Doug Emhoff Is Ready to Win (Fantasy Football)

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crooked.com slash friends. Welcome to Pod Save America.
I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
I'm Tommy Vitor. Joining us in studio today is a man of many firsts.
The first ever second gentleman, the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. vice president, and the first person to be without a phone at the West Hollywood SoulCycle when his wife called to say she just became the likely Democratic nominee for president, Doug Emhoff is here.
Doug, welcome to the pod. Good to see you all.
Doug, Doug, Doug, Doug. And welcome back home to Los Angeles.
Where's your signs? It's great to be home. It's great to be here.
So 45 days ago, your life was still normal enough for you to be getting coffee with your LA friends at SoulCycle. You now have 61 days to help your wife defeat Donald Trump and make history as the next president of the United States.
What has it felt like to get shot out of a cannon like this? Like how have your lives changed? How much of your lives changed? Yeah. So it's so interesting to be right back in LA in Hollywood.
I was at West, the West Hollywood soul cycle, the nine 30 soul survivor class. So I did 60 minutes at my advanced age and I was with my, my friends.
So we, we walked out and, by saying hi. I was like, we're going to be fine.
Don't worry. Everything's good.
And I've known them a long time. And then 20, 30 minutes in, my friend's partner just shows me the phone.
And at first, I thought it was fake. Then I don't believe it.

Then being a good lawyer, I always read the last line first.

And that, if you recall, was something like,

I will address the nation later this week thinking,

oh, he's coming back from COVID.

And so he said, read above that.

And then you see this whole crew I have.

I said, let's go.

We got to go.

And we're running.

And if you know that SoulCycle, it's not like the car's two feet away. It's several hundred yards.
So I'm running, running. Jumping over gate guys left and right.
In the car. Glitter and things dodging.
And then to go from the phone, like I've said, it's like literally steam is coming out of it. And it's some variation of call Kamala call Kamala and it wasn't just her

calling it was every family member including my kids and my parents like where are you and then I finally talked to her and she said where the F were you I need you it's a tough one and um it was a very short conversation and then it really has been like getting shot out of a cannon because the next day I was in Wilmington addressing the now Harris campaign. And it was so surreal, too, because the president called in.
So just as I was about to go up on stage and I had barely seen her and had been 72 hours since I had seen her since this all happened. and I'm just about to walk out there, and then you hear Joe's voice, and it just hit so hard.
And then I went out and introduced her, and then it's just been nonstop. It has literally been nonstop.
I've barely seen her. I've been back and forth across the country several times.
I've been to Paris for the Olympics in the middle of all this, and the convention in the middle of all this, including the speech. And that feels like a distant memory because two weeks later, I've literally been crisscrossing the country still.
So that's how it's been. Very little time to reflect.
And there's not a lot of happy couple ch chit chat with us. It's not like, hey, this is pretty amazing.
She's like, get back to work. You can't even say anything to her because she's so focused that it's just, yeah, I'm not going to pay attention to that.
Just get back out on the road. One thing that was interesting, because you talked about this, that basically because you had been at SoulCycle and then getting some food after, like this ship was sailing.

Was there any conversation like, hey, a r- because you talked about this, that basically because you had been at SoulCycle and then getting some food after,

like this ship was sailing.

Was there any conversation like,

hey, are we doing this?

Like, was there any kind of like,

hey, do you want to run for president?

Was there, it was just, it was happening.

