The Pundies: Worst Takes of 2024

Speaker 2 When you fill up a 76, you're ready to go to that music festival you see posted about each year, but have never been to.

Speaker 3 And you ready to go

Speaker 1 to a sunrise yoga class before work

Speaker 4 and go

Speaker 1 dog sitting and try to get the zoomies under control.

Speaker 5 Now who wants to go?

Speaker 4 Go here, go there, go anywhere with 76.

Speaker 4 What's poppin' listeners?

Speaker 7 I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week, I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time.

Speaker 10 Want to know about the fake heirs?

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Speaker 4 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favreau.
I'm John Lovitt. I'm Tom Meeting Tour.

Speaker 14 I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Speaker 15 Well, guys, we made it.

Speaker 4 It's our last show of 2024. Do you have hats?

Speaker 4 Oh, the tribe has spoken.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 4 I hope that's it. It's unbelievable.
Unbelievable. Saving these for a while.
Unbelievable. We thought we'd get a little more mileage out of them, but it turns out short and sweet.

Speaker 4 Like the Viagra of Etsy purchases, you know, one-time deal.

Speaker 4 Well, they look great. It's going to deliver.
It's just for those listening at home.

Speaker 4 They both, after we began, they both

Speaker 4 put on their

Speaker 4 The Tribe Has Spoken hats. That's right.
Not one for Dan. They didn't get Dan in on this.
We've been saving the

Speaker 4 task is to remind people because it was so long ago that you were on Survivor at one point. Yeah.

Speaker 14 And the season just ended this week, right?

Speaker 4 That's right. The finale was last night.
Yeah. And many months ago, I was on Survivor.

Speaker 14 You're still in the intro because I turned on the TV. That's right.
It was on. And there you are.

Speaker 4 I saw a picture of you embracing your nemesis/slash friend of me, old friend. Yes, best friend turned friend of me, turned what? Now we're friends again?

Speaker 4 You know, Andy's out there living his dream, and then that's fine. But no, but I have a picture of

Speaker 4 our meeting, which was funny.

Speaker 4 But anyway,

Speaker 4 I saw all the

Speaker 4 my fellow castaways.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Pod something? Yeah, that's right. Podcast.
You did a podcast.

Speaker 4 All right. Okay.
All right.

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 We'll also do our annual New Year's resolutions, which we always break and always forget.

Speaker 4 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, the U.S.

Speaker 4 government is basically in total chaos.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 I think because he thought the funding bill had too many pages. He was upset with

Speaker 4 the height of the stack of paper.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 It was going to pass. Killed the bill.
Then they now they're, 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.

Speaker 4 And the government runs out of money Friday night. And who is the current president?

Speaker 4 And is that person involved at all? Do we know what that person is

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Elon Musk has been tweeting up a storm. J.D.
Vance, I think, has been tweeting. My favorite part is when Vivek pretends he's an equal partner in this Doge thing.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Just like, he's like, you know how Elon walks around with his kid on his shoulders at all times? That's Vivek.

Speaker 4 He was a little silly guy.

Speaker 4 I guess in the old version, in 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.

Speaker 4 So losers, kids with cancer. Winners, pharmaceutical middlemen, pharma managers, and China.
Now

Speaker 4 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 U.S.

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 Anything? I think that

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 4 And let's let Donald Trump own this shutdown.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 4 You boys work it out.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 So without further ado, I'm going to turn turn it over to our guest host, the Take Master General himself,

Speaker 4 Elijah Cohn.

Speaker 4 Elijah, looking good.

Speaker 15 Thank you. Yes, I did put on my talks.
This is the biggest night of the year for me.

Speaker 15 We've never done a Pundy's after an election loss, let alone one like this. So I was so thrilled when this got put on my plate.
So fun.

Speaker 4 Such a fun year to reminisce.

Speaker 4 Here's how it will work.

Speaker 15 We're going to go through a number of categories for bad punditry. I'll read you a take.

Speaker 4 You'll react.

Speaker 15 Then 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?

Speaker 15 It's like a dog show format.

Speaker 4 Yeah. You've said this a few times.

Speaker 4 He's saying that first you put up the sporting dogs up to the little dogs. Then

Speaker 4 you got

Speaker 4 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 decide.

Speaker 4 They use their nuts while you judge them so they don't move. Right.

Speaker 4 Right, exactly. And we're a group of adults decide

Speaker 4 to decide whether or not a shihzu is better or worse than a Labrador. It's like, no, this one's better.
Stupid.

Speaker 4 The answer is worse. Well, let's kick things off.

Speaker 4 For sure.

Speaker 4 For sure.

Speaker 15 We'll start out for an easy topic. This is kind of to whet our take appetites from the beginning of the year.
The presidential primaries. Remember those?

Speaker 4 No. No.
We didn't really have one. We didn't have none on our side.
Dean Phillips?

Speaker 15 Yeah, Dean Phillips is part of this. Here's a couple of takes.
Let's start off with this piece from the hill.

Speaker 4 Oh, boy.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 17 Republicans have built themselves a party whose sole purpose is to appease and gratify Trump.

Speaker 17 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.

Speaker 4 Great reading. Great reading.
First of all, that was beautiful. Wow.
Grammy for spoken word. Sounds like, is that Adrian? That was Adrian.

Speaker 4 That was a

Speaker 4 voice for radio. You got.

Speaker 4 Who was that?

Speaker 4 Is that how...

Speaker 4 What are we doing?

Speaker 4 We're doing the winning take.

Speaker 15 I figured you guys would react to each take as we go, but we could just do it.

Speaker 4 But I figured. No, no, no.
But it's not like a guess who did the. Oh, yeah, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 Yeah. My reaction is that one didn't pan out.
Yeah. No.

Speaker 14 Would that be a theme, Tommy?

Speaker 4 Would that it were? Would that it were? I feel like there was a lot of that going around. Yeah.
A lot of that. Probably, probably some on this very audio.
Yeah, for sure. For sure.
Some wish casting.

Speaker 4 Yeah. We're always talking about the crack showing.

Speaker 4 We don't care about cracks.

Speaker 4 I think we had like 45 episodes that had some kind of title about like Trump grip on the GOP loosens. Question mark.

Speaker 14 But we always put a question mark.

Speaker 4 That's true. To protect ourselves.
And boy, was that answered. Yeah.

Speaker 14 We're just asking questions on this podcast.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 18 Biden's doing very poorly in Michigan. His polls are terrible.
The Muslim community is not happy with him.

Speaker 18 And

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 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.

Speaker 18 He'll attract from people, Republicans who won't vote for Trump, of 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.

Speaker 18 So I think he's a really interesting candidate.

Speaker 4 Well, it's just premature. If only.

Speaker 4 If only. He You got the top right.
You just wrung, not the primary, the general.

Speaker 4 Right. Bill Ackman never misses.

Speaker 4 Honestly, it's like

Speaker 4 that take

Speaker 4 it aged poorly and then it aged well again. Right.
I don't know. I thought it, no, it started well.
It started off.

Speaker 4 If you'd cut the first 20 seconds of that. Well, I guess because he didn't end up competing in Michigan.
Right.

