The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024

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We cannot keep pretending that Donald Trump is an outlier when everyone else seems to be out there with him.

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our job now is to pull what we've got and see what we can make happen. Here at Assembly Required, we will continue to face each executive order, legislative policy, and news cycle, no matter how terrifying or absurd, by asking, what can we do to learn more about what's happening? What can we do to solve problems, however small?

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Listen to new episodes of Assembly Requ'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
I'm Tommy Eitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
Well, guys, we made it. It's our last show of 2024.
We both have hats. Oh, the tribe has spoken? Wow.
Hold that. Unbelievable.
Unbelievable. I've been saving these for a while.
Unbelievable. We thought we'd get a little more mileage out of them,

but it turns out it's short but sweet.

Like the Viagra of Etsy purchases, you know, one-time deal.

Well, they look great.

It's going to deliver.

It's just for those listening at home.

They both, after we began, they both put on their

The Tribe Has Spoken hats. That's right.
Not one for Dan. they didn't get dan in on this we've been saving them my task is to remind people because it was so long ago that you were on survivor at one point yeah yeah and the season just ended this week right that's right the finale was last night yeah and many months ago i was on survivor i saw you're still in the you're still in the intro because i turned.
That's right. It was on, and there you are.
I saw a picture of you embracing your nemesis slash frenemy, old friend, best friend turned frenemy turned what? Now we're friends again? You know, Andy's out there living his dream, and then that's fine. But no, but I have a picture of our meeting, which was funny.
It was a meeting. But I saw all the,

I saw all the,

my fellow castaways.

Do they remember you?

Yeah,

they remember me.

I was like,

you remember me,

short guy,

first day?

They're like,

you're a producer,

right?

Yeah.

Pod,

pod something?

Yeah,

that's right.

Podcast,

you did a podcast?

All right.

Okay.

All right.

It's our last show of 2024

and that means it's our

annual Pundies episode where we will rank the very worst takes from a very bad year, including our own. If they could find any, you know.
We'll also do our annual New Year's resolutions, which we always break and always forget. Not to suggest that anything is more important than dunking on each other's worst moments, guys.
But as we're recording this on Thursday afternoon, LA time, time the u.s government is basically in total chaos and non-essential functions may shut down just in time for the biggest travel week of the year all because elon musk tweeted us to the precipice of a government shutdown uh i think because he thought the the funding bill had too many. He was upset with the height of the stack of paper.

It was upsetting to him.

Aesthetically not pleasing.

So he started tweeting and then Trump got involved.

And then they killed this bill that had been negotiated with both parties very carefully.

It was going to pass.

Killed the bill.

Then now as we're recording, there's like a new bill.

Doesn't seem like they have the Republican votes for that or the Democratic votes for that. And the government runs out of money Friday night.
And who is the current president? And is that person involved at all? Do we know what that person thinks about this? There was a statement from the White House on Wednesday evening. Right.
That's all we've heard. President Trump's been doing some posting, some truths.
Elon Musk has been tweeting up a storm jd vance i think has been tweeting my favorite part is when vivek pretends he's an equal partner in this doge thing yeah yeah just like he's like uh you know elon walks around with his kid on his shoulders at all times that's a little silly guy i guess i guess in the old version and the new version the new version of the bill which doesn't know if it's going to go anywhere, that Trump and Musk approve of, the big changes, they were able to eliminate funding for childhood cancer research. Gotta stop.
Losers, kids with cancer, winners, pharmaceutical middlemen, pharma managers, and China. Now we're allowed to invest more in China.
Yeah, it's funny that Elon Musk does a lot of business in China, a lot of factories, a lot of Teslas would want restrictions on US outbound investment in China to get knocked out of the bill. Yeah.
It's a coincidence. So that's what we're watching.
Merry Christmas, everyone. Wonder how it turns out.
Dan, what do you think? Anything? I think that there has been a lot of criticism in the Democratic Party and on this podcast about Joe Biden's absence from the scene. It is time to make a bug a feature.
And let's let Donald Trump own this shutdown. This is between Mike Johnson, Donald Trump, Elon Musk.
Have to figure this out amongst themselves. Let them do it.
And if they don't, this is on them. You boys work it out.
The new click. Okay.
Anyway, let's get to the good stuff. So we have not seen any of the takes or categories in advance.
So without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to our guest host, the Take Master General himself, Elijah Cohn. Elijah, looking good.
Thank you. Yes, I did put on my talks.
This is the biggest night of the year for me we've never done a pundies after an election loss let alone one like this so I was so thrilled when this got put on my plate so fun such a fun year to reminisce here's how it will work we're going to go through a number of categories for bad punditry I'll read you a take you'll react and we'll go on to the next take at the end you'll decide who won the category the category winners will compete at the end for worst take of the year have you guys seen a dog show it's like a dog show format yeah you've said this a few times you've seen dog show he's saying that first you know first you put up the sporting dogs up to the little dogs. Then you got the, you got your, your, your, your other dogs.
And then the best dog in each category, you know, pugs and so forth. They all go head to head in a final category where you're deciding.
Squeeze their nuts while you judge them so they don't move. Right.
Right. Exactly.
And we're a group of adults. That was my takeaway.
Decide whether or not a Shih Tzu is better or worse than a Labrador. It's like, no, this one's better.
Stupid. The answer is worse.
Well, let's kick things off then. For sure.
We'll start out for an easy topic. This is kind of to wet our take appetites from the beginning of the year.
The presidential primaries. Remember those? No.
We didn't really have one. We didn't have none on our side.
Dean Phillips? Yeah, Dean Phillips is part of this. Here's a couple of takes.
Let's start off with this piece from The Hill. Oh, boy.
After Trump wrapped up the nomination, a piece titled, quote, Trump's GOP is already dying. Here's an excerpt read by one of our wonderful Pod Save America producers.
Republicans have built themselves a party whose sole purpose is to appease and gratify Trump. In the process, they're quickly losing appeal to anyone else in America, including some of the party's most faithful warriors.
The MAGA movement, once so skilled at enforcing loyalty, is cracking. Great reading.
First of all, that was beautiful. Wow.
Grammy for. Is that Adrian? That was Adrian.
Wow. Voice for radio.
Who was that? Is that how... What are we doing here? I figured you guys...
We're doing the winning take. I figured you guys would react to each take as we go, but we could just do them all.
No, okay, got it. But I figured.
No, no, no. But it's not like a guess who did the.
Oh, yeah, no, no. It's not who did it.
Just reacting to the take. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. My reaction is that one didn't pan out.
Yeah. I think it's going to be a theme, Tommy.
Yeah. Would that it were.
Would that it were true. I feel like there was a lot of that going around.
Yeah. A lot of that.
Probably some on this very podcast. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
For sure. Some wish casting, you know? We're always talking about the cracks showing.
This is America. We don't care about cracks.
I think we had like 45 episodes that had some kind of title about like, Trump grip on the GOP loosens. Question mark.
But we always put a question mark. That's true.
To protect ourselves. And boy, was that answered.
Yeah. We had the Santa's bill for a minute.
We're just asking questions on this podcast. Yeah.
All right. Anyway.
Next up, we have billionaire Bill Ackman talking about Dean Phillips' chances to win the Democratic primary ahead of Michigan's primary. Let's take a listen.
Biden's doing very poorly in Michigan. His polls are terrible.
The Muslim community is not happy with him. And he really has spent no time there.
And so if he's embarrassed in Michigan, it could be a catalyst for him withdrawing. Then Dean will get funding.
If he wins Michigan or shows well in Michigan and people say he's viable, he's the only choice we have, he'll attract from the center. He'll attract from people, Republicans who won't vote for Trump, which they're a big percentage.
It could be 60% or more. It could be 70% won't vote for Trump.
And also from the Democrats. So I think he's a really interesting candidate.
Well, that's just premature. If only.
If only. He's got the top right.
He's just wrong, not the primary, the general. Right.
Bill Ackman never misses. Honestly, it's like that take, it aged poorly, and then it aged well again.
Right. I don't know.
I thought it, no, it. No, it started well.
It started off. If you'd cut the first 20 seconds of that well I guess because he didn't end up competing in Michigan.
Right. I guess what I mean is just that the liabilities he was describing were correct.
They ultimately did become Kamala's liabilities and cost us the country. So there's some truth in that.

