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and at Nordstrom.com. Welcome to Pod Save America.
I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
We did it, guys. We did it.
It's Monday afternoon, East Coast time, and in the words of Florida Congressman Byron Donald, Daddy's home. The lame duck presidency of our oldest and first criminally convicted chief executive has begun as former President Donald J.
Trump just became current president Donald J. Trump during a ceremony held in the very place the mob he incited four years ago tried to overturn the election he lost.
What a country. Tommy Lovett and I are here at the Sirius XM studios in snowy New York.
Dan is joining us remotely from rebel-held San Francisco. Obviously, lots to go through here, but let's just start with the speech.
The inaugural address was moved inside the Capitol building because of extreme cold, and maybe as a result of that, the whole thing felt a little bit more like a State of the Union address than a traditional inaugural. Let's listen to some of the clips.
My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible

betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the

people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom.

From this moment on, America's decline is over. January 20th, 2025 is Liberation Day.
As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken.
Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback. But as you see today, here I am.
The American people have spoken. Here I am.
The American people have spoken. Can't argue with that.
Dan, let's start with you. Thoughts on the speech? I mean, it's just the whole thing was so surreal, right? As you pointed out in your opening, you have Donald Trump standing in the Capitol, the building that four years ago he incited a mob to try to assault.
He delivers this speech, which in some ways feels like you say it feels like State of the Union is in the cap, but also felt like a State of the Union in the sense that it was a laundry list of policy ideas sort of woven together in a very incoherent fashion. And you take the words, if you just read the transcript of the speech, it reads like the words of a fascist dictator, but delivered with the energy and cadence of a middle manager at a sales conference, like just very low energy.
And which we would, we would soon learn why, because then he would go give a second speech moments later where he just did the full shtick, all the things he wanted to say, did the whole Trump routine. This was the, the speech for the aides who told him to be disciplined, I guess.
But not a great speech. Love it.
What'd you think as a speechwriter yourself? Oh, well, yeah, as a speechwriter, I was disappointed. So there was a moment when, before Trump even got up there, when Franklin Graham got got up there to give i don't know what it's

technically called invocation convocation and he said uh the last four years have been very dark which is just not what you would typically say in a moment like this especially since the joe biden is sitting right behind him that woke him up it did and and you had just kidding it did No, he was up.

He was up.

He was focused.

But it's very, look, like the inaugural... Just kidding.
No, he was up. He was up.
He was focused.

But it's very, look, like the inaugural address is meant to be, I mean, he like kind of tilts at it being this unifying event.

But first of all, this is a speech taking place in a weekend of political rallies and was immediately politicized by the reverend meant to be doing a kind of religious invocation.

And so he gave basically a version of his stump speech. And yes, it was the one, the stump speech version when he takes out all the stuff that they beg him to take out, which they successfully got him to take out, which he does later.
But it was still a stump speech, still a deeply political and small speech for inauguration. Tommy? uh january 20th 2025 is liberation day is just a giant bill pullman ripoff from independence day yeah no aliens how dare you yet first of all it's funny also that dan criticized trump for being too wonky too too policy focused didn't expect that i like i sort of had some reaction like it was sort of remarkable in how unremarkable it was like my memory of the 2017 inaugural address is all that one line about American carnage.
And then I rewatched that speech after I watched the 2025 version. And it's actually amazing how similar the two speeches are.
We're going to make America great again. We're going to protect our borders.
Some hand-waving about unity. He updates this one with new, more modern grievances, like the judicial system being weaponized, the battle against inflation, and the need to invade Panama.
But there's like verbatim lines at the top. Like in 2017, he said, for too long, a small group in our nation's capital have reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
2025, for many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair. So it was, you know, just kind of like stump-like the same thing.
I did note though, for all Joe Biden's attempts and efforts to be a decent person and have a dignified transfer of power, Trump still took a dump on his entire presidency and existence right next to him. So that was kind of him, cordial of him.
Gracious, gracious. It does feel like this speech, as much as I didn't care for the content that much of the speech, I kind of like the trend overall of getting away from the sweeping rhetoric of an inaugural address that's like meant for the history books and just like getting right to business.
He didn't quite do that completely. Like half of it was the Stephen Miller sort of cliched fascism, I'll call it.
That's the sort of Stephen Miller style. It's like- Proud Boys Crossing the Delaware.
It's a fascistic rhetoric that's not like we've all heard before and it's not a lot of creativity behind it. It's just sort lame and then it just got like very specific very very quickly but to me that's like a little more modern you know like i the next democratic president i'd like them just to get to business just talk to just talk about what they're going to do for the country yeah the the what i was really feeling when i was watching him speak is oh eight years ago when trump addressed the country he did it really kind of unsure of what it was what it meant to be president and what rules he had to respect and what rules he didn't, what customs he believed in and had value in, which customs he didn't.
And now I do think he like these, these speeches that are for everybody, he just doesn't give a fuck about them. He doesn't care what the media says.
He doesn't care how they're covered. He doesn't really see much of the value of it.
Donald Trump gave two speeches. He gave his inaugural and then he went to this overflow.

His speech at the overflow where he really let rip was over 30, right?

That was the real Donald Trump.

This is the Donald Trump he has to do once in a while for the squares.

Not for nothing. It was also the most like self-involved, self-referential inaugural of all time, maybe.

I think that beats his first, but I don't know, Tommy, you just listened to the first

one again. So you tell me if I'm wrong wrong but like talks about the assassination attempt fine but then you know it is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country first inaugural to reference swing states and it's like they tried to take they tried to yeah he starts talking about swing states his election results so they tried to take away my freedom and my life.
Again, he conflates him breaking the law and then people trying to investigate him with an assassin that had apparently no political leanings, really, that just tried to take his life. So it's very, you know, he's focused on what's important, which is him.
He said he's on a mission from God to save America. You know, you think, yeah.
So you want to say there's a dose of humility. Yes, yes, exactly.
No, I thought so. The speech wasn't the only component of the weekend's big celebration.
He also did a big victory rally at Capital One Arena on Sunday. That also served as the overflow room for most people to watch the address, unless you were, you know, a member of the incoming cabinet, leadership in Congress, former president, and of course, a billionaire tech founder or CEO.
Those are the people who got the good seats. Trump swung by the overflow room afterwards to say hi, sign some executive orders.
We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the 33-minute speech he gave to the overflow room,

which is longer than the 29-minute inaugural address, which also, by the way, I guess is the longest inaugural address since Roosevelt in the modern era, which is wild. There were also a lot of balls, big parties, Snoop performed, Peter Thiel held a ball, Mark Zuckerberg held a party, CEO of TikTok had a party.
What do you guys think of this, the weekend in general and sort of the optics of the event, the vibes, the vibes in Washington this weekend? Anyone have any thoughts? I mean, I think moving all the events inside and only doing things with tech CEOs and billionaire donors while the MAGA faithful have nothing to do or go to some giant arena where they get ignored. That's kind of a perfect metaphor for how I imagine this whole thing is going to go.
And look, if history is any guide, you want to keep those folks busy, especially in D.C. That's true.
Well, there were Proud Boys marching through the streets. Idle hands, devil's playground.
But I mean, I do think this is why you're seeing like the Steve Bannon fight against Elon Musk and the tech oligarchs because they're worried that their populism is erasing the minute the votes were counted. And they're not wrong.
Yeah. So this weekend is the, you know, he's about to take office.
It's his final chance to do open corruption before he's actually president so that the corruption he can do while president begins. But it felt like the end of any kind of pretense that he's not going to just be openly corrupt and basically sell access to the White House to these people.

I mean, that's what this weekend was.