Speaker 4 Well, I guess what I mean is just that like the liabilities he was describing were correct. They ultimately did become Commodore's liabilities and cost us the country.
So there was some truth in that.

Speaker 4 But Dean. But Dean Phillips wasn't the way.
He wasn't the way. He wasn't the way.
A Cassandra, if you will.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 It's like if I decided to

Speaker 14 just expound on astrophysics on this podcast.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 They're having a better holiday than we are.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 19 The 2024 election might go down as the first podcast election. Trump benefited from appearing on podcasts like The Ben Shapiro show.

Speaker 19 Tim Poole interviewed him, and his appearances on Theo Vaughan and Joe Rogan helped secure his victory.

Speaker 19 During the election, Harris was tepid about doing podcasts and leaned more toward the mainstream media, which appears to have cost her.

Speaker 19 Haley, on the other hand, understands the appeal and has started her own podcast.

Speaker 4 On her way to a good time. I was going to say, I love these takes that are like mostly right and then swerve.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 What is her show called? I don't know. Okay.
I don't know. Has anyone heard it?

Speaker 4 It's actually called Call Her Nothing.

Speaker 4 This is what it's called.

Speaker 4 I can't wait.

Speaker 14 for five years from now when we're doing this exact podcast to look back on our response. The worst punt take will be our take about this in our incoming president-elect Nikki Haley.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, she's really kept. Has she said anything since the I mean, I guess it just shows her reach.

Speaker 4 She said, 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, Nick. Come on, Pod Save America.

Speaker 4 She's in the quiet car of the Trump train.

Speaker 4 So,

Speaker 15 who wins the category?

Speaker 4 Oh, it's called Nikki Haley Live.

Speaker 4 I think it's on SiriusXM.

Speaker 4 It's a radio. It's a radio show.
It's a radio show. It's our sister show.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we're doing it. Shit of the family.
Those are the cross promos we've been doing.

Speaker 4 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. Trump's GOP is already.
Crack.

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 15 Yes, I can.

Speaker 14 Please tell me it wasn't an issue of message box.

Speaker 4 And can you also tell us how many more takes from The Hill are we going to do? That's it.

Speaker 4 We're done with The Hill. Okay, good.

Speaker 4 The Hill to Die on, huh? It wasn't Legend. That's right.
Max Burns. The Hill.
Oh. Max Burns.
The Hill,

Speaker 4 Washington's second choice to read on the toilet.

Speaker 4 Right?

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 Justice for Roll call. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 15 All right, let's get to the good stuff. Appetizers eaten.
Here come the main course.

Speaker 15 The worst polling take of the year.

Speaker 4 This was

Speaker 4 from Polar Coaster.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 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,

Speaker 15 which will be done in a dramatic reading by our producers Saul and Farah.

Speaker 4 Nate, you are a buffoon. Minimum Trump win in Florida is eight points and more likely 10 to 14 points.

Speaker 20 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?

Speaker 4 100K.

Speaker 20 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 and are a payment risk.

Speaker 15 Donald Trump won Florida by 13 points.

Speaker 4 Did we ever get confirmation as to whether there was a deal? They ever said that. Well, you know what happened? Is there was this was revisited.
I hate that I know this.

Speaker 4 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. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Nate Cohen basically nailed Florida. 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.

Speaker 4 I don't think it's a pretty short, but boy, is that a bad take. Yeah.
God, just the confidence. It's like, it's like, how many of us have had takes that we were so sure of?

Speaker 4 We put $100,000 on the line.

Speaker 4 It's also just like, even where there are times where I feel sure of something, I'm so chastened by the history of recent events

Speaker 4 and my awareness that the future will come.

Speaker 4 You will have to measure it against what you thought in the past.

Speaker 4 All right. Okay, next.

Speaker 15 Our next take is for a really nerdy topic for the polling sickos.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 21 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 wholeheartedly we're about to undergo mass racial depolarization simply because the polls told me so is an easy way to look silly in November.

Speaker 4 Thank you to whoever found this one. You're wrong on the luck.

Speaker 4 Look, you know,

Speaker 4 to his credit, did not put $100,000 behind it. Yeah.

Speaker 14 And I think admitted he was wrong.

Speaker 15 Yes, to his credit, he did tweet out verbatim. I was wrong about race depolarization.
Race step.

Speaker 4 Race step for the real nerds. That's what they were all calling it mockingly.
Yeah. And even more importantly, it's a huge problem for the country, what's happening.

Speaker 4 Although, I think less racial polarization is helpful.

Speaker 4 I don't think,

Speaker 4 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,

Speaker 4 you know, it'll be a less divided country. We're all Republicans, but that's also not the world I want to live in.

Speaker 4 You know, just because we have trouble now getting white people to vote for us and black people and Latino people. Yeah, I'm calling that a problem.

Speaker 4 That's a problem. Yeah, we just suck.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Anywho. What else you got?

Speaker 15 Oh, you knew this was coming. A couple of days before the election, Ann Seltzer dropped her famous Iowa poll.
It had Kamala Harris leading Trump by three in Iowa.

Speaker 15 In reality, Harris lost in Iowa to Trump by over 13 points.

Speaker 4 Trump is now suing Ann Seltzer because of this.

Speaker 15 Here's a clip from Friend of the Pod, Sarah Longwell, reacting to the poll when it came out.

Speaker 22 She's not been the wrong one. Like, there have been times where she has produced things that look like outlier results.

Speaker 22 And what pollsters learned is that when Ann Selzer's poll looks like an outlier, you better shift your polls to think more like hers. It doesn't go the other way.

Speaker 4 The rare take that will appear on the Pundies and in Discovery.

Speaker 4 A take so bad it might get you thrown in jail.

Speaker 4 In Sarah Longwell'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.

Speaker 4 But yeah, it ended up being very, very wrong. Look, we all saw it.
We were getting on a plane to Vegas or to Phoenix, and

Speaker 4 we were cheering. We were excited.
We got ourselves. It was exciting.
It was quite exciting. Yeah, I think the, I feel like the interpretation that Sarah has there is completely fine.

Speaker 4 The hope that Seltzer was right is completely fine.

Speaker 4 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 hurt.

Speaker 4 She got this one wrong,

Speaker 4 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

Speaker 4 this one goes to Ann. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 14 Ann's poll is wrong.

Speaker 4 Yes. Lock her up.

Speaker 15 Yeah. 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.

Speaker 15 Professor Alan Lichtman is a man who claimed to have a system like that called the 13 Keys.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 19 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.

Speaker 19 He has no academic credentials. He'll be wrong again in trying to analyze the keys.

Speaker 4 I mean this is tough. No, I just don't think it is.
I think it's the fucking keys. It's definitely not.
That's where I was leaning. That's where I was leaning.

Speaker 4 I mean, like, Ann Seltzer is being sued and did have the biggest missed from the best pollster ever. But again,

Speaker 4 she said when she put out the poll, it could be an outliner and I'll be comfortable with that. Like, she actually.
She made a joke. She said, you'll distribute my ashes over Des Moines.

Speaker 4 And now that's what the lawyer is. are.
You know what?

Speaker 4 It's Alan Lickman hands. Yeah, because you know what? Because there's

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 I love making up your own system.

Speaker 4 It's like a degenerate gambler. It's like, I always hit on red sevens.

