new character. Well, they're all coming off that Abby Phillips evening panel. Poor Abby.

Stop booking them. She's doing a good job trying to deal with it. What's your take on Blue Sky? Can it be good or will it discourse itself to death? This seems so far up your alley, John. Let us know. Oh, boy. Are you on there? I check in once a week, a couple times a week, just to see what's going on. Like a wellness check? Like what's happening? Like a PO? What are you talking about? So I...

Yeah, otherwise his ankle starts beeping. He's got to blow into the tube and make sure, and otherwise he gets in trouble. Well, here's the thing, guys. Some of the people that we like and follow a lot on Twitter are now mostly posting on Blue Sky. Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, they're mostly there. And so I want to see what's going on. And then every time I go in my mentions, there's a lot of people being like, you

You guys got to come over to Blue Sky. Tell John and Tommy to come over and Dan and what's going on. You know, so I go over and I'm like, I'm always trying it out. I went yesterday and people are very mad, love it, that you and I are hosting a Jake's Hyper Alex Thompson book event. Little do they know that Jake might actually come on the pod. But like, so I sort of,

tweeted something or posted or skeeted, skeeted something about it. And then my mentions were flooded with just, someone told me to throw myself down a mineshaft. Yeah.

That seems more like Twitter energy. It is Twitter. Yeah, totally Twitter energy. And then they're like, fuck, go back to the Nazi site. So there's a lot of that. And then there's a lot of nice people that are like, here's what you need to do. And then someone told me that there is a way to filter out all the mentions from people that you don't follow on there, which you can do on Twitter. And it improved my Twitter experience. Delete it from your phone. They didn't have it at first in Blue Sky, but now I did that. And I think, man, I don't know, maybe I'll give it another whirl. I am...

Sarah Longwell was talking with they did that I was listening to Sarah and Tim and JVL talking on the bulwark and she was saying how she's been trying to avoid Consuming trying to like not consume as much opinion and more straight facts so that she can know that she's forming her own opinions and I've just been I've been feeling just like I don't know just the the relentlessness of Trump the kind of onslaught of it like I've been feeling my inability to focus getting worse in the last couple weeks and so I

I took Twitter off my phone again because I am trying to just like, let me just read the stories and show up. And you know what? If I'm like, you know, it's like, I just, I don't want to like run my opinions through the machine as much as I've been doing. So I like took it off my phone for a while. See how that goes. Okay. And Tommy, you're not skeeting anytime soon. Never signed up for it. Everything I hear about it makes me feel like that was the right decision. Can I defend Blue Sky for a second? Yeah. I just like, look, I would love an alternative to Twitter, but I just don't want to deal with like lib on leftist violence all day long. It sounds like that's what it is.

Here, here's where blue sky I think can be most useful is all of our Twitter feeds. Everyone we followed over the 10 or so years we've been on Twitter is so such a disaster now that you can kind of start fresh and blue sky. I don't post there very often, but I do look at it and I basically just only follow reporters and it is actually a much better way when something happens to just go to your following tab on blue sky, which is just all reporters that I followed in the last couple of years here.

and you just get people telling you what's happening in the news. That is the closest thing to the Twitter 2011, 2012 experience of it as a in real time news site. This is a general rule, whether it is Twitter, Blue Sky. Don't read your mentions, John.

It's like, I see your mentions sometimes because I see your tweets and they're not, they're not, they'll tell you you're not getting a better experience on X. I'll tell you that right now. Well, that's what I'm saying. That's why, oddly enough, my experience on X has been better for the last several months than blue sky. Because you have your blinders on. I hid the mentions on X. You need your blue sky blinders too. For sure. For sure. But I also, to that point about the news and Sarah's point, I made a list on Twitter that's called Just News and it's just following reporters because I have the same thing. It's like, sometimes you just want the latest news and you don't want

people's opinions. Do you have a feed on your whatever they call TweetDeckNow site that's just like people you want to fight with? It's like Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Mark Davis. No, I don't have that. Then please don't give me that idea. Pod Save America is brought to you by Fast Growing Trees. We got three Fast Growing Trees in our office right now. They look spectacular. So great. And you know what? We've had fake trees in the office.