By the time I talked to her,

she had already been on the phone with the president

and had already been working the phones

to nail down the nomination. It was minute 45 of Soul Survivor that had happened.
I guess because I didn't answer the phone the first time, I lost any right of negotiation. Because you're on your way.
You have some stake in this. You're going to be first gentleman.
Do you think they should put a little plaque on that seat that said this is where doug's butt was when joe biden stepped aside apparently it's a thing but i guess some reporters have shown up there to check out the class and like oh this was the soul cycle class he was in but i've been that was you know my normal routine when i'm here not enough arms i know it's a problem you know it's a problem it 45 minutes in, it's like, here's some free weights. It feels like an afterthought and they should talk about it.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, also like just having worked on campaigns, presidential campaigns. I mean, usually it's like a, it's a two year process and the number of things that you and the vice president are having to do in less than a hundred days is unbelievable.
I mean, we were joking before we started recording that we had gotten podium passes from a friend at the convention to go up to the very front to watch Michelle Obama and Barack Obama speak, which meant when you were coming off stage for your speech, we were literally standing there and almost accidentally greeted you in this like incredible moment. Luckily, you did not i reminded you but it's just another thing you had to do right away was right away yeah and that that speech because when we were still on the vp side you know second gentleman um i think i was going to speak but i'm sure it would have been um somewhere maybe maybe a couple minutes and so then days.
And so then when she got on the top of the ticket, they said, okay, you're going to have a bigger speech. We're not sure when.
And I just assumed I'd be introducing her foolishly on Thursday. And then they said, we're moving around.
Then I found out pretty close on that you're going Tuesday and you're going prime time. And I said, oh, okay, who am I speaking with? The Obamas.
You mean Barack and Michelle Obama. Yeah.
You're going to go, and then that's like our prime time package, you and the Obamas. I said, okay, I need to work on this speech.
Because they're very good speakers, famously. As it turns out, they are.
Well, in addition to your wife's speech, which got rave reviews, almost everyone we talked to and all the reports we saw, people mentioned three speeches, which is the Obama's speeches and yours. That was obviously probably the biggest audience you've ever spoken to.
How did you want the speech to go? Did you practice? Were you nervous about addressing a big audience like that? I knew I needed to be able to talk about her. And a little bit about myself, too, because even though a second gentleman, married to the vice president, I'm out there a lot.
It's not like, and people know me, but it's not the same. And so the part of it was, you know, who am I? Just a little intro on myself.
And who is she? The Kamala Harris that I know that I wanted everyone else to know, that those of us in her family know. And then when you see the caricatures of her and the parody, and you know her a little bit that's just not her and so for all of us there's just been this it's just not bemusement it's just like that's just it's not you and so I think part of what I wanted to do is just show the world the woman I married the woman I love the woman who was there for me at a you know a rough time my life, who was able to come in and be mamala to the kids and be now really great friends with my ex-wife and integrate with her family.
And so I just wanted everyone to see what we get to see each and every day, but I also wanted to talk about her as a badass. She's the joyful warrior.
So that kind of part about her was the joyful part. Let's end with the badass warrior, the person I also see, the person that I was fearful of when she was attorney general and I was representing business clients.
And then I'm like, oh, I wonder what she's going to be like on a date. She great and so to show that side the woman who grilled those those folks in the judiciary committee the woman who's on the world stage the woman that we see because we're in the office of vice president so we also get to see her at work each and every day as vice president oval office situation room doing all the stuff that we see.

And then she just stepped up. Because we talk about how surreal it was that I wasn't there, but was also that she just stepped up when we needed somebody to step up.
This country needed a leader to step into the void, step into the breach. And she did that.
And so to say that to the whole world on that stage, that was what I wanted to cross. It was, I don't get nervous really.
I mean, I was a trial lawyer here in Hollywood. So you can't, no one wants to hire a shaky lawyer.
So you always learn to be really calm in highly stressful situations. You got to be prepared.
So a lot of the skills that I've already brought to the table as a lawyer here really help. But nothing prepares you for that.
Nothing. And so you walk out there and you see the Doug signs and it's like the noise and the intensity.
I'm looking up. My parents are up there.
And my son had directed the video. It was amazing.
He introduced me. And so I'm a little shaky because I had all this plan, you know, that Mike Tyson, you always have a plan until you get hit in the face.
So I almost felt like, okay, you better regroup, take a breath. i if you see that tape of it i just and then reset and then i just just went for it beta blocker what are those things yeah beta blocker you can take a beta the speech went well if you thought about a debate maybe challenging melania to a debate we can just we'll we prefer not to.
All right, I'm going to ruin the vibes here. So on Tuesday night, you attended a vigil for Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.
And so the last 11 months, I think, have been unimaginable for those hostages, their families. The news over the weekend that six hostages had been executed and found just days after that execution.
It's just, you know, it's unbearable. One of the people killed was an Israeli American named Hirsch Goldberg Poland.
I know he spent a lot of time with his family. And so I just, I wanted to ask you about your impressions from that vigil, but also about a disconnect, I feel, in the conversation about Gaza in the U.S.
versus in Israel. In Israel, it feels like people are clear-eyed that Hamas is responsible for October 7th.
They're responsible for the execution of these hostages. They're an evil terrorist organization.
Everyone is clear-eyed about that. But there are many people in the streets also blaming Bibi Netanyahu for his failure to get to yes on a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
But in the U.S., in the U.S. coverage, in the U.S.
political debate, including statements out of the Biden administration, I feel like it's far less direct about the frustration with Netanyahu than what you hear in Israel. And so I was just wondering if you agree with that observation, if it's something you've seen, and if you think, you know, the missing piece to get to yes on that hostage release deal is maybe more pressure on Netanyahu's government.
Well, let me start with the first part about, you know, what it was to be there last night at Addison DC and remember the parents John Rachel spoke at the DNC I think just two weeks ago and they were just the strength and what I talked about last night about them was in that speech, you know, they were almost just reminding the vast majority of people what had happened on October 7th, that Hamas was responsible, that women and babies and grandmas and young people at a music festival were murdered, tortured, raped. And there's people who don't know that, and actually there's people, even worse, that don't believe it.
So the fact that even though their son at that time had been in captivity for many, many months, they used that time to educate the public and to educate about the plight of not only their son, but of others. And to talk to them over the weekend when their son had been executed, just shot with five other people, you know, execution style in cold blood when they were, you know, almost about to be rescued.
just unbearable. But on that phone call, again, we had met them.
I saw them at the convention. Kamala had met them several times.
And then to just their strength, their grace, their compassion, and their empathy towards us, the fact that they were concerned about how we were doing, when we couldn't even find the words to talk to them about how sorry we were. So, I mean, I'm just so on the human element, that's what last night was about.
It was a vigil for those victims. It was families of survivors, families of those killed there.
And it was a way for the community to just come together. And I'm a part of the community.
So I really approached that as a Jew, as a congregant, as a mourner, someone to pray with them and to just really express how I feel. And in terms of the politics of that, I mean, I'm not going to address it.
I mean, that's not for me to do. I know she's working on this night and day, as is the president.
I know there has to be a deal. There needs to be consequence for Hamas, and there needs to be, and the leaders, and you've seen that, and there needs to be peace, and that's what they're working towards.