Speaker 4 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

Speaker 4 in public. I mean, I don't know if he actually did it, but even saying that.
Right. The rest of us are cowards before time.

Speaker 4 Okay. So, Alan Lickman, winner.
There you go. Congratulations.
Or loser. Depending on how you think about it.

Speaker 15 Do you think Trump will sue Alan Lickman?

Speaker 4 Oh, I hope so.

Speaker 14 Is that the wrong call?

Speaker 4 He'll

Speaker 4 end up being commerce secretary.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 If you don't know, blue anon and blue MAGA are what they sound like, just pro-Biden right-wing influences that are dyed in the wool, willing to go to the mat for the president.

Speaker 15 Let's get into it.

Speaker 15 First up is a post from pro-Biden influencer Chris Boozy responding to the calls for Biden to step down.

Speaker 17 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.

Speaker 4 That is a key difference. Key difference.

Speaker 4 I think I was told by this person directly that I was January 6th thing, Joe Biden.

Speaker 4 As were all of you. Yeah,

Speaker 4 man.

Speaker 14 You were deep in your mentions. If you could pull off off memory of Chris Boozy take.

Speaker 4 Chris Boozy has quite a few followers, Dan.

Speaker 4 Quite a few followers. The This Is an Insurrection

Speaker 4 commentary was some of the dumbest fucking shit. And like 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.

Speaker 4 We never did. So stupid.

Speaker 4 You're either stupid enough to believe it or you're full of shit.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Good luck in life. I hope you figure out how to tie your shoes.

Speaker 23 When you fill up with Philips 66 and Conoco, you're ready to go.

Speaker 4 Ice skating and see if you still got it.

Speaker 4 And you're ready to go holiday shopping on the day with the biggest deals.

Speaker 4 Nice. And go.

Speaker 16 Spread some cheer.

Speaker 23 And try not to sound totally tone deaf.

Speaker 23 Go here, go there, go anywhere with Philips66 and Conico.

Speaker 4 What's poppin' listeners?

Speaker 7 I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week, I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time.

Speaker 10 Want to know about the fake heirs?

Speaker 11 We got them. What about a career con man?

Speaker 12 We've got them too.

Speaker 1 Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins.

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Speaker 10 I'm joined by guests like Nicole Beyer, Ira Madison III, Conan O'Brien, and more.

Speaker 12 Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 4 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 one.

Speaker 4 Okay, so let's do another take, but this time kind of more throw it away.

Speaker 4 Who was that? Who was that? Yeah.

Speaker 15 They deleted their account. We couldn't find who it was.

Speaker 4 They're scrubbing. Oh, okay.

Speaker 4 Yeah. So this is somebody claiming that it's a conspiracy on Epstein's Island to remove Joe Biden.
Again, I remember, I think I have this one saved somewhere. Wow.
Missed it. Missed it.

Speaker 14 Do we think this person really thought this, or they were just trying going forward?

Speaker 4 Yeah, they were just trolling. 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.

Speaker 4 It was a, it was like a, it was being, it was being retweeted.

Speaker 15 I think it was called like St. Ashley's stair car.

Speaker 4 Yes. Yeah.
Yes, yes, yes. Wow, that's a deep poll.
I don't know. Like I, I think it was like a K-Hive person.

Speaker 14 John, I don't want to fast ahead to the

Speaker 4 resolution part of this, but I have some ideas for you. I think you do.

Speaker 4 That is chilling. The two of you pulling that name out there and being like, I remember who said it.
It was that. That is chilling.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 If the text exchanges between Elijah and I end up in Discovery, this is what it's going to show.

Speaker 4 Don't let them shame you, John.

Speaker 15 All right. Next is a post from a very popular resist account, Seth Abramson.
Let's take a listen.

Speaker 20 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.

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 4 I want to know, did Chris Boozy go first or did he go first? Did Seth Abramson go first? Because they're very similar. Yeah, there's a lot of blue MAGA going on.

Speaker 4 Right? January 6th, the coup. I mean, it wasn't an original thought.
It was sort of the dumbest thing you could pull for in the moment. Yeah, it's

Speaker 4 very frustrating and stupid. I do think Seth Abramson's been on the mark, you know.

Speaker 4 Time for some game theory.

Speaker 4 Oh, that's not the same. He's not the game theory, guys.

Speaker 4 What happened to that guy? Where'd that guy? Oh, that guy is, I think, I believe, fully red-pilled now. Oh, that checks out.
That's right. That checks.
He's Tulsi's deputy at DNI.

Speaker 4 Now it's really time for some game theory. Yeah.

Speaker 15 And last, we have a super viral post from an influencer named Tristan Snell.

Speaker 15 It's a photo of you guys, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Rob Reiner, John Cusack, Chris Hayes, Stephen King, Michael Moore, Seth Myers, and George Clooney.

Speaker 15 The caption simply reads, These are the folks calling for Biden to quit. Gosh, if only there was something they all had in common.

Speaker 15 Playing on the discourse of that time, that it was racist to call for Joe Biden to step down in favor of Kamala Harris.

Speaker 4 Yeah. The kicker is Tristan Snell is white.

Speaker 4 Yeah, for sure. For sure.
For sure.

Speaker 4 Another kicker, Kamala Harris, black. Right.
That's also an important thing to know. Yeah, Joe Biden, white.
Yeah. Yeah, pretty white.

Speaker 4 That one wins for me because it's when you're when you think of the most ridiculous theory, Joe Biden should not run for re-election is racist, I think is number one.

Speaker 4 It was

Speaker 4 pretty bad. A white guy accusing other white guys of being racist for trying to dethrone a white guy.

Speaker 4 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 can't say women.

Speaker 4 And so he has to add the white so that he can make fun of women. You know, it's like,

Speaker 4 I'm suspicious. I'm suspicious.
Color me suspicious. That was a good one.
Yeah. That was,

Speaker 4 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, like, are we really doing this?

Speaker 14 The replies to that tweet were actually encouraging about the future of the internet.

Speaker 4 I mean, I will say, I'm not even going to name the person.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Sorry. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Unbelievable.

Speaker 15 So we're deeming, we're crowning Tristan Snell to move on to the best in show category.

Speaker 4 I think so. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 Okay, great. Let's move on.

Speaker 15 It's a great tweet. To worst discourse of the year.
This is a little different.

Speaker 4 This is good.

Speaker 15 We're not just going to do a single take.

Speaker 15 We're going to sample a take and then talk about the whole discourse because 2024 was quite a year for discourse, much like the toilet is quite a place for shit.

Speaker 15 And if that comparison left a bad taste in your mouth,

Speaker 15 get ready to bucker up for these.

Speaker 4 First up,

Speaker 4 what else do you want in the toilet, Elijah? Hallie wrote that.

Speaker 15 Shout out Hallie.

Speaker 4 That was a good one.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 Many pearls were clutched. But here's a particularly wonderful string of buzzwords from New Jersey Assemblyman and RFK Junior Advisor Jamel Hawley.

Speaker 15 He called the Commission on Presidential Debates, quote, an institution that has stood as a beacon of nonpartisanship before saying this.

Speaker 21 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.

Speaker 4 So the discourse is skipping the debate commission?