But Dean.

Dean couldn't get it done.

He wasn't the way. He wasn't the way.
Cassandra, if you will. The best part about that take or the worst part, I guess, is the way in which Bill Ackman speaks so confidently about something he does not understand at all.
It's like if I decided to just expound on astrophysics on this podcast. I mean, that is his brand.
That is Elon's brand. That is the brand of all the bros, the billionaires who are running the government now.
I don't know. Maybe they're smarter than they seem.
They're having a better holiday than we are. And to round out the category here, we have another piece from The Hill that was written after the election, but it's about the 2028 primaries.
It's titled America needs another Reagan. Nikki Haley is already following his path to power.
The piece, as you might imagine, is about how Nikki Haley is poised to win the 2028 Republican nomination. Here's an excerpt.
The 2024 election might go down as the first podcast election. Trump benefited from appearing on podcasts like the Ben Shapiro show.
Tim Pool interviewed him and his appearances on Theo Vaughn and Joe Rogan helped secure his victory. During the election, Harris was tepid about doing podcasts and leaned more toward the mainstream media, which appears to have cost her.
Haley, on the other hand, understands the appeal and has started her own podcast.

Again, on the way to a good take.

I was going to say,

I love these takes that are like

mostly right and then

swerve.

Yeah, you're like

crashes into a wall right at the end.

Right at the end there.

Couldn't stick the landing.

Couldn't stick the landing.

Yeah, well, I mean, look,

her podcast has rocketed up the charts.

What is her show called?

I don't know.

Okay.

I don't know.

Has anyone heard it? It's actually called Call Her Nothing. Is what it's called.
I can't wait for five years from now when we're doing this exact podcast to look back on our response. The worst pun take will be our take about this in our incoming president-elect, Nikki Haley.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, she's really kept up. Has she said anything since the...
I mean, I guess it just shows her reach. I cannot tell you anything that Nikki Haley has said or made news on her podcast.
Anyway, we wish her the best. Nikki, come on.
Come on, Pod Save America. she's in the uh she's in the quiet car of the trump train so who wins who wins the category oh it's it's called nikki haley live it's it's it's i think it's on sirius xm it's a it's a radio it's a radio it's our sister show by the way.
Those are the cross promos we've been doing.

Who was the first one?

The first one was the worst, right?

Yeah, the first one was just wrong.

Just completely wrong.

What was the first one? Trump's GOP is already dying.

Trump's GOP is cracking.

Oh, oh, oh.

Yeah, I think that has to be the...

That's it.

That's the one that we can be sure of.

Can you tell us who authored that?

Yes, I can.

Please tell me it wasn't an issue of MessageBox. And can you also tell us how many more takes from The Hill are we going to do? We're done with The Hill.
Hill to die on. Who was it? Max Burns.
Max Burns. The Hill, Washington's second choice to read on the toilet.

Right?

I think it's like third or fourth now. You guys didn't get the memo that we're doing all Hill takes for the Pundies this year?

Justice for roll call.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

All right, let's get to the good stuff.

Appetizers eaten.

Here come the main course.

The worst polling take of the year.

Oof.

This was a terrible year. We're going to play a clip from Polar Coaster.
This was a terrible year for polling, or was it? Crosstabs are in the eye of the beholder. Let's take a look at the worst polling takes of the year.
First up, we have Nate Silver. Nate's modeling was actually pretty accurate this cycle, but in October, he got in a Twitter fight where he made a big bet with a super rich investor named Keith Rabois.
Here's the exchange, which will be done in a dramatic reading by our producers, Saul and Farah. Nate, you are a buffoon.
Minimum Trump win in Florida is eight points and more likely 10 to 14 points. Dude, you've got to stop huffing the Twitter vibes.
How much money are you willing to bet on a Trump plus eight point spread in Florida? 100K. Okay, have your lawyer drop a quick contract and it's a deal.
Nate.Silver.Media at gmail.com. No contract, no bet.
Because you've been nutty lately on our payment risk. Donald Trump won Florida by 13 points.
Did we ever get confirmation as to whether there was a deal? I don't think so. Well, you know what happened is there was, this was revisited, I hate that I know this, this was revisited when the New York Times, the other Nate, dropped a poll about Florida, a Florida poll in the weeks before the election that showed Trump, I think up 13 in that poll? Yeah, 13.
Nate Cohn basically nailed And so when Nate dropped this poll, then everyone started ragging on Nate Silver about the bet, but I don't think the bet had happened. Well, lucky for Nate.
I don't think it's a position, but boy, is that a bad take. Yeah.
God, just the confidence. It's like, how many of us have had takes that we were so sure of, we put $100,000 on the line.
It's also just like, even there are times where i like i feel sure of something i'm so chastened by the history of recent events and my awareness that the future will come you'll have to measure it against what you thought in the past all right okay next our next take is for a really nerdy topic for the polling sickos. Here's serial polling poster Adam Carlson talking about race depolarization, the theory that Trump wouldn't win a larger share of the black vote.
Speaking as a pollster, it's wild to me that people take early polling at face value without question, even at the subgroup level, believing wholeheartedlyedly we're about to undergo mass racial depolarization simply because the polls told me so is an easy way to look silly in November. Thank you to whoever found this one.
You're welcome. Look, you know, to his credit, did not put $100,000 behind it behind it yeah and i think admitted he was wrong yes to his credit he did tweet out verbatim i was wrong about race depolarization race step race step for the real nerds that's what they were all calling it and mockingly but yeah and even more importantly it's a huge problem for the country what's's happening? You know, although I think less racial polarization is helpful.

Yeah, I don't think I guess I don't think we want to be polarized by race.

It's not helpful for us right now because I mean, in the battleground states. But, yeah, I mean, you know, be a less divided country.

We're all Republicans, but that's also not the world I want to live in.

You know, just because we have trouble now getting white people to vote for us and black people and Latino yeah i'm calling that a problem that's a problem yeah we just suck yeah anywho what else you got no you knew this was coming a couple of days before the election and seltzer dropped her famous iowa poll it had kamala harris leading trump by three in iowa in reality harris lost in iowa Trump by over 13 points. Trump is now suing Ann Seltzer.
Here's a clip from friend of the pod, Sarah Longwell reacting to the poll when it came out. She's not been the wrong one.
There have been times where she has produced things that look like outlier results. And what pollsters learned is that when Ann Seltzer's poll poll looks like an outlier you better shift your polls to think more like hers it doesn't go the other way i think the rare take that will appear on the pundys and in discovery a take so bad it might get you in thrown in jail uh in sarwell's defense, she was right there.
I mean,

Seltzer has historically been right.

