MTG: Jesus Was a Felon Too

Speaker 1 October brings it all. Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.
At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all. Mixing up something spooky?

Speaker 1 Total Wine and Moore is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.

Speaker 1 With the lowest prices for over 30 years, you'll always find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and Moore. Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.

Speaker 1 See TotalWine.com for details. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.
Drink responsibly. B21.

Speaker 2 The Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid has a bold design, a spacious interior with 232 horsepower, and a 12.3-inch panoramic display to keep the adventure going and fit with the way you live.

Speaker 2 And with SiriusXM, every drive comes alive, bringing you closer to the music, sports, talk, and podcasts you love, right in your vehicle or on the SiriusXM app.

Speaker 2 Every Sirius XM-equipped Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid includes a three-month trial subscription to SiriusXM, so the experience begins the moment you drive.

Speaker 2 Learn more at kia.com/slash sportage-hybrid, Kia movement that inspires.

Speaker 3 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favreau.

Speaker 4 I'm Tommy Vitor.

Speaker 3 On today's show, Trump whines about sharks, teleprompters, and the heat in Las Vegas while his team pitches more corporate tax cuts and a, quote, post-constitutional vision for a second term.

Speaker 3 Exciting. Sounds great.
The Biden campaign sharpens its attacks on their convicted felon opponent. And then, Pod Save America has been granted the very first

Speaker 3 world-exclusive interview with America's newest reality show sweetheart and or villain. We don't know yet.
John Lovett. Since we're not allowed to ask him how he did or even what he did

Speaker 3 or where he was, Tommy and I will be quizzing Lovett about all the news he missed. Since he has, this is very important, he has not seen or read anything about what happened while he was gone.

Speaker 3 He will be joining us in studio soon. We haven't even seen him yet.
No. We got a brief message that he was back, and that's it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the prodigal son returns. Some of you might be wondering, no preparation, how is this different than a normal week? And to that, we say,

Speaker 3 good joke.

Speaker 3 Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait.
But first, Tommy, you know how you get the Sunday scaries when thinking about your first Monday morning meeting? Always.

Speaker 3 Now imagine that meeting is a video call with a New York probation officer.

Speaker 3 That's how Donald Trump's week started after he got special permission to do the meeting remotely and with his lawyer, because, of course, separate set of rules for Donald Trump than most other convicted felons.

Speaker 3 Usually in these meetings, the officer asks you about your criminal record, employment history, any health conditions, whether you have family responsibilities.

Speaker 3 Can't imagine Trump's ever had any of those. No.
This is an especially tough one for Trump.

Speaker 3 They usually ask whether you're in contact with anyone with a criminal record, which apparently you're not allowed to be if you're on probation.

Speaker 3 All of which will get bundled into a report that will go to Judge Juan Murshon and typically includes a recommendation for what a sentence should be. That report will likely not be made public.

Speaker 3 Trump's defense team has until Thursday to submit its own sentencing recommendation to Judge Murshon and Alvin Bragg will as well.

Speaker 3 And then Mershon will hand down the sentence a month from now on July 11th. What do you think, Tommy? On the one hand, no previous criminal convictions yet.

Speaker 3 On the other hand, Trump is guilty on 34 counts, shown zero remorse, openly trashes the judge and the process, massive civil liabilities in the recent past, including being held liable for sexual assault and fraud.

Speaker 3 What's your recommendation?

Speaker 4 And 10 violations of his own gag order.

Speaker 3 Oh, that's a good one. I forgot that one.

Speaker 4 Before we get to the recommendation, drum roll, I had some dark thoughts reading about this, then some less dark thoughts. Which do you want first? Oh, let's start with the dark.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 4 So if Trump wins,

Speaker 4 he can make all the federal cases go away, right? But not the state cases.

Speaker 4 However, if he wins, the Supreme Court will probably say, okay, the Georgia case, the New York case, all of that has to go on ice while you're president because you have to be able to do the job, which means Trump now has a very compelling reason to stick around for a third term or a fourth term, or you get my gist here.