And so that's what the administration is doing.

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And there's this incredible look between the two of you. I loved it.
It's really moving. It seemed to just as somebody just watching from the outside, just two people who genuinely love each other.
And people really took to it. The last man to almost become first gentleman was a former president with a not insubstantial ego of his own.
You are seeking not just a supportive role, but a role that is both official and unpaid because it's gendered, because it is based on the presumption that the president is a man and his spouse is a woman. How do you think about that? How do you think about addressing that? Well, I'll take your question in parts.
I think the first part, yes, I love my wife very much. Softball you know, but this is part of the, that there's, everyone's watching everything.
So you're almost, I'm sitting there, I'm up there. It's like, wow, there's my wife sitting behind the president at the State of the Union.
And each State of the Union, there's been something where I've like waved and blew a kiss. And it's always on camera.
So those moments are that, but that's us. I mean, we're, you're still trying to be a normal couple amongst all this stuff.
Bill Clinton, he, I've developed a pretty good relationship with him. He's really been there for me and for Kamala as someone who's been through all this, someone who is just so smart and still follows everything so well.
And we did an event after the convention, right after, and he introduced me at an event. I'm thinking, I just spoke with the Obamas, and now Bill Clinton's introducing me.
And here I am, this entertainment lawyer from right here where we're sitting, just so surreal. But he said, and here's the man who's trying to get the job that I tried to get for 20 years, Doug Emhoff, the next first gentleman.
So I've thought a lot about your actual question, how to approach just being second gentleman as the first man ever to do this role. And someone who loved my career very much.
I was very good at it, very successful. Said humbly with modesty, but it's true.
And I miss it. But to take a step back so my wife can become vice president was something I gladly did.
I did it without bitterness, without anger. And then with her goading was, what are you going to make of this role? Try to find something in this role that you can move the needle on.
And those were, one was really being the first guy doing this, let's talk about gender issues. So I talked a lot about gender equity, pay equity, family leave, childcare.
Then of course, when Dobbs hit, I spent two years talking to men about why the Dobbs issue and reproductive freedom and this crisis that Dobbs has caused is an issue for all of us, not just for women. And then being the first Jew, it's first Jewish principle ever.
There's a lot of anti-Semitism. There's a lot of hate.
Lean into that. And so that's how I approached it.
And that's how I'll continue to approach it. If we are so fortunate to win the election, which we have to win, I'm going to approach it the same way.
Where can I be most useful to her as her husband, support her, love her as always, but be there for her. But also how can I help her as president, help the administration, help the American people being the first? And what issues can I really drive? But also, there's a lot of traditions that are really cool.
I've tried to uphold those as second gentleman. Fun fact, as second gentleman, I am the president of the Senate spouses because she's the president of the Senate.
And I was a former Senate spouse. And so, you know, there's some lunches.
There's an event at the vice president's residence. So I just made sure that I participated in those traditional events.
And as first gentleman, there's certain traditions that I fully expect that I will faithfully uphold. So I'm a gay person.
And I notice that if you go to a fancy hotel, there's a presumption that there's going to be a man and a woman in that room because there'll be things that are meant for men and things that are meant for a woman. When you're at the observatory, when you're in any of these events, have you ever gone into a space and were like, oh, no one ever thought a man would be here before? Day one, because there's actually a org chart for everything in the government, including the office of the vice president.
And the first org chart that was presented to us said something like, you know, vice president on the top. And then there's a line to, it said second lady, they crossed it out and just said second spouse.
And then under that, it said family life. And we said, okay, she said something like, yeah we're doing that together and so the implication was that i would be in charge of family life family life and whatever else that entailed so um we just played through it and you know again as second gentleman i spent most of my time first year vaccinations getting the economy going again, supporting the American Rescue Plan.
And throughout, I spent most of the time helping her and helping the administration. And that's how I would approach being first gentleman, whatever the flow chart there is, because it helps her.
I mean, I'm there to support her. And also, look, this is a two-way street.
It's not a one-sided deal. I mean, when I was practicing lawyer, I mean, we supported each other's careers.
And I mean, she knew this was going to be difficult for me to step away, even though, again, I did it gladly. So she has really enabled me through her support to lean into issues like anti-Semitism, lean into these other issues and be able to go out there and do a lot of really amazing things as second gentlemen.
And that's what I expect to do, whatever the chart says. It's been pointed out that you and Tim Walls are presenting a very different, healthier version of masculinity in this campaign than Trump and J.D.
Vance, who are obviously selling a very different version that appeals to their base voters. But also the voters who haven't decided yet in this election are more likely to be younger, more moderate men.
the New York Times just ran a piece about how quote the Trump campaign has been aggressively courting what might be called the bro vote