She has been someone who's been willing to put

out polls that did not match

the herded class, but yeah, it ended up being

very, very wrong. Look, we all

saw it. We were getting on a plane to

Vegas from Phoenix,

and we were

cheering. We were excited.
We got ourselves

It was exciting. It was quite exciting.
Yeah, I feel like the interpretation that Sarah has there is completely fine. The hope that Seltzer was right is completely fine.
She's taken enough shit for this poll. And she had the kind of courage of her convictions to do a poll the way she was accustomed to doing it, taking what the data showed her and releasing it, which is what a lot of pollsters refuse to do, which is why all the polls heard.
She got this one wrong, but it may just be truly one of those things where there was an outlier, which should happen in a lot more polls. Whose take are we judging, Sarah or the poll? I think this one goes to Anne, yeah.
Okay, got it. Yeah, Anne's poll is wrong.
Lock her up. We have one more in this category.
Sometimes the worst polling takes are to bail on the polls altogether and come up with your own pseudoscience method of predicting elections. Professor Alan Lichtman is a man who claimed to have a system like that called the 13 Keys.
He became quite a character in this cycle with many takes and posts. But here's one example that we particularly enjoyed of him getting into a fight with Nate Silver.
Nate Silver claims to have applied my keys to predict a Trump victory. He doesn't have the faintest idea how to turn the keys.
He's not a historian or a political scientist. He has no academic credentials.
He'll be wrong again in trying to analyze the keys. I mean, this is tough.
No, I actually don't think it is. I think it's the fucking keys.
It's definitely the keys. That's where I was leaning.
That's where I was leaning. I mean, like, Ann Seltzer is being sued and did have the biggest mist from the best pollster ever.
But, again, she said when she put out the poll, it could be an outlier and I'll be comfortable with that. Like, she actually.
She made a joke. She said, you'll distribute my ashes over Des Moines.
And now that's what the lawyers will do. It's Alan Lickman.
Hands. Yes.
Because you know what? Because there's, we're people. People make mistakes.
People get things wrong. The best methods lead to an incorrect result.
But she had the humility and like the expertise to put behind it and the rigor. This guy's running out there being like, I've been in the sarcophagus and found the secret eye that tells you how politics will be in the future.
And it's just embarrassing. I love making up your own system.
It's like a degenerate gambler. It's like, I always hit on red sevens.
It's muddy at the beltway. And honestly, Nate Silver, while spectacularly wrong about Florida and putting $100,000 on it, you know, I guess I have a little respect for putting the $100,000 on it in public pretty i mean i don't know if he actually did it but even saying that right the rest of us are cowards before time okay so alan lickman winner there you go congratulations or a loser depending how you think about it do you think trump will sue alan lickman oh i hope so is that the wrong approach i think he'll end up being uh end up being Commerce Secretary.
Let's move on to a category that you guys did request this year, the worst Blue Anon slash Blue MAGA discourse of the year. If you don't know, Blue Anon and Blue MAGA are what they sound like, just pro-Biden right-wing influencers that are dyed in the wool willing to go to the mat for the president.
Let's get into it.

First up is a post from pro-Biden influencer Chris Boozy responding to the calls for Biden to step down.

What Democrats are doing to Biden and Harris is no different than what Republicans tried to do on Jan 6.

The only difference is no one is storming the Capitol building.

That is a key difference. Key difference.
I think I was told by this person directly that I was January 6th thing, Joe Biden, as were all of you. Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Man, you were deep in your mentions. You can pull off off memory.
Chris Boosie take. Chris Boosie has quite a few followers, Dan.
Quite a few followers. This is an insurrection commentary with some of the dumbest fucking shit.
And the indignity of having to actually walk through why it's so fucking stupid. I don't think we even have to.
I don't think we ever had to. We never did.
So stupid. You're either stupid enough to believe it or you're full of shit.
And I don't need to convince any of those people.

Yeah, you know, if you think that

trying to pressure Biden to step down

was like January 6th, agree to disagree.

Yeah, good luck in life.

I hope you figure out how to tie your shoes.

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Next is a post from a now-deleted account that shows the direction that the conversation took in the days post-Biden and Trump debate. Let's take a listen.
My guess is some top media owners were on Epstein Island. They're taking down Biden and democracy to save their own skin.
This is so good. So good.
I remember this i remember this one okay so let's do another take but this time kind of more throw it away um who was that who was that yeah they deleted their account we couldn't find who it was their script okay yeah yeah so this is somebody claiming that it's a conspiracy on epstein's island to move jill biden, I remember. I think I have this one saved somewhere.
Wow. Missed it.
Missed it. Do we think this person really thought this or they were just trying to go? Yeah, just drooling.
Yeah. I remember being struck by who it was.
So they might have deleted their account, but it was not some like rando with two followers. It was like a, it was being, it was being retweeted.
I think it was called like St. Ashley's Stare Car.
Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Wow. That's a deep pull.
It was being retweeted. I think it was called St.
Ashley's Stair Car. Yes.
Wow, that's a deep pull. I think it was like a K-Hive person.
John, I don't want to fast forward ahead to the New Year's Resolution part of this, but I have some ideas for you. I think you do.
That is chilling. The two of you pulling that name out there, being like, I remember said it.
It was this. That is chilling.
Yeah. If the text exchanges between Elijah and I end up in Discovery, this is what it's going to show.
Don't let them shame you, John. All right.
Next is a post from a very popular Resist account, Seth Abramson. Let's take a listen.
No, the call for Biden to step down is not organic. It is the closest thing to an internal coup America has seen since what Trump tried to do at DOJ in 2020.
I mean, I want to know, did Chris Buzzi go first or did he go first? Did Seth Abramson go first? Because they're very similar. He has a lot of blue maga going on.
Right. January 6th, the coup.
I mean, mean it wasn't an original thought it was sort of the dumbest thing you could pull for in the moment yeah it's um uh very frustrating and stupid i do think seth abramson's been on the mark you know time for some game theory is that is that oh no he's not the game theory guy he's the what happened to that guy where'd that guy, I believe fully red-pilled now. Oh, that checks out.
That checks. He's Tulsi's deputy at DNI.
Now it's really time for some game theory. Yeah.
And last, we have a super viral post from an influencer named Tristan Snell. It's a photo of you guys, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Rob Reiner, John Cusack, Chris Hayes, Stephen King, Michael Moore, Seth Meyers, and George Clooney.

The caption simply reads, these are the folks calling for Biden to quit.

Gosh, if only there was something they all had in common.

Playing on the discourse of that time that it was racist to call for Joe Biden to step down in favor of kamala harris yeah yeah the kicker is tristan snell is racist yeah for sure for sure for sure another kicker kamala harris black right that's also an important thing to know yeah joe biden white yeah yeah pretty white uh that one wins for me because it's when you when you think of the most ridiculous theory um joe biden should not run for re-election as racist, I think is number one. It was pretty bad.
A white guy accusing other white guys of being racist for trying to dethrone a white guy. It reminds me of this other, like you'll see like a white male comedian refer to white women and make fun of them because he knows he can't say women.
And so he has to add the white so that he can make fun of women. It's like, I'm suspicious.
I'm suspicious. Color me suspicious.
That was a good one. Yeah.
I think that wins for me as well. That also was a moment where also the worm kind of turned.
Yeah. I was just like, are we really doing this?

The replies to that tweet were actually encouraging about the future of the internet.

I mean, I will say, I'm not even going to name the person.

There was a member of Congress who went on CNN

and not only said that it was racist to call on Joe Biden

to step down, but that it was ableist.

Right.

Sorry.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, no.

And you know what?

