Trump's Indefensible Pardons

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Speaker 1 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favreau.

Speaker 2 I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Speaker 1 On today's show, America's Golden Age has begun, Dan.

Speaker 1 We'll talk about the first week of Donald Trump's second term and try to separate the signal from the noise, though there was quite a bit of the latter during the president's sit-down in the Oval with his pal Sean Hannity on Wednesday night.

Speaker 1 There was also a cat fight between two of Trump's billionaire friends that broke out over which one of them gets to help control the artificial intelligence that could destroy civilization.

Speaker 1 So that's fun. We'll also talk about what Democrats might learn about how to fight back from an Episcopal bishop and a pod podbro.

Speaker 1 And speaking of Democrats, DNC chair candidate Fash Shakir, one of the smartest voices in progressive politics, stops by to talk to Dan about why he's running and how he's different.

Speaker 1 But first, as of Wednesday evening, Donald Trump had signed, by our count, 48 executive orders and actions and generally spent the week making drastic changes to the way our country is governed and how our society views itself.

Speaker 1 Some of this we previewed on the Tuesday show, but here's a sample of the moves that got the most attention.

Speaker 1 Trump ordered a review of the Biden administration's investigative actions, quote, to correct past misconduct related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the intelligence community.

Speaker 1 He withdrew America from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement. He's also pausing all leases for offshore wind farms and incentives to buy electric vehicles.
He's sending U.S.

Speaker 1 troops to the southern border and building a mass deportation force of federal agents to begin immigration raids.

Speaker 1 He's also directed federal prosecutors to criminally investigate state and local officials who resist the coming deportations. But Trump's also going after legal immigration.

Speaker 1 He signed an order trying to end birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants who aren't yet citizens, even the ones who are here legally on visas.

Speaker 1 He suspended our asylum and refugee programs.

Speaker 1 He signed orders directing the federal government to dismantle all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and jobs, to no longer officially recognize transgender Americans, to freeze all federal hiring and make it easier to replace non-political civil servants with Trump loyalists, which he is already doing.

Speaker 1 He gave top-secret clearances to White House staff without going through background checks, and he also canceled the security clearances of 51 people who signed a letter casting doubt on the Hunter Biden laptop thing.

Speaker 1 He's renaming Denali over the objections of Alaska's Republican senators and the Gulf of Mexico over the objections of anyone whose brain hasn't been broken.

Speaker 1 He signed an order directing all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief to Americans. Whew, didn't realize the Commerce Department was responsible for the price of eggs.

Speaker 1 And last but not least, he has issued pardons and commutations for all of the January 6th defendants, regardless of the severity of their crimes.

Speaker 1 That's a lot.

Speaker 1 We're going to spend some time on the pardons and immigration in a bit. But beyond those two big issues, what from this list really matters the most? What matters less?

Speaker 1 And what is just a bullshitty talking point?

Speaker 2 I think other than the renaming various things on various maps, we should take all of it pretty seriously.

Speaker 2 Even if the order seems more symbolic or so legally dubious that even this Supreme Court is likely to strike it down, because it all sends a message to the Project 2025 goons who can be running this government about what they should do, right?

Speaker 2 The order on investigating the investigations to understand the weaponization of government, that's kind of a fake thing, but that is a signal to Cash Patel and the people who work for the people in Pam Bondi's DOJ that we want to investigate these people, right?

Speaker 2 Even if the order doesn't mean that much, it sends a dangerous signal to dangerous people. And so we should take it quite seriously.

Speaker 2 Having to choose amongst this list of terrible things as the thing that's most terrible is pretty hard. But for me, the stuff I'm most concerned about is all the climate stuff.

Speaker 2 It is pulling out of Paris. It is getting rid of electric vehicle incentives.

Speaker 2 In part because on climate, it's the one thing we don't have time to waste, right? We're already behind schedule and trying to get where we need to get to

Speaker 2 keep the planet alive. And wasting another four years on Donald Trump is deeply dangerous.
And it's time we can't get back.

Speaker 2 On some of these other things, if we can survive these four years, you can go back and you can undo the worst policy does. You can issue new executive orders.
You can pass new laws.

Speaker 2 On climate, we're never going to get those years back. And I think that comes at a great cost.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think the climate stuff is pretty horrible. I think probably the most bullshitty executive order is the one on price relief.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And bringing down inflation, because the idea that the Biden administration had levers within the federal government to lower prices and didn't pull them, even if you think that they don't really care, at least they care about staying in power.

Speaker 1 You think just would have been just would have been more popular to have lower prices. So you think they would have done that.

Speaker 1 But that's probably because there are no levers in the federal government to bring down prices that Joe Biden hadn't already tried over the last four years.

Speaker 1 So that is clearly window dressing and just sort of bullshit.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about the January 6th pardons, which while promised by Trump during the campaign, I think it's fair to say were not expected to be this broad.

Speaker 1 Pardons and commutations, even for people convicted of brutally assaulting police officers, and for the leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, which are two far-right paramilitary groups,

Speaker 1 those two leaders had been found guilty of seditious conspiracy. As recently as January 12th, Vice President J.D.

Speaker 1 Vance said, while defending potential pardons for nonviolent offenders, quote, if you committed violence on that day,

Speaker 1 Obviously you shouldn't be pardoned. J.D.
Vance, if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned. Not so obvious to J.D.

Speaker 1 Vance's boss, who according to reporting from Notice, decided to extend the pardon to even the most violent criminals because of the blowback to Vance's interview from Trump's base.

Speaker 1 According to Axios, Trump said, fuck it, release them all. Trump did an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday night where he talked about his reasoning.

Speaker 3 Number of reasons. Number one, they were in there for three and a half years, a long time, and in many solitary confinement, treated like nobody's ever been treated so badly.

Speaker 3 They knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote. And that you should be allowed to protest the vote.
You should be allowed to. You know, when the day comes...

Speaker 2 You shouldn't be able to invade the capital.

Speaker 3 No, ready? Most of the people were absolutely innocent. Okay, but forgetting all about that, it would be very, very cumbersome to go and look, you know how many people we're talking about?

Speaker 3 1,500 people. Almost all of them are, should not have been, this should not have happened.
They were very minor incidents, okay?

Speaker 3 You know, they get built up by that a couple of fake guys that are in CNN all the time.

Speaker 1 What do you watch?

Speaker 3 They were very minor incidents.

Speaker 1 I'm so angry about this.

Speaker 1 I want to talk about Michael Fanon for a minute. He's a D.C.
police officer. He was beaten within an inch of his life on January 6th.

Speaker 1 Wasn't even on duty that day, responded to radio calls for assistance.

Speaker 1 After he got there, the rioters dragged him down the steps, sprayed chemicals in his face, beat him with pipes, tased him repeatedly in the back of the neck, and said they were going to kill him with his own gun while he said, please, I have kids.

Speaker 1 He suffered burns, a concussion, traumatic brain injury, and a heart attack. He had to retire.
He testified at the January 6th trial. He's gotten threats.
His family's gotten threats.

Speaker 1 He said that as recently as a month ago, his 76-year-old mother was outside gardening and someone threw human feces on her, a Trump supporter, because of her son.

Speaker 1 The man who tased Michael Fanon is Daniel Rodriguez from California.

Speaker 1 He saw Trump call for a protest on January 6th, got on a big group chat, told everyone to bring knives and bear spray to Washington, where he said he would, quote, hang Congress.

Speaker 1 And after he tased Michael Fanone until he lost consciousness, he wrote on the group chat, quote,

Speaker 1 tased the fuck out of the blue.

Speaker 1 And after he pleaded guilty to assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon, he walked out of the courtroom, he screamed, Trump won.

Speaker 1 He was sentenced just about a year ago, and now he is free. No shorter sentence, free.

Speaker 1 And now, Michael Fanon is trying to get a protective order because the rioters who were pardoned are now threatening to go after the people who sent them to prison.

Speaker 1 I don't know what to do with that, Dan.

Speaker 1 I mean, it is

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 2 deeply dangerous. And the way Trump talked about it is just, it's pure gaslighting, right? None of what he's saying is true.

Speaker 2 Nothing that he describes happened the way it happened. These are not peaceful protesters.

Speaker 2 It's an entirely made-up reality to justify this pardon.

Speaker 2 And what is, it's all belied by video evidence, evidence, testimony from the people who were there, testimony from some of his allies and former aides. And he has created this false right reality.

Speaker 2 And I think the scariest thing about it is he clearly believes it. There's a lot of things Donald Trump says that he obviously doesn't believe.

Speaker 2 He has convinced himself about what happened on January 6th, that it is something that was not violent in the way it was, and that

Speaker 2 violence that did happen was justified. Because it was on his behalf.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it is quite, quite scary.

Speaker 1 And look, for all the Republicans and other people who think, oh, we're going to re-litigate January 6th again, and we're looking back.