It was a big sale.

And I was thinking, like, oh, like, maybe he's maybe he's sort of empathetic to people who like waiters and servers who work for tips because he's going to be the first president that does work for tips.

Which I think that is exciting. You know, don't forget to tip your president.
Yeah. Which is, I think, the motto of this weekend.
That's right. He just wants to be a host.
Yeah. That's it.
He loves it. Just the tip presidency.
Yeah, that's right. Okay.
It's just the tip presidency. Pod titles.
Workshop and that. That's Dan's idea.
Workshop and that. One other notable moment to that end in the speech.
He referenced the fires in Los Angeles at one point. Apparently he's going to Los Angeles on Friday.
And, you know, he brought up the fires. He also brought up Hurricane Helene because he wanted to basically show that leadership that's not him is incompetent and all that kind of stuff.
But he also said this when he was talking about the fires. Or more recently, Los Angeles, where we're watching fires still tragically burn.
From weeks ago, without even a token of defense, they're raging through the houses and communities, even affecting some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country, some of whom are sitting here right now.

They don't have a home any longer.

That's interesting.

That is interesting.

Who is he talking about that lost a home that was on the dais?

I did not know that natural disasters could harm rich people.

I mean, that is his point.

That's exactly what he is. Legitimate shock that the rich and powerful could be affected by something like this.
Yeah, it is. I mean, I guess it's somewhat reassuring to know that we have oligarchs in Los Angeles because at least that means we'll have to get some protection from the federal government if we need it.
Yeah, some summer house in Malibu probably got hit. I don't know.
Oh, I don't think we're getting protection from that. I think they're going to hire their own protection.
No, that's right. But yeah, it was just sort of- It was a weird line.
Well, just a reminder. That's interesting.
Also, it was a conspiracy. It sounds like, oh, maybe someone started it to target them.
That was my takeaway in the moment. What I took away from it was there's some rich person there who may have lost their house, which is terrible.
And this is how Donald Trump governs. Someone nearby him told him this story, and now he is recounting it.
He literally thinks it's interesting. Maybe we're reading too much.
He just thinks it's interesting. And whether it's flipping on TikTok or any other policies that are going to come out of this administration, they are going to run through a gauntlet of rich people talking to Donald Trump directly about them casually in the places Donald Trump hangs out with his biggest backers.
And that's what I took from this. He also said that in the overflow of speech that maybe Nancy Pelosi wanted January 6th to happen, and that's why she turned down the 10,000 troops he says he offered and noted that she's guilty as hell.
So that was said in the Capitol where the insurrection happened four years ago. He was guilty of a crime.
Just to be clear, not just like morally guilty, he's called it a criminal offense. We're going to get to the overflow room speech at the end.
It's a good one. So speech is pretty light on foreign policy.
Trump welcomed the Israel-Gaza ceasefire deal, said the usual stuff about defending our own borders instead of other countries' borders and blah, blah, blah. Nothing new there.
But he also made what sounded like some conflicting promises. Let's listen.
My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That's what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier.
A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn't give it to China.
We gave it to Panama, and we're taking it back. Tommy, is China operating the Panama Canal? No.
The Panama Canal Authority, it's a semi-autonomous government entity controlled by Panama, operates the canal. There are ports and infrastructure getting built by the Chinese on either side of the canal.
Panama is one of the countries that signed a deal with China for the Bell and Rove Initiative. So maybe he's referring to that.
But there were a lot of factual errors in this part of the speech. He says the United States lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal.
Most of the deaths happened during the French construction portion. Such a good fact check.
They quit on, but also, well, also the people who did the work were from the Caribbean. They were not American citizens.
They were people who were basically indentured servants doing this work. Several thousand Americans died, but it's not 38,000.
Yeah, not 38,000 guess i'm for this i think we should take the panama you want it back by force let's let's let's not let's hope it doesn't come to that but that's not really up to why do you want it back we built it and then jimmy carter may his memory be a blessing just gives it back because of some protests we're taking it back. What if France takes the Statue of Liberty back? They can try.
What are they going to do? What are they going to do? Do a lot of do a lot of eggs go through the Panama Canal? I'm just wondering, is that the price of the price of eggs? What's what's that? Is that how we're lower? Is that how we're lowering inflation? I guess more things through the Panama Canal. A huge chunk of American shipping goes through the panama canal it has gotten more expensive but that's mostly because of drought people usually attribute to climate change not china listen donald trump is pretty clear about this he is very comfortable with the chinese government controlling the brains of america's young people but not the canal do you see the tiktok ceo sitting next to tulsi gabbard the future director of of national intelligence? What a country.
What a country. What a time.
Dan, what do you think, just from a public opinion perspective, how do you think the country is clamoring for a new name for the Gulf of Mexico? He also said it's going to be Mount McKinley again. It was Denali, Mount Denali for a while.
We're saying Mount McKinley again. We're saying Mount McKinley again.
We're saying Merry Christmas again. We're saying Gulf of America for the first time.
We're seizing Panama, hopefully not by force if necessary, but we're not ruling it out. Greenland.
Greenland got the shaft in this speech. Didn't hear anything about Greenland.
Nothing about the 51st state either. And Justin Trudeau, outgoing prime minister.
Dan, what do you think? Are these all, is this what people wanted when they voted in november well fortunately for us john we have polling that shows that 57 of americans oppose donald trump using uh coercion either military or economic to seize the panama canal back uh so trump and love it on the wrong side of that one similar similar numbers on greenland uh American people are not interested in Greenland or the Panama Canal. I heard a talk once about Greenland and how the harsh and unforgiving climate there, obviously.
It isn't green, and I hope someone tells Trump that soon. But the person in this sort of Danish accent said, describing the mile-high glaciers and the impossible conditions.
And was asked what would happen if someone invaded Greenland. And he said, if someone were to invade Greenland, we'd immediately rescue them.
Another kind of foreign policy adjacent one is he's going to designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And I'm just very interested to see what that means in practice.
because there's lots of reporting about connections between the Mexican government and the cartels, elected officials or the Mexican military and these cartels. I want to know, are they going to get tagged with providing material support? Are we going to go back to the campaign rhetoric where we all were talking about using the U S military to bomb Mexico, bomb the cartel drug manufacturing facilities? Sounds like they're already going to be down in Panama.
So kind of a pincer move. That's right.
I mean, I guess my, like, we'll talk about this later, but my modus operandi for Trump 2.0 is to take it all literally and assume he's going to do these things. So if we're going to call them terrorists, presumably then you kill the terrorists because that's usually what you do with terrorists if you're an American government.
So stay tuned. I would just say, Tommy,

this is the entire plot line

of Special Ops Lioness Season 2.

And it doesn't end well for anyone.

What is that?

Is that a video game or a TV show?

That is, it's on Paramount Plus,

Taylor Sheridan Show.

Okay.

For the makers of Yellowstone.

Got it, got it.

It's also adjacent to-

Elite Tommy Vitor just watching his prestige TV.

Sorry.

Enjoy severance, you elite prick. We're watching, Dan and I are watching his prestige.
Yeah. Sorry.
Well, Dan's joy severance.

You elite prick.

We're watching.

Yeah.

Dan and I are watching Yellowstone.

What was it?

What was it?

Lioness to what was it called?

Special.

Special.

It is the,

it is also the plot of clear and present danger.

That's a great,

which is a movie where the whole plot revolves around.