Honestly, I would like a cogent, comprehensible president. If that makes me an ableist, so be it.
If that's what ableism means now, then I'm an ableist. It was ableist.
Unbelievable. So we're crowning Tristan Snell to move on to the best in show category? I think so.
Oh, yeah. Okay, great.
Let's move on. It's a great tweet.
To worst discourse of the year. This is a little different.
Ooh, this is good. We're not just gonna do a single take.
We're gonna sample a take and then talk about the whole discourse. Cause 2024 was quite a year for discourse much like the toilet is quite a place for shit.
And if that comparison left a bad taste in your mouth, get ready to bucker up for these. First up- What else do you want in the toilet, Elijah? Hallie wrote that.
Shout out Hallie. That was a good one.
First up, we have the debate commission discourse. Joe Biden and Donald Trump organized their own debates this year instead of working through the nonpartisan debate commission.
Many pearls were clutched. But here's a particularly wonderful string of buzzwords from New Jersey Assemblyman and RFK junior advisor, Jamel Hawley.
He called the commission on presidential debates, quote, an institution that has stood as a beacon of nonpartisanship before saying this. Regrettably, the sanctity and integrity of the debate process are now facing mounting challenges as political operatives discreetly maneuver behind the scenes to undermine the established norms and protocols that have long governed these crucial events.
So the discourse is skipping the debate commission? Yeah, the norms and the protocols and rep the debate commission. So that was about RFK Jr.
believing, according to the rules that have traditionally been used, that he would have gotten a slot at a presidential debate, which might be true. And then there was a separate discourse about whether it was bad for the country that the debate commission was basically ignored.
And then the candidates spoke directly and figured out debates with the networks, right? The Commission on Presidential Debates was formed in 1987. This wasn't like the founding fathers.
What are we talking about here? Who also didn't get a lot right either. Okay.
That's a little warm-up discourse. You guys want to get to the real shit? It's a real discourse, yeah.
And amuse-bouche. All right.
Next up, we have Chapel Roan not endorsing Kamala Harris forcefully enough. This was a moment that combined several issues, Israel and Gaza, LGTBQ rights, the youth vote, and the importance of celebrity endorsements.
Let's take a listen. Here's Chapel Roan.
Actions speak louder than an endorsement. Here's the full quote that a lot of people are just not reading.
I have so many issues with our government in every way, she says. There are so many things that I would want to change, so I don't feel pressured to endorse someone.
There's problems on both sides, and I encourage people to use your critical thinking skills. Use your vote.

Vote small.

Vote for what's going on in your city. The change she wants to see in the US is this election year, she says, instantly is trans rights.
They cannot have cis people making decisions for trans people, period. So hear it from my mouth if you're still wondering no i'm not voting for trump and yes i will always question those in power i'm sorry that you fell for the clickbait that kicked off a shitstorm for a week you know the thing was so, everything about it was stupid.
Everything about it was frustrating. I love Chapel Rhone.
I think Chapel Rhone, like a lot of the people criticizing Chapel Rhone should go outside and touch grass. And like, I'm being perfectly clear.
And then kind of like, Pundit just like fucking losing it like being like how dare you misinterpret my completely elliptical and confusing way of talking about politics. Allow me to make myself perfectly clear.
I'm once again going to say something similar that's very hard to interpret. It was like for no one and it's like you're not a political expert.
You're putting yourself out there. You became incredibly famous in this year.
That must be an insane amount of pressure. Why are we doing this? Well, now that we can look back on the race, I think we would all agree that celebrity endorsements were the difference maker.
That's true, too. It just depends on your celebrity.
Right. Winners, Hulk Hogan, Joe Rogan.
Losers, Taylor Swift, Beyonce. Fully opted out of this discourse at the time.
Me too, I paid no attention to it. I mentally muted the whole thing for a week.
I did too, yeah. Well, I think the bigger thing to take from it is not this one moment about Chapel Rome, but there was a big chunk of people like the people that got behind Trump were super excited and gung ho about it.

A few people were like that about Kamala, but there were a lot of people like Chapel Rhone that felt like it was uncool or problematic to full throatedly get behind a Democrat.

And like, I would like that to not be true in the future.

It'd be great if we were a place, a movement where Chapel Rhone was excited and it was valuable for her to be a part of it and for in both directions.

That'd be cool.

That'd be nice. Boy, would it.
Boy, would it? Yeah. What a discourse.
All right. Next up, we have the discourse.
Should Democrats be doing more to reach men? Here's a tweet from our friend Travis Helwig, who texted me before this to say he disavows his phrasing but stands by his point. Let's if kamala loses which is very possible there needs to be a real discussion about how democrats speak to and reach young men there are very few straight men under 40 in the democratic consultant class so when ads try to reach young men they come off as deeply and authentic uh this spawned many responses accusing travis of needing to shut the fuck up and hating women too many fags in the democratic party huh travis i think if travis had just left out that one clause about the makeup of the consultant class he had a great point which is we didn't do great with young men this cycle yeah i mean look i think i think when you look at consultants, most of them are like men over 40.
Right. The under 40 men are usually operatives, staffers, stuff like that.
But I don't know. I'm 40 now.
Look, Travis didn't didn't word it artfully. You were 40.
Yeah. I'm in my 40s.
I should have said that's what I meant. But yeah, clearly we did have a problem getting men.
Yeah, we have a huge problem. I think putting it at a point to date at consultants is whatever, but it's a collective inability to sound like normal people.
Also, a bunch of podcasts where it's like, hey, you come over here, you can say whatever you want. We don't care.
I don't love that. But on our side, it's like, you better be careful.
There are trip wires and you're going to hit them. I will say that the gender gap, at least according to the exit polls, ended up being not as large as the poll suggested.
That's because we did worse with women, John. That's right.
That's right. That's what I was getting at, Dan.
That's what I was getting at. We did worse with women.
So I guess we had a women problem as well. Look, we're having a problem, a human problem.
We need more human. Like we're having a difficulty reaching.
Yeah, voters, human beings. But I will say even among Gen Z, where we also had a big problem, the split was, the biggest split was college educated, non-college educated, not men, women, right? So it's, and we'll see more when the data comes out but we have a problem with people who don't have college degrees and a problem with travis and we have a big problem with travis huge problem who does hate women yeah yeah he does hate women for sure we'll appreciate you saying that here's our last discourse in a stacked category you knew this one was was coming again.
Should Biden drop out? You guys were subtweeted by the campaign after saying you should drop out, being referenced in a fundraising email as self-important podcasters. Anyone who called for Biden to drop out was called traitors by several parts of the internet.
We read a lot of those kinds of takes in our Blue and Non section. What do you guys think? I don't have a clue.
This is such a setup. Think about what? Here's what I've been thinking about just as we watch the final few weeks of the Biden administration.
And it becomes clear in just these past few weeks how ridiculous the assertion was that he was in shape uh to be president over the next four years that my regret is that it took until not just seeing him once behind the scenes we went to the white house not just seeing him a second time when we saw him at that fundraiser but till the debate to be full-throatedly honest because i feel like we't we this. I wasn't there.
Didn't I say I?

You said we.

I was in a we song.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, some of us were there.

I'm sorry.

He was at the Clooney fundraiser.

Yeah, you're at the Clooney fundraiser.

Don't try to take yourself out.

You're part of it.

You're fucking part of it.

You'll be on the lawsuit.

I don't like your collective tone.