Speaker 1 This is actually about the future, why this is so dangerous. Because now Donald Trump has pardoned all of these right-wing extremists who were armed, who committed violence, who are

Speaker 1 not apologetic at all.

Speaker 1 who are not maintaining their innocence either. They know they're guilty.
They said they're guilty. They're not apologetic.
And now they're out of prison. And

Speaker 1 other right-wing extremists who might want to cause violence now know that if you commit violence in Donald Trump's name, then he's got your back.

Speaker 1 And so why wouldn't they commit violence again? Now they're all talking about revenge, revenge against the people who testified, against the prosecutors, against the judges. who put them in prison.

Speaker 1 And so like when the Proud Boys come to your community and and start marching or menacing people or whatever the hell they do, what are the police going to do?

Speaker 1 Knowing that when last time a police officer was beaten within an inch of his life, that the perpetrator was just released. Are the police going to protect us? Who's going to protect people?

Speaker 1 Because it's Donald Trump's, whether or not Donald Trump thinks it's his private army, they think they're Donald Trump's private army. That's what they think.

Speaker 2 What does it say about the politics of the Trump coalition that they believed that it would be a huge political problem to not pardon right-wing militia groups.

Speaker 2 Right. I mean, that's where it is, that that would be a political problem.
And I think these pardons are the fullest expression of that famous quote from Frank Wilhoyt that went viral a few years ago.

Speaker 2 Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition to win. There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups who the law binds but does not protect.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 If you support Donald Trump, you have the full protection of the law. If you do not support Donald Trump, if you oppose him, then the law will be turned against you.

Speaker 2 That is the message of Donald Trump on the first day of his presidency.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, even before he sits down with Hannity, Trump allies were having trouble defending these pardons. Let's listen to some Republicans.

Speaker 2 What about those who assaulted police officers and then were pardoned by the president? I haven't seen any.

Speaker 1 I haven't gone into the detail.

Speaker 4 What do you mean by President Trump's pardons for violent offenders?

Speaker 5 I'm grateful that President Trump is the president of the United States.

Speaker 2 I I certainly don't want to pardon any violent actors, but there's a real miscarriage of justice here, so I'm totally supportive of it.

Speaker 6 I haven't seen the details, but supposed to get 12 years, you've got less than one.

Speaker 1 Are you okay with that? It's not my place. It's the president's own decision, and he made a decision.

Speaker 8 Again, it's not ideal, but I'm not overly concerned about it either. I think that the gift is that it's all behind us now.

Speaker 1 We've been stopped on the voter. Pathetic.
Pathetic. I think those Republicans, I think every elected Republican should be asked that question,

Speaker 1 who refused to answer it, should be asked that question every single day that any reporter can get in their face and put a microphone there.

Speaker 1 The ones who are walking through Congress. I mean, I just,

Speaker 1 at least answer the question. At least have the courage to say, yeah, I support the pardons of the violent criminals.
who beat the shit out of police officers and almost killed them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I support it. At least say that.
Instead of just running away.

Speaker 1 I mean, do you think that Republicans will pay a political price for defending this?

Speaker 1 Is this something that like, you know, is going to is going to haunt some of these members when they're up for re-election in two years?

Speaker 2 It will haunt them more if the reporters and others in politics are aggressive about continue to ask the question and we don't just give up after six days.

Speaker 2 These reporters, these capital reporters, many of whom also have their lives in danger on January 6th, are going to see these members every single day.

Speaker 2 Are they going to keep asking about this or are they going to to switch to their opinion on whether it's one bill or two bills or whatever else?

Speaker 2 Like if they drive this, then it has a greater chance of staying in the public consciousness. The pardons are very unpopular, right? Large majorities oppose them.

Speaker 2 Even a significant number of Trump's most ardent supporters don't think they're a great idea.

Speaker 2 And I think we should, Democrats should scream from the rooftops about this as much as we possibly can because most voters are not going to know this happened or they're not going to understand exactly who he pardoned, right?

Speaker 2 And what those people did and what the consequences of that are.

Speaker 2 But I do want to sort of level set expectations on the the politics of this in the short term at least, because, and this gets to what I think is one of the analytical errors that I made in 2024 when talking about this election, is we have to sort of understand the difference between what the popularity of an issue and how big a priority is for voters.

Speaker 2 These partners were always unpopular. Every voter, people said they did not like them.
They do not like it when Donald Trump talks about January 6th.

Speaker 2 But in the end, for most of the voters who or were persuaded, well, this did not drive their vote choice because they cared so much about costs and immigration to a slightly lesser extent that they're willing to put up with a whole bunch of shit that Donald Trump was willing to do that they did not like if he was going to lower the costs.

Speaker 2 So, the political price of this is going to come

Speaker 2 if and when prices don't come down, as Donald Trump says, or the border does not become more secure, or America feels continues to feel more chaotic.

Speaker 2 In the short term, is this going to move things a lot? Probably not, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep talking about it because it's incredibly important.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just

Speaker 1 I get why it didn't move vote. I get like, first of all, how many people knew that he was promising pardons like this? How many people knew exactly what these people did?

Speaker 1 And it's a prospective promise during a campaign and it's not something that you're experiencing while you're going to the voting booth. Now he's done the pardons.

Speaker 1 Now we should be telling the stories of what happened because I think this goes like, okay, what if prices do come down? But there's still paramilitary groups roaming our communities, right?

Speaker 1 Like, probably we should say something about that. Probably we should let people know what's happening.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, I mean, we'll get into the Democratic discussion about, you know, how Democrats are responding, but I

Speaker 1 completely understand that the driving force behind Trump's victory and probably the central challenge that has destabilized American politics has to do with people's living standards and yawning economic inequality in this country.

Speaker 1 And so I completely understand that, but sometimes I think you just have to talk about one thing and then you have to talk about the other thing.

Speaker 1 You have to be able to talk about both, especially this far out from an election, you know, because I think this is the time, if any time, to seed the ground and make sure that people know what has happened and what the stories are.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think maybe the way to think about this is, and one of the strategic errors of the first Trump term was there was like this belief, this intuition among so many Democrats that we were just like one thing away from people abandoning Trump.

Speaker 2 If they could just learn this one singular piece of information about him, then they would walk away. And we spent a lot of time screaming about all of those things.

Speaker 2 And the way to think about it now, right, because he just did this on the furthest distance possible from the midterms.

Speaker 2 right, when he will actually have to be held accountable nationally for his political misdeeds, is we have to tell a story about Trump, right?

Speaker 2 And not just about Trump, about the Republican Party in the Trump era, is probably the way to think about it. And this needs to be a piece of that story.

Speaker 2 It's not just that we're just like, he pardoned these people.

Speaker 1 They're bad.

Speaker 2 Look at all the terrible things. Look what it means that that's going to move things.
It's just like over time, right? We're not trying to move his numbers today.

Speaker 2 We're not trying to move his numbers tomorrow.

Speaker 2 We're trying to make a case against him that is going to bear fruit for us when voters actually vote in Virginia and New Jersey in November and then nationally in the House and Senate elections next year.

Speaker 1 One way to think about this that I've been thinking about is

Speaker 1 our kids, you know, in a couple years, your kids probably even sooner, are going to like know the details of these stories, right?

Speaker 1 Of like what happened, or they're going to learn about it in school at some point.

Speaker 1 God willing, who knows, if the curriculum hasn't been changed by Donald Trump's administration, by the regime. They're going to learn about this.

Speaker 1 And they're going to be like, okay, so these people beat up these cops. This cop had a heart attack.
He was threatened. And then Donald Trump let them out of prison.

Speaker 1 And then they said that they wanted revenge and that they were going to go buy guns. And so what did everyone say?

Speaker 1 What did everyone do?

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 you know, you're going to say, oh, well, the Republicans pretended that it wasn't happening.

Speaker 1 The Republicans tried to avoid that. Well, what did the Democrats do? Well, the Democrats...
complained about it, but then they said, that's certainly not lowering the price of eggs.

Speaker 1 And like, i'm not of course

Speaker 1 i i'm i'm only half joking because i will say a lot of statements from democrats about the pardons that included the price of eggs in the statement about the pardons and i'm like no no guys that's not that's not the time to do that now

Speaker 1 I'd like, and I feel bad because we have suggested that, you know, and I'm like, no, costs are it, right? Like standard of living, that is the central challenge.

Speaker 1 That is the challenge that most voters are dealing with. Democrats have to talk about it.
We have to reckon with it. It's going to drive vote choice.

Speaker 1 That doesn't mean combining it with everything awkwardly.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think there is a difference

Speaker 2 between

Speaker 2 the story you're trying to tell and the words you use every single day, right? Like you don't like the log line here

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 that Donald Trump failed to lower prices because he, in part, because he did all of these other things instead of that.