Once the American people find out there'll be hell to pay,

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Restrictions apply. USAA! Tommy, just to put a button on the whole Panama thing, how does this work? Like, is it...
They just... What are the options here outside of military force? He, like, tries to levy tariffs on Panama, economic pressure.
I don't understand. I think that Greenland, he really does want the territory.
I think with Panama, he's probably just getting, trying to get a better deal or better rate. But as far as I can, as I looked into this a couple of weeks ago when he started talking about it again, I think that they are charging us the same rate as everyone else.
This ACP, the Panama Canal Authority. And there is a company based in Hong Kong that won a bid to control some aspect of shipping.
Yeah. And they charge everybody.
I think this is all kind of a bullshit way of describing what is ultimately a commercial debate, right? I think the big, big picture on this is Trump's brain was frozen in the 70s. And he remembers when Reagan used to attack Jimmy Carter over the Panama Canal all the time.
And it was a huge political issue. And he's just bringing it back.

yeah and there was there was a mention of manifest destiny in the speech again that was about uh we're going to mars sick elon was very excited behind him we're going to mars we're taking

greenland we're taking panama you can tell that he is serious about, alright I'm a lame duck president, what's my legacy going to be I want to name I've named buildings Trump my whole life and I want to name large land masses Trump and take them over for America it seems like that's a vibe that he's quite serious about and i think it's the kind of thing where like like a like a studio during pilot season he's gonna throw a couple pitches out there and hope hope one becomes a hit much like lioness yeah much like lioness season two tell me what's the process for renaming the gulf of mexico like i don't know i think love it was googling this but yeah during the speech. Don't tell people how the magic happens.
As I said to that professor on the phone beforehand, it seems like he can unilaterally name things, but other countries don't have to recognize him. He can just order the federal government's maps and so forth to identify the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
But that doesn't mean other countries are going to suddenly print Gulf of America. Well, then they'll be pretty sorry once they're invaded.
Right, right. When we were laughing, what did Claudia Sheinbaum, the new president of Mexico, threaten to call the United States like greater Mexico or something? Mexico America? Mexican America? Something like that, yeah.
A little nationalism meeting nationalism. Good for her.
Trump did spend a lot of the speech laying out his plans for signing a slew of long-rumored executive orders, which he described this way. Today, I will sign a series of historic executive orders.
With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It's all about common sense.
I think Biden chuckled at that one, the common sense, which good for him, he should. So here are just a few of the ones he talked about and the ones that have been reported.
Some he has already signed, some he's in the process of signing, hard to tell. 11 executive orders on the border alone, including ending birthright citizenship for the kids of undocumented immigrants, reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, laying the groundwork to send troops to the border, as Tommy mentioned, designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and also invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expedite the removal of foreign-born criminals.
That's immigration. He also is going to sign an executive order, quote, declaring that there are only two genders aiming to end trans protections and the idea of gender identity within any kind of federal government office service, etc.
So, for example, passports will only be two genders. He'll also require the prisoners in the federal system be housed according to their sex at birth.
It would be declaring a national energy emergency, whatever that means, in order to expedite more drilling and fossil fuel production and ending the electric vehicle mandate that wasn't really a thing that he says is killing America. He's signing an EO, creating the Department of Government Efficiency, or as we've all come to know and love it, as DOJ, which, by the way, Vivek Ramaswamy, he's out at Doge because he's running for governor of Ohio, good luck Ohio.
That's why he's out, yeah. Yeah, or it's just, think about how bad your fucking personality has to be.
That you are co-lead of something with Elon Musk and everyone's like, one of these guys has to go. And it's you, Vivek.
Well, Little X was like, can you please stop carrying Vivek around on your shoulders? That's my job. That's my spot.
So they got him a governorship. I think he's just ambitious and wanted to be elected.
He's dying to be an elected politician. There's been a ton of leaks out of the Doge people that this guy don't like him.
He was also B-team the whole time. Yeah, and also he was telling, yeah.
Well, I'm sure the people of Ohio... He's also begging DeWine to make him the senator.
Yeah, that didn't work out either. Allegedly.
Ending all federal government DEI initiatives, including in the military. There was also an order, he sang an order to bring down inflation.
It's a whole of government approach to bringing down inflation because that's how it works. You just have to sign an EO and then the inflation comes down.
Inflation is quivering in its boots. Inflation is quivering in its boots.
What do we know about what here is real? What's new? What's impactful? What's just for show? What do you think, Dan? I mean, much of the immigration stuff is real. There are really horrible stories you're hearing right now from people who had appointments with CBP.
People who are seeking to solve appointments for 1 p.m. today who had them canceled at 1201.
The app that the Biden administration set up so that people could set up their appointments, they shut that down at 1201 today. The birthright citizenship is potentially fake, but maybe not.
I mean, most legal scholars believe you cannot. The Constitution is pretty clear on this and you cannot declare it.
But the Trump administration can start thinking about it in that way. And up until it goes through the court system, people can be affected by it.
A lot of this stuff is all, as you point out, it's just – it's like Trump creates this fake reality and then he creates a series of fake solutions to solve the fake problems from the fake reality. Like the electric vehicle mandate.
Just declaring the government will stop censorship, will stop censoring things. All of that is really fake.
But the immigration ones, I think, are quite real. Trump says it's liberation day.
And then you look at this swath of EOs, and yes, there's sort of these fake censorship ones. But for the most part, there's nothing you weren't free to do yesterday that you're free to do today.
There's nothing, I'd love to see the list of of things that trump mega people would like to be free to do that they're not currently able to do under the under the yoke of joe biden and so really what liberation day and by a trump shit coin and a and a melania shit coin right but you those are for sale before trump even took office but but it's more that like well what does it really mean what does liberation day mean it means you get to watch on television all the people Trump has said are your enemies finally get their due. It's sort of a, it's like nothing good is happening to you.
Nothing better is happening for you. You're not free to do anything different.
It's that Trump is targeting the enemies he's promised he was going to target. And that gives you a wonderful, I guess, liberated feeling.
Yeah, you could have saved a lot of time by just signing one eo on uh liberal tears just right yeah just watch the lips cry can't spell liberation day without lib that's right right that's right you can't i'm saying can't spell a lot of things yeah i do i don't i mean like the doge thing i i know they're trying to do like shock and awe like a ton of executive orders a lot of the birthright citizenship even conservative legal scholars don't think this stands a chance. Look, it's ridiculous.
It's ridiculous. The 14th Amendment is very clear.
And the only reason we're even entertaining it is because the Supreme Court has lost its mind. But it is a ridiculous, it is completely blitheringly obvious that this does not make sense, that birthright citizenship is not something the president can eliminate with the stroke of a pen.
The 14th Amendment is crystal clear. Yeah.
I mean, who knows? Because it's the Supreme Court. They can always surprise you.
But I'm watching more like, do we get three votes for this? Do we get two votes for this? Do we get one vote for this? I don't think Roberts goes with this. I don't think Barrett and Kavanaugh go with this.
But Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas, you never know.

And who knows?

Maybe we also thought this on the fucking criminal immunity case and got surprised there.

So who knows?

But it seems this one is pretty clear.

Kavanaugh was there today and was looking rough.

I think he and Hegseth had a night.

That's a joke.

That's a joke.