But I think because he wasn't dropping out

and it seemed like a fait accompli, we were very hard biden and wanting him to get out there to dispel questions about his age but looking on it back like it's could we have gotten there faster could we push harder i don't know but i i come away from that moment being like uh like thinking more about how we got to that place in the first place yeah look joe biden shouldn't run again the the hard part about this was what people don't remember is in the 2020 primary, there was also a conversation about Joe Biden's age. I think we all were on the side that he was probably too old to be running then.
Said as much on the show, he won the primary. That made them very angry.
They didn't speak to us for four years. And so in the midterms happened, I think Joe Biden took the wrong message from in 2022 that democratic success in a midterm when a bunch of completely outside the mainstream, crazy Republicans ran for Senate seats and lost like Dr.
Oz, that it meant that the white house was strong and that he should run for election. And that was some sort of, um, indication of his political strength.
Obviously it was not, but I felt like from our, my position, like I was wrong in 2020, who am I going to tell the incumbent president not to run for president in that moment outside some sort of like major event or indication? Like I think we talked, we talked a thousand times about the polling about his age concerns about it. We would constantly ask the question, how do you fix this? And I think almost every one of those conversations started with, I don't know that it is fixable, but if it is, here are the things I would try to do.
They didn't really try to do any of those things because obviously there's been all this reporting now that keeping a full schedule was challenging for the president, et cetera, et cetera. So we don't have to belabor all of this, but that's kind of the backstory that people don't remember.
I just think it's worth remembering that after the debate, Joe Biden was behind the whole time. He was behind to Trump basically from the summer of 2023 onward.
By the time the debate was over, Joe Biden had a 3% chance of winning the election. And the idea here was we could not go into election with a dangerous authoritarian who had a 97% chance of winning.
So we had to look for another option. And that option was Kamala Harris, who probably went into it with a 45% chance of winning.
And she was not able to get that last 5%. But there's two questions.
There is the, could Joe Biden have served four more years? I think the indication is pretty clearly no. And is, could Joe Biden win the election? And by the time the debate was over, it was obviously highly unlikely that he would do so.
And there is one last moment to try to make a change to give us a chance to win. He, in the end, weeks later than we had hoped, but did step aside, Kamala Harris ran a very good campaign, not a perfect one, but gave her a shot to win an election in a very, very tough environment.
And that's sort of where we, that's where we were. And, and I will say to all, not the blue and non people from the discourse section, but most people like there was a, could be a good faith disagreement on Joe Biden's electoral chances or Kamala Harris electoral chances.
But in the end, most people came together to try to get her elected and worked pretty hard at it. I just want to say one more thing here.
Like Joe Biden, this decision was Joe Biden's and like a very small circle of people around him and mostly family, mostly family. And you know, wall street journal was out today with like, he was more cloistered in this, these four years than he ever has been in his whole career.
He had a small circle of advisors, not a lot of other people got in. And I remember when we did a crooked offsite like a year, more than a year before the election.
And we did like a political section where everyone could ask us questions about the coming race and politics. And all you guys, our staff, like peppered us with questions like, why is Joe Biden running? Joe Biden's too old.
And I think then we said, number one, no one is challenging him. No one has decided to challenge him.
And number two, like, he is deciding with the people around him that he wants to run for president and he gets to decide. And people think it's like the party, this, that, the other thing.
Like, he wasn't even listening to members of Congress by the end. At the end, like, Chuck Schumer barely got to his house to try to convince him

he was like you know he wasn't listening to many people so right right right but he did but the pressure did come the pressure came but yeah it was pretty close to pretty close to him not doing it yeah that's true so should joe biden drop out where's discourse of the year no i don't think so Some of the best

Discord we've ever had

Okay, so Chapel discourse of the year? No, I don't think so. No, I don't think so.
Actually, some of the best discourse.

Some of the best discourse we've ever had.

Okay, so Chapel, Rohn, or Travis?

Or the debate commission?

Debate commission.

Just be nice to Travis.

Debate commission.

We choose debate commission.

Sometimes an ugly, shitty little pug

makes it to best in show,

and that thing never wins.

Thing?

Okay.

We're really doing debate commission

as the worst discourse of the year?

All right, that works for me.

Does it sound like it works for you, Alicia?

I didn't even know it was discourse, really.

I was on paternity leave,

and I was like, I can't believe how many pods

were talking about the debate commission.

Oh, did we?

There was a lot of reminding people

that they tried to kill Joe Biden

by not making Trump get a COVID test in 2020.

Yeah, that's right.

That was bad.

They did.

All right.

The debate commission.

Worst discourse of the year.

Love it.

All right.

I don't want to give Travis that.

Not Chapel Rhone?

Okay.

The most bizarre right wing take of the year.

It was a banner year for right wing takes.

And I, for one, thank our glistening, waxy, gray overlord Elon Musk for all the accurate right wing takes and i for one thank our glistening waxy

gray overlord elon musk for all the accurate right wing takes headed our way in 2025 however the right had their swings and misses too hey they can't all be tom hanks died the first week of covid and was immediately replaced by evil tom hanks i forgot about that let's take a look First up, we have something favs's close personal friend jesse waters about commenting on birthdays the oldest president in history just got a little older it's joe biden's birthday the big 82 for the big guy and prime time would wish him a happy birthday but we have rules here men don't wish men happy birthdays what a weird he's he's always tongue-in-cheek about those kinds of things but it is just a reminder that masculinity is a prison that locks from the inside oh jay is it gay to have a birthday fellas is it gay to wear pink fellas can someone note when jesse water's birthday is so we can all wish him a happy birthday i'll get it from as many people as possible it's a funny bit that's good just you know i feel like he like love it said i think he needs it july 9th we got a minute sounds like he needs birthday wishes from his bros yeah you know from his bros personal friend john favreau all right next we have a right wing meltdown fordown for Taylor Swift dating Travis Kelsey. There were plenty of worthy clips here, but this from OAN host Alison Steinberg takes the cake.
Let's take a listen. Well, yeah, Soros might own her music, but the devil surely owns her soul.
She suddenly becomes political, and now she's plastered all over magazines, airports, the NFL, and now even the Super Bowl. It's just 24-7 nauseating coverage.
And we're supposed to pretend we don't see the PSYOP? If Taylor Swift is really owned by Soros, we might actually have a rare chance to unite against him using Taylor Swift as the Trojan horse. Instead of pushing the alphabet mafia and murdering of babies to her fans, she should be warning about the dangers of the corrupt elites.
I mean, that's something we could all come together on, right? But of course, that'll never happen with this guy pulling the strings, now will it? Wow, that is awesome. What an unhound.
I was waiting for, what is the Trojan horse metaphor there? I think it's that, yeah, I think it's that George Soros

via his vehicle

of Taylor Swift

is going to push

a pro-gay,

pro-trans,

pro-abortion agenda.

At the Super Bowl?

At the Super Bowl.

I don't know if she stuck

the landing on that one.

No.

What's the alphabet mafia?

That's gay people.

That's LGBT people.

Oh, okay.

That helps a little bit.

Yeah, we're the alphabet mafia.

Wow.

That's a great for me.

It's phenomenal.

It's a contender.

Yeah, we're the alphabet mafia. Wow.
That's up there for me. That's phenomenal.
It's a contender. Yeah, the only problem with it is it's got to be some percentage performance art, right? They know what they're doing.
They know they're like, this is so crazy and ridiculous, it's going to get me clicks. Yeah.
For sure. For sure.
But I don't think she also was sort of incomprehensible. Oh, absolutely.
It's also just like goldfish level memory. Taylor Swift has endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, endorsed Marsha Blackburn's opponent, got involved in a bunch of different issues.
Ty does pride, every pride when she's on tour. Like, this is just part of her politics.
In the documentary, there's a documentary about it where she's on film talking about what she wants to do. Famously talks about politics.
It talks about politics. Just like, I know you're just paying attention, but like, even though you don't have, like the world exists when your eyes are closed.
Right, that's like the tour of the, I know this is new to you, but yeah, it's not new, right? Next, we have what is quickly becoming a classic clip of RFK Jr. being confronted with his own words by CNN's Casey Hunt about vaccines.
Let's take a listen. So you have gained notoriety for your skepticism about vaccines.
And over the summer in an interview, you said, quote, there's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective. Do you still believe that? I never said that.
So stop me. We have the clip.
Please play the clip. Play the whole clip.
You've talked about that the media slanders you by calling you an anti-vaxxer.

And... So stop me.
We have the clip. Please play the clip.
Play the whole clip. You've talked about that the media slanders you by calling you an anti-vaxxer.

And you've said that you're not anti-vaccine.

You're pro-safe vaccine.

Difficult question. Can you name any vaccines that you think are good?

I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they're causing.

I'm not anti-vaccine. How is that statement, not anti-vaccine? Well, it's...
Not anti-vaccine, I just think it will kill you, which I will repeat to everyone I see. Boy, do I feel safe.
There's a fallacy in philosophy that Tommy will remember from his studies, which is, it's called no true Scotsman. No true Scotsman, which is, he says, I'm not against vaccines.
He's like, well, you've said this or bad. I'm just for safe vaccines.
Well, can you name any safe vaccines? No, I'm for safe vaccines, but there are no safe vaccines. What about this vaccine? Well, that's not a truly safe vaccine.
What about this vaccine? It's not a truly safe vaccine. It's a way of claiming something while never actually allowing it to be true.
Sounds like Twitter. Yeah.
Fun. Yeah.
Guy's gonna be charged with the water enjoy everybody very bad drink up drink up drink while you can yeah get all those shots 30 years from now all the everyone's teeth are gonna fall out of their fucking face and be like i wonder why this happened this is a good example of where we need members of congress to for once be really disciplined at his confirmation hearing and not give speeches and just be like prosecutors narrowing in, asking him question after question to try to get him to say what he really thinks. Because he's also said that he thinks the polio vaccine killed many, many more people than polio ever did.
You know, he says things like he has this veneer of just asking questions or I'm, you know, I just want more data or research but underneath that are really radical views and they they just got a teasing out of them you know that's a great point tommy it's now this is going to bug me because like the january 6th committee now all facing jail time the january 6th committee like that was the first set of hearings where i was like oh they finally nailed it They didn't go every member on the panel giving their big long speeches, doing

this, putting on their dog and pony show.