Speaker 2 That's not what you say, right? It is reading the stage directions out loud. You can scream about the

Speaker 2 pardons as we should, understanding in the back of your head that the longer game here is

Speaker 2 going to be around prices. Like you don't have to jam it all into one tweet or one skeet or one statement.
It is, you can just scream about this.

Speaker 2 And then over the course of time, you are making a case about all of the things he did that people don't like, which are going to have much more political weight when he undoubtedly fails on the promises he made that they care the most about.

Speaker 1 You can even do a multi-part skeet.

Speaker 1 Do not thread this.

Speaker 2 It doesn't have to be a threat. It can just be just make a point.

Speaker 1 Reading the stage directions is just such a good description of what so many Democrats have been doing this week and maybe the last several years. The last decade.

Speaker 1 Like just stop reading the stage directions, please. It does.
tell me something about how Republicans view the politics of this. Mike Johnson gets asked about it and says,

Speaker 1 we're not looking back, we're looking forward. And then three hours later, Mike Johnson announces that they're going to investigate the January 6th investigation that Congress undertook.

Speaker 1 And the reason why we now know, because of reporting from CNN, is that Donald Trump asked Mike Johnson to go investigate the January 6th committee. And Johnson was like,

Speaker 1 it's a little looking backwards. I don't know.
But of course, Johnson has to do whatever Donald Trump says because they are all doing whatever Donald Trump says.

Speaker 1 There's no Republican left that is trying to actively oppose him. We get a few Republicans who said they don't agree with the pardons.
Good for them. Lisa Murkowski, Tom Tillis, some others.

Speaker 1 But no one is making it. None of the Republicans are making a big deal out of it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, there's in their minds, and they're not incorrect on their short-term politics, is if you're on the wrong side of Trump, you're out of the Republican Party.

Speaker 1 Right. What do you think about the one excuse you hear from some of them is, well, Joe Biden did all the pardons.

Speaker 1 So Joe Biden pardoned his family, and he did those prospective pardons for Fauci and Cheney. And so if he's doing pardons and Trump's doing pardons, all the pardons are bad.

Speaker 2 I don't love Joe Biden's pardons, particularly the one.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm very sympathetic on the Hunter one, the ones for the rest of his family six minutes before he left office, I think, are much harder to defend. That's a good move.

Speaker 2 But if you think that Donald Trump did all of these pardons in this way because Joe Biden did some pardons

Speaker 2 earlier that day, then you were too fucking stupid to be in politics.

Speaker 1 Well, then you didn't, then you were like in fucking a coma for the last year because he talked about it every day on the fucking campus. Yes, of course he was going to do this.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 2 Biden made probably slightly leavened the political pain that could come from this because a lot of the coverage is

Speaker 2 the Biden pardons and the Trump pardons. Look at how presidents are now breaking norms left and right.

Speaker 2 He gave the press an opportunity to do its favorite thing, which is default to the pox on both your house's narrative, and that both sides are doing it.

Speaker 1 Once again, Joe Biden in his last move in the White House nailed the messaging and communication.

Speaker 1 Because he's very excellent at that.

Speaker 2 I don't love Joe Biden's pardons. There is a fundamental difference morally, legally, in every other sense between

Speaker 2 proactively pardoning your family

Speaker 2 and pardoning 1,600 people who assaulted the Capitol, some of whom committed violence against police officers, members of right-wing paramilitary organizations, because they were on your side.

Speaker 2 Like, those are not the same thing. They can both not be awesome, but one is a lot less awesome than the other.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't think Anthony Fauci tased anyone until they had a heart attack.

Speaker 2 Well, we'll find out soon.

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Speaker 1 Let's talk about the immigration moves. We could do a whole show about this.
I imagine we'll probably end up doing that at some point. We'll talk about this a lot.

Speaker 1 Just to start, what do you make of the move so far in immigration? And what did you make of that directive to prosecutors to go after any official who tries to stop the deportations?

Speaker 2 Well, let's start with the directive, which

Speaker 2 could not be more ironic in the sense that it is exactly what Donald Trump has been running against in his mind for the last four years, right?

Speaker 2 It is weaponization of law enforcement apparatus of the government to scare people into adhering to your policy agenda.

Speaker 2 If you are someone in

Speaker 2 a city, in a blue city or somewhere else, or law enforcement, local law enforcement, and you have every reason to be afraid that this Department of Justice will prosecute you.

Speaker 2 And even if ultimately you will be found innocent or you won't end up being indicted, you're going to have to spend your own money and your own resources to defend yourself legally against this.

Speaker 2 It's going to upend your life. It's going to potentially ruin your reputation.
And so he is trying to remove all obstacles to anyone who will stand up against him.

Speaker 1 I think the other thing that has stood out to me about all of the immigration moves is Donald Trump's first term, he basically cut legal immigration, legal immigration, by more than he reduced illegal immigration.

Speaker 1 So again, much like cost of living and prices, a lot of people voted for Donald Trump thinking there's a situation at the border. They need to control the border.

Speaker 1 You know, there's been an influx of immigrants coming into our cities that we can't care for. This is a problem.
Can we get this under control? And what Donald Trump is saying is actually,

Speaker 1 I want to go after legal immigration, birthright citizenship, not just for people who've just crossed the border and had a child here.

Speaker 1 No, this is people who are here on student visas, H-1B visas, people who are here legally. Now he's suspending the refugee program.

Speaker 1 Refugees who we take into this country are the most vetted people of any immigrant when we take refugees in. Suspended the refugee program, suspended asylum.

Speaker 1 People like Steve Bannon and that wing of the party, they want to cut legal immigration. Stephen Miller wants to cut legal immigration.

Speaker 1 They don't want the H-1B visas, that whole fight we talked about.

Speaker 1 So it is hard to look at his immigration moves as moves that are about national security, people's safety, anything like that, order in the immigration system, and more about the Trump administration deciding that they want to define who is an American and who is not.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the national security threat in the minds of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller is a diverse pluralistic society.

Speaker 2 That's what they're trying to stop, right? And that, and that anyone who represents change or diversity is a threat.

Speaker 2 And that applies to immigration, applies to their policies on DEI programs and all of it. And that is exactly what they're doing.

Speaker 2 And I think the scary thing here is a lot of this is warmed over policy from the last time, but they are just implementing it faster, more aggressively, and seemingly with more precision than before.

Speaker 2 They now know how to pull the levers of government in a way they absolutely did not. It was just a cluster fuck the first time around.
They didn't even know what they're doing.

Speaker 2 If you remember the Muslim ban, they had to rewrite it like five times to get it through. They made huge errors that delayed implementation.

Speaker 2 And now they're not, for what we can tell, they're not going to make as many of those errors, right? They have real people in charge of things.

Speaker 2 The entire government is on board with Trump's immigration plans. And before, there was a wing of the government that was for it, and part of his White House staff was resisting it, right?

Speaker 2 Including his,

Speaker 2 including some of his closest aides. And in this case, everyone, everyone is moving forward to do it.
And that's where it's the most scary.

Speaker 1 All right. This is what counts as lighter fare.
I was sorry.

Speaker 1 When I got to the mini, how fun.

Speaker 1 A mini drama erupted on Wednesday when Elon Musk went on the attack against a $500 billion AI initiative that Trump had announced the day before in the Roosevelt room with the softbank CEO, billionaire Trump donor Larry Ellison and Elon Frenemy, Sam Altman.

Speaker 1 of OpenAI. Elon responded on X, quote, they don't have the money.
And then Sam and Elon got in a bit of a slap fight online. What's going on here?

Speaker 1 Why is Elon Musk mad about the artificial intelligence initiative announced by his pal Donald Trump and all those other billionaires? I thought he loves AI.

Speaker 2 He does love AI, I think, but he hates Sam Altman more than he loves AI.

Speaker 2 Elon was on the bottom.

Speaker 1 He also loves his, he loves his AI.

Speaker 2 Yes, yes, which we're going to get to, right?

Speaker 2 In the big tech world, in this club of billionaires, it is like, it's all about money, but

Speaker 2 there is a high school cafeteria element to this. And

Speaker 1 it's a little dick-swinging contest.

Speaker 2 That's what it is. All the people at the outcast table in the high school cafeteria now are fighting over being at the cool kids' table.

Speaker 1 Um, yeah, just keep in mind, Donald Trump is the cool kid.

Speaker 2 Yeah, what a fucking world we're in. Um, but Sam Elon and Sam Altman founded open AI together.

Speaker 2 That Elon left it in dispute about its direction. Elon then started a uh competing AI model, Grok, which is part of Twitter.
He does not like the people involved.

Speaker 2 He did not, I imagine, did not like being on that stage because

Speaker 2 Twitter does not have the money to be, or X does not have the money to participate in such an endeavor like OpenAI and the others do.

Speaker 2 And so he just did what he always did, which is say what was the top of his mind without really thinking about it.

Speaker 1 It's also watching Sam Altman, who in 2021 was tweeting,

Speaker 1 thank you, Reed Hoffman, for everything you've done to help defeat Donald Trump. And we're so lucky he's not in the White House anymore.
We've defeated Donald Trump. This is great.