It could have been a night of just dancing. Revelry.
Fellowship. They might have danced a lot.
Trump did not mention the TikTok ban in his speech, but he previously said he would sign an executive order delaying enforcement of the law, banning it in the US. This after TikTok users spent the weekend with access only to messages from the app praising President Trump, even though he wasn't president yet, for his valiant efforts to save the service.
Trump truthed. Saved TikTok.
Of course, he was once for the ban. Now he's trying to save it.
Then TikTok's now back for people. It's all in limbo right now.
But basically, the law says it gives the president the authority to delay the implementation of the ban by 60 or 90 days if there is a potential deal in the offing um it doesn't seem like there is a potential deal but it seems like they're just going with this anyway the biden administration had said in their final days we're not going to enforce the law so tiktok can can remain operational which is a cool by the way cool right like great and then tiktok being like we don't want biden to say that we can be operational and not get people's attention so we're gonna do a stunt and shut down and it worked of course because everyone then it got everyone's attention everyone at tiktok who had hadn't been paying attention about that what do we think about this this the trump being the savior savior of TikTok? Dan, I know you wrote a box on this. Yeah, I mean, I don't think this is going to be the thing that defines his presidency, but he played, we can talk about the national security concerns, we can talk about the dangers of TikTok, but from pure politics, he played it exactly right.
And I do think the Democrats fumbled. And so did TikTok and the many Republican and Democratic lobbyists they hired that have been working full time for them.
I mean, it's really not that complicated that if you are we're doing pure politics here, that if you're going to take something of tremendous value from six and 10 voters under 30, and then you never talk about why that should happen from the moment you pass the law in the dark of night until the day it disappears. Like no one ever made the case for it.
You know, Biden could have tried to make a public show, as Trump did in the first administration, of trying to facilitate a deal. It's like they all passed this thing.
They passed it without really thinking about it. They didn't sell it.
They didn't make a case for it. And Trump understood right away.
I mean, for entirely cynical, ridiculous reasons, we understood the politics of it. Because at the time, a lot of these Democrats voted for it, and Republicans too, because your choice was anger the youths or look soft on China.
And they defaulted to what was always theoretically better politics being tough on China. And there's just a real difference between taking something that matters a lot to a group of people.
Like you and I used this example with you on Friday. For voters of a certain age, taking away TikTok is like taking away cable TV from us in our 20s.
Like it just disappears one day. And that is all taking something away from someone is always going to be worse politics than generically being tough or soft on another country in a way that doesn't really affect people.
And so I mean, from a political perspective, Trump did very well here. This is, he got a, the, probably the most expensive free ad in American history to have a, you know, push notifications into 170 million Americans first begging you to save the app and then crediting you for saving it all within a 12 hour period.
It's like, yeah, profoundly frustrating, uh, 24 hours. I mean, I thought Dan's piece on this in Messagebox, his newsletter, which you all should subscribe to.
Thank you, Tommy. It was excellent.
There was lots of less thoughtful commentary on Twitter about how, once again, Dems suck and Republicans rule because we give to Trump this political win. And I just wish, and while that is true, the politics of this did not end well for Joe Biden or the Democratic Party.
I wish people were pointing out, though, that the vote in the House to ban was 360 to 58. So like 186 Republicans voted for banning TikTok or divesting TikTok.
It was 79-18 in the Senate. So you had 31 Republicans in the Senate.
So this is a overwhelming bipartisan decision. The reason they did it was national security concerns, which they've done an absolutely terrible job explaining to anyone.
So no one understands why this happened. But I also think part of the story of how Trump went from wanting to ban TikTok and trying to do it on his way out the door to getting to saving TikTok is also that he met with a big donor named Jeff Yass or Jeff Yass, who said something to him that led him to flip-flop on this issue.
And I think Jeff Yass owns 15% of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. So there was a big money angle here.
And then TikTok wasn't shut down. They shut themselves down preemptively so they could put up this little, please save us, Mr.
Trump, that they shouted from their tall tower. and then they gave him the win and they're like oh mr trump saved us to suck up to the incoming administration so it was just like it was so obviously a stunt and people were like the the commentary on twitter in particular was just so fucking credulous there's i think that i don't even think it's i mean i'm sure there there could be a money angle to it but like i'm sure kellyann conway like talked to donald trump and was like hey one of the reasons you won is because of tiktok and they love you on tiktok now and tiktok's a great place to get your message out and he's like really what's a tiktok and they're like well here it is and he's like you know what sure yeah i'm into it now right probably but jeff yass bought like a ton of shares of truth social yeah uh at the time and like put a bunch of money into the trump team's pocket so i think it could be a why not both situation i mean my like it really is to me is like just the as joe biden goes out the door it's like just these three big problems one of them being that like the reason they did this was never communicated and joe biden could never communicate it they never made the case they passed it too quickly it was always these kind of vague uh um invocations of of national security without explaining why then the same spyware was fine in the hands of americans it was baffling it's a perfect example of institutional failure yes everything yes it's every that's it's like we're democrat you know and and this is what it's democrats and republicans and donald trump doesn't care what the fuck people think about republicans either you know like you're right that like the the lefties on twitter who are mad that about the were against the ban right or like blaming democrats because they love blaming democrats for everything and democrats get blamed here i also think that like it is republicans fault trump doesn't care if it's a bunch of republicans going bus, too, because he is separate from the mass in Washington.
But for the mass in Washington, the establishment in Washington that tried to work together in a bipartisan way to do the right thing, it's just the same story over the last however many years, which is we know it's right. It is the right thing.
And they could be right, right? I'm persuaded that there's some national security threats here, too, right? But we don't need to tell you. They never explained it.
Trust us. Trust us.
No one trusts them, but trust us. And they made a big show of like declassifying all this information around the Ukraine, Russian invasion of Ukraine.
So why not do that again here? Yeah, great point. There's a way to put information into people's hands.
So that's one. So then you have two.
You know, Donald Trump teaches all these Republicans that you don't need to have shame, that you can live without shame. And they embrace it.
And it is amazing how few guardrails there are once the shame guardrail was gone. Now, this moment is everybody outside of politics learning that lesson for themselves.
All these tech companies and these guys realizing, wait, if I just kiss his ass, I get a bad op-ed in the Washington Post and then I get everything I want. I don't care about the Washington Post.
I don't care what the elite says anymore. All I have to do is ignore it or pretend it doesn't bother me.
He's got the power. They don't have the power.
They can't hurt me with their words. And so there was a time when people had a certain amount of dignity where you might not, if you lead a company, go into a room full of people that work for you and say, put up a little supplicating message that says Donald Trump has a huge penis and how beautiful it is.
And then we'll say that we saw it ourselves and then he'll be happy. You're doing the Pornhub case? Yeah, boy, we have very different TikTok algorithms because that's not the message I got.
But like that TikTok is willing to put up a ridiculous message like this and say, thank you, Mr. Trump.
Like we used to make fun of the people that said, thank you, Mr. Trump.
Now the biggest leaders in the American economy are doing it. Who I'm sure did not come up with the idea on their own, which is not a really brilliant idea to come up with.
But again, they have had Republican and Democratic consultants, lobbyists.

They're all, everyone in Washington is on TikTok's payroll. They hired them all.
And it is the easiest fucking money to make to go in there and be like, hey, I got an idea. Just say thank you, Donald Trump.
And so then the third piece of it, though, the third piece of it, which is, I think, about like the difference between what it is like to be a Democrat online versus a Republican online is when Democrats do something bad or Republicans criticize Democrats, when they achieve something, when Democrats achieve something, Republicans attack Democrats. When a bipartisan bill like this happens, right? The online left attacks Democrats.
And it's not, oh, this is actually Donald Trump. There's no one making that argument.
It's a bunch of people declaring, this is why Democrats are terrible. This is why Democrats are terrible.
And I agree they're terrible. But if we want, like, I agree with all of that.
But like, so much of the time that you see these two things side by side, which is how do Republicans get away with this stuff? Right? How do they do it? How do they do it? And then you look at our media, and it's a bunch of people that are much more interested in being part of the discourse of strategy than actually doing the attacking. Right.
There's a lot of people saying, oh, Donald Trump's going to get credit for this, as opposed to a bunch of

people saying Donald Trump doesn't deserve credit for it. And here's why.
Right. Like we don't have

there's like Republicans have so many more soldiers in the social media wars than we do.