It's like they had a plan.

They stuck to the plan. They got right to it.

It was good TV. Wouldn't it be so nice

if the Senate Democrats did this for all the hearings?

You have one person who's going to prosecute this.

Just flip for it. Like we said about the January

6th hearings, so good they should be illegal.

Oh, interesting. Do you know who the ranking 6th hearings, so good they should be illegal.
Oh,

interesting.

Do you know who the ranking member on the committee is?

Who?

Bernie Sanders.

Yeah,

it's hell,

right?

Yeah,

he'll be good.

He'll be very good on this.

Great.

By the way,

if the J6 committee goes to jail,

we should produce a song with them.

That's great.

What if they do one,

what if they do one with the insurrectionists,

we are the world style?

That's good.

Like a rap battle. Like what's the rap? Like the Jets and the Sharks.
What's that story? Do we think Mark Zuckerberg will put his hand on his heart for that one too? Probably. Will.i.am will remix it.
And our last take of the category, we have one of the most insane right-wing talking points of the election cycle. You know it, I know it.
Let's take a listen. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs.
I can hear the song. They're eating the cats.
They're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country.
And it's a shame. Residents are reporting that the migrants are walking off with the town's geese.

The town geese.

They're taking the geese.

You know where the geese are?

In the park, in the lake.

And even walking off with their pets.

My dog's been taken.

My dog's been stolen.

77 million people.

Thumbs up.

Thumbs up to that guy.

Looks like we're the ones eating crow it feels like in hindsight one lesson here is that if your political opponent comes up with a dangerous conspiracy theory that incites people on a major issue in the election you don't turn into a catchy song and then have all of your influencers shared on tiktok for hours at a time i mean that was a difference maker dan just saying like it's just it's a way of thinking about things going forward i like want to listen to it it's really catchy but yeah that's it's in your head great it's great it's great they're eating the dogs who did this they're eating the cats the kiffness they're eating the pets of the people that live there it's great They're eating the cats. The kiffness? They're eating the pets of the people that live there.
It's great. They're eating the dogs.
They're eating the cats. Anyway.
It's gorgeous. We had a, at Williams College, we had a steel pan band.
And I was the drummer of the steel pan band. No, no, no, no.
Did you? Yes? Wait, what? No, no, no, no. Yes? Yes.
yes no we had a it was it was I was the only I was the only white member because I didn't play the steel pan I don't know how to play steel pan but I could play they needed a percussion they needed to play a drum set and so I played the drum set I played the drum set in our in the Williams College steel pan band there's a cool steel pan guy any single month can do you think crooked could put up a hundred thousand dollar reward nate's over stuff anyone can bring the video of this it's just before there was usually it's just before you would be had a lot of video someone had a flip cam or something yeah shameek shameek was busy at the at the fucking newspaper till two in the morning wasting his fucking college life on op-eds oh yeah Williams record really make a difference op-eds I was playing I was playing music all right so who wins the category we got Jesse Waters Taylor Swift uh vaccines and the dogs and the cats I think vaccines for me no oh wow well just not to the fun take fun. Take this, not dogs and cats.
So Taylor Swift, dogs and cats, Jesse waters. Is there another option? Did I forget? Vaccines.
Vaccines. I think Trump's take really was the take of the year.
I mean, it, it, it, it became the discourse. It's was the hinge point on the, it was on the, on the, it was one of the policy hinges of the whole election.
I mean, it is tough because it's like, we're doing worst takes. It was like, it was like a bad take that won, but you know.
Yeah. Best worst takes.
I don't know. I'm still flummoxed by the fact that Lovett was in a college version and she mirrored.
I know. That's not right.
That's not right. So we're moving dogs and cats to the final group.
I don't know. I'm not, I'm not wedded to it.
No, that's fine. I imagine more of a rusted route, Dan, if we're being honest.
Oh, that's fair. That's fair.
For Lovett. I mean.
Selling nitrous balloons and. There is an argument for vaccines just because now we're going to be living with that.
Like, right. That's the take that can kill.
Yeah. I mean, the problem always is we don't really have any scale for making these judgments, so it's really hard to do.
Let's just pick one because we're dragging this out. Vibe out.
Alright, dogs and cats. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but before we do that, a reminder that now through January 1st, we're offering 25% off new annual Friends of the Pod subscriptions.
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Listen to new episodes of Assembly Requ from a Pod Save America host. Time to look at...
Oh, boy. Here we go.
Let's kick things off with John Lovett. Play the clip.
Being a speechwriter is about figuring out the best way to convince a bunch of people to either come along with you or agree with you or support you. I think that's a lot of what Survivor is.
You know what? That was a good take. Technically true take.
Technically true. Technically true.
Good at both. Yeah, really crushing on both this year.
Got my finger on the goddamn pulse this year. Yeah, thank you for that.
Next up. Next up.
We got Tommy Vitor talking about VP choices. Oh, no.
I think Kristi Noem is a potential favorite to be the vice presidential nominee. Electoral benefits of South Dakota? They're none.
But I do think the Trump campaign knows that abortion is likely to be the single biggest headwind for their campaign. They want diversity on the ticket.
That could be gender based. That could also be racial diversity.
I think they'll ultimately decide that Donald Trump is going to need to peel off some of the suburban women that he has lost to Joe Biden. They're going to need to try to push back on concerns about stripping away abortion access.
She's terrible on the policy, but I do think they're going to view it as a identity. This was, this is a great take.
This was before the puppy killing thing and came out. Key context.
The puppy murder. And this was me and Brian Tyler Cohen ranking 10 different candidates.
So we had to make a case for everyone we chose. This is bullshit, Tommy.
The judges, they're fucking you here. Thank you.
You know what I would do if I were you? I would sue them. I'm looking at you, Sal.
Also, she did become the secretary of Homeland Security. Yeah, she's DHS now.
That's not nothing. Now she's in charge of the TSA.
The one thing is, it's funny, because that was a very cogent and reasonable take, but Trump was like, actually, I don't need to worry about any of that. I'm going to pick the opposite.
That's right. A piece of shit guy that makes women uncomfortable, and it won't matter.
Abortion? Abortion? A headwind? No. Disagree.
I'm for whatever you guys are all for. I think people hate the Biden administration so much that I can choose one of the biggest assholes around.
Yeah. Tommy, it was a good year of takes for you.
We had to dig. We had to dig out of your two pods and go to liberal tears.
All right. Next up, we have Dan after Trump was convicted.
Let's hear it. The prevailing narrative that the conviction won't really matter is, I think, pretty disconnected from both what the polls actually say and the reality of an election that is likely to be this close.
I stand by that 1,000%. Look, it's- He would have won by 10 if he had been convicted.
It's not. It's hard to prove.
Yeah. Hard to prove that it's wrong.
Yeah, that's good. And the polls are a snapshot in time.
time so do better next time elijah yeah i feel like i've heard that no no i think polls are and that's so important to keep in mind that polls are if we've never if you ever heard us say that polls are a snapshot in time i just think a lot of what i think it's like a shitty polaroid you know if you look back on the year but you take away from all of these like very reasonable like these are all, like, ways things could matter at the margins

in a race

that wasn't really fought.