Speaker 3 I mean, that is a dark thought, but it's also, see, the political hack in me was like, that's a good argument. We should be making that argument.
Let's make it.

Speaker 3 I mean, because the Biden people and everyone's already making the argument that Trump is basically running to keep himself out of jail, but really.

Speaker 4 This goes beyond just his general authoritarian nature, too, and just it's a real survival issue. Okay, so enough of that.

Speaker 4 Les Dark, it is so funny that he's going to have to zoom with his PO and they're going to be like, so tell me about your living situation.

Speaker 3 It's like, well, I I live at a club.

Speaker 4 I have a golf course.

Speaker 3 Employment history. Well, it's a little spotty.
Yeah, what kind of financial resources do you have?

Speaker 4 Well, at the moment, but pretty soon, I'm going to have to cut some checks.

Speaker 3 Just references? References.

Speaker 4 Also, did you know that Trump can submit letters of recommendation from family and friends?

Speaker 3 You know that? I think you can get any?

Speaker 4 I wonder, like, you get a letter from Fox and Friends. I think that Don Eric would do it in crayon.

Speaker 3 I think the not, I didn't know this, that you're like, you're not able to be be in contact with other people who have criminal records while you're on probation.

Speaker 3 Just a, just a list for a reminder for people, people in Trump's orbit who were convicted felons.

Speaker 3 His former campaign manager, former campaign vice chairman, his former chief campaign advisor, three former campaign advisors, his former CFO, former personal lawyer, his former national security advisor, his former White House aide, and two of his former lawyers, and about a dozen others are currently facing federal felony charges and felony charges in multiple states.

Speaker 3 God, that's a lot of people.

Speaker 3 It's gonna be tough to run a campaign and staff a White House if he can't be in contact with other people with criminal records.

Speaker 4 Or just be at his own club, which is full of scumbags and, you know, ne'er-do-wells. I asked ChatGPT to write a brief letter of recommendation

Speaker 4 from a friend of Trump's in New York, a New York financier.

Speaker 4 Want me to read it aloud? Okay. Dear probation officer, I'm writing to advocate for leniency for Mr.
Donald, last name. I didn't want to do Trump because I didn't want it to know.

Speaker 4 A 77-year-old real estate professional recently convicted of financial crimes. As a close friend, I believe he deserves the lightest sentence possible.

Speaker 4 Donald and I have shared many wonderful times together, including memorable visits to my private island and rides on my private plane.

Speaker 4 His advanced age and the non-violent nature of his offenses should be considered in your decision. Thanks for considering this request.

Speaker 4 I'm difficult to reach these days, but please contact my associate, Ghelan, for further questions.

Speaker 3 Sincerely, Jeffrey.

Speaker 4 So that's someone who could weigh in for him. Chat GPT.

Speaker 3 That's a pretty advanced.

Speaker 4 Yes, from Jeffrey. Last name brackets, jet-setting New York financier.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I didn't realize that the AI was getting that smart. It's getting good.
Yeah, that's

Speaker 3 very exciting. So in advance of his sentencing, Trump has, of course, been on his best behavior.

Speaker 3 He's speaking carefully and respectfully everywhere he goes so as not to leave a bad impression on the legal officials who will determine his fate.

Speaker 3 Here he is at a rally in Las Vegas over the weekend after a lovely introduction from Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Speaker 5 The Democrats and the fake news media want to constantly talk about, oh, President Trump is a convicted felon. Well, you want to know something?

Speaker 5 The man that I worship is also a convicted felon.

Speaker 6 and he was murdered on a roman cross by the way a lot of sharkit acts lately do you notice that a lot of sharks i watched some guys justifying it today well they weren't really that angry they bit off the young lady's leg he said there's no problem with sharks they just didn't really understand

Speaker 6 a young woman swimming now it really got decimated and other people to a lot of sharkits i said you know we have a deranged individual named Jack Smith. He's a deranged, dumb guy.