Speaker 15 Yeah, the norms and the protocols and rip the debate commission.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Right. The Commission on Presidential Debates was formed in 1987.
This wasn't like the founding fathers.

Speaker 4 What are we talking about here? Who also didn't get a lot right either.

Speaker 4 Okay. That's a little warm-up discourse.
You guys want to get to the real shit? That's a real discourse, yeah.

Speaker 14 An amooze boosh.

Speaker 15 All right. Next up, we have Chapel Rowe not endorsing Kamala Harris forcefully enough.

Speaker 15 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 Rowe.

Speaker 26 Actions speak louder than an endorsement.

Speaker 4 Here is the full quote.

Speaker 5 that a lot of people are just not reading. I have so many issues with our government in every way, she says.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 Use your vote. Vote small.
Vote for what's going on in your city. The change she wants to see in the U.S.
is this election year, she says, instantly is trans rights.

Speaker 5 They cannot have cis people making decisions for trans people, period.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 5 hear from my mouth, if you're still wondering,

Speaker 5 no, I'm not voting for Trump. And yes,

Speaker 26 I will always question those in power.

Speaker 5 I'm sorry that you fell for the clickbait.

Speaker 15 That kicked off a shitstorm for a week.

Speaker 4 You know,

Speaker 4 it was.

Speaker 4 The whole thing was so, everything about it was stupid. Everything about it was frustrating.

Speaker 4 Like, I love Chapel Rohn. I think Tappel Rhone, like a lot of the people criticizing Chapel Rohn, should go outside and touch grass.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 like, I'm being perfectly clear. And then kind of like, Pundit just like fucking losing it.

Speaker 4 Like, like, like being like, how dare you misinterpret my completely elliptical and confusing way of talking about politics? Allow me to make myself perfectly clear.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 You became incredibly famous in this year. That must be an insane amount of pressure.
Why are we, why are we doing this?

Speaker 4 Well, now that we can look back on the race, I think we would all agree that celebrity endorsements were the difference maker.

Speaker 14 That just depends on your celebrity.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 4 Winners, Hulk Hulgan, Joe Rogan.

Speaker 15 Losers, Taylor Swift Beyonce.

Speaker 4 Fully opted out of this discourse at the time. You did too.
I paid no attention to it.

Speaker 14 I mentally muted the the whole thing for a week.

Speaker 4 I did too. Well, I think like the bigger thing to take from it is not like this one moment about Chapel Rohn, but like, you know, like there was like a big chunk of people.

Speaker 4 Like, like there were like the people that got behind Trump were super excited and gung-ho about it.

Speaker 4 A few people were like that about Kamala, but there were a lot of people like Chappell Rone that felt like it was uncool or problematic to full-throatedly get behind a Democrat.

Speaker 4 And like, I would like that to not be true in the future.

Speaker 4 It'd be great if we were a place, a movement where Chapel Rone 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.

Speaker 4 Boy, would it. Yeah.

Speaker 15 What a discourse.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 15 Next up, we have the discourse, should Democrats be doing more to reach men?

Speaker 15 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 listen.

Speaker 20 If Kamala loses, which is very possible, there needs to be a real discussion about how Democrats speak to and reach young men.

Speaker 20 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 inauthentic.

Speaker 15 This spawned many responses accusing Travis of needing to shut the fuck up and hating women.

Speaker 4 Too many fags in the Democratic Party, huh, Travis? Jesus Christ.

Speaker 4 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,

Speaker 4 I think when you look at Democratic consultants, most of them are like men over 40. Right.

Speaker 4 The under 40 men are

Speaker 4 usually operatives, staffers, stuff like that. But I don't know.
I'm 40 now. Look, Travis didn't word it artfully.
You were 40. Yeah, I'm in my 40s, I should have said.
That's what I meant.

Speaker 4 But yeah, clearly we did have a problem getting men. Yeah, we have a huge problem.
I think it is.

Speaker 4 I think putting it at pointing at consultants is whatever, but like it's a collective inability to sound like normal people. Also, a bunch of podcasts where it's like, hey, come over here.

Speaker 4 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 tripwires and you're going to hit them.

Speaker 4 I will say that the gender gap, at least according to the exit polls, ended up being not as large as the poll suggested.

Speaker 14 It's because we did worse with women, John.

Speaker 4 That's right. That's right.

Speaker 4 That's

Speaker 4 what I was getting at, Dan. That's what I was getting at.

Speaker 4 We did worse with women.

Speaker 4 So I guess we had a women problem as well.

Speaker 4 Look, we're having a human problem.

Speaker 4 Typically we're reaching voters, human beings.

Speaker 4 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...

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Huge problem with Travis. He does hate women.

Speaker 4 He does hate women.

Speaker 15 We'll appreciate you saying that.

Speaker 15 Here's our last discourse in a stacked category. You knew this one was coming again.
Should Biden drop out?

Speaker 15 You guys were sub-tweeted by the campaign after saying you should drop out, being referenced in the fundraising email as self-important podcasters.

Speaker 15 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 Anon section.
What do you guys think?

Speaker 4 I don't have a clue.

Speaker 4 This is such a setup.

Speaker 4 Think about what?

Speaker 4 Here's what

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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 when 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.

Speaker 4 We this, I wasn't there.

Speaker 4 I said, Didn't I say I? I said I.

Speaker 4 I was in we saw him. Yeah, well, some of us were there.
I sorry. Maybe he was at the Clooney fundraiser.

Speaker 4 Don't try to check yourself out. Yeah, you're part of it.
You're fucking part of it.

Speaker 4 You'll be on the lawsuit.

Speaker 4 I don't like your collective tone. But

Speaker 4 I think

Speaker 4 because he wasn't dropping out and it seemed like a fait accompli, it was hard. Like we were very hard on Biden and wanting him to get out there to dispel questions about his age.

Speaker 4 But looking on it back, like,

Speaker 4 could we have gotten there faster? Could we have pushed harder? I don't know. But I come away from that moment being like

Speaker 4 thinking more about how we got to that place in the first place. Yeah.
Look, Joe Biden shouldn't have run again.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And so, you know, the midterms happen.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Oz, that it meant that the White House was strong and that he should run for election. And that was some sort of indication of his political strength.
Obviously, it was not.

Speaker 4 But I felt like, from my position, like I was was wrong in 2020.

Speaker 4 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 about. Where did we get one of those?

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 They didn't really try to do any of those things because obviously there's been all this reporting now that, you you know, keeping a full schedule was challenging for the president, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 4 So we don't have to belabor all of this, but that's kind of the backstory that people don't remember.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 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%.

Speaker 14 But

Speaker 14 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 have win the election?

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 And that's sort of where we, that's where we were.

Speaker 14 And, and I will say to all, not the blue and non people from the Discord 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.

Speaker 14 But in the end, most people came together to try to get her elected and worked pretty hard at it.

Speaker 4 I just want to say one more thing here. Like

Speaker 4 Joe Biden, this decision was Joe Biden's and like a very small circle of people around him. Mostly family.
Mostly family. And, you know, Wall Street Journal was out today.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And I remember when we did a crooked off-site 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.