Like,

but we were,

but, oh,

but would that it mattered,

but we're so fucked

it doesn't.

But even still,

I mean,

like,

the argument we always made

would come down

to 100,000 votes.

It came down to 237,000 votes.

That's right.

That's true.

That's true.

All right.

And last we have

John Favreau

reacting to Joe Biden

going on Seth Meyers. Oh, no.
I was so happy with that. I was so happy.
And like, you know, the appearance was not perfect, right? Like he still trailed off at times. You know, he interrupts himself once in a while.
But if you are, if you're someone who's like wondering whether he's sharp enough for the job or knows his shit, like more appearances like that should give you more confidence

i mean he was pretty good on seth meyer i don't remember that interview at all you know i i remember i don't i'm not judging we were all in that headspace yeah but man were we grading on a fucking curve yeah at that time no i mean i thought you should have gone with the state of the union discourse which i think was looking back at without talking about a grading on a curve Well, he was good.

I mean, he was...

No, he was good at the receiving end.

He was good.

He was fine like he was not it was not the historic speech it was treated by some people but yeah it was good it was fine yeah that got in my head it was at least evidence it was evidence of energy and coherence that's well that's all that's you know the point i was talking about old seth I would say by the, that's what the bar that we had set for ourselves and it was too low. Too low.
We're like, Joe Biden is losing the election, but good news. He can occasionally do a public event.
That's kind of a draw. What are we doing here? Not winning.
State of the union wasn't forward looking enough. We did go through that tape.
It was all he did a good enough job. He cleared the bar.
This one we felt was forward-looking, and it was, you'll be reassured by more appearances like this. Well, there were no more appearances.
There were no more appearances. The debate is an appearance.
Elijah, could you give us the... There was something missing from that take.
What was the date the date of the take february february of 2000 24 yeah that was okay february 24 yes yeah so after state of the union after so right okay yeah that's that's but that was that's when he was cooking yeah no that was it that was he was off the seat with that was pre-state of the union it was pre-state of the union that's like pre-state of the union he the last little air out of the balloon, you know? Well, the adrenochrome was really flying around at that point. Yeah, that was the Seth Meyers appearance, though, where Amy Poehler had to come out.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was at the point where he was no longer doing things by himself.
Who won the worst take of the year by a Pod Save America host? That's tough. I think we're going to collectively sue you for such bad takes.
I like that. Takes on our takes.
Yeah. I will.
Can I just... I have to say, in terms of bad takes, the meta bad take of the year was, hey guys, I know it sounds crazy, but I'm going to go on Survivor.
I think it'll be good. Yeah, that's true.
That was a bad take. Did you have fun? Yeah, I had a good time.
I had a good time. Missed three dinners.
You did miss three dinners. Missed three dinners.
Three dinners. Nice call.
I don't know. I don't know who to pick.
Maybe we shouldn't pick. Maybe everyone else.
Yeah, you guys pick. Couch, producer couch? Not for fair.
Hmm. I mean.
Let the audience pick. Yeah, you tell us.
You got to pick best in show. Someone makes best in show.
I'll say. Here's one thing I can tell you.
Our worst take is not winning the Pundi of the Year, no matter what it is. Yes, thank you, Dan.
That's a good take. Yeah.
Good take, Dan. Okay.
Yeah. Okay, well, then I won't give my opinion on it.
It doesn't no no tell us let's hear it oh it's for sure you should be a reassured by more public Joe Biden appearances come on you are misreading John there yeah I didn't say public appearances like this like that yeah the next one was not like that it was an epic disaster. If Joe Biden performed like he did on Seth Meyers the entire campaign,

it would be a little different.

All of us are really taking this well and not at all getting defensive about our takes.

I didn't go off for five minutes about how I was on a different show.

Is liberal tears just knowledgeable?

I think we had bad takes.

It's just not these takes.

Would Michael Phelps be as good of a swimmer if he had diarrhea in the pool and then killed himself? Huh, probably not. I could name like five worst takes that I had.
Go ahead. Yeah, do it.
No, no, no. All right, let's go.
The winning group, worst takes of the year from the primaries group. We have Trump's GOP is already dying from the polling

group. We have Alan Lichtman's

13 keys from the blue

MAGA group. We have wanting Joe Biden

to drop out is racist

from the

discourse group. We have the death of the debate

commission from the

bizarre MAGA group. We have they're eating

the dogs and the cats and from the

worst take by a pod save America host.

We have undecided

it's not winning. So

I mean, it's... our MAGA group, we have They're Eating the Dogs and the Cats, and from The Worst Take by a Pod Save America host,

we have Undecided It's Not Winning. I mean, it's Alan

Lickman. I think it's Alan Lickman.

Yes, and I think, look, and it's funny

because it feels like

mean. Like we're punching down.
Yeah,

but I think it's worth just saying, like,

there was a lot of people like Alan

Lickman, which were people that were

looking at, like, a miasma of contradictory data and saying they knew the answer. And like, how many times are we going to fucking do this? Cause I cling to those people too.
Like, you know, you're like, you're just like reading all things. And there's this person like looking at me, like, here's why it's so clear what's going to happen.
And like, you want those things to be true. Like you want to believe those things, but you just can't.
And this was like a signal, ridiculous example of it. But no, you're not going to confidently predict the future based on your 14 political science fucking keys.
Yeah, political science isn't science. And I think you have to allow for uncertainty.
And when you speak in such definitive ways, I think you really leave yourself open to being punched down or up alright well that'll wrap up the 2024 Pundies thank you guys Alan Lickman wins Alan Lickman your prize money is in the mail I think now we can use a picture of Alan Lickman for the maybe the one from the live stream he did that night where he was like, ah.

Hey, we found a set of keys

in the parking lot.

Alan Lippin, come get your keys.

All right.

We've got one last order of business

before we sail off

into Crooked's holiday break.

Our New Year's resolutions.

As always, we'll be confronted

with our resolutions from last year

to see how we did. Oof.
Unfortunately, I'm up first. Part of my resolution is like similar to Dan's, which is my attention span's gone.
I have a strategy, which is I want to take like a walk 20 to 30 minutes a day, maybe a couple days a week, realistically, where I don't bring my phone

and I don't listen to anything.

It's big on TikTok.

The silent walk.

Yeah, the silent walk.

John, how many walks

did you take this year?

It would be zero silent walks.

Not one walk without your phone.

Not without my phone,

but I will say,

this is what I did.

I did every Tuesday.

My Tuesday's in the middle of the day.

I would take a walk and I would listen to a podcast but i would not look at my phone so exactly i didn't do it but i did i did you know i can't believe you have small steps you have gone back to back years of doing none of your resolution don't forget the volunteering one of last year yeah we okay how many years am i gonna get the fucking volunteering one last chance to talk about it yeah how's that late alarm you got that you got that we got that carpal tunnel defrosting turkeys all day i need more for the chili. He's got a big bell and a Santa suit outside of Kroger.
Oh my God. All right.
Let's hear Tommy's resolution. Next year, I want to skip this recording again so that I cannot be held accountable once again.

I somehow got on a list that has led me to get dozens of cold emails from random tech consultants.

I want to find that list, destroy it, and destroy whoever created it.

Wow, what was I talking about?

What a weird fucking resolution.

That's weird.

I think what happened is I decided to come in just being a jackass with jokes, and you guys were serious, and it kind of changed the vibe. Oh, wow.
How'd you do? I don't think I just— Did you get a lot of the tech consultants out of your inbox? How's your spam problem, Tommy? A lot of self-reflection going on? I think you made this joke last year.

Okay.

Oh, I guess I didn't do my resolution for this.

Oh, let's do them all at the end.

That's great, great.

Dan, let's do Dan's.

The thing I really want to work on this year is regaining some semblance of my attention span.

Over two.

Dan, did you do that?

Did you do that, Dan?

I would say no.