the frat boy younger, more moderate men. The New York Times just ran a piece about how, quote,

the Trump campaign has been aggressively courting

what might be called the bro vote, the frat boy flank,

a slice of 18 to 29-year-olds that has long been regarded

as unreliable and unreachable, but that Republicans believe

may just swing the election this year.

How do you think about, in the campaign,

what it will take to motivate that group of young men

to vote for Kamala Harris.

I know, you know, your son Cole is 29. So he's in that demographic as well.

Yeah, you got him.

Well, he did the video. I hope he's going to vote.

Put that in the win column.

I'm actually going to go do my fantasy football draft with him right after this.

We're going to come back to this.

Yeah. So great, you know, great question.
It's something we've, I've thought a lot about,

not just because of the election. I've just thought a lot about this state of where we are as men and how I can talk about it.
And what I've learned, I think, through trial and error is just to talk about me and what I do and how I feel and how I felt even as a young man. So when I was married to Kirsten, we both had big careers and supported each other, supported her.
And so for me, it was just kind of where my mindset was growing up is that I'm going to be somebody who is supportive of my partner and their career and other women. I came up through law firms and, you know, you can see we, we start around, you know, 50, 50 men and women in the law firm.
And by the time I left through four years ago, the equity, senior equity partner ranks where I was, was, you know, very low percentage of women and it's just not right. It's not fair.
And so that's, again, why I tried to use the second gentleman perch to just talk about just fairness, like what's fair, what's not. And sports, using women's sports as a way to talk about pay equity, training equity, travel equity, media rights equity, and all the things we're now seeing

are starting to get better. And that's a good thing.
And that means there's more men watching

women's sports and more people watching women's sports and we're happier for it. So there's lots

of ways to do it, lots of ways to reach them. But I've learned that you can't be a scold,

you can't, you know, lecture, you just try to show by example. And one great story is in this post-Dobbs.
There's a group, literally called a group called Men for Choice. And it's primarily men in college and just out of college, maybe up until their late 20s, early 30s.
And so they understand that it's, one, it's the right thing to do. It's not fair if women are being treated, literally being treated as less than, but also it impacts so many other rights.
And you saw what Thomas said in the concurring opinion of Dobbs, anything based on this Griswold right of privacy, which Roe v. Wade was, is at risk.
Gay marriage, contraception, you know, literally the right to do what you want in your bedroom. This is where cue the Tim Walz memes of, you know, stay out of my goddamn bedroom.
So that's what we're talking about. By the way, he's a great guy.
He's a good Tim Walz. I thought he was in the room.
So it's one good, two funny Tim Walz stories already within a few weeks. So I met him uh a second gentleman out on the road i was in saint paul doing a small business event i was very impressed you know he knew about business and the economy and then i didn't see him until that night in philly when we jumped up on the stage oh wow and so we kind of bonded backstage and we get up there and we just do this big bro bear hug and i cannot tell you how many texts i got from my actual friends and actual family members like you never hugged me like that what's going on you literally just met this guy did you hit him on the back to to preserve your your heteronormativity did you give him? No, if you see the video, we just did this full on.
And I think, you know, he was like this. I was like this.
And then it was just this bro hug. And I heard from a lot of actual friends.
And then the other one, I love when he said, I'll sleep when I'm dead. And I said, I'll sleep on November 6th.
Because I want to actually enjoy the fruits of winning this election. The vice president has a debate with Donald Trump next week.
She does? Yeah. Well, we hope.
I assume no one has debated with her more often than you have. Do you have any? What should we expect here? What would she look for? I haven't won one.
Did she mute your mic? Is that a thing in your house? You know, she is a very good debater. I mean, if you look at some of her debates, I look at her debate with Mike Pence.
She had a pretty infamous debate with Loretta Sanchez when she was running for Senate. Yep.
And she's also a first-class trial lawyer. Right.
First-class, I mean, a first-class lawyer and a first-class trial lawyer. And I would say some, you know, the funny husband-wife story, it's not like we're in a debate, but I realize if we're talking about something, any really good lawyer will lay little traps for you along the way.
And as I'm going through this discussion about some husband-wife thing, I said, oh, that's what you're doing. I was a pretty good trial lawyer, too.
I said, aha! And so she is very disciplined. She's very prepared.
She's, again, a first-class lawyer and a first-class intellect. And, you know, that's how she's going to approach everything.
So it's Donald Trump, so who the hell knows what you're going to get. But I know from her, you know, she's going to be talking about us.
She's going to be talking about the American people. She's going to be talking about the issues that she's been talking about.