We have analysts and we have observers. And and like if you want to talk about how Donald Trump

managed to change politics so much over the last eight years and how things are possible now that

Thank you. than we do.
We have analysts and we have observers. And like, if you want to talk about how Donald Trump managed to change politics

so much over the last eight years

and how things are possible now

that weren't possible before,

it was that slow

and steady work

of those people

making acceptable things

that weren't acceptable.

We just don't have those people.

Fixed bayonets, love it.

Yeah, so,

on the internet, social.

Charge the hill.

And there's a, look,

I think the-

I will, I'm ready.

Digitally.

No, there's actually

a Steve Bannon thing

he always says,

we're gonna fix bayonets,

we're going after this.

I don't know the lingo.

But I'm also someone like,

I'll see I'm ready. I, it's a, digitally.
There's actually a Steve Bannon thing. He always says, we're gonna fix bayonets.
We're going after this. I don't know the lingo.
But I'm also somewhat like, I'm in complete agreement with Dan's message box that the politics are what they are for Democrats. And also I'm for the ban.
I think the ban is a good idea. I think that having the CCP control, um, one of the largest media platforms that 170 million people in the United States are on, um, that is like melting their fucking brains, our brains.
I'll include myself there too, just to not, I don't want to, I don't want to offend the youth. We're all part of it again.
I think it's bad. I mean, by law, ByteDance has to provide the Chinese Communist Party with whatever it wants basically.
And you know, the, the broader context is the Chinese have hacked into basically every single telecom company in the United States. We've been unable, the United States government's been unable to get them out.
We've learned over time that this op that's called Salt Typhoon, they've managed to get audio and text messages of calls from Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, senior political officials.
So there's this ongoing hacking war happening. And the idea that the Chinese national security state wouldn't use TikTok.
Look at all our phones. Everyone just read the Supreme Court opinion, the 9-0 Supreme Court opinion.
ByteDance is collecting the content of private messages on TikTok. It is also collecting the email and contact info of anyone in your contacts.
If you're using TikTok, their emails too. So now the Chinese government, when they want to, can have the names, location data, like what you're buying, email of every single American.
So again, maybe you're fine with that, but it's also a legitimate concern to address. Right.
But this to me is, so this is the problem, right? And all of that would be okay if it were in the hands of an American. And to me, like the, what I take away from this.
We're a nation. That's why we have borders.
Right. But if we're talking about it, yes, it is worse when China does it.
Right. But we have accepted an incredible level of invasion by these companies, which also should not be allowed.
We went through a cycle of this with Facebook in 2016, and then Elon Musk's Twitter and how that's changed and misinformation on TikTok. And whether it's Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or the Russians or the Chinese communists, What all these people have learned is that like if you throw a bunch of throwing stars and nunchucks and bayonets and knives into the center of a digital circle americans will pick them up and kill each other with them and that to me is still the problem right and so like i like whether people go from tick tock to fucking reels like i don't like that this like the problem the law remains the law.
Right. Donald Trump's allowed to extend it, but they have to put it in other people's hands.
But like the problem of misinformation and the way in which these technologies are fucking terrible for us continues. And by the way, you know, no one has Joe Biden to kick around anymore.
And the people who are now most opposed to Trump saving TikTok, Tom Cotton, Republican senator, has already posted. Mike Johnson on Meet the Press was very like, we're going to try to, you know, the law is the law.
Like, I do think he's going to have at least at the beginning, like always, some Republican pushback on that. Trump wants to force a sale to someone more supportive of him, like Elon Musk.
I think the critics of this ban are right to point out comments from senior u.s government officials where they said that like real momentum behind tiktok's ban came when there was tons of pro-palestinian content on there about gaza and i do think that was sort of bizarre stupid argument u.s government officials were making that argument but anyway yeah how about they how about people do try something make the case for why it should be banned just like talk and like declassify or put make public some of these actual arguments that have clearly scared members of Congress behind the scenes that we are still not seeing.

And again, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sam Alito agreed. Pod Save America is brought to you by VIA.
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USAA! One last unintentionally funny clip from Donald Trump's inaugural address. This one in honor of Martin Luther King.
It's Martin Luther King Day. Happy Martin Luther King Day, everyone.
This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.

We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based. Merit-based.
Did you see all the billionaires clapping behind him? They're ready. They're ready for this merit-based future.
Yeah. Did you think it was merit-based that they got those seats? And how Laura Trump became head of the Republican National Committee? Merit-based.
And how Jared Kushner became an advisor at the White House. Did you see that the billionaires got the second row behind Trump? And then the cabinet gets the third row behind Trump.
It's in a row with declining influence. That's exactly right.
The Republican governors were in the overflow. Donald Trump, when Donald Trump went to the overflow, he started talking about Texas and somebody shouted, he's here.
He's here. He's in the room with you now.
It's all, it's merit-based now, guys. That's one thing you should remember about the, the second Trump term.
Speaking of merit-based, I alluded to this earlier, but Trump did launch a Trump coin over the weekend. And then Melania launched a Melania coin.
Like Kennedy and Jackie O. Does anyone want to explain these meme coins? What they are? Why they're a scam? What's going on? You're buying nothing.
You are technically buying a digital playing card, but it's not supposed to be viewed as a security or an investment or a donation to Trump. You're buying nothing because you like the thing.
But people buy and sell and trade these things because they know with some of these meme coins, also called shit coins, you can see huge rips to the upside, whether it's like Dogecoin and all of a sudden Elon Musk likes it. And you can see people pile in and the price goes up.
Can you talk about what rips to the upside means? You can see the value go way up. And if you bought a million of them for one cent and it goes to a dollar, you make a ton of money.
So that's what seems to have happened

here. A company connected to Trump owns 80% of these Trump coins.
They also get a fee on the

sale of these coins. I saw a guy named Connor Grogan, who's the director of Coinbase, estimated