No, I did not. The irony of you saying this, Dan, is you write books.
I wrote books. Yeah, but like a weekly couple days a week? Is it every day? Every other day, the message box? It feels like all the time.
It feels like all the time and never enough. Always impressive.
I did not do the things I wanted to do to regain my attention span. I doubled down.
I think two weeks after I gave this resolution, I set up push notifications for that account that retweets all of Trump's truth socials, which was a sign that I wasn't going to make it this year. All right.
Let's hear Lovitz. My resolution is to not spend the year worrying about food and diet.

Like for the first time to go into this year

without any kind of like emotionally unhealthy relationship

with food and diet and exercise.

That's my resolution and to keep that going.

Oh yeah.

Well, how did you find the willpower to do that?

I think you nailed that one.

I need some help.

Where did you gain the strength? First of all, thanks. Maha.
Yeah, yeah. We're making America healthy again.
One injection to the hip at a time. Now, this resolution came after I'd already started taking an experimental pancreas medicine.
I know, that was what was even worse about it. No, but I will say I did also fail because I'm still, I'm better.

I'm definitely better,

but I still do have an unhealthy relationship to food.

It's so hard.

But it's interesting.

All of our resolutions,

like attention span and diet,

it's all about trying to find some inner reservoir

of discipline to defeat a cultural force.

And it's hard.

It's hard.

Because I'm now, I'm better about the diet stuff,

and I am a little bit crazy about exercise.

So I don't know.

I don't know i don't know better better than i was that's for sure should try my 13 keys to yeah all right now now we'll go around and do our resolutions uh my resolution this year this one i'm gonna i'm gonna nail i cannot fucking wait more posting okay i'm going i'm more posting more twitter fights it's gonna be twitter it's gonna be blue sky i'm jumping in the discord i'm posting posting post tick tock stitches really is this serious yeah more i'm gonna just say what i want okay well okay i think there i'm get i'm getting in the discourse you've all seen it yeah i've been doing you've been doing this for six months now yeah well yeah that's right yeah since biden since biden uh had that great debate oftentimes i'll just open up my phone on a friday night before bed and was like man what was john thinking at 9 30 to jump on this third rail i will say though like in the in the in the month or two before the election i kind of uh i kind of settled down a little bit on And I did a lot of checking, but not a lot of posting. I'm posting now.
Post-election, you're just in it. And it's funny to listen to be in a group chat with you where you're texting your anchor about something and see how long you've held yourself back before you start tweeting about it.
It usually starts in the group chat. I usually test it out there and I'm like, oh, it's going to Twitter.
What's the goal? You know it doesn't make you feel good. What's the goal? Talk to me.
Talk to me. Part of this is that I can't stop it, so I might as well lean into it.
Right. That's the argument for Trump from Republicans in the House.
No, it's a joke. It's a joke, guys.
But I am going to, well, like I'm going to, the reason I'm going to post more is because I'm going to put out my thoughts, right? I'm not going to get in Twitter fights, stuff like that. But I want to write my thoughts down more.
And if it's in posts, that's great. If it's in articles, that's great.
But I'm going to, I realize that just talking is not good enough for me. I want to actually write my thoughts down.
And I really actually want to, I don't want to be on Twitter as much posting. But I do want to, I've been talking to our discord subscribers and they're great and so i want to get in there they're nice great yeah i think that's great okay i think it's good to write things down i think sometimes writing things down is to you figure out what you really think when you actually try to write it down that's right yeah and and like some of it is there's times where i've just been like writing stuff down that doesn't go anywhere it doesn't go on twitter doesn't go anywhere but sometimes it actually just helps to sort of like you know late night type something out i cannot wait to read your diary in discovery yeah that's it'll be good it'll be good all right tommy who's uh who's in your inbox that you're getting out this year um who are the big crm managers salesforce salesforce coming for them coming for your tower uh i want to i want to talk to more smart people off air experts talk to a really smart guy about sudan and somaliland today i could elaborate if you guys want to hear more about it i love it you can tell by your face classic classic we'd love to know more about that so But it's really helpful to talk to these very smart, nerdy, nice people and just do it to get smarter on background.

That's the thing I like doing.

I want to get good at using AI tools.

I tried to use ChatGPT to write me a list of resolutions, and I failed.

So I want to get better at that.

Okay.

All right.

So Tommy Redd's experts and AI.

Experts.

Maybe there's some overlap there. Well, the overlap is one is a group of people helping to make the world clear the other is a technology that will make it much harder so in a way they're in competition so that's interesting yeah we'll see who wins let us know pick your fighter uh finally i've been reading a book about mindfulness meditation but i haven't been doing it i think it'd be good to do it it's good for you okay it is gonna meditate it is good maybe you'll maybe while you're meditating you'll see john one of his walks ladle in one hand famous stroll twitter in the other that's right that's your ladle arm uh dan dan what do you got so two things one i am going to make another run at my attention span and the thing i've started doing since election which caused me to miss many of John's best Twitter fights, is to put my phone away before I put my kids to bed and not look at it for the rest of the night.
That's so smart. So no longer two screening, like watching TV or something like that.
So that's one. Whether I will manage to continue doing that, open question, but I want to do that.
The second thing, and it's related to Tommy's path towards mindfulness is... It's not even a joke.
I'm being serious here. It was the path towards mindfulness.
The winding path. There's some dead ends along the way.
The path is the mindfulness, guys. This is related, both mindfulness and attention span is, I want to take up yoga in 2025.
I started doing it some this year. It just is a way.
Dan or Dan? Dan, I'm so excited for you. for you when you're next in LA you and I we're going to Pilates oh I'd love to watch this you know what's funny is I debated whether I would do this one publicly and then I was like Lovett has been basically doing a one man pitch for Pilates for weeks now so this is a safe space I do yoga too I do yoga too where do you do it Dan? do you go to group classes? yeah I've been doing hot vinyasa yoga nice but I want to do it regularly like I do it every once in a while now but I want to do it it feels good it's really good for you he's a good father for the fanfic downward downward Dan yeah how do you say that downward Dan's pretty good love it so I feel like we are coming to the end of the year where we made a lot of shows and we did a ton of content and there was a lot happening.
And I want to try next year to do a little bit less, a little bit better and like really be deliberate about, because I do think that like- Like Joe Biden, you're quite quitting too? A little bit more than him., but like, I do think that like, we're heading into the another Trump era, it's going to be exhausting. And like, we keep saying, like, you know, we got to make sure that we're like disciplined about what we care about, discipline, what we pay attention to.
And I just want to have that apply that to like, what we cover, how we cover it. I want to make sure that like, so we like took down one of the Tuesday, love or leave it.
And that's in part because I want to try to make the Thursday show even better. And I want the time and space to think about that and to think about other things to do outside of these two shows.
And like, I want to have the mental space and the, the, the, it's not about time, but, or, or even like work. It's just like the, like the creative space to think about how to, how to talk about politics, because so much of what we've just been saying for saying for the last couple of weeks is there's something about how Democrats sound

and we need to figure out how we're communicating

and you're not going to figure that out in the churn.

All right, well, good luck everyone.

I'll be posting.

That feels like a pretty good place to end it.

As I mentioned, we're going to be on our winter break

the next two weeks,

but we'll be tiding you over here in the feed

with special access to an episode of our subscriber show Inside 2024 with Dan and Alyssa, all about how presidential transitions work, and an episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams about the Trump administration's plans for healthcare. Big thanks to the Take Master General, Elijah for hosting, to Hallie Kiefer for writing, and to our PSA staff for the hours they spent combing through the very worst of the internet

and this show to bring you today's episode.

You guys are fantastic.

And beautiful performances.

And the performances.

Farrah, Haley, Saul, Adrian, Reed heard his voice there too.

I'm guessing David was involved too.

Who else did we miss from our producers?

That's everyone.

All right, guys.

Everyone, have a great holiday. And we will talk to everyone in the new year.
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