Speaker 4 And all you guys, our staff, like peppered us with questions, like, why is Joe Biden running? Joe Biden's too old.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And he gets to decide. And people think it's like the party, this, that, the other thing.
Like, he was, he wasn't even listening to members of Congress by the end.

Speaker 4 At the end, like, Chuck Schumer barely got to his house to try to convince him he was like

Speaker 4 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 worst discourse of the year

Speaker 4 No, I don't think so. No, I think so.
Actually, some of the best discourse. Some of the best and most of the best discord we've ever had.

Speaker 15 Okay, so Chapel Roan or Travis or the Debate Commission.

Speaker 4 Debate Commission. Just to be nice to Travis.

Speaker 4 Debate Commission. We choose debate commission.
Sometimes an ugly, shitty little pug makes it to best in show, and that thing never wins.

Speaker 15 Thing? Okay. Debate.
We're really doing debate commission as the worst discourse of the year. All right.
That works for me.

Speaker 14 Does it sound like it works for you, Alicia?

Speaker 4 I didn't even know it was discourse, really.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 15 I was on paternity the other week, and I was like, I can't believe how many pods were talking about the debate commission.

Speaker 4 Oh, did we?

Speaker 14 There was a lot of reminding people that they tried to kill Joe Biden by not making Trump get a COVID test in 2020.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's right. That was bad.
Yeah, they did. They did.

Speaker 15 All right. The debate commission.
Worst discourse of the year.

Speaker 4 Love it. All right.

Speaker 4 I don't want to give Travis that.

Speaker 4 Not Chapel Roan. Okay.

Speaker 15 The most bizarre right-wing take of the year.

Speaker 15 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 headed our way in 2025.

Speaker 15 However, the right had their swings and misses too. Hey, they can't can't all be Tom Hanks died the first week of COVID and was immediately replaced by evil Tom Hanks.

Speaker 4 I forgot about that. Let's take a look.

Speaker 15 First up, we have something from Favs' close personal friend, Jesse Waters, about commenting on birthdays.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Men don't wish men happy birthdays.

Speaker 4 What a fire.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Oh, Jay, is it gay to have a birthday, fellas? Is it gay to wear pink, fellas?

Speaker 4 Can someone note when Jesse Waters' birthday is so we can all wish him a happy birthday and get it from as many people as possible?

Speaker 14 It's a funny bet.

Speaker 15 That's good.

Speaker 4 Just, you know, I feel like he, like Lovett said, I think he needs it. July the 9th.
We got a minute. Sounds like he needs birthday wishes from his bros.
Yeah. You know, from his bros.

Speaker 15 Blessed personal friend, Jean Favreau.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 15 Next, we have a right-wing meltdown for Taylor Swift dating Travis Kelsey. There were plenty of worthy clips here, but this from OAN host Allison Steinberg takes the cake.
Let's take a listen.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 It's just 24-7 nauseating coverage. And we're supposed to pretend we don't see the PSYOP.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 4 But of course, that'll never happen with this guy pulling the strings now, will it wow that's what an unit for what what is the trojan horse metaphor there

Speaker 4 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 i don't know if she stuck the landing on that one

Speaker 15 what's the alphabet mafia

Speaker 4 that's gay that's lgbt

Speaker 4 yeah that that helps a little bit yeah we're the alphabet mafia. Wow.
That's a, that was, that's upgrade for me. That's phenomenal.
It's a contender. Yeah, the only problem with it is it, it's,

Speaker 4 it's got to be some percentage performance art, right? They know what they're doing. You know, they're like, this is so crazy and ridiculous.
It's going to get me clicks. Yeah.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Taylor Swift has endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, endorsed Marsha Blackburn's opponent, and got involved in a bunch of different issues. Ty does pride, every pride, when she's on tour.

Speaker 4 This is just part of her politics. In the documentary, there's a documentary about it where she's on film talking about what famously the whole thing

Speaker 4 talks about politics. Just like, no, you're just paying attention, but like, even though you don't have, like, the world exists when your eyes are closed.
Right.

Speaker 4 That's, that's like the tour of the game. I know this is new to you, but yeah, it's not new.
Right.

Speaker 15 Next, we have what is quickly becoming a classic clip of RFK Jr. being confronted with his own words words by CNN's Casey Hunt about vaccines.
Let's take a listen.

Speaker 26 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.

Speaker 15 Do you still believe that?

Speaker 4 I never said that.

Speaker 28 So stop me. We have the clip.
Please play the clip.

Speaker 4 Play the whole clip. I just.

Speaker 29 You talked about that the media slanders you by calling you an anti-vaxxer.

Speaker 29 And you've said that you're not anti-vaccine, you're pro-safe vaccine.

Speaker 29 Difficult question. Can you name any vaccines that you think are good?

Speaker 4 I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably

Speaker 4 averting more problems than they're causing.

Speaker 4 There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.

Speaker 4 So you did say it.

Speaker 20 Do you still believe it?

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 here's what I, here's what I would say. First of all, I'm not anti-vaccine.

Speaker 28 How is that statement statement not anti-vaccine? Well, it's

Speaker 4 not anti-vaccine. I just think it will kill you, which I will repeat to everyone I see.
But where do I feel safe?

Speaker 4 There's a fallacy and 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,

Speaker 4 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 vaccines?

Speaker 4 Well, that's not a truly safe vaccine. What about this vaccine? It's not a truly truly safe vaccine.
It's a way of,

Speaker 4 it's a way of claiming something while never actually allowing it to be true.

Speaker 4 Sounds like Twitter. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Fun. Yeah.
Guys give me charge of the water. Enjoy, everybody.
Very bad. Drink up.
Drink up.

Speaker 4 Drink while you can. Yeah.
Get all those shots. 30 years from now, everyone's teeth are going to fall out of their fucking face and be like, I wonder why this happened.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Because he's also said that he thinks the polio vaccine killed many, many more people than polio ever did. You know, he says think that like he has this veneer of

Speaker 4 just asking questions or I'm, you know, I just want more data or research. But underneath that are really radical views and they just got to tease him out of them.

Speaker 4 You know, that's a great point, Tommy. It's now, this is going to bug me because like the January 6th Committee,

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 They didn't go every member on the panel giving their big long speeches, doing this, putting on their dog and pony show.

Speaker 4 It's like they just 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?

Speaker 4 You have one person who's going to prosecute this. Just, you know, flip for it.
Like we said about the January 6th hearings. So good, they should be illegal.
oh interesting

Speaker 4 do you know who the ranking member on the committee is who bernie sanders oh that's helpful 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

Speaker 4 that's right

Speaker 4 what if they do one what if they do one with the insurrectionists we are the world style that's good yeah right like a rap like a rap battle like what's the respect the jets and the sharks and if you know what's that story do we think mark zuckerberg will will put his hand on his heart for that one too probably Will I.am will remix it.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 30 In Springfield, they're eating the dogs

Speaker 4 that came in.

Speaker 30 They're eating the cats.

Speaker 30 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.

Speaker 31 Residents are reporting that the migrants are walking off with the town's geese. The town geese.
They're taking the geese.

Speaker 31 You know where the geese are in the park, in the lake?

Speaker 31 And even walking off with their pets. My dog's been taken.
My dog's been stolen.