on Saturday that Trump's team had made 58 million in fees from all of the Trump coin sales. So Trump, they launched this Trump coin.
Trump promotes it on True Social. The thing goes to the moon.
And then they launched the Melania coin. And it seems like a bunch of people saw that happen.
And maybe they sold their Trump coin to buy Melania coin. Maybe they sold- Got to have one of each, you know? Well, maybe like oh no they're gonna launch a thousand these things the value is gonna go down whatever happens people just started selling like crazy and the price just collapsed and it's called a rug pull and kind of like the the the coin world so um i don't know we'll find out who loses out here because it seems like a bit of a pyramid scheme all the all the schmoes who buy late lose out and all the people who own it early win this is this is the uh the hawk to a coinification of the presidency and you know normally you might see like regulators investigating what happened here maybe law enforcement gets involved you think trump's gonna have his doj dig into what happened no we're all crypto friendly now sec or the fdc this is the the war crypto is over.
And he's now going to write the regulations for how crypto is regulated. So this is the new world, folks.
I really want 10 years from now someone to have to explain what the sentence, the hawk-tufification of the Trump presidency means. Well, during the next financial crisis, which is caused by a crypto meltdown that has infected the entire economy and banking system.
We'll be able to look back on that moment in this moment. A couple years ago, AOC's campaign for president being like, would you believe how many Melania's eggs cost? You know what I did enjoy though? There's all these crypto bros online who are self-described huge Trump supporters and they're like, this is stupid.
Why did he do this? This is going to this is going to sully our reputation as an industry. And this isn't.
And one one crypto lobbyist was quoted as saying, like, this is not going to help our reputation as hucksters and scammers. And now people are going to think that we're just a bunch of fraudsters because Trump did this.
And, you know, I was a big Trump supporter, but this is really disappointing that he's doing this. I think credit.
Good for those people. Like there are there are arguments you can make for the utility of Bitcoin or the blockchain or other of these technologies.
There's no utility to a meme coin or shit coin. It's just for shits and giggles.
And for the president, United States to launch this thing the day before he's inaugurated and then someone pull the rug on everybody who got in late like he's harming his own people who might have bought in no i i say i say good for them because you're right you can make arguments in favor of it but but to trust that donald trump is if he just like just emerged out of nowhere like oh yeah this guy has our best yeah this guy's gonna this guy's gonna put the proper guardrails on this on the agents what you should take from what the what i think we take away quotes, though, is just how egregious this was. This was like shockingly irresponsible, borderline illegal.
Well, and look, where did all that money, right? Where does that 50 million in the pockets of this entity come from? Or the people who bought in a too high a value before it collapsed? Like, where does that money come from? Like, it may be. A lot of it may be from MAGA supporters, people that don't know any better and are just sort of following the trends.
People, you know, you can't con an honest man, people who think they're going to get one over and try to get in early and fall prey to this. But this is also a vehicle for all kinds of corruption that we may not be able to see.
We have no idea who's buying this. We have no idea who's sending 30 million or 50 million dollars to Donald Trump via this kind of crypto coin.
Foreign actors, foreign adversaries, they can all just sort of curry favor with the President of the United States now. It's just easy.
I mean, they could before because it's Donald Trump, but this is just sort of an easier way to do it. All right, let's talk about the outgoing president, Joe Biden.
Here's how we greeted Donald Trump at the White House before the inaugural ceremony. Welcome home.
Welcome home. Welcome home.
Okay, that's a tough one i just i thought a like a simple simple hello would have sufficed i don't think you need to like punch him in the face or anything or do you mean i think he could have just been like hello do you think it's the same mattress no you think they get a new mattress in there i bet they go with the don lux you think it's a very good see always go yeah that's good yeah call it out they have a new elite collection Maybe they went for that. I bet they go with the Don Lux.
You think it's a Don? Oh, very good. See, always think into the sponsors.
Yeah, that's good. Call it out.
They have a new elite collection. Maybe they went for that.
I bet if Donald Trump gave Helix a shout out, they'd send him a free one. Biden also made some last minute moves.
He issued preemptive pardons for Liz Cheney, members of the January 6th committee, the staff, Benny Thompson, Anthony Fauci,

Mark Milley,

General Mark Milley,

and then his entire family.

So his brothers,

sister,

in-laws,

the whole, Dan got one.

The whole Biden crime family.

No,

Dan pointedly did not get one.

I'm basically my son,

Dan Pfeiffer from Delaware.

Everyone from Delaware

got a part.

Pelosi didn't get one.

Pelosi didn't get one

because they're not speaking. She's, she's getting a different something from Donald Trump.
Right. Biden made Delaware got a pardon.
Pelosi didn't get one. Pelosi didn't get one because they're not speaking.
She's getting a different something from Donald Trump. Biden made sure of that too.
What'd you guys think of the last minute pardons? I like the ones for the people that tried to protect democracy. I'm confused by the ones for his family members.
There are people that I didn't even know they were on Donald Trump's radar. I think Cash Patel is going to find out some about these people existing via these pardons.
What did you think, Dan? Well, I mean, there has been one of his brothers has been a target for a long time. And it's been a target from Trump, a target of the Republicans, a target of the Republican Congress.
So I think if you're doing that, I guess you're doing the whole family to make next year's Thanksgiving less awkward. Do you think it goes in a stocking or something? How do you get these out? Stocking stuff stuffer it was one of those things where you pull it and it the gender reveal yeah the preemptive pardons fine right i mean i think it's weird he didn't do jack smith i know why i know why he didn't do merrick garland maybe he shouldn't have prosecuted biden's son right yeah but like a lot or just like everyone who was

involved in investigating donald trump judge mershon um cassidy hutchinson did she get one uh

no that's a good question i don't think so not the witness they said some of the they did for

the capital police officers that testified right so i don't know about cassidy i mean i would like

to be i would love a little more specificity if i were her yeah yeah that's very true i think the

people who got it know like there are names out there i think with them yeah but people in doj people like alvin bragg or you know tish james like all those people i mean i guess you have to draw a line somewhere you know he should have put something up by the auditorium like uh like everyone's finding out if they made cheer squad oh yeah and if your name's not on there yeah what do you open the thing it's like oh commutation come on yeah pardon is so much better but like back to cassie hutchinson i mean i don't know her she's been on the show she was a witness she was someone that republicans accuse of committing perjury uh before the committee and also someone who is at the lowest level right she was an assistant in the white house White House, has no resources, is not going to be able to hire the fanciest lawyers out there. So I would be a little nervous if I were.
I will just say because- And Trump called her out at his overflow speech. Yeah, he did.
He went after basically by name. I will just say though, that when he did the Hunter pardon, I said then that if he does the preemptive pardons it will at least put the hunter pardon in a better light i still disagree with it but i am good for joe biden i think the preemptive pardons it is sad that he has to do preemptive pardons for a bunch of people who committed no crimes but when you have a person who just became president who literally almost every day of his campaign threatened to prosecute people for no reason because he was mad that he was being investigated for his law breaking, then, you know, I would have I probably would have done the same thing.
Oh, apps like Joe Biden for doing it. It's an umbrella.
If you better to have it, not need it than need it, not have it. It clearly annoyed Donald Trump.
And we'll get to speech but you know Donald Trump is pissed about these pardons. Yeah it is just a strange list and it is funny to also throw in your whole family.
It's funny to do the Hunter one in advance. I mean just it's the other thing they released him at like 1158 like as his final act was to release Leonard Pelletier from prison to pardon.
Also good. Pardon Jerry Lundgren, who was in prison for, who's a Kentucky politician who's in prison for campaign finance violations and his whole family.
Doing it like in the sort of dark of night like that just makes it seem worse. You know, just do it all.
And it's the same thing with the Hunter Biden pardon And it's just like, do them and defend them. Make the case for them.
Every personal political decision Joe Biden makes, he tends to make only with his family and one or two aides, and then just roll it out right away. And it creates a political nightmare.
Clearly, the family influence has its fingerprints all over this one. There's all this reporting about's all this reporting about how he decided to run for reelection without really running it by staff.
There's reporting that the Hunter pardon was made in concert with, you know, like a family meeting. And then they kind of rolled it out weeks and weeks ago and then did the rest of them this week.
So, yeah, I mean, I think the timing, the communications plan wasn't really there for a lot of these. I do think it's going to really hurt Joe Biden's reelection chances.
But it hurt like how he was talked about for months. He could have put Hunter in this last batch and buried it all.
I guess there was kind of the questioning issue of sentencing that complicated things timing wise, I guess. I know.
I know. And I still don't get that because it's like, say Hunter was sentenced, then there's still the pardon is the pardon or the commutation is the commutation.

The Leonard Pelletier one is interesting, though. He's a Native American activist who's been in jail since 1977 for allegedly murdering two FBI agents.

But it's been very controversial. And I think, you know, people have been trying to get him released for years and years and years now.