Speaker 1 He was resistance billed at one point. He was tweeting polls in 2017, like, what should we call him? Dangerous Donald?

Speaker 1 Like, this is Sam Altman. And then just yesterday or this week, he posted on X, wow, you know, I think I was wrong about Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 And now that I met him in person, I'm really excited about what he's going to do for the country. Give me a fucking break, man.

Speaker 2 I mean, I met Sam Altman in 2017 at a series of

Speaker 2 meetings trying to bring together political folks and tech folks on how to defeat Donald Trump and fight back against MAGA extremism. And now he's on stage is giving him billions of dollars.

Speaker 1 Now that he's free of your brainwashing, Dan,

Speaker 1 your liberal propaganda.

Speaker 1 that you were spouting at him. Now, thank God he got to meet Mr.
Trump so he could see firsthand how great he is. So is Elon like now the most powerful person in government?

Speaker 1 And I say in government because

Speaker 1 he's got a White House email and he's apparently getting a West Wing office. He was originally going to be in the EEOB, old executive office building.

Speaker 1 That's the one next to the West Wing because there's not a ton of West Wing offices. But Elon was not going to have that.
Now he's in the West Wing with his buddies.

Speaker 1 He pushed Vivek, Ramaswamy, out of Doge. Vivek's now running for governor because apparently

Speaker 1 Elon didn't like his weird thread about

Speaker 1 saved by the the Bell and, you know, we need to have

Speaker 1 more screeches and fewer Zacks and all that kind of stuff, which, you know, point to Elon on that. Yeah, just

Speaker 2 misunderstanding of the plot of Save by the Bell.

Speaker 1 Correct, correct. But so, like, is this, is Elon the most powerful person right now? Steve Bannon was taking shots at him for this open AI thing, the fight with Sam Altman.

Speaker 1 He was like, Donald Trump needs to sit him down. I can't believe that he's just out there and he's been brought into government.

Speaker 1 Now he's criticizing the president, you know, because Bannon Bannon hates him. But what do you think of this whole thing?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think he's the most powerful person in government by far, and one of the most powerful people in the world because Donald Trump has limited leverage over him compared to everyone else. Right?

Speaker 2 Anyone else can kick out of government, he can primary, he can support a primary challenge against them, he can use his Twitter account or his truth social account to trash their reputation and send a mob of people after him.

Speaker 2 Elon has more money than Trump, he doesn't need Trump per se,

Speaker 2 and he has also

Speaker 2 a very vicious, aggressive, very large online mob of people who support him. And so, Donald, you can see it.
Donald Trump treads lightly around Elon Denoy.

Speaker 2 He does not tread lightly around anyone else we've ever seen.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wonder how long it'll last.

Speaker 1 So, more from the Hannity interview. They talked about a lot of other stuff besides January 6th.
I think it's safe to say that both men were really feeling it. They were really happy to be together.

Speaker 1 Let's listen.

Speaker 10 After four long years, President Donald Trump is back where he belongs. He is in the Oval Office.

Speaker 3 Joe Biden has very bad advisors.

Speaker 3 Somebody advised Joe Biden

Speaker 3 to give pardons to everybody but him.

Speaker 2 They wanted to take care of him.

Speaker 3 They wanted to. I don't care.
This guy went around giving everybody pardons. And you know, the funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn't give himself a pardon.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 if you look at it, it all had to do with him. And I heard Schiff went to him and just begged him for a pardon because Schiff is a crook.

Speaker 1 I will say that, so I don't know if you watched the whole interview, but that clip, he has like a sort of menacing tone, but is a little vague on investigating Biden or Schiff.

Speaker 1 But at one point, you know, Hannity asks him about just sort of, you know, vengeance in general and retribution and all that. And he gets really angry and really dark.

Speaker 1 And it's like, I went through hell these last four years. And, you know, know, maybe people need to go through that like it was

Speaker 1 I I

Speaker 1 you know, we are on a watch what he does not just what he says

Speaker 1 kind of uh kind of path here, but I hear something like that. I heard I left that interview thinking, oh man, he really wants to do these investigations.

Speaker 2 Yeah, 100%. I mean, he implicit is doing a lot of work here, but he threatened Biden repeatedly.
Right. See, you know, seems weird, seems unfortunate.
He didn't pardon himself.

Speaker 1 Like says, It's funny. It's kind of sad.
Yeah, maybe it's sad. Maybe it's funny.

Speaker 2 And I mean, there is this, you know, you and I, by based on a series of misbegotten professional decisions, have are forced to watch all of the Trump Hannity interviews over the last near decade.

Speaker 2 And there was always this moment where he sees Trump about to light himself on fire and he tries to use like gentle parroting techniques to shift the

Speaker 2 interview onto safer territory. And so you hear him in that clip being like, I want to get to the economy.
Seriously, the economy. High prices.
And Trump's like, I don't care.

Speaker 2 I want to talk about prosecuting my opponents. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's what we got. There was also, by the way, a very long discourse about the fires in L.A.
and smelt and turning the valve on to Northern California so that the water flows down to Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 It is,

Speaker 1 that's like for the, that's the old days we would have played that.

Speaker 1 But if you if you want to laugh or maybe you'll cry, you know, go take a listen to that. And we'll probably hear it again when he goes to Los Angeles on Friday.

Speaker 2 I'll tell you when we cry, which is when he conditions a fire aid to California based on sending the water to LA when the water doesn't go to LA.

Speaker 1 Water doesn't go to LA.

Speaker 1 Doesn't go to LA. Doesn't know what he's talking about.

Speaker 1 He just, he's, he's the fish, they're trying to save the fish and the fish, how are you even saving the fish? Because don't fish need water?

Speaker 2 I mean, I would like, it's obviously absurd, but when you say something like that, like you see why people believe him. It's like, well, you fish do need water.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 it does make sense that there would be a valve in Northern California open.

Speaker 2 It's just the button.

Speaker 2 Elaine just has to push one button and the water goes.

Speaker 1 And they won't push it. They won't push it because it might hurt the smell.
It might hurt the smell.

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Speaker 1 Donald Trump has done a lot of public appearances since the inauguration. He's speaking all that.
We hear Donald Trump multiple times a day. Is that strategy? Is that just what he wants?

Speaker 1 Because he wants to be the country's host for the next four years?

Speaker 1 Or is it any risk to that for him? I guess there's no risk to anything because he's fucking...

Speaker 1 He's immune. He's president.
That's it. He wins.

Speaker 2 He's not running for, he doesn't have to run again, and he's immune for prosecution. So, yeah, there's very little risk.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Tough to keep asking what the political damage for Trump is. I guess, just so everyone knows, you know, a weakened Trump, a Trumpet back at lower 40%, 30%, whatever.

Speaker 1 You know, that bodes poorly for the midterms for Republicans. And I think probably if it keeps up for four years, the same is true for 2028.
But long way to go until we get there. So go ahead.

Speaker 2 Is it a strategy?

Speaker 2 No, in the sense that Donald Trump has always wanted to be this way. He wants to be the center of attention at all times, right?

Speaker 2 In tabloids, putting his name on everything,

Speaker 2 hosting a reality show.

Speaker 2 But it does also happen to be, and this is why he's president for the second time in three elections, is that sort of approach is also the way you should communicate in this media age is you have to be omnipresent.

Speaker 2 You have to be everywhere. all at once.
You have to do everything, never stop talking. You can't abide by this philosophy that even some

Speaker 2 Democrats will abide by, which is the news of the day is the EOs. So, once I've done the EOs, I should stop talking until tomorrow.
And then we'll have another news of the day.

Speaker 2 That's not how the world works anymore. It's just, it's non-stop, always talking, always be there, command as much attention as you possibly can.

Speaker 2 And that means that the people who don't pay a lot of attention have a greater chance of hearing you if you're always talking.

Speaker 2 But it also means this is very key for Trump, that if you're always talking, if you say something wrong, if you make a mistake, it hurts a lot less and so this is this this is the approach right it it is exhausting it hurts my brain it makes doing this podcast thoroughly like being on a hamster wheel of terribleness at all times but that that is how democrats that's how everyone should communicate in this day and age they should over communicate should be out there all the time and that was not the approach that uh Joe Biden used for sure.

Speaker 2 Certainly not the approach that Kamala Harris used, although she did, you know, exponentially more than Joe Biden. But But you have to be, we have to sort of

Speaker 2 adopt not the messaging, not the behavior, but the conceptual understanding of messaging that Trump is employing here.

Speaker 1 Trump didn't say so much shit this week. It was easy to forget that he also is trying to get a cabinet confirmed.

Speaker 1 So far, the only one who's gotten through the Senate, who's officially confirmed, is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who, by the way, has planned a trip to Panama, Dan.

Speaker 1 So I guess that canal thing is no joke. That's going to be his first trip as Secretary of State.
Marco's going to Panama.