Speaker 6 He's a dumb son of a bitch. But those J6 warriors, they were warriors, but they were really more than anything else.
They're victims of what happened.

Speaker 6 All they were doing is protesting a rigged election. That's what they were doing.
By the way, isn't that breeze nice? Do you feel the breeze?

Speaker 6 Because I don't want anybody going on me. We need every voter.
I don't care about you. I just want your vote.
I don't care.

Speaker 6 See, now the press will take that and they'll say he said a horrible thing.

Speaker 3 I mean, giddy up. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Believe it or not, Tommy, there was policy news in Trump's event.

Speaker 3 He said that as president, he'd asked Congress to stop taxing income from tips, which is obviously a pretty attractive proposal in Vegas, where so many people work in casinos and service industry jobs.

Speaker 3 But you really had to dig around to find that news. The headline of the AP story from the event was, quote, Trump complains about his teleprompters at a scorching Las Vegas rally.

Speaker 3 There was also, we didn't include it, but there was a long riff where he's done this before. He yells at the teleprompter operators because he can't see the teleprompters.
And then he says, And riffs.

Speaker 3 Yeah, when contractors are shitty, I don't pay them. I'm not going to pay them for this.
It's whatever.

Speaker 4 Part of the brand. People like that.

Speaker 3 What do you make of Trump's famous message discipline there? Do you think that rally was politically or legally helpful?

Speaker 4 So I'll divide this in three parts, like the Recovery Act. Sorry, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 The shark attack asides,

Speaker 4 I think it's just kind of funny and entertaining and why people go to these things. The breeze stuff, too.
I do think there's something about a politician saying at a rally, hey guys, don't die.

Speaker 4 I don't care about your health. I just need your votes.

Speaker 3 It's kind of like refreshingly honest in a way.

Speaker 3 The Biden campaign made an ad from that. Okay, sure.

Speaker 3 I don't care about you. I just want your vote line.

Speaker 3 I think it's very useful. It's funny.
And even though he said, like, you know, the media is going to make a big thing of it. And he was like trying to say he was joking.

Speaker 3 It's one of those jokes where there's like a lot of truth in it. He's half kidding.
He's half kidding. Not even half kidding.
Like, he just does want their votes.

Speaker 3 And so I think it's, it does feed into the message that the Biden campaign and I think all of us should be using against Trump, that he only cares about himself.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the line about the January 6th insurrectionists, called them warriors that I do think is a real problem for him and it's also it's kind of like the latest tick up this escalatory

Speaker 4 We are this close to him calling on the police officer who shot Ashley Babbitt to be arrested or prosecuted or honestly don't give him any idea I like you know, it's like he's really

Speaker 4 He's just he's gonna be marching with the Proud Boys in a couple months.

Speaker 3 I mean I think that is actually an incredibly it's it's interesting that the Biden campaign went with the line about I don't care about you. You know, it's funny it sums up their mistakes.

Speaker 4 Well, it's their broader mistake.

Speaker 3 So it's great.

Speaker 3 But like that line, he's right. He's obviously talked about

Speaker 3 them being political prisoners and all that kind of stuff, but calling them warriors who just got, you know, they didn't do anything wrong. They were just protesting a rigged election.

Speaker 3 This stuff is not. I'll tell you, this stuff polls fucking awful.
And it even polls awful with, unfortunately, not all Republicans, but quite a few Republicans as well.

Speaker 4 The line was they were warriors, but they're really, more than anything else, they're victims of what happened.

Speaker 4 Again, these are people who kicked down the doors of the Capitol, smashed through windows, marauded through, beat the hell out of police officers, pulled them down steps, tear gas them, brutalized people.

Speaker 4 I mean, come on.

Speaker 3 I also like,

Speaker 3 it's one thing to say, I don't know if the conviction is going to matter to my vote, or maybe it was a political prosecution, and it's not really a big deal to me.