She's going to be talking about moving us forward, talking about this economic plan, talking about our standing in the world. And I mean, literally everything I just said, including the abortion issue, there's such a clear contrast.
I mean, this is such a binary, clear contrast. And I think just getting folks to understand that and pay attention to know that everyone's life would be remarkably worse if somehow this guy who's completely unfit for office ever returned.
And it just, people will be so far worse off, including business folks who think, oh, well, maybe he was good on the economy.

One, that's not true.

But two, think about the things he's saying. One of the bases of a great economy is stability.
It's lack of chaos. It's rule of law.
It's our court systems. It's all the capital markets.
It's innovation. It's trade.
It's all these things that really make our economy great, make our country great. And you would think this place is going down the tubes the way Donald Trump talks about it, but I love the way she talked about it.
This country is awesome. And to hear the USA chants in Paris at the Olympics where you expect to hear them, but then to come back and hear them at a democratic convention where you may not normally expect to see that and hear that.
Why were you hearing that? Because her vision of our country is more accurate of what we're experiencing and where she can take it. And we know he's already was terrible the first time, terrible, even pre-COVID.
And then COVID is probably the biggest dereliction of duty of any president in history. Hundreds of thousands of people died because he lied about COVID.
He continued to lie about it. And, oh yeah, and then he fomented an insurrection when he lost the other election.
So yeah, it wasn't great. So this is what we're dealing with.
So she's going to just talk about the issues that actually help people. And he's just going to lie and talk about himself.
What was your relationship to politics when you met Kamala Harris? Have you always been politically active? Have you always had like strong political views? I mean, I've always been a dem. I, again, you know, building my career.
So I was more focused on building my career and raising the kids. And I wasn't like...
Your brain was not broken by politics like all of us. I didn't know, like, I wouldn't have known, like, whatever precursor of you guys there were in the before times.
You guys are one off.