Speaker 1 You think he's excited about that?

Speaker 1 You think there's going to be a moment on that trip where Marco Rubio thinks about himself, like, how the fuck did I get here? On one hand, I'm Secretary of State.

Speaker 1 On the other, it's for Donald Trump, and he sent me on a mission to take back the Panama Canal.

Speaker 2 I mean, we are, the world is on fire in multiple places right now.

Speaker 2 And the top priority, the first thing the new Secretary of State is going to do is to go to try to take back a canal for reasons that are entirely made up. Made up.

Speaker 2 As we went through all this podcast two days ago.

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 Donald Trump is stuck in the 80s and no one wants to tell him otherwise. So that's Marco.
DOD nominee Pete Higseth made it out of the Armed Services Committee on a party line vote on Monday.

Speaker 1 But on Tuesday, the committee got a sworn statement from his former sister-in-law detailing abusive and scary behavior toward the woman's sister, Higseth's former wife, including that she once hid in a closet to get away from him and then she had to develop an escape plan.

Speaker 1 Fox News reported that Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins may all be planning to vote against Hagseth, in which case J.D.

Speaker 1 Vance would have to cast the tie-breaking vote, possibly in a Friday evening vote.

Speaker 1 No word on whether Pam Bondi or Cash Patel will have any trouble getting confirmed now that Trump has basically shut down the Justice Department's largest ever investigation into right-wing domestic terrorism.

Speaker 1 That's the January 6th rioters. And also suggested that he wants the government to investigate his opponents.
RFK Jr.

Speaker 1 is apparently telling Republican senators that he's changed his mind on the polio vaccine and others, and that he's not trying to limit access to inoculation. So there's some good news for your day.

Speaker 1 Some good news for your Friday. Go into the weekend with that.

Speaker 1 But apparently he'll continue to make money from his involvement in a lawsuit against Merck over the HPV vaccine, which he would now be overseeing. So that's lovely.

Speaker 1 He's going to get a piece for him, too. You know, everyone's got their piece.
Meanwhile, one nominee who may actually be in trouble, Tulsi Gabbard.

Speaker 1 One Republican senator just told Semaphore, quote, there are very serious concerns by enough members to put her nomination in jeopardy. What do you think, Dan?

Speaker 1 Is the Senate going to reject any of these Yahoos?

Speaker 2 Maybe Tulsi Gabbard. Maybe.
I wouldn't bet on it.

Speaker 2 But it does seem possible there was some reporting she wouldn't get out of committee.

Speaker 2 And they're most mad at her, as it turns out, for suggesting a pardon for Edward Snowden, which seems to be low on the list of reasons why she should not have this job.

Speaker 1 Wow. I think they're also,

Speaker 1 she's not as right-wing on sort of surveillance issues. And I think they're a little, some of them are a little worried about that.

Speaker 2 They want to be able to get a little bit of a worry.

Speaker 2 She's over or under surveill.

Speaker 1 Under surveill. Oh.

Speaker 1 You can't be under surveilling in the Trump administration. You got to be over surveilling the right people.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Very against surveillance on their people, very pro-surveillance on everyone else. And then, of course, she met with Assad

Speaker 1 a couple of times, and they're a little concerned about that.

Speaker 1 So we'll see about Tulsi. It is wild that Hagseth, they can't get one more Republican to take, because if they have three, they can't get one more Republican to take down Hagseth.

Speaker 2 The drama is whether he's going to pass easily or J.D. Vance is going to have to remind America he exists and show up to break the tie.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 that's what we're going with. So it looks like Trump's going to get his cabinet.
And it seems like Jon Thune is going to keep the Senate in session basically until all of the nominees are confirmed.

Speaker 1 So that's what we're looking at there. Unsurprisingly, Trump's opponents have not been getting a ton of airtime this week.

Speaker 1 One moment that did break through, though, was this one from the prayer service at the National Cathedral on Tuesday.

Speaker 11 In the name of our God,

Speaker 11 I ask you

Speaker 11 to have mercy upon the people in our country

Speaker 11 who are scared now.

Speaker 11 There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families.

Speaker 11 Some who fear for their lives.

Speaker 11 And the people,

Speaker 11 the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals,

Speaker 11 they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation.

Speaker 11 But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.

Speaker 11 They pay taxes and are good neighbors.

Speaker 1 That, of course, was Bishop Marion Buddy.

Speaker 1 She is the head bishop in Washington, D.C. of the Episcopal Church.
Trump and the rest of the Republicans spent the rest of the week attacking her for what she said.

Speaker 1 Not just disagreeing, saying that it was despicable. One Republican congressman, I don't know if it was a joke or not, said that she should be on the deportation list.

Speaker 1 Trump has demanded an apology from her.

Speaker 1 They've called her a liar.

Speaker 1 Mike Johnson, very religious man,

Speaker 1 he posted about her that it was despicable. White House called her despicable.
What did you make of that moment at the prayer service?

Speaker 2 It was incredibly powerful.

Speaker 2 Not just what she said, but the fact that she said it to Trump's face, particularly in an environment where

Speaker 2 so many of Trump's longtime opponents are bending over backwards to kiss his ass in the most debasing way possible.

Speaker 2 And so to have someone who actually is not willing just to say it, but to say it to his face in a moment when people are listening was powerful and courageous.

Speaker 1 I also think it is a model for

Speaker 1 other leaders to talk about Trump because she, look, they're all saying, you know, she sowed division. And

Speaker 1 I've just looked at what Mike Johnson actually said,

Speaker 1 her hateful radical ideology. That's what she uses an opportunity to push that.
And then anyone who listens to the clip, like go listen to the clip, go listen to the whole thing.

Speaker 1 She could not have been more respectful of Donald Trump and Republicans.

Speaker 1 She could not have been more willing to extend a hand and to try to just, she's just trying to lodge her complaint in the most respectful way possible.

Speaker 1 And I do think there is additional power in

Speaker 1 criticizing Trump and criticizing what he's doing in a way where she didn't really care in that moment if Donald Trump was going to get mad at her.

Speaker 1 But what she was thinking about is how is this message, how is what I'm saying in this criticism going to land even with people who may not agree with me.

Speaker 1 And that's not to say that she was being like super political and thinking of message strategy like we do, but she's she's clergy and she thinks about it from a human perspective.

Speaker 1 And she spoke in a way that normal humans would speak to each other when you're trying to convince someone who may not agree with you in a respectful way, in a way that shows grace.

Speaker 1 And I think it's something, and even in her interviews afterwards, she had so, you know, all these reporters, all these parties kept setting her up to like take another shot at Donald Trump or really attack.

Speaker 1 And she just, she wouldn't do it, you know, because she's like, this is,

Speaker 1 she said, I think on a, um, she,

Speaker 1 rachel maddow interviewed her and she said look i just i wanted to say it this way because i think this is a moment to try to like bring the country together and i don't think this is a moment to further inflame divisions but these voices weren't being heard and i needed to say something and i just i thought that was great it was very

Speaker 2 you hit on that i think is a is like the instructive part of this for Democrats is

Speaker 2 the core of her remarks is that she believes that despite this election, despite whom we just elected, that this is a country of people who care about each other, who want to come together and want to do the right thing, particularly for America's most vulnerable people.

Speaker 1 And that we take care of each other. We take care of each other.

Speaker 1 We've all been strangers here at one point.

Speaker 2 And we don't want to be, try to make ourselves be a lesser version of Trump, right? Sort of a paler shade of orange, if you will. What we want to do is we want to speak to what,

Speaker 2 to the opposite opposite of Trump. And that's what she did.
Right.

Speaker 2 And I think, and I do, it didn't come to fruition in this election, but I have continued to believe ever since Trump first came down that escalator and won that election that the

Speaker 2 antidote to that in the long term in politics is to get back to speaking to hope and optimism and unity and the idea that we care about each other.

Speaker 1 Yeah, decency.

Speaker 1 What else have you seen?

Speaker 1 What are your overall thoughts on how Democrats have responded to this to this week?

Speaker 2 Man, that's a loaded question.

Speaker 1 I think to be.

Speaker 1 I've been here trying to answer it all week here.

Speaker 1 I'm getting asked it all the time on all these persons.

Speaker 2 That is your personal choice, my friend.

Speaker 1 You're wise to keep your head underwater there.

Speaker 2 Look, I think to be fair to Democrats, it is impossible to ask them in a moment in which we are thoroughly leaderless.

Speaker 2 to have the fully formed response to Trump in the first 72 hours of his presidency.

Speaker 2 What I worry about in some of the responses to date is that we are unwilling to truly reckon with this election, right?

Speaker 2 We can tell ourselves a story that the election was closer than sort of the narrative.

Speaker 2 And that is true in one sense, but it is also true and more importantly that we have bled massively with the most core parts of our coalition, right?