I mean, Amnesty International called him a political prisoner, etc. And I think he's not completely free.
I think he's now on a home confinement. It moved him to home confinement.
I'm glad Fauci got one. Yeah.
Our boy Fauci can rest easy. Yeah.
But also like there's this presumption of guilt and you see shitty people like Rand Paul tweeting about how now we know Fauci is guilty for his actions during the pandemic. And maybe that maybe who cares? I don't care about that.
The only reason this matters is Chip Roy was out of the gate saying, OK, well, now that they're all pardoned, we can haul them all before Congress and they can't take the fifth. And so either they tell us the truth or they lie and then we can get them on perjury.
Well, look, the part the joke, we can't stop the fact that they've taken over the government. We can't stop them from abusing their offices on a going forward basis.
And we can't stop them from in bad faith interpreting this however they want. But I think I would rather have a pardon in my hand and Rand Paul yelling at me than neither, I think.
You know what else we can't do? Fake declare a new amendment to the Constitution. Now, Jonathan, you go outside and you say, I declare the Equal Rights Amendment is the law of the land.
This happened on Friday. Biden declared that the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution was now the law of the land, even though basically no one else agrees.
Love it. You want to unpack this one for us? So, uh, legal rights amendment, the original draft had a deadline, I believe of 1977.
It was extended to 1982. Uh, it was passed by almost enough States to become a constitutional amendment.
It was one away. Uh, then in the years that followed several States rescinded their ratification and then Virginia became— No takebacks on amendments.
No takebacks. And then Virginia became the 37th state to ratify the ERA.
And there was a movement to say that Congress setting a deadline is not constitutional because the Constitution doesn't make any provision for deadlines for ratification of amendments. And therefore, that part of the amendment doesn't matter.
And the national archivist, who is somehow, for whatever reason, very important in this process, should declare it part of the Constitution. They said no.
Well, she prints all the pocket constitutions. Right.
Yeah. And the big ones.
And the big ones. And the big ones.
She's got all of them. All sizes.
Yeah. You can just do a PDF.
But Biden could have ordered her to do it, and he did not. Well, right.
He could have ordered her to do it. It's not clear what happens after that.
And it would then end up before the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court has, in the past, ruled on these kinds.
The court has found that setting deadlines is a reasonable thing to do under the Constitution and that they have every right to do it. To me, what I was comparing it to is like, okay, so Joe Biden is doing this vaguely extra-legal thing on his way out the door, and Donald Trump is doing this extra-legal thing coming into the door of declaring that the children of undocumented immigrants are not citizens.
And it's just, I feel like we were like, you know, Joe Biden is the institution guy. And there's a bunch of critiques of Joe Biden from the left saying he defends the institution, but he should use his power and he should go further.
And then he does something like this. And it's like, he does it.
And the archivist says no. And then he's out of office and it's fucking dead.
And it just felt like a strange, I don't know, like kind of a statement of principle or a fuck you out the door. It didn't lead to anything.
It was purely ceremonial. It was very strange.
The substantive case for trying to weigh in on this, let's say, would be that the supporters of the view that the amendment has been ratified say that the president putting his weight behind it lends some credence to the legal case should it go before the courts, right? Now, fine. But in that case, maybe Joe Biden goes up and gives a statement that says, like, while I don't know if I can do this, I believe it is.
And actually explains this.

What made it sort of mocked,

what led to it being mocked is,

you know,

just like a graphic that he tweeted that is like,

I declare the amendment is the law of the land.

I declare bankruptcy.

Once again,

the way they went about it was just sort of like,

what?

It was very typical.

It's like enough to please the groups who have been pushing very hard for the White House to do this, but not enough to actually go all the way. Let's say he had ordered the archivist to do it.
The archivist had printed a bunch of new constitutions with more amendments before you go out the door. One, those would be worth a lot of money when it's eventually struck down.
That'd be cool. but it's like right but then it's it's just it was pure symbolism right to to to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to

to amendments before you go out the door one those would be worth a lot of money when it's eventually struck down that'd be cool but it's like right but then it's it's just it was pure symbolism right to and with no also with no other communications plan around it with no communication no explanation for like why they did it why they couldn't do what was going on just nothing right or by all the alternative by the way he's right at the other door he orders the national archivist uh to print to do it the archivist is like no and then we're then where are we and again this is not just like beating up on joe biden as he goes out the door though this was a weird thing to do it's like this is a good lesson for the future for democrats don't do shit like that don't just declare stuff because like you it's symbolism performance of stuff like it just doesn't doesn't matter what matters is like explaining to people why you can do something and then actually getting the power to do it whether it's the pardons whether it's tiktok whether it's this we have paid so last time i'm going to say it for a while we have paid so dearly for having an empty bully pulpit for a long time and uh that is the that is the sad end to the joe biden presidency despite a lot

of good that he did well poor phyllis shafley so you should uh everyone should listen to strict scrutiny this week they go deeper on this was very interesting yes you should because always always listen to strict scrutiny Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix.

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Restrictions apply. USAA! Speaking of someone who really knows how to command the bully pulpit, Donald Trump, even though he gave the longest inaugural address in modern history, decided he was not done yet.
Went to the overflow room and spoke to that crowd in Emancipation Hall. 33 minutes.
And basically, it was like, it was the director's cut from the inaugural address. All the things he wanted to say.
It was the drunk DVD commentary. Exactly.
All the things he wanted to say, but couldn't say in the speech. Let's listen.
And between J.D. and Melania, and anybody else that heard, please, sir.
It's such a beautiful, unifying speech. Please, sir, don't say these things.
I was going to talk about the J6 hostages. but you'll be happy because, you know, it's action, not words that count.
And I was going to talk about the things that Joe did today with the pardons of people that were very, very guilty of very bad crimes. Why are we doing Millie Hughes pardoned? What he said? Terrible what he said.
Why are we helping some of the people? Why are we helping Liz Cheney? I mean, Liz Cheney is a disaster. She's a crying lunatic and crying, crying Adam Kinzinger.
He's a super crying. I never saw the guy not crying.
He's always crying. And I think this was a better speech than the one I made upstairs.
I think this was better, J.D. He's not wrong.
It certainly was a truer speech to who Trump is. That's sort of the moment I think we all heard this was going on.
We're like, this is the next four years. This is what we're in for.
Yeah. It's a rally speech.
One after the other. Did you catch that, Dan? Did you catch the overflow speech? I did.
And it's exactly, you described it right. It is the director's cut.
It's just, and this, I mean, it's just like, sometimes I can never stop looking at these things from perspective of a communications staffer, but you do this whole speech. This is your message.
You have, I mean, it's poorly written, but someone did write it and you have it out there and you've decided these are the things you're going to do. And then he just calls Nancy Pelosi a criminal and talks about and calls Liz Cheney a crying psychopath minutes after your speech is over.
It's just, it's like a truly wild choice. I also, everyone should go watch this just to see the look on JD Vance's face at the top where he starts talking about all the things he didn't want.
And he looks like so pained and kind of constipated. Speaker Johnson is like twitching and looking around and staring into the middle distance.
It's it's nice. Well, part of it also like this was supposed to be 10 minutes.
And so, you know, it's it's a little bit like they're like, OK, so Trump's going to give a little toast to say thank you to all the people in the overflow because we couldn't do this outside. And then we'll go do the parade and whatever other and the heinous executive order ceremonies and all the other things we've got big plans for the day.
And so they're just standing behind him. They wouldn't have stood behind him if he was going to speak for 30 minutes.
So part of it is sort of like, can I shuffle to the fucking side here? I'm standing right behind him. He's supposed to be a greeting.
He's doing a tight 15 on how the border wall was going to be made of cement, but there's acid that goes through cement and I didn't think it was going to be pretty. I thought it was going to be ugly.
There's Greg Abbott. There's this guy.
There's that guy. And they're standing behind him.
And Melania and her big goofy fucking hat is just hiding her eyes and looking down and is so pissed the whole time. And then Trump starts talking about how her feet hurt and how she wanted to go home, but he made her come here.
It's so weird. Yeah.
But it was like, to Dan's point about the communications piece of it, he basically, you know, takes us all behind the scenes because he gets up there and he says, these are the parts I really wanted to say, but they told me I couldn't say today that I should save it for tomorrow, but I'm not going to save it for tomorrow. I'm going to do it right here, right now.
And you know what? He was right. Doesn't matter.
Well, that's his thing. He said, I don't think it's going to affect the coverage because the coverage of my main speech is already out there and it's looking pretty good, but maybe I'll get in trouble.
Well, you know what? It will affect some of the coverage. We're going to talk about it.
MSNBC is probably flipping out about it. New York Times will mention it, right? And then it won't fucking matter because most people that voted for him don't pay any attention to any of those media sources.
And so it's like they just pay attention to Donald Trump, what Donald Trump says. So if he wants to do his fucking tight 33 on on his his stump speech revised one last time, you know, that's that's what he's here for four years for.
Right. And I assume all the headlines, even the mainstream headlines, that'll be slowly that people will catch and see disperses are things like America's decline are over America's golden age.