Yeah, I was like most, I was just out there. I was, I cared about our country.
I cared about the issues. I voted and I followed it when there were elections, but I wasn't like obsessively, you know, watching stuff and reading stuff because I was out there trying to support my big, beautiful no that was before that i had a big beautiful blended family so i support my family and um i got into it a little bit um before i had met her as it turned out as you know the kids were getting older and it was election season and i donate some money.
It's L.A., you're getting invited to a fundraiser. No, I was going to, I was starting to go to events because I had more time, and I was at a place where that seemed more interesting.
And then I met her, and then all of a sudden I started. You had plenty of events to go to.
Well, then I started going to lots of events and learning about it. But my first election was her attorney general reelect.
And I was like, wow, politics is easy. You just show up on election day and you get reelected.
I didn't realize she was basically running unopposed. And even the Senate race, it took a while and she ran for a while., but I was working full-time.
I was in and out of that. And really my first introduction is when she ran in the primary, when I was like a weekend warrior and went around helping around.
And then it became a full-time gig that day in August of 2020 when she got that call. And then that was my last day at the firm.
And I've been doing this ever since. Oh, that's amazing.
All right. Now it's time for some hard balls.
Okay. Are you ready? So the LA Times published a list of some of your favorite restaurants.
Okay. Okay.
Some good, important choices there. Two big problems with the list first of all tuscana douglas tuscana was that on there it's 2024 i'm barely here my point of reference is is i haven't been here a lot in the last four years we're in a red sauce renaissance in this city are you not familiar with this i didn't know we were in a red sauce renaissance so the thing is i'm i'm not here a lot and so when i come back i want to just re-experience the la that i left behind in 2020 or even pre-covid so i don't know many of the new places and it's kind of hard to you know get around these days so um i've been here for 10 years and never knew like the best mexican food in la and then reading to prepare for this interview i saw that you guys love el cholo and so after i was reading yesterday my wife and i went to the original location it's like right down the street from us we didn't even know yeah um and fantastic isn't it amazing yes thank you for.
Well, I started going to that one. I went to USC for law school and I started going there in the late 80s when I was in law school.
Basically, that was part of my repertoire the whole time. So as soon as I met Kamlo, we just started going.
And if we can't go, is that El Cholo? You're giving me the look on El Cholo too. No, no, no.
I'm good with El Cholo. I'm good with El Cholo.
It's just Toscana. Craig's upset me.
What about Craig? It's like fancy cars, photographers, you know what I mean? So Craig's, I think this is public, but we went on our first date there. Right.
And so it, and I, I knew Craig for a long time and it was one of those places where. You knew Craig.
The one in West Hollywood, right? Is there just one? this one yeah there's this one and so that's kind of a special place just because that was literally our first date and it's um it's very sceny now but again i i barely yeah i'm barely here i'm really just trying to see the kids or my parents or you know so it's not like i'm out hitting the town so hard to get east of the 405 when you're i've told you know that when you're just here that's i'm glad you brought that up because when i'm talking to the team who are not from la and they're they're giving me like the 15 minute travel time to get from the west side right at 4 p.m not happening to kid no literally an hour and 20 minutes can we roll lights and sirens now? I think we got to win this election. Okay, let's win.
All right. Now, second problem I have.
Oh, my God. This may not be your fault.
This may be just the mainstream media once again letting us all down. But there was no deli on that list.
All right. And I have a couple.
Nate and Owls, Cantors, Arts, Langers. Where are we going? What are we ordering? Langers is, and I read an article about Langers in the LA Times that, you know, I think it's, it needs some love.
Langers, the first, I'm so old, the first stop on the original Metro line went from downtown 7th Street to right across the street from langers so us lawyers would literally whatever it costs a quarter dollar would go to lunch at langers could take the new subway metro line and go uh go there so um love that place what's our what's our what's our deli order we're fighting anti-semitism we're at the deli. What are we getting? I mean, you know, corned beef.
It's kind of hard not to. But I try to eat a little healthier these days.
So maybe I love dry tuna. So I get dry tuna at a lot of these delis too.
Dry tuna? Yeah. I don't know if you're going to win.
I don't think you go around to talk about dry tuna. Not super dry, but, you know, just melt.
Tuna melt. Okay, tuna you know just melt tuna melt okay but the tuna has to be it can't be you know super we saw the vp you know make a tuna melt oh yeah that's right the mark warner thing yeah and also like she she when we're here she cooks i mean her thing is cooking sunday dinner and so um you know she's amazing amazing, near-chef-like.
So for me, it's like her cooking for us, cooking for the family. You're always winning.
What are you doing with matzo? What are you doing with matzo? I think I got her to make me matzo bread once. And again, she does everything great.
So she, you know, puts her own touches in it, probably threw some flavor and some spice in it. But she's good.
I was not lying. She makes a very mean brisket, and she puts a lot of love into it.
I read at these Sunday dinners, she spends like five hours on a bouillonnage or whatever, and you do cocktails. Does that sound like the kind of equity you're talking about? I think during— What kind of cocktails were we drinking? Well, I do try.
I try to sue Sheffitt up. She taught me some of the knife skills.
Oh. Not knife—you know, cutting food.
Yeah, we obviously do that. Chopping.
I didn't think you meant samurai. Chopping.
So I was famously—she got me onion goggles, which I put on a post once, which go oh my god so i take that seriously i try to help as much as i can but now that usually the kids come over and everyone's getting older so they all want to help her in the kitchen so usually i'm just like making drinks or now i might even coal eclipses i'm like down to just picking the music, like putting a playlist

on at this point.

You know what though?

It's good though.

I'm like,

this is great.

You're fighting for gender equity.

You stole your job

from a woman.

And now we're just doing

the playlist.

Something to think about.

Something to think about.

My name is Niccolo Mainoni

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It's my understanding that you're a big sports fan.

Is it just LA Rams, Lakers, like all LA?

So I was born in Brooklyn and moved here when I was 16.

So there's still a vestige of New York teams.

So it's a hodgepodge of New York and LA teams. But I've been here.
So you're a Yankees-Lakers fan? Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. No, well, so it's the Dodgers have superseded.
Dodgers and Lakers superseded the New York teams. But the New York Giants are still in my DNA.

And I love the Rams.

But remember, the Rams were not here. They were in Orange County.
Then they were in St. Louis.
They came back. But since they've been back, it's been fantastic.
So big Rams fan. But the team in my youth, which is still my team, is the New York football Giants.
But Lakers and Dodgers, they kind of got in the blood. Now, I heard you tell my guy, Rich Eisen, that you hate Boston teams.
And I just wondered if— Got a couple Boston guys. Well, for those of us who won a victory in November, I'm wondering if we should be concerned that you seem to hate winning and hate excellence.
Yeah, a lot of electoral votes and going after Boston.

We're talking about success.

So it's so funny.

My son and I went, he was in D.C. during the playoffs,

and there were a lot of Boston fans.

It was the finals, a lot of Boston fans in this big sports bar we were at,

and we were not rooting for them.