Speaker 4 77 million people. Thumbs up.

Speaker 4 Thumbs up to that guy.

Speaker 4 I think like we're the ones eating crow.

Speaker 14 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 it into a catchy song and then have all of your influencers shared on TikTok for hours at a time.

Speaker 4 You think that was a difference maker, Dan?

Speaker 14 Just saying, like, it's just

Speaker 14 a way of thinking about things going forward.

Speaker 4 I like want to listen to it. It's really catchy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's in your head.

Speaker 4 It's great. It's great.
In Springfield, they're eating the dogs.

Speaker 4 Who did this? They're eating the cats. The Kiffnith?

Speaker 4 They're eating the pets of the people that live there.

Speaker 4 It's great. They're eating the dogs.

Speaker 4 They're eating the cats. Anyway, you know that

Speaker 4 we had a at Williams College, we had a steel pan band, and

Speaker 4 I was the drummer of the steel.

Speaker 4 Did you guess?

Speaker 4 Wait, what?

Speaker 4 No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yes? No, we had a, there was

Speaker 4 a bunch of bad things.

Speaker 4 I was the only white member because I didn't play the steel pan. I didn't know how to steel pan, but I could play.
They needed a percussion.

Speaker 4 They needed to play a drum set. And so I played the drum set.
I played the drum set in the Williams College Steel Pan band. There's a cool steel pan band.
Any single human.

Speaker 14 Do you think Crooked could put up a $100,000 reward, Nate Silverstaff, if he wanted to play the video of this?

Speaker 4 It's just before there was usual. It's just before you would be held out of videos.
Someone had a flip cam or something.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Shamique was busy at the fucking newspaper until 2 in the morning wasting his fucking college life on op-eds.

Speaker 4 oh yeah Williams record really make a difference

Speaker 4 op-eds I was playing I was playing music

Speaker 15 all right so who wins the category we got Jesse Waters Taylor Swift

Speaker 15 vaccines and the dogs and the cats

Speaker 4 I think vaccines for me no oh what

Speaker 4 the fun takeness not dogs and cats so Taylor Swift dogs and cats Jesse Waters.

Speaker 14 Is there another option? I forget.

Speaker 4 Vaccines. And vaccines.
I I think Trump's take really was the take of the year. I mean,

Speaker 4 it became the discourse. It was the hinge point.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 It was like a bad take that won, but you know. Yeah.
Best worst takes. I don't know.

Speaker 14 I'm still flummoxed by the fact that Lovett was in a college version in Shimirapa.

Speaker 4 That's not right. That's not right.

Speaker 15 So we're moving dogs and cats to the final group.

Speaker 4 I don't know. I'm not wedded to it.
No, that's fine. I imagine more of a rusted root, Dan, if we're being honest.
Oh, that's fair. That's fair.
For Lovitch. I mean, selling nitrous balloons.

Speaker 4 There is an argument for vaccines just because now we're going to be living with that.

Speaker 4 Right. That's the take that can kill.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 14 I mean, the problem always is we don't really have any scale for making these judgments, so it's really good.

Speaker 4 Let's just pick one because we're dragging this out.

Speaker 4 All right. Dogs and cats.
All right, cool. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.

Speaker 4 But before we do that, a reminder that now through January 1st, we're offering 25% off new annual Friends of the Pod subscriptions.

Speaker 4 A Friends of the Pod subscription is the single best way to help Crooked Media continue our mission of building a progressive, independent media company at a time when it's never been more important.

Speaker 4 Plus, you'll get access to ad-free episodes, exclusive bonus content, a Discord community, and more. Sign up today at crooked.com/slash friends or through the Pod Save America feed on Apple Podcasts.

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Speaker 15 And now for the coveted worst take of the year from a Pod Save America host, time to look in.

Speaker 4 Oh boy, here we go.

Speaker 15 Let's kick things off with John Love at Play the Clip.

Speaker 4 Being a speechwriter is about figuring out the best way to convince a bunch of people

Speaker 4 to come along with you or agree with you or support you. I think that's a lot of what survivor is.

Speaker 4 You know what? That was a good take. Technically true take.

Speaker 14 Technically true.

Speaker 4 Technically true. And

Speaker 4 good at both. Yeah, really, yeah, really crushing on both this year.

Speaker 4 Got my finger on the goddamn pulse this year.

Speaker 4 Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that.

Speaker 4 Next up. Next up.
Next up.

Speaker 15 We got Tommy Vitor talking about VP choices.

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 4 I think Christy Noam is a potential favorite to be the vice presidential nominee.

Speaker 16 Electoral benefits of South Dakota?

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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 an identity.
This was a great talk.

Speaker 4 This is a totally fake talk.

Speaker 4 This was before the puppy killing thing

Speaker 4 came out in

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 14 This is bullshit, Tommy. The judges, they're fucking you here.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 14 You know what I would do if I were you? I would sue them.

Speaker 4 I'm looking at you, Saul. Also,

Speaker 4 she did become the Secretary of Homeland Security. Yeah, she's DHS.
That's not a good thing. Now she's in charge of the TSA.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 I'm going to pick the opposite, 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.

Speaker 4 I think people hate the Biden administration so much that I can choose one of the biggest assholes around.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 15 Tommy, it was a good year of takes for you. We had to dig.
We had to dig out of another year or two pods and go to liberal tears. All right.
Next up, we have Dan after Trump was convicted.

Speaker 15 Let's hear it.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 I stand by that 1,000.

Speaker 4 He would have won by 10 if he had. Counterfactual.

Speaker 4 It's hard to prove. Hard to prove that.
That's good. That's good.

Speaker 14 And the polls are a snapshot in time.

Speaker 4 So do better next time, Elijah. Yeah, I feel like, I don't think.
No, no, I think polls are, and that's so important to keep in mind that polls are.

Speaker 4 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'm saying.
It's like a shitty Polaroid.

Speaker 4 If you look back on the year, what you take away from all of these very reasonable,

Speaker 4 these are all opinions about ways things could matter at the the margins in a race that wasn't really fought.

Speaker 4 But would that it mattered, but we're so fucked it doesn't.

Speaker 4 But even still, I mean, like, the argument we always made, it would come down to 100,000 votes.

Speaker 14 It came down to 237,000 votes.

Speaker 4 Right. That's true.
That's true. All right.

Speaker 15 And last, we have Jonathan Farrow reacting to Joe Biden going on Seth Meyers.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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 remember that interview at all you know i i i remember i know i'm not judging we were all in that headspace yeah but man were we grading on a fucking curve yeah 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 he was

Speaker 4 good.

Speaker 14 He was good. He was, he was fine.
Like, he was not, it was not the historic speech it was treated by some people, but

Speaker 4 it was good. It was fine.
Yeah, that got my head. It was at least evidence.

Speaker 14 It was evidence of energy and coherence.

Speaker 4 That's well, that's all. That's the point I was talking about, old Seth Myers.
And I would say, by the way, that's the bar that we had set for ourselves.

Speaker 14 And it was too low.

Speaker 4 Too low.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 What are we doing here?

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 This one, we felt was forward-looking, and it was, you'll be reassured by more appearances like this.

Speaker 4 Elijah, there were no more appearances. There were no more appearances.