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All right, another question. I can't figure out how to use AI in my day-to-day. I don't want to fall behind, but I just can't find a good use for it. Do you guys use it? Any tips on how it's useful or how I can get started? It's just a much better Google search. Google's terrible now. It's been ruined. And I don't know whether it's perplexity or chat GPT or whatever. Pick your poison. Claude, llama, whatever.

It's hard to keep one. It's really hard to keep them all straight. Yeah, porcupine like whatever the fuck these things are like they're all just better hedgehog hedgehog hog wild Yeah, that's a different site You can draw funny picture. I tried to make an only Dan's logo. I'll see if I can pull it up here It wasn't that good. So the visual part is not there yet Only dance. I like it I'll show you I do it Google. I use it as Google. There's a better Google. Yeah, I I'm I'm like I

really kind of viewing it as more like of a novelty that I'm experimenting with and throwing things in there to see what comes out. I don't use it as a Google that often. What I, I find it useful to me in moments where I'm stuck. Like if you're just stuck, like trying to figure something out, it'll like break out of it. Like,

Wow. That is a... Why is that Dan? That's like Dan crossed with Scott Jennings. It's really strange. It's AI. Yeah. No, we... Yeah. No, no. We got that it was AI for sure. That's the conversation we're having. But the... Well, that's why it doesn't look like him. Yeah, it doesn't look like him yet. But it will. And so there was a couple of days ago I was trying to write a description of something and it was a tough thing to hit the tone right. And I was just struggling. And so I just said, hey, help me come up with a sentence or two to help describe this.

And it's for an upcoming series we're going to do. And I didn't use basically any of it, but it gave me like one sentence that was like smarter than what I had come up with myself, to be honest. And I was like, oh, that works. Let me take that. And then I can write something to it to figure it out. It like kind of, I think it's like a, it's a block obliterator, you know, it'll just like throw, it's relentless. So you can just get a bunch of ideas and maybe you grab one and then you can keep working, keep writing, think of something. But other than that, I haven't yet really cracked why it's, I mean, I don't know.

maybe it's helping people move faster. I use it all day, every day. Really? I use it as a, like for Google, I don't, I never Google anything anymore. I would ask it,

like very specific questions to find answers to. I use it, I will use it to synthesize data. Like I will upload a large poll and ask it for a set of findings to answer certain questions or test the premise. I will use it. I never use it for writing per se, but I will use it the same way you do love, which is like, I am stuck. I'm trying to write something. And it's like,

You've used the same descriptive word like three times and you're trying to like, what's another way to say this? I use that. I will, I will upload a full message box and I will ask for 10 title suggestions.

And almost never do I end up using the ones they actually have, but it always helps me like figure, figure it out. Um, yeah, I use it for, I use it for a lot of research, um, and to, and like really synthesize like large data sets into like easily understandable things. And you can use it to make, I'm not very good at this, but to use it to make charts and graphics. The part that I find troubling about it still is like, uh,

Like you let's say ask it a question about the news and and most of the time it's giving you a useful synthesis of various articles and that's great. But it's trained on certain data sets. And one of them is that Joe Biden was a lot of what it was trained on was a time when Joe Biden was president. And so you'll ask it a question and you'll be like, wait a second. This answer still thinks Joe Biden is president.

And so like, oh, wow, it's really if you were working with someone day to day, it was Mike Donilon and it was Mike Donilon. It was. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm using Mike Donilon 4.7. But if you were working with somebody and they were really, really smart, but every once in a while thought it was 1997, you'd be like, oh, you I can't trust you. Yeah. You know, so that's what makes me nervous. I make it double check. It's where I make it double check. It's all the time.

- Yeah, I'm like, are you sure this is correct? - Are you sure that's right? - Yeah. - It's so obnoxious, everyone's gonna hate me. - Hey, I'm about to say this on a podcast, are you sure? - I saw something that really kind of like was, I tried it and it was interesting. Again, this is just like just coming up with questions to ask to kind of learn about it. But it said, you don't just ask it a question, you say assemble a group of experts to help me answer this question.

assemble a marketing person, a political person, a strategist, an expert on YouTube, have them meet and discuss this question and decide on an answer together and show me what they did. And like they have a meeting. And then you reply and you say. Do you give them a lunch break? You reply and you say, all right, this is a great first draft. But remember, this whole team gets fired if it's not perfect.