Speaker 3 That's very, very different from Marjorie Taylor Greene's line that Trump is like Jesus,

Speaker 3 who was also a convicted felon.

Speaker 3 It's not just like this, they're going with this like,

Speaker 3 he is our martyr. Right.
That's not going to fly with people.

Speaker 4 You went to a Jesuit school, Holy Cross.

Speaker 4 I'm less religious, I think, than you. Does that track with your understanding?

Speaker 3 Yes, that Jesus of the Bible. It was actually, it was,

Speaker 3 he was 33 when he died, and it was the 33 felony house. Did he have a PO? It was one less than Trump.
Okay. He did.
He was not able to do it remotely, though. Imagine Christmas at her house.

Speaker 3 Jesus Christ. What did you make of the actual proposal on income

Speaker 4 from tips? The tips proposal.

Speaker 4 I mean, I think this is one of those ideas that sounds very good and described in shorthand, but I think in practice gets complicated and is more likely to benefit corporations.

Speaker 3 So the perfect Trump policy. Literally, I wrote that down.

Speaker 4 So the argument for not taxing tips is that tipped workers generally make lower wages, they deserve a tax break, and the accounting process can be onerous for both them and for small businesses.

Speaker 4 Also, taxing tips could encourage people not to report them in the first place, right? So you could see the challenges there.

Speaker 4 The argument for taxing tips is you want all income to be taxed uniformly just for fairness reasons. And taxes on tips go to essential services like any other tax.

Speaker 4 They also go to Social Security, Medicare, et cetera.

Speaker 4 But most of all, the real concern about Trump's idea is if employers know tips aren't taxed, they will probably try to pay the lowest wages possible and push employees to make it up themselves with tips.

Speaker 4 So Democrats...

Speaker 3 The employers have to pay the tax as well. Yes.

Speaker 4 And so Democrats generally say, let's keep tips taxed, but let's increase the minimum wage. Let's put in place strong labor protections, et cetera.
Let's get to a Medicare for all-like system.

Speaker 4 Republicans, they pitch this idea because they're anti-government, they're anti-tax, and they want to cut regulation.

Speaker 4 So exactly as you said, this idea probably sounds really good to people, polls really well, but I think in the end could hurt workers.

Speaker 3 Well, and also, Democrats now don't just want to raise the minimum wage. They want to to eliminate, Joe Biden wants to eliminate the tipped minimum wage.

Speaker 3 And that's a better way to do it so that a lot of workers don't have to rely on tips, that they can get the same minimum wage as everyone else and then increase that minimum wage for all workers.

Speaker 3 In fact, Biden already, in the last four years, has issued an order requiring federal contractors to pay tipped workers the same minimum wage as everyone else.

Speaker 3 So that's, I think that's a better way to do it. But, you know, Trump's saying that in Vegas with a lot of of service workers, you can see people be like, oh, yeah.
All they see is like, oh,

Speaker 3 yeah, it's a tax cut, and I don't have to pay taxes anymore. Like, that's kind of cool, even though will he get it through a Republican Congress

Speaker 3 or any Congress, right? And wouldn't it be better to just give people a higher minimum wage? Yes.

Speaker 3 So last time Trump was president, his economic agenda consisted almost entirely of a corporate tax cut and tariffs. And it looks like he's planning to double down on both of those in a second term.

Speaker 3 Washington Post reported on Monday that he actually wants to give corporations and rich people yet another tax cut if he wins.

Speaker 3 The New York Times also had a report over the weekend about how his plan to cut taxes on corporations, raise taxes on anything you buy that's made abroad.

Speaker 3 That's the universal across-the-board tariff that he wants to do.

Speaker 3 And deport millions of undocumented immigrants all will likely increase prices and make inflation much worse.