Speaker 15 The debate is an appearance.

Speaker 4 Elijah, could you give us the

Speaker 4 missing from that take? take. What was the date of the take? February.
February of 2002. 24th, yeah.
That was Seth. Okay, February 24th.
So after State of the Union.

Speaker 4 Okay, yeah, that's... But that was when...
That's when he was cooking.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no.

Speaker 4 That was when there was. He was off the scene with the first time.
That was pre-Sate of the Union.

Speaker 15 It was pre-State of the Union.

Speaker 4 That's like when he was. Pre-Sate of the Union.

Speaker 4 The last little air out of the balloon.

Speaker 4 Well, the Adrenochrome was really flying around at that point. Yeah, that was the Seth Meyer's appearance, though, where Amy Poehler had to come out.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 yeah he was at the point where he was no longer doing things by himself uh who won the worst take of the year by a pod save america host

Speaker 4 that's tough

Speaker 4 i think we're gonna collectively sue you for such bad takes like takes on our takes yeah i i will i just i

Speaker 4 uh i have to say in terms of 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.

Speaker 4 I think it'll be good.

Speaker 4 yeah that's like that that was a bad take

Speaker 4 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

Speaker 4 i don't know i don't pick maybe maybe we shouldn't pick maybe everyone else yeah you guys pick couch producer couch

Speaker 4 not prepared uh

Speaker 4 hmm i mean let the audience pick yeah you don't know you gotta pick best in show someone makes best in show also

Speaker 14 here's one thing i can tell you our worst take is not winning the punty of the year no matter what it is

Speaker 4 that's a good take yeah good take dance okay yeah

Speaker 4 okay well then i won't give my opinion on it it doesn't matter no no tell us

Speaker 4 what you think yeah let's hear it oh it's for sure you should be reassured by more public joe biden appearances oh come on okay i'll take

Speaker 14 you you were misreading john there yeah more public appearances like this like that yeah and the next one was not like that it was an epic fucking disaster

Speaker 4 if joe biden performed like he did on Seth Meyers the entire campaign,

Speaker 4 all of us are really taking this well and not at all getting defensive about our takes.

Speaker 4 I didn't go off for five minutes about how I was on a different show.

Speaker 4 Liberal tears is no longer.

Speaker 4 I think we had bad takes. It's just bad takes.
Would Michael Phelps be as good of a swimmer if he had diarrhea in the pool and then killed himself?

Speaker 4 Huh. Probably not.

Speaker 4 I could name like five worst takes that I had. Go ahead.
Yeah, do it. No, no, no.

Speaker 4 All right. Let's go.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 15 From the blue MAGA group, we have Wanting Joe Biden to drop out is racist.

Speaker 15 From the discourse group, we have the death of the debate commission.

Speaker 15 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.

Speaker 4 So I mean, it's Alan Lickman.

Speaker 4 I think it's Alan. Yes.
And I think, look, and it's funny because it feels like, it feels like mean. Which we're punching down.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but but 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.

Speaker 4 And like, how many times are we going to fucking do this? Because I cling to those people too.

Speaker 4 Like, you know, you're like, 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 14 But

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And when you speak in such definitive ways, I think you really leave yourself open to being punched down or up. Yeah.

Speaker 4 All right. Well,

Speaker 15 that'll wrap up the 2024 pundies. Thank you guys.

Speaker 4 Alan Lickman wins. Alan.
Alan Lickman.

Speaker 4 Your prize money's in the mail.

Speaker 4 I think now we can use a picture of Alan Lickman for the. Oh, that's good.
Yeah. Maybe the one from the live stream he did that night where he was like, ah,

Speaker 4 my keys.

Speaker 4 Hey, we found a set of keys in the parking lot.

Speaker 4 Alan Lickman, come get your keys.

Speaker 4 All right, we've got one last order of business before we sail off into Crooked's holiday break.

Speaker 4 Our New Year's resolutions, as always, will be confronted with our resolutions from last year to see how we did.

Speaker 4 Unfortunately, I'm up first. Part of my resolution is like similar to Dan's, which is my attention span's gone.

Speaker 4 I have a strategy, which is I want to take like a walk. 20 to 30 minutes a day, maybe over 10 on this time, realistically, where I don't bring my phone and I don't listen to anything.

Speaker 14 I think on TikTok.

Speaker 4 The silent walk. Yeah, the silent walk.

Speaker 4 John, how many walks did you take this year? It would be zero silent walks. Not one walk without your phone.

Speaker 4 Not without my phone. But I will say this is what I did.
I did every Tuesday,

Speaker 4 my Tuesdays 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.

Speaker 4 So exactly. I didn't do it, but I did.

Speaker 4 I can't believe

Speaker 14 you have gone back-to-back years of doing none of your resolution.

Speaker 14 Don't forget the volunteering one of last year. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Okay. How many years am I going to get the fucking volunteering one for? 72 is our last chance to talk about it.

Speaker 4 Yeah. How's that late alarm?

Speaker 4 You got that garbled tunnel?

Speaker 4 Defrosting turkeys all day long.

Speaker 4 I need more corn for the jelly.

Speaker 4 He's got a big bell and a santa suit outside of Kroger.

Speaker 4 Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 4 Let's hear Tommy's revolution.

Speaker 4 Next year, I want to skip this recording again so that I cannot be held accountable once again.

Speaker 4 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 are we talking about?

Speaker 4 Weird fucking resolutions. It's weird.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 How'd you do? I don't think I did. Did you get a lot of the tech consultants out of your inbox? Yeah.

Speaker 4 How's your spam problem, Tommy? A lot of self-reflection going on?

Speaker 4 I think you made this joke last year.

Speaker 4 Okay. Okay.
Oh, oh, I guess I didn't do my resolution for this. Oh, let's do them all at the end.
That's great, great.

Speaker 4 Dan, let's do Dan's.

Speaker 14 The thing I really want to work on this year is regaining some semblance of my attention span.

Speaker 4 Over two.

Speaker 4 Dan, did you do that?

Speaker 14 Did you do that, Dan? I would say no.

Speaker 4 No, I did not.

Speaker 4 The irony of you saying this, Dan, is you write books.

Speaker 4 I wrote, but wrote, wrote. Yeah, but like a weekly, a couple of days a week.
Is it every day? A couple of other days the message box?

Speaker 14 A couple days a week. It feels like all the time.

Speaker 4 It feels like all the time and never enough.

Speaker 4 Always impressive.

Speaker 14 I did not do the things I wanted to do to regain my attention span. I doubled down.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 4 All right. Let's hear Lovitz.
My resolution is to not spend the year worrying about

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. Wow.
How did you find the willpower to do that?

Speaker 4 Where did you gain the strength? First of all,

Speaker 4 as a

Speaker 4 yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're making America healthy again.
One injection to the hip at a time. Uh, now this resolution came after I'd already started.
I can't even know that

Speaker 4 was even worse about it. No, but, but I will say I did also fail

Speaker 4 because I'm still, I like, I'm better. I'm definitely better,

Speaker 4 but I still do have like an unhealthy relationship to food. It's so hard.

Speaker 4 Well, like, it's interesting, like, all of our resolutions, like attention span and like, and, and diet, it's all about like trying to find some like inner result, like reservoir of discipline to defeat like a cultural force.