And a couple of fans were like, are you not rooting for us and i'm like uh but i'll get i will say one of the but a lot of the folks on our team are from boston so i've got a okay um but one of the cool events is we went up to see robert craft who's been doing a lot of work on anti-Semitism, fighting anti-Semitism. And he gave me a tour of his office, and he has a shrine to all the Super Bowl trophies, and I got to see that, one of which is dented.
I think this story was by Gronk or something. Yeah, Gronk.
Hit a baseball with it. Yeah, So his office and the rings, I got to meet the new coach.
Mayo. Yeah.
But still not a fan. What happened with Putin taking that ring? He still has it, I think.
He still has it. He told me that whole story with Putin in the ring.
He was very gracious. He has some really cool stuff in his office,

some amazing bespoke Tom Brady paraphernalia and just stuff going way back.

So he's like a real sports fan

and also really into politics.

He had some great political stuff in there too.

But the trophy room, it's like,

it's one of those scenes you just see

in one of these movies

where it's just this big, long room and there's nothing else in there except these trophies and they're just in this case but you can't take them with you you cannot take them when you die yeah oh you can't be buried in a pyramid something to think about yeah great owner uh is he happy don't love his politics yeah no this is not political this i went there not on politics but on the because on this fight against anti-semitism you know we're all all in that one together and that's non-political maybe you can bring him to our side um i do think my understanding is we have a hard out on this interview because your fantasy football draft is tonight now uh the question i think is that a first for that is a first but i think i i actually think that says a lot about you and your priorities, because I think I've heard you say that this is a league you've been in for like 34 years with your law school buddies? Yeah. Or is this the White House League? No, the White House League, that draft was last night.
Okay. This league started in 1989 at USC, and it merged with my first law firm, which I started in 1990.
So it's basically a bunch of guys that I went to law school with and worked together. But it's basically the same crew, and maybe a new owner here or there, and even the new owners have been there for 15, 20 years.
we're all now of a certain age that most of us have kids and sons and daughters who are now in their 20s to early to late 20s who have now come in to be a part of the league. So Cole joined me about eight or nine years ago, I think, when he was getting out of college.
And we're a very hapless team. I won once in 2000.
So 24 years ago, I won once. And you can now, because it's been on one of the apps for so long, it's literally like 12 teams, 12, 12, 11, 10, 11, 12, 12.
And then two years ago, we decided we got to just take this more seriously. We got to study.
This is embarrassing. So two years ago, we made the playoffs.
And then last year, we were the number one team the whole season. We got to the finals.
And I even told the team, okay, just tank. Let us win.
And if you let us win, we'll do next year's draft in the White House. Didn't work? Well, I'm here.
So it didn't work. We lost.
But it was... This is the year.
This is going to be the year. This league is so much fun.
So I've got two great group chats. It's the one from my Jersey guys that I grew up with and this one of the team owners.
And when I said the word, and that's when I my fantasy foot they it there's 500 messages on that group chat um just so it's just so fun um that group chat got wild for your friends a couple years ago this is like uh megan markle's group chat all of a sudden when she met prince harry it's like i'm sorry what what have you been up to they give you a lot of shit on the group chat now like what's it been last couple of months? They always give me, we give each other a ton of shit because that's what a group chat does. Yeah, no, it's surreal for them.
I think the highlight of their lives was when I went on Matthew Barry to talk about our league and our team and my team and my draft. They just, that was more, yeah, that was, I got a few, hey, great speech.
that was really good no on the speech but it was like you said the fantasy team team nirvana and um team nirvana team nirvana and this is just like a spreadsheet through yahoo i assume um this that one's through espn espn huh yeah i don't know what it is i never no one ever told me it's it's it's really fun because it's a way to watch the games. And now it's something that when the games are on, you're literally FaceTiming, texting all the people that you're in the league with.
And for Cole and I, especially over these last four or five years, it's so hard to stay connected to him. And it's a great way for us to stay connected

and to have something that's just for he and I.

And the fact that his dad came out here to sit with him to do the draft,

he's just so happy right now that we're going to be,

and me too, of course, that we're able to do this.

So it's one little shred of normalcy in a going back. Bringing it all back to your first question, the way good lawyers do, that shut out of a cannon.
Because we are traveling many hundreds of miles an hour right now. And we're hustling for 60 some odd days to save our country to win this election.
But this is a working trip. I'm doing all these events while