And they're like, all right, back to the drawing board, everybody. Here we go. We got to really pull off a great meeting. Wow. You're really, you're into it. I'm learning. I also use it for recipes all the time. Like I want to make this because it's very like what it allows you to do is like, well, I don't have this. And then I'll give you a new version with the thing you have. That's good. I've read you can do this, although I've never done it. You can take a picture of your fridge, upload the chat GPT, and it'll offer things based on what's in your fridge, what you can cook. Wow. I've never done it, but I've read that that's something you can do.

Cool. Creepy, though. All right, next question. Tommy and John, any comments on the Celtics' demise? Dan, any comments on the 76ers, whatever is going on with them? I only caught, let's see, the first game where we blew a 20-point lead, and then I tuned in right before Jason Tatum got hurt. That's it. That's all I had for the Celtics. Yeah, so our best player is out for at least a year. I mean, it's an Achilles, so you wouldn't bring him back at this point. Yeah.

Our two best players both got super max contracts. We're about, Dan, do you understand the NBA salary cap? I don't. There's something called the second apron. It is. We're apparently above that and there's a bunch of restrictions. Yes. So we're at the unravel. You have to get below the second apron because if you're on the second apron two years in a row, in addition to having a giant half billion dollar tax payment, you also have real restrictions about what players you can sign, how you can use your various cap slots and

And so they have to get blowout. They have to trade some of the members on the team, most likely Drew Holiday or Chris Stapps for Zingas. Who's at the, yeah, he's at the, he also had a weird health thing. So we're fucked. We're at the end of this little run. I don't think DraftKings or FanDuel, whoever like me, make this bet right now, but I would put $100 down right now that the Celtics will win the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery.

Oh, because you think it's rigged? Yeah, for sure. Okay. Yeah. Like Dallas. Maybe it's rigged by God. That's possible. It's not. But every time something like this happens, this is how the Spurs got Tim Duncan. It's how the Mavs got Cooper Flagg. It's how, miraculously, six weeks after Anthony Davis left New Orleans, they got Zion Williamson. So this would be my...

This is a bet I would be willing to make. It's interesting because it would make sense to me that the same God rigging a draft for the Celtics would be the one that made Donald Trump president. That's true. That's a good point. It's a solid point. Tough. Tough but fair. Sorry, Boston. From Katzian. Katzian. Katz? Anyway. Katz and Katz. Katz and Katz. Katzian Katz. Is there anyone in the cricket office who beats Fabs for screen time? Is there a dark horse we're unaware of?

It's Saul. It's Elijah, right? It's Elijah. It's Austin. I believe it is two of the other hosts of this podcast. The only one who gets off here is Lovett. Yeah, that's right. Thank you. I got off here in all kinds of places. I'm guessing, Dan, because I am on text chains with Dan so often that I know he must be looking at screens. And Tommy is just...

just as bad as me. I think he just described about his Tucker Carlson interview in the evening. It was dark. That was deep research. That was deep research. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But... Do you want to defend yourself, Dan? I'm online way too much. There's no question about that. The difference is you're just now become such a poster. It's like we always know when you're online. You're always posting. Always be posting. Always be posting. This is from Love It Always Cracks Me Up.

What a surprise that Lovett chose this question. I like the question. I like the question. What are your favorite RPGs of all time? Thank you, Lovett cracks me up. All right. Here's my list. This is the only notes I took for this whole record.

You hung back for the rest. Bloodborne, I did. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 3, Elden Ring. Those are all part of the kind of From Software universe. I love Skyrim. I love Fallout, some of those games. Dishonored is not technically an RPG. I think it's RPG adjacent, but I really like the world building. Deus Ex Human Revolution was a great game. Diablo 3, Diablo 4 are on the list, but I do think those games are basically a kind of drug and are dangerous. They're dangerous. They grab you. They don't let you go.