Speaker 2 Latino voters, black voters, young people, and that that is an ongoing trend, right? If you look at the Latino numbers, it's massive over the last over the last four years.

Speaker 2 And it just feels like we're doing the same people are doing the same things they were doing six months ago, as opposed to really, really rethinking how we communicate, how we, how we speak, right?

Speaker 2 Not our message. Like, how do we actually, what are the words that come out of our mouth? How do we sound different? What are we going to do that's different than before?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it just, and I see that, I see that a little bit in the way the DNC race is playing out is that people really, we want want the easy way out what we want to do is

Speaker 2 kind of get lucky right and that we're going to survive this period and then trump's going to be unpopular it's kind of an election maybe we'll we can we can win it um kind of like we won 2020 but that but that doesn't solve our bigger problem and i would i don't even want to depress people but

Speaker 2 take a look at what the 2032 electoral map is going to look like and realize and once you do that you're going to realize that we have massive work to do to reconfigure our coalition.

Speaker 2 And we have to be willing to ask really hard questions. And I'm not convinced that enough people in the party are willing to ask those questions right now.

Speaker 1 And when you say the 2032 electoral map, you mean that some of the blue states could lose electoral votes because of the new census by then, because blue states are losing people to red states.

Speaker 1 I'm still, you know, like you, I'm still giving people.

Speaker 1 time to sort of get their sea legs

Speaker 1 in the new in the and look we had to wait to see how extreme he would be in the first week, whether he'd actually follow through.

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, on this very podcast, on our Tuesday show, I think I was saying, oh, we've tried resistance politics. We should try normal politics.
And here's the price of it.

Speaker 1 Like, I did the whole thing. And then, you know, he goes and pardons these violent offenders and all the other shit.
And you're like, you just, you know, you've got to adapt.

Speaker 1 to and react to him in some ways, right? Like that, that is just part of dealing with Donald Trump. He does something and we often have to to react.

Speaker 1 We try not to overreact, but like that's, he's the president. He commands a lot of power right now.
Right. And so I, you know, a lot of Democrats are just finding their sea legs.
I get that. But

Speaker 1 I have not seen anything this week, right? Like I don't, you know, I saw Chris Murphy on the floor talking about the pardons and I think he was very passionate. He's someone who talks like a human.

Speaker 1 AOC is out there. She's talking like a human.

Speaker 1 I just don't see a lot else from Democrats right now, people who are just, you know, putting all the polling down for a second, put the stage directions down. Just tell us how you feel.

Speaker 1 It's the first week, right?

Speaker 1 You don't have to think about what polls well right now. It's the first week.
Tell us how you feel about this.

Speaker 2 I think there's obviously a messaging problem, but even take, take the Chris Murphy example, right? Great speech. He delivered on the floor of the Senate.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, right. You know, you saw that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I, I've now made a Twitter list of Democratic politicians just so I could see what they're all talking about. And that was the only one that caught my eye in that long list.

Speaker 2 And part of it is hard.

Speaker 2 Other than the example of AOC, who did a lot of her stuff on Instagram Live, which is the right place to do a lot of this, is there's just not people who have the capacity to be heard.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Right.
And that is a challenge.

Speaker 1 But part of it is you, well, this is a, you know, this is a bigger topic about attention and how to command attention in this age.

Speaker 1 But sometimes one way to get heard and have the capacity to get heard is to say something worth hearing.

Speaker 1 You know, and I don't think that anyone said anything worth hearing yet, or not a lot of people. The bishop sure did.
Now, look, she was in a, she's a bishop. She's not political.

Speaker 1 Donald Trump was sitting right there. So obviously that's why the whole thing went viral.
But like,

Speaker 1 I don't know. I think we got to start throwing some stuff against the wall.
See what sticks in terms of getting the message out, right?

Speaker 1 Not in terms of the message itself, but like people, it's what you said about trump you got to over communicate right there's the press release the senate floor speech the five-minute cable hit not sufficient not sufficient right now

Speaker 1 one last thing on democratic strategy here on wednesday night someone we know tom vitor was a guest of my pal jesse waters on fox news let's listen to how he did how many genders are there tommy How many genders are there, Tommy?

Speaker 1 The honest answer, Jesse, I don't care. I'm the libertarian.
I don't care. Be what you want to be.

Speaker 1 You can be what you want to be, Jesse.

Speaker 1 Look at the truth. Well, I'm not a Democrat, and that we know.
I haven't seen this enemies list. Can you show me this list? Hey, read Cash Patel's book, the new FBI director.
You should check it out.

Speaker 1 It's not a long book.

Speaker 1 I haven't seen the list. I already know there were FBI agents on the ground on January 6th, and then they destroyed evidence in the committee, and then everybody gets preemptive pardons.

Speaker 2 What's that all about?

Speaker 1 He's doing kind of the greatest hits of conspiracy. We're going to do Lab League now.

Speaker 1 Where do we want to go next?

Speaker 1 How'd our boy do? He did great. He did great.
He

Speaker 1 was our libertarian co-host.

Speaker 2 I have a, I really appreciate that from Tommy because I have a, one of my theories I'm noodling on for the future of our party is we have to become more libertarian.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Free speech, legalized marijuana.

Speaker 1 I thought Tommy did great.

Speaker 2 He was very quick on the draw.

Speaker 1 He was very quick on the draw. It's also, it's also so, I mean, I did this.
I did Jesse Waters during the convention when we were

Speaker 1 in the height of Brat Summer. We were riding high.

Speaker 2 Jesse Waters seemed a little scared about his future when we saw you. Now he is.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He was like, well, no. Well, Tommy was like, why don't you just want to let this go, Donald Trump win? He's like, I'm not letting it go, Tommy Vitor.

Speaker 1 That question about how many genders, that was the first question to Tommy. Yes, no.
It wasn't like, hey, hello, could you comment on the pardons or anything?

Speaker 1 Tommy, tell us about the genders.

Speaker 1 It's still worth, and you know, I still think it's worth going on. It was worth going on to hear Tommy bring up the conspiracies, give Jesse some shit.
Like,

Speaker 1 I think it's good.

Speaker 2 This is, I mean, I have been a long time

Speaker 2 opponent of Democrats, other than the most talented of Democrats, which I would include Tommy in going on Fox News. But now,

Speaker 2 like, this is the thing we have to do. We have to be everywhere and you have to be in uncomfortable spaces so that you'll get more attention.
Like, if Tommy had just gone on pick your MSNBC show,

Speaker 2 it wouldn't have gotten any currency outside of the people who happened to be watching at that moment.

Speaker 1 And because he was talking about the same thing, for example, we're not talking about Lovett's star turn on Chris Hayes last night. He beat Chris Hayes at the same time.

Speaker 1 He did. I'm learning this right now.
And I did the night before with Tim Miller, yeah.

Speaker 2 Get you and Tim Miller were on Chris Hayes at the exact same time.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was basically just, yeah, we were just hanging out. Just hanging out.
Cool. I mean, we had a good time yelling about everything.

Speaker 2 If I didn't know that, then I got to tell you.

Speaker 2 Same way if your wife finds out you did that.

Speaker 1 She definitely doesn't know.

Speaker 1 She texted me. She was like, are you coming home? And I was like, no, I'm doing this pod.
And then I got the view.

Speaker 1 No, I said, I think you're right. Like, you got to, it gets more attention that way.
And I think Tommy did great. So let's keep it up.
All right. That's all we got for news.

Speaker 1 When we come back, you'll all hear Dan's interview with DNC chair candidate Faz Shakir. But one quick thing before we we get to Faz.

Speaker 1 Dan, I hear we have a special offer for our listeners for MessageBox, your Substack newsletter. Is that right?

Speaker 2 Well, John, great toss. I do.

Speaker 1 Speaking of reading the stage directions right here, it says Dan Crosstalk.

Speaker 1 So that's what we're doing now. We're doing the crosstalk.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it says banter TK.

Speaker 2 Well, John, I do have a special offer. But before I get to that, I just want to say I've been writing this newsletter for four and a half half years now, which is very alarming.

Speaker 2 But almost all of that's been during the Biden administration.

Speaker 2 So I spent a bunch of time over the holidays trying to think about what I want to do differently now that Donald Trump is back in our lives and how I want to think about with four years of fighting Trump ahead of us.

Speaker 2 And so I've kind of come up with like three things that are going to be. that I'm really going to try to focus on.

Speaker 2 The first is continue to analyze what happened in this election and exploring how we can rebuild our coalition.

Speaker 2 It's not pleasant to look back at that election, but we have to learn the lessons from it. The second is strategizing about how we can continue to combat the right-wing media machine.

Speaker 2 We got our asses absolutely kicked in the last election. We're at a huge media disadvantage.
So

Speaker 2 how do we fix that as Democrats? How do we communicate better? What platforms do we use? What platforms do we need to build?

Speaker 2 And the last thing is I want to identify for my readers specific ways we can all fight back against what Trump and his minions are trying to do, right?