I'm here, but I'm also carving out this time for him because we still have to be parents to Colinella and to everyone else in that family. They still look to us.
We still got to be present. And that was one of the great things about the convention, bringing, I mean, everyone together.
and they were all there to just experience this thing together was very special, beyond special. We do want to just quickly show you that we did sell a mug with your face on it.
It says Doug on a mug. I like the young Doug picture better.
That's like super old Doug. Well, we didn't have one for you because they sold out.
Yeah, they sold like hotcakes. So now maybe the second round we'll do.
And because you're a lawyer, just so you know, we are legally allowed to use your license. Hold on.
I'm going to just drop to cease and desist. You can't? No, we can't.
We have lawyers too, Doug. Oh, this public domain.
This is like fair use. No, yeah, you're a public figure.
On the mug you go. Fair use, huh? This is commentary.
This is satire. Satire.
Parody. Parody.
This is a parody mug. You know, I teach this stuff at Georgetown Law School, man school man so it's uh yes you you are you're screwing me but it's okay okay cool um last question for you what is one thing you know about your wife that you really hope the entire country gets to know over the next few months well only one thing well i figured see my speech um can i redo my speech Yeah, my speech? No, she is a badass.
I mean, she is a super badass on so many levels. And she has just done this, her entire career has been for us.
I know it's just for the people, but it literally has. And everything she does, there's always a why behind it.
She talked about why she became a prosecutor because her best friend was being, unfortunately, molested by her stepfather. And you track so much of her policy and the stuff that she does to help us.
There's always some family. There's always some reason.
So here, famously, the mortgage crisis in California, where they were giving Californians pennies on the dollar, and I was here. And to see her fight for us, because she's then thinking about her own mother and the folks that she grew up with who worked so hard to get those homes and then to lose them like that.
It's the story about shutting down the for-profit colleges here, you know, and they're just ripping off people. So for me, I want people to know that she really gives a shit.
Like she really does this stuff as a calling. It's yes, she's in politics, but I don't see her as a politician.

I see her as a very devout public servant at the highest level.

And she's devoted her whole, literally her whole professional career for us.

And that it's just great.

And you decide to call a person like that at 830 in the morning from your car.

Like she's a client, like you're rolling calls.

Did your assistant patch you through?

On a weekday.

It's so funny you say that because I'm, was it was like what am i doing and it was that scene the other john favaro from uh swingers and and it's literally that scene just in my head what am i doing and then i'm like don't call back don't call back and's it. He just keeps calling back.
No, that was, it's just because, you know, I knew who she was. And I was just curious.
Like, okay, is this the person who's the fearsome Kamala Harris, prosecutor, attorney general? Or is this someone who, you know, seems really cool? And maybe we'll hit it off. And it was when she called i'm telling you when she called me back in that miracle where she happened to be at her desk and i happen to be at my desk which never happens and we basically talked for an hour and it's like wow she's really awesome she's funny she's smart she she's She's, you know, interesting.
Let's do, I'm in. So let's, and she happened to be in LA a few days later.
And I said, she told me that I said, okay, we're going out. Congrats on winning that fight, by the way, LA versus San Francisco.
I lived in both. It's, it's a no brainer if we're being honest.
Yeah. Yeah.
We choose LA. It's pretty sweet here, yeah.
I love LA. And wait until you try some of the Italian food.
Okay. After the mic, after we shut these off, you're going to give me a list so I can spread out a little bit from the Toscana scene.
No offense to Toscana. I love Toscana.
The bread's cold, but it's okay. Okay, enough with you and Toscana.
Did you have a bet? Did they not let you in? Oh, I know what happened. They didn't let him in.
They didn't even know what happened. So he's bitter about it.
All right, we're going to let you get to your fantasy draft. Doug Emhoff, thank you so much for coming on Pod Save America.
Thanks for the time, and good luck in the draft tonight. We're going to need it.
Thanks, guys. A couple of quick things before we go.
Pod Save America is headed to Phoenix this Saturday, September 7th at Celebrity Theater. Join us, Dan, and guest host Jane Koston for a great show featuring Senate candidate Ruben Gallego.
Get your tickets at crooked.com slash events now. Still tickets.
Grab them. We'll see you in Phoenix.
And also in the newest episode of subscription exclusive podcast Polar Coaster, Dan and Elijah Cohn map out how Harris can win the Electoral College and explore the campaign's possible routes to securing 270 electoral votes. To check out Dan's subscriber exclusive show and so much more, subscribe to Friends of the Pod on Apple Podcasts or at cricket.com slash friends.
That's our show for today. How about Doug? How great is Doug? I just want to go get dinner with Doug at Toscana or anywhere else, I guess.
Anywhere else. So much Toscana.
He's a nice guy. There's a little too much Toscana talk.
It was a personal issue, but you know what? He was fantastic. Thanks, second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, for coming by.
Good luck with the draft tonight. We'll be back with a new show on Friday with Dan and me.
We'll be talking about next week's debate with one of the moderators of the last one, CNN's Dana Bash. So tune in.
Talk to you then. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at cricket.com slash friends.
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Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.

Our producer is David Toledo.

Our associate producers

are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari.

Reed Cherlin is our executive editor

and Adrian Hill

is our executive producer.

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.
Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Thank you.