Speaker 4 And it's hard. It's hard.
Cause like I'm now like, I'm better about the diet stuff. And I am like a little bit crazy about exercise.
So I don't know. I don't know.
Better, better than I was.

Speaker 4 That's for sure. Should try my 13 keys to

Speaker 4 all right. So now

Speaker 4 we'll go around and do our resolutions.

Speaker 4 My resolution this year,

Speaker 4 this one I'm going to, I'm going to nail. I cannot fucking wait.
More posting.

Speaker 4 Okay. I'm going, I'm more posting, more Twitter fights.
It's going to be Twitter. It's going to be Blue Sky.
I'm jumping in the Discord. I'm posting posting and posting.
TikTok stitches.

Speaker 4 TikTok stitches. Really? Is this serious? Yeah.
More? I'm going to just say what I want. Well, I'm going to get in there.
I'm getting in the Discords. You've all seen it.
Yeah.

Speaker 14 You've been doing this for six months now.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right.
Yeah. Since Biden, since Biden

Speaker 4 had that great debate.

Speaker 14 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?

Speaker 4 I will say, though, like

Speaker 4 in the month or two before the election,

Speaker 4 I kind of of settled down a little bit on the posting. I did a lot of checking, but not a lot of posting.
I'm posting now.

Speaker 14 Prost-election, you are. You're just in it.

Speaker 14 And it's funny to listen, to be like 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.

Speaker 4 Yeah. It usually starts in the group chat.
I usually test it out there, and I'm like, oh, it's going to Twitter. It's the goal.

Speaker 4 You know, it doesn't make you feel good. It doesn't make goal.
It tends to.

Speaker 4 I mean, part of this is that

Speaker 4 I can't stop it, so I might as well lean into it. Right, that's the argument for Trump

Speaker 4 from Republicans in the House. No, it's a joke.
It's a joke, guys. But

Speaker 4 I am going to, well,

Speaker 4 like, I'm going to, the reason I'm going to post more is because I'm going to put out my thoughts, right?

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 But I'm going to, I realize that just talking is

Speaker 4 not good enough for me. I want to actually write my thoughts down.

Speaker 4 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 more.

Speaker 4 They're nice. Yeah.
I mean, that's great. Okay.
I think it's good to write things down.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.
It doesn't go anywhere.

Speaker 4 But sometimes it actually just helps to sort of like clarify. Later and I type something out.

Speaker 14 I cannot wait to read your diary in Discovery.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's, it'll be good. It'll be good.
All right, Tommy,

Speaker 4 who's in your inbox that you're getting out this year?

Speaker 4 Who are the big CRM managers? Salesforce. Salesforce.
Coming for them. Coming for your tower.

Speaker 4 I want to talk to more smart people off-air experts. Talked to a really smart guy about Sudan in Somaliland today.
If I could elaborate if you guys want to hear more about it. I love it.

Speaker 4 You can tell by your face. Classic, classic Tommy Rose.

Speaker 4 I would love to, but we're just so impressed for it. But

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 I want to get good at using AI tools. I tried to use ChatGPT to write me a list of resolutions, and I failed.

Speaker 4 So I want to get better at that. Okay.
All right. So time to do that.
Experts and AI. Experts.
Maybe there's some overlap there. Well,

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we'll see who wins. Let us know.
Pick your fighter. 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.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 It is good.

Speaker 4 Maybe while you're meditating, you'll see John on one of his walks.

Speaker 4 Ladle in one hand, famous stroll, Twitter in the other. That's right.

Speaker 4 That's your ladle arm. So funny.

Speaker 4 Dan? Dan, what do you got?

Speaker 14 So two things. One, I am going to make another run at my attention span.

Speaker 14 And the thing I've started doing since election, which has 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.

Speaker 4 That's so smart.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 14 The second thing, and it's related to Tommy's path towards mindfulness, is

Speaker 14 that's not even a joke.

Speaker 4 I'm being serious here.

Speaker 4 It was the path towards mindfulness. Okay, the winding path.
That part was just, there's some dead ends along the way.

Speaker 4 The path is the mindfulness, guys.

Speaker 4 This is related.

Speaker 14 Both mindfulness and attention span is, I want to take up yoga in 2025. I started doing it some this year.

Speaker 14 It just is a way.

Speaker 4 Downward Dan. Dan?

Speaker 4 I'm so excited for you. When you're next in L.A., you and I, we're going to Pilates.
Oh, I'd love to do that. I love the Pilates.
You know what the funny thing is?

Speaker 14 I debated whether I would do this one publicly, and then I was like, Love it has been basically doing a one-man pitch for Pilates for weeks now, so this is a safe space.

Speaker 4 I do yoga too. I do yoga too.

Speaker 4 Where do you do it, Dan? Do you go to group classes? Yeah. They've been

Speaker 14 hot vinyasa yoga?

Speaker 4 Nice. Wow.
Nice. But I want to do it regularly.

Speaker 14 Like I do it every once in a while now, but I want to do it.

Speaker 4 It feels good. It's really good for you.
It's a good fodder for the fanfic.

Speaker 4 Downward, downward dan, yeah.

Speaker 4 How do you say that? Downward Dan. Downward Dan's pretty good.
Love it.

Speaker 4 So I feel like we are coming to the end of the year where we made

Speaker 4 a lot of shows and we did a ton of content and there was a lot happening.

Speaker 4 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,

Speaker 4 like Joe Biden, you're quiet quitting too.

Speaker 4 A little bit more than him. No, but like, I do think that like we're heading into the another Trump era.
It's going to be exhausting.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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, the Tuesday Love or Leave It.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And like, I want to have the mental space and like the, not, it's not about time, but, or, or even like, it's just like the like the creative space to think about how to, how to talk about politics.

Speaker 4 Because so much of what we've just been saying for, for the last couple of weeks is.

Speaker 4 There's something about how Democrats sound and we need to figure out how we're communicating. And like, you're not going to figure that out in the churn.

Speaker 4 All right. Well, good luck, everyone.
I'll be posting.

Speaker 4 That feels like a pretty good place to end it.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 You guys are fantastic. And beautiful.

Speaker 4 And the performances.

Speaker 4 Incredible. Farah, Haley, Saul, Adrian, Reed heard his voice there too.

Speaker 4 I'm guessing David was involved too. Who else do 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.

Speaker 4 If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at crooked.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.

Speaker 4 Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more.

Speaker 4 And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a crooked media production.

Speaker 4 Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Faris Safari.
Reed Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer.

Speaker 4 The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis.
Writing support by Hallie Kiefer.

Speaker 4 Madeleine Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
Andy Taft is our executive assistant.

Speaker 4 Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelavieve, and and David Toles.

Speaker 4 What's poppin' listeners?

Speaker 7 I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week, I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time.

Speaker 10 Want to know about the fake heirs?

Speaker 11 We got them. What about a career con man?

Speaker 12 We've got them too.

Speaker 1 Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins.

Speaker 13 Oh, you know they are represented because representation matters.

Speaker 10 I'm joined by guests like Nicole Beyer, Ira Madison III, Conan O'Brien, and more.

Speaker 12 Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.