Speaker 2 And that includes where to volunteer, where to donate, which campaign matters most, and how to talk to the persuadable voters in your life about what's happening in politics, what Trump's doing, how to do that in the most effective way possible.

Speaker 2 So this is of interest to you. I have a special offer.
And it cringes me to say this in so many ways, but

Speaker 1 it's a lot of fun watching your face do this.

Speaker 1 I know. I know.

Speaker 2 The special offer is if you go to the most embarrassing website possible, crooked.com slash yes we Dan and sign up for message box, you will get your first month free.

Speaker 2 So that is crooked.com slash yes we dan. End of pitch.
I have to go take a shower now.

Speaker 1 Everyone, when there is a a Dan Pfeiffer message box, it is the first thing I read when I wake up at the ungodly hour that I wake up because I'm like, I'm not going to start my day with anything else, but I got to read the message box first.

Speaker 1 I do it every single time it comes out. It is a fantastic,

Speaker 1 and I talk to Dan all the time. So you would think that there's not a ton I could learn from it, but I always do.
So everyone should go subscribe.

Speaker 2 I want you to know I started sending it earlier to try to abide by your sleep schedule.

Speaker 1 Because if I can beat my playbook, I'm fucked for the day, right? That's true. That's true.
All right. When we come back, fast Shakir.

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Speaker 2 Joining me now is Faz Shakira, the founder of the progressive media site More Perfect Union, former national political director for the ACLU, longtime advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, and now candidate for DNC chair.

Speaker 2 Faz, welcome to Pod Save America.

Speaker 6 Dan, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 Okay, you've been in politics a long time. You've worked on campaigns.
You've worked on the Hill. You've been in groups.
You know a lot about how the DNC works. Why the hell do you want this job?

Speaker 6 We've gotten a creeping sense that maybe you feel the same way, Dan, that there's a powerlessness about the DNC.

Speaker 6 Oh, it's useless, especially in an age in which you've seen a lot of the power drift over to super PACs and outside actors who are a little more nimble and quick. And I understand that.

Speaker 6 But let me get philosophical with you for a moment here. Sure.

Speaker 6 We are dealing in a society where you've got great wealth and income inequality where power is residing with people who have a lot of money and when you think about like if you just pull back and say okay well what do you do in a situation where hey a lot of power has moved to the hands of a few what you need are people-powered organizations led with integrity that say hey don't forget about us here and those ex those things have to exist as institutions so to all the people and i understand them there's a lot of working class people out there who say institutions are corrupt they're broken they don't work for me.

Speaker 6 I'm making the argument, yeah, but institutions are your way out. You need to have solidarity within a structure to have some power.
This is what unions are about, right?

Speaker 6 This is why you and I have built up our own media institutions is that people need voice. And the DNC is one of two right major political parties in America.

Speaker 6 You got the Republican Party, which we know what direction is going, and the Democratic Party. I'm like, don't give up on a structure and an institution that has to work for people.

Speaker 2 We have had your two primary opponents for this position on the show. We've talked to Ken Martin and Ben Wickler.
What is something you disagree with them on?

Speaker 2 Like you got into this race after they've been running for a long time. So there must have been something you saw that was not being addressed or something you would do differently.

Speaker 2 So I'm curious what the contrast is.

Speaker 6 Yeah, the shortcoming in my mind is that

Speaker 6 I am very pleased and happy. No surprise to you that we're not talking about being a working class party.
I'm like, great.

Speaker 6 I've been hunting this one for a while, but like, I'm glad coming out of this, like, we're all talking about it.

Speaker 6 And so then I'm sitting around saying, hey, okay, get me, what is the ambitious new thing that we are going to do out of the DNC that is going to turn the heads of working class people to say, oh, that's different.

Speaker 6 That's interesting. I didn't realize you guys are going to act that way.
And I, quite frankly, was feeling let down by the lack of ambition on that score. And, you know,

Speaker 6 I'm jumping in to challenge. the notions of our constraints of thinking around what the DNC can do.

Speaker 6 If you're an apparatus with a hundred million dollar plus and raise of a year and you've got you know 50 plus state parties, can you think outside the box of how you let people into this?

Speaker 6 The big thing that I'm trying to force everyone to think about is a grassroots DNC that says membership to our organization is not merely a contribution, it is us being in community with you.

Speaker 6 We have to be out there with striking workers, organizing workers, people fighting utility rate hikes or evictions and foreclosures.

Speaker 6 You have to be closer to grassroots people who are fighting economic justice issues and using your media apparatus to highlight those fights.

Speaker 6 In which I think working class people turn to you and say, whoa, that I've never seen from the DNC. That's interesting.
That's different. That's what I'm compelling and forcing us to think about.

Speaker 2 So, what is that? Is community that big idea?

Speaker 2 Can you talk a little more about that?

Speaker 6 So, I blend it all together: that media infrastructure being on the front lines.

Speaker 6 Let's take, I mean, you go case by case here, but let's say Amazon workers are going to organize to fight for a union in a North Carolina warehouse, which by the way is going on.

Speaker 6 And does the DNC play a role in this? Right now, historically, you and I know we're a partisan organization. We focus on elections.

Speaker 6 What I'm arguing that is that if you are a working class party, you associate with the working class struggles in all different fronts and utilize some degree of your email list to help build solidarity with them, use your media channels to advertise and explain what the hell it is that they're fighting for at this Amazon warehouse, why they matter to us.

Speaker 6 And ultimately, when we stick out and X out for them in North Carolina and there's an election, I believe you're more likely to get some of those people to stand with the Democratic Party up and down the ballot when the time comes.

Speaker 6 So I'm seeing it more holistically that when we change the way we are projected to working class people, when we get closer to their fights rather than just our fights, I think we got a better chance to recruit them back in, particularly in this moment where people feel like Donald Trump is leading us into a world where wealth and power dictate all.

Speaker 2 You obviously work for Bernie Sanders. You've talked a lot about the Democratic Party becoming more populist.

Speaker 2 This is a fairly loaded question or one that it could take this entire interview and several podcasts to talk about. So I'll try to get your short version of the answer is

Speaker 2 Joe Biden was

Speaker 2 on economics, the most progressive president in a very long time.

Speaker 2 He did a lot of the things that Bernie Sanders and other. populists and progressives wanted him to do, yet we bled more with working-class voters than in any election since the 80s.

Speaker 2 What is your short diagnosis for why that happened?

Speaker 6 I'll try to keep it short. My diagnosis is that when Joe Biden was rightly doing a lot of great populist policy, it was not matched by the political apparatus leaning into those same fights.

Speaker 6 So you take a moment where Joe Biden makes history by going to a picket line on behalf of the UAW during the midst of their strike.

Speaker 6 You do not see a UAW kind of solidarity effort and action from the DNC saying, this is our fight. We together are in this.

Speaker 6 This was Joe Biden doing his thing, not the Democratic Party standing with you.

Speaker 6 You take any of those big moments, you know, if you have a Biden administration going after big pharma, launching a major case, going after pharmacy benefit managers, going after Amazon, a Kroger-Albertson's merger, whatever the case might be, some of these big bank junk fees that Roja Chopra and others were fighting, you correct me if I'm wrong, Dan, it does not feel to me.

Speaker 6 that the policy apparatus that was taking on these major challenges was accompanied by a political apparatus telling you, here's what we're doing, and here's the friction that we are engaged in right now, and why we're asking you to be part of this Democratic Party.

Speaker 6 And when the political apparatus doesn't do its part, we can't blame voters for just being like, I had no idea.

Speaker 6 And I think to this day, if I went out and talked about, hey, did you know we were fighting the Kroger-Albertsons merger because we wanted to make sure grocery prices were low and you had competition?

Speaker 6 What percentage, Dan?

Speaker 6 What are we talking about? Five percent?

Speaker 1 Ten percent?

Speaker 2 One percent if you're lucky.

Speaker 6 Yeah, what a what a what a sad situation. That these were the biggest

Speaker 6 things that Biden was bringing about.

Speaker 6 And as you know, the business world, if I went into any K-Street lobbying operation or any chamber meeting and I mentioned any of these things that you and I are just talking about, would they know?

Speaker 6 98% awareness, right? They were very upset. Why is Mark Zuckerberg where he is? He was upset that they were taking on his Facebook monopoly.
So he's upset and he moves away.

Speaker 6 Elon Musk, oh, I didn't get invited to a White House meeting and Joe Biden was calling me a union buster. Yeah, these

Speaker 6 rich and wealthy people were very upset at this direction, and yet the political apparatus is not leaning in to tell you this is the direction that we are choosing to fight for working class people.

Speaker 2 One of

Speaker 2 your sort of passions in politics has been sort of the asymmetry in media, right? Which is why you started More Perfect Union, a progressive...