They're kind of, they hook you with the serotonin loop. Not an RPG, but Subnautica is a great game that's about building up your abilities. It has some like RPG vibes, even though it's obviously not an RPG. And then I am very excited to play Baldur's Gate 3 and Disco Elysium. Oh.

I used to like RPGs when I was a Nintendo kid. And then I liked your Final Fantasies, your Chrono Triggers. Old school. Yeah, that was legitimate. And then I stopped in college. I played Skyrim and Fallout in an earlier period of my life. Oh, that's great, Dan. I like those games. I really got into Skyrim. Last question. Based on the internet debate of could 100 men kill a gorilla without weapons...

Crooked has about 100 employees. Could the Crooked staff kill a gorilla? Yeah. Not in a million years. Here's the thing. Nor would they. Nor would they. Here's the thing. Look, I love our... Here's the thing. Crooked... What I'm about to say is going to... You're going to have to bear with what I'm going to say. This is the one you didn't prepare for.

But I love, I love, I love how many different parts of the pride flag are represented at this company. Um, but I do think it puts us at a disadvantage against the gorilla. I'm sorry. Uh, uh, you know that, you know, that I just think that like, we got to put a lot of our, uh, he, him's at the front and some of our, and a lot of, uh, just got to get those he, him's up ahead. Sorry. We're sending in the he, him's and the, and the she, hers and the they, them's we're going to hang back.

- You know what? I wouldn't put too much stock in the he/hims. - I wouldn't either. - My actual view on the defeating of the gorilla is it's actually not about whether the gorilla loses, the gorilla will lose. It's about whether you are one of the first five to 10 humans to go into that fight. 'Cause a couple people are going down and they're going down hard. A gorilla can lift like 2000 pounds. Gorillas are strong, but a hundred of us,

We're going to beat the gorilla, but we're just going to take some pretty heavy losses early on. That's the problem. That's what's going to happen. I'm sorry to say. Arms are going to be ripped off, faces torn apart. It's going to be an ugly battle, but we're going to tire that gorilla out. All right. We're going to be able to coordinate using what? Language. If I had a hundred Aaron Donalds and the first 50 were ready to die, maybe. You think you would need a hundred Aaron Donalds to beat one gorilla? I think you have to send waves of 10 to gang up on it. Yeah.

Why wouldn't you send all 100 at a time? Because you can't, there's not that much surface area. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think you definitely need at least 10 to move in at once, but I just think then the gorilla's going down. It's luck of the draw. Who are we sending first to the gorilla? What? Who are we sending first? Yeah. Carol's good. I think Ben Hethko could fuck up that gorilla. Yeah, well, he does have an impression. Is he here? Who's not here?

We'll send them. I got a follow-up from Love It Actually. No, sorry. This is from the lovetest show on earth. What if it was 100 gorilla-sized ducks? 100 gorilla-sized ducks. Well, I think it's 100 gorilla-sized. Oh, my God. That's a big duck. That's a big. That's a scary. That's a lot of them, too. Yeah. We're fucked in that. Yeah. It's hard because I think you could beat the ducks. I don't think you could beat 100 duck-sized gorillas, though. 100. 100.

It's like Ant-Man, sort of. I think so. Is it one person versus a hundred gorilla ducks? Or is it each staff get a duck-sized gorilla? I don't know. That's actually the Christmas present. It's the holiday present this year. I'll tell you, either way, we're going to hear about it from the union. Yeah.

It's going to be a tough one. It's not in the job description. That would be so fast. The CBA specifies that they are not supposed to go first. There's no animal combat. Senior staff going after the gorilla first. I noticed no one from senior staff was in the first wave going after the gorilla. No senior producers going in first. All right.

Thank you for your questions, everyone. Big thanks to all of our Friends of the Pod subscribers for sending in questions. We'll be back with a regular episode on Friday. Don't forget, you can subscribe at crooked.com slash friends to unlock a ton of great perks, including subscription-only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, Love It or Leave It, and Offline. To get started and learn more, head to crooked.com slash friends.

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