They are the headlines that Donald Trump would want it to be.

And by the way, there's not a criticism of them.

When a president gives an inaugural, the headline should be the headline line from the speech.

That is what it should be.

So, of course, he's free to fucking do this.

And by the way, all of his he's going to all of his biggest fans are going to see this.

They're all going to see.

Don't worry.

The real Trump is still there.

We're going to get exactly what we want from this guy.

Yeah.

Just to end, Dan, you you brought a message box on Monday today, this morning.

Is it Monday?

Today is Monday.

As you all know, because we're talking about the inaugural about how to survive the Trump presidency.

What are some highlights?

What are some tips for everyone on how to survive the Trump presidency?

And then we can ask Tommy and Lovett what they think, too.

I'll do a few.

And then for all of them, subscribe. But in all seriousness, I think there are just a few things I would, you know, I've is there are going to be after today, 1,460 more days of the Trump presidency.
And we've got to get through all of them, right? And we've got to try to get through them by saying, let's get through them with our faculties intact. And so just a couple of things that I've been thinking about is one, yes, Trump won a really big victory.
Like he won, as he pointed out in his inaugural dress, he won all the swing states. The country did move to the right.
He did win the popular vote, but he also only won the presidency by about a hundred thousand votes in three states. And that's just worth keeping in mind, not to tell ourselves some story about how we don't have to make huge changes as a Democratic Party.
We absolutely do. But just that victory is much closer than it appears right at this moment.
Just keep that in mind. Second, and I think this is a lesson we've all learned from the Trump years now, is we don't have to follow him down every rabbit hole.
He wants our attention our attention 24 seven, he wants to just flood the zone with shit all the time. And our attention is our greatest resource.
And we can decide how we what where when we give it to Trump, not to give it to him all the time, we can just depict between the things that actually matter, where he's making a real impact, and the things is just a bunch of noise to distract us. And so I think it's a very important thing.
It's not something I'm going to try to do with the newsletter. I think it's something we can do this podcast is try to help people separate the signal from the noise, understand what matters.
I think the most important thing is we're all angry. We are anxious.
We are worried. And the best thing to do, and that's always been true ever since Trump was first elected is to channel that into action.
And people should go to vote, save America to figure out ways to do that. But I want to keep people like a North Star for this, which is right now the Republicans have one of the narrowest House majorities in history.
You have a bunch of Republicans who are existing in very, very purple districts. The voting patterns in the Trump era suggests we have a phenomenal chance to take the House back.
And if we take the House back, Donald Trump will never pass another law that does not have Hakeem Jeffries okay. We will have the ability to investigate Donald Trump.
We investigate the ability to hold hearings, to issue subpoenas. And we can do that.
And that is of just, we have to get through these two years focused and working on taking the House back. And if we do that, Trump will still be president.
He can still do really bad things, but we will have so much more power and ability to limit what he does, limit the damage he does and expose him for who he is. All right.
I like that. Anyone else? Watch what he does, not what he says, and focus on those midterms.
He said that in his speech. He said, actions matter words more than words.
There we go. I think that was right.
Yeah, he's a strong silent type this morning. Yeah, just two thoughts.
One is things change less than you think in a year and more than you think in five years. And I think today to me was like a reminder of that.
We wonder like, how did we get to a place where corruption doesn't matter? Like, how did we get to a place where Donald Trump can abuse the office in this way? Well, it took time. It took a slow degradation of basic values, of the Republican Party being slowly and steadily co-opted, but it did change, and it changed a lot.
But it did it in a matter of just a few years, and we shouldn't be so cynical or apathetic or resign to believe that it can't change just as much in the other direction in another couple of years.

We have to slowly work towards that in all the ways we can. And that's a very big goal.
And then that's a hard goal and it's hard to think about. And then when you get anxious or bored or frustrated or mad about thinking about that big problem, you can focus on the very concrete, just winning the house.
Yeah. I think you know it's uh it's taken me 43 years to do this but uh I don't doom about the future

as much anymore because not because there's nothing to doom about, but because nothing we can do. Worrying about it is not going to change it.
So really trying to take the Trump presidency one day at a time and focusing on like what we can control and what we can't. And also recognizing that to Dan's point, you know, he won by a hundred thousand plus votes in, in, in all the swing States.
And we should also recognize though, like why he won. And it seems like the, you know, not the Trump fans, but the additional people that got him over the, I got him over the Hill, um, that got him over, you know, they got him close to 50% and one of the swing States.
They were pissed about the cost of living. And they didn't think that the Democratic Party gave enough of a shit about them.
And right now, price of eggs, $4.15. Price of eggs, mortgage rate is 7%.
Gas is $3 a gallon. So we're just going to check back in on those because let's just take Donald

Trump at his words. We've tried resistance politics.
Let's try normal politics. Normal

politics is he made a bunch of promises, big promises that he was going to do. He's going to

fix the country. We're not going to be in decline.
Everything's going to be great. It's going to be

affordable. Prices are going to fall.
You're going to be doing great. Okay.
If that happens,

good for Donald Trump. But if it doesn't happen, we should point it out.
We should point it out

along the way when he breaks his promises or when he declines to fulfill them. Yeah, there's a moment in the speech where he says that the country is unifying behind my agenda.
It is not. That is wish casting, that is hopeful thinking.
But the policies that are deeply unpopular a week ago remain deeply unpopular today. No, the country doesn't want giant tax cuts for the rich.
No, it doesn't want a president who's focused on bathroom policies and ridiculous right-wing grievances over their basic day-to-day concerns. And we'll be here with you guys the whole time.
We're not going anywhere. So stick with us.
You can, and our friends at Vote Save America are going to be here. You can sign up at Vote Save America to figure out how to get involved.
We're giving everyone a break for a little bit, but you know what? There's going to be 2025 elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Then there's going to be the midterms before you know it.
So we're going to be, it's going to be busy again. And, and also, you know, we'll be here on Pod Save America and all of our other pods.
And you can sign up at Friends of the Pod to be a subscriber. And we we have a great community and everyone is is good to each other and shares their ideas and we want to hear from you guys as well uh because the democratic party has a lot of work to do yeah we are we are at rock bottom let's hope let's hope and as dan said party from our party for country but for the party we're pretty much at rock bottom so uh it's going to take everyone to figure out how the hell to get us out of this.
And as Dan said in his message box, got to support progressive media. We got to have some alternative to this.
Yeah. All right, everyone.
Dan and I will be back with a new episode on Friday, and we will see you then. Bye, everyone.
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