Speaker 2 populist, pro-union media apparatus. What would you do at the DNC to address the media asymmetry here? Because that

Speaker 2 gets at the core of, like, there is a political, missing political organizing piece to what we were just talking about, but a huge part of it is media, right? We got outgunned in media.

Speaker 2 We were unable to communicate in the right way. Some of that's specific to Biden, but how would you change the DNC to address our media problems?

Speaker 6 Part of your job, I think, in this moment is to think of yourself as editor-in-chief of a social media channel.

Speaker 6 Thankfully, we have More Perfect Union have about, I'd say, 1.3 million YouTube subscribers now. Dan, I want you to guess, how many does the Democrats YouTube channel, which started in 2006,

Speaker 6 how many followers does it have of More Perfect Union? What does Pot Say have? Probably close to a million or maybe 750,000.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6 So, you know, respectable numbers here. What does the DNC have?

Speaker 2 150, I'm guessing.

Speaker 6 76,000.

Speaker 1 76,000.

Speaker 6 So, you know, we are obviously undershooting on just utilizing the channels to do compelling and interesting content.

Speaker 6 Well, you and I know, you don't just sprinkle fairy dust on a YouTube channel and suddenly it grows. No, you have to give some compelling content.

Speaker 6 I don't know. Do you ever work in the building?

Speaker 6 I worked, it was back in the day, I was a DNC opposition researcher. What I do know is we're sitting on content.

Speaker 6 If you want to know what Donald Trump ever said, you know, from his first term, his campaigns, video, it's there. You know, they have been recording it.

Speaker 6 It's wild that, you know, that you can't come up with compelling and interesting pieces to just tell people about here's what Donald Trump promised, here's what he said.

Speaker 6 You could just that alone could do a hell of a lot of service of content.

Speaker 6 But then, as I was mentioning, when you're a grassroots operation, you're getting out in the country and you're trying to tell people we're a working class organization, we care and affiliate with your economic justice fights.

Speaker 6 Why not use the channels, their videographers, and

Speaker 6 our 50 state plus state parties to say, hey, we're going to get on the ground and tell this interesting and compelling economic justice story, just as a service to all of us to know what's going on in the housing market, how you're getting screwed on your utility rate hike, whatever the case might be.

Speaker 6 I find that those types of pieces of content right now would do a hell of a lot to attract new audiences and that aren't just purely partisan.

Speaker 6 you know, in nature.

Speaker 2 You know, everyone who has ever run for this job since about 2006 has talked about a 50-state strategy. We're going to organize everywhere.
We're going to have red states, blue states, et cetera.

Speaker 2 The challenge of that always is money, right? Which is you is

Speaker 2 there's not enough money to do everywhere.

Speaker 2 And then you ultimately feel a need to prioritize in the seven swing states or the senate rate, the states where they have the senate races or wherever that, which these days are often the same states.

Speaker 2 How do you plan to address that? And what's your approach to organizing all over the country?

Speaker 6 So when I went, you you mentioned I was at the ACLU, I faced the same thing. We had 50 state affiliates all over the board.

Speaker 6 We were fortunate that, you know, we had a great grassroots fundraising operation. I think we ended up raising 200 million plus.
I think the DNC can do that this year too.

Speaker 6 So I would challenge the notions that, well, we just don't have enough money. I think it's a matter of conviction around that money.

Speaker 6 It does mean if you take away from somewhere, you have to add to somewhere.

Speaker 6 But if you have a conviction of saying, you know, a baseline of funding, right now you may know this, Dan, but, you know, most state parties, if you're out in Idaho or wherever, you probably get $12,500 a month.

Speaker 6 That's a poverty budget, right? Think about trying to run a state party in Idaho at $12,500 a month. And so one is just you have to increase the baseline of that.

Speaker 6 And if you had a robust grassroots operation, you're not only increasing their baseline, you're also saying that the data, the donor, the lists that we're getting.

Speaker 6 out of maybe even the last election cycle, we raised a billion dollars from small dollar funds, that that list goes back over to you as well.

Speaker 6 You've now got it, it, but you got to know what to do with it. This is the challenge I face at the ACLU.
So I gave you the list. Do you have the digital expertise?

Speaker 6 Do you know how to do online to offline events with volunteers? Probably it might be challenging for a lot of other states. That's where DNC comes in to say, hey, I got to give you some baselines.

Speaker 6 Not only am I increasing the amount to the state, I also got to give you technical expertise from national of how to use it, the know-how.

Speaker 6 And then I would just say, our job, and I'll say this all delicacy and respect to the DNC universe, which I've been in and you know a little bit about, lots of councils and lots of caucuses.

Speaker 6 Man, one council in one caucus breeds another council in a caucus. What we really need is like program and mission.
And so

Speaker 6 by example, what I did at ACLU is say, hey, we got one program mission for us was expand voting rights in this country. Here's a North Star.

Speaker 6 Now, states, pitch me on what you could do to expand voting rights. You got independent redistricting commissions.
You got expansion of early vote.

Speaker 6 You're trying to get formally incarcerated individuals to vote. Great, get me a pitch, explain what's going on in your state and what you need to help fund it.

Speaker 6 See, so if you set like a goal and ambition, a purpose at the top, and now you've got states saying, I think here, even in Idaho, I think we can do something about that.

Speaker 6 We need that. So goals and ambitions are like grassroots organizing is one in events and communities that I was mentioning before.
Candidate recruitment across the board.

Speaker 6 Tell me what you're doing to expand and do interesting candidate recruitment and we'll fund it. And, you know, so

Speaker 6 I think I just feel a lack of ambition around where's program and mission here.

Speaker 2 Can you raise that money while still being less annoying in your text and emails than the Democratic Party has been in a long time?

Speaker 6 I, you know, so this, you know, one of the learnings of Bernie's email list, which still to this day is very vibrant and raises a fair amount and probably outperforms a number of candidates still running for office, is that

Speaker 6 I don't know if you're on the email, he writes very substantive, long emails and asks people, often not even for a direct contribution. It's a petition action and and a secondary ask for money.
And

Speaker 6 I think I don't want to treat people like they're dumb. I do think people, particularly in this age where the economy is complex, people know it's rigged.
They are seeking depth.

Speaker 6 Get me an understanding. Own your leader, your job.
Help unpack stuff for me. And I believe the emails, lists, and texts don't have to be superficial and treat people like they're dumb.

Speaker 6 I think you can raise the bar and you say, hey, this is something interesting and compelling that I want you to know about, and I'm asking you to fund it.

Speaker 6 I don't, I think we'd see an increase in funding, not a drop-off.

Speaker 2 Would the DNC, under your leadership, accept contributions from corporate PACs and lobbyists?

Speaker 6 So, what I'm, yes, well, what I'm most upset about there is that corporate power influence over the party.

Speaker 6 So, I wouldn't accept money from PACs, lobbyists who are trying to say, hey, we want a seat at the table. We're going to influence this.

Speaker 6 And right now, I think that that's what you got going, Dan, is you've got these folks who believe not that when I give you a contribution,

Speaker 6 I expect that my finance committee will now not be run by, you know, finance people that are the delegates or people who we've we brought into the DNC, but they're outsiders.

Speaker 6 They're people outside the organization. They come in, they make determinations.
So I think if you're a working class party, in my view, you do things that stand for working class people.

Speaker 6 And I would, you know, I'll do a twist on you on this one.

Speaker 1 If

Speaker 6 Amazon wanted to give me I mean I was wrestling with this is in real time if Amazon wanted to give me fifty thousand dollars for the DNC promise you earmarked to support Amazon workers in this country so I'll take it and guess what those those Amazon workers who are organizing in North Carolina they're gonna get every penny of it we're gonna show you know if you're a working class party this is what you are supporting and in that way yes I will show my true colors because corporate influence will not have driven the decision making And I think that my sense is there's a lack of transparency, and people feel like corporate influence is having a large role of it because we don't even know where the hell the money's going.

Speaker 6 Where do all the large numbers amount? Beyond the FEC filings, there's consultants who get money. But

Speaker 6 what I don't see anything. Where is my value as a member of the Democratic Party? What are you doing in community with me? We can raise the bar on that one.

Speaker 6 We can do compelling and interesting stuff in communities all over the country.

Speaker 2 Well, Faz, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck in your race.
It's always great to talk to you.

Speaker 6 Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 That's our show for today.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be back in your feed on Sunday for our very first Sunday show of 2025, featuring an excellent in-depth conversation with none other than Rachel Maddow about Trump's first week back in office, how we should cover his second term, and how to stay sane.

Speaker 1 It was a lot of fun, as always. I hope you'll check it out.
Thanks to Faz Shakir for coming on the show.

Speaker 1 And thanks to Jared O'Connell, Dio Gomez, Jake Goetz, Jesse Carson, Dave Seidel, and everyone here at Sirius XM in New York City for hosting us this week. We loved being here.

Speaker 1 We had wonderful hosts at Sirius. So thank you everyone who helped us out and talk to you all on Sunday.

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