Speaker 3 How do you think Democrats should push back on this? Like, do you lose people as soon as you start talking about

Speaker 3 economic policy and get into the weeds? On the other hand, like every poll I've ever seen, you know, tax cuts for the rich are the most unpopular policy or one of the most unpopular policies.

Speaker 3 And that's sort of where Democrats traditionally have Republicans on the ropes.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, I want to know what you think about this. I absolutely believe that these policy ideas would be inflationary.

Speaker 4 I am skeptical about our ability to explain it to voters in a concise way, especially when you get into the specifics of some of the policies, because part of the argument is about Trump's immigration policies, which is an area where Joe Biden starts way, way, way underwater as compared to Trump.

Speaker 4 Another piece is tariffs on Chinese imports or Chinese goods that come to the country. And again, it seems like voters like policies that are harsh on China.

Speaker 4 Now, you're right that Trump has also proposed just an across-the-board tariff on all imports.

Speaker 4 But I agree, I think the lowest-hanging fruit here is the Republican plan to give more tax cuts to the richest people in the country and to corporations.

Speaker 4 There was some recent Pew polling that found 60% of voters say they are bothered a lot by the feeling that rich people and corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.

Speaker 4 I think those people are right to be pissed. And the Republican plan would also explode the debt.
I think it's $4.6 trillion over a decade just if you extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts.

Speaker 4 But Trump and his buddies in Congress apparently want to go further than just the 2017 tax cut.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think... I think it can be a very powerful, compelling story, but you've got to tell the story and you've got to include sort of motivation in it instead of just talking about the policy.

Speaker 3 And, you know, Trump basically passed one major piece of legislation in four years in the White House. And it was a tax cut for the rich that cost four trillion dollars and that he wants to extend.

Speaker 3 So it costs $4 trillion over the next 10 years. And then he wants to add another trillion dollars to it, right? So he wants to spend $5 trillion in a tax cut that goes mainly to the rich.

Speaker 3 He wants you to pay for it because it's adding to the deficit and he's not paying for it and he didn't pay for the last one. That's all he did last time.
Did he pass anything to help workers?

Speaker 4 No. By the way, he could have done this tipped wage proposal last time too.

Speaker 3 He just didn't want to do it, right? Because he's bullshit.

Speaker 3 And now he is meeting with campaign donors and telling them like rich billionaires and saying, hey, vote for me and I'll get you another tax cut.

Speaker 3 He's meeting with oil companies and being like, hey, vote for me and I'll make sure that you get more subsidies as well. And I'll cut regulations.
And I'll cut regulations for you.

Speaker 3 So that's what Trump's out there doing. And I think Joe Biden, like, this is a good one for the debate.
Like, Donald Trump keeps attacking Joe Biden about inflation.

Speaker 3 It's like, what are you going to do for inflation? How does giving a huge tax cut to rich people, how does that help inflation? How does that help people with their costs?

Speaker 3 I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, right? Like, Joe Biden wants the rich to pay more in taxes so he can cut the deficit and give everyone else a break.

Speaker 3 You know, it's tricky because it doesn't get covered as much as the more identity-inflected cultural issues that we talk about, these economic issues, because it's not 2012 anymore.

Speaker 3 Like last time we ran this campaign.

Speaker 3 But again, I think you can tell a story that paints Trump as just there to take care of himself and his rich friends and not you.

Speaker 3 And I think that that works on a more emotional level than just the policy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and Biden wants to let the tax cuts expire for people who make more than $400,000, but he also wants to put new taxes on businesses.

Speaker 4 I think he wants to raise the rate from 21% to 28% to pay for investments in childcare, elder care, housing, education. So things people really, really care about.
And I'm, you know, and again, like

Speaker 4 Republicans will call it, you know, tax and spend liberalism, but I think there's a big majority in this country who don't think that corporations pay enough in taxes, period.

Speaker 3 And by the way, like this is one of the larger stakes in the election.

Speaker 3 You can sit here and think there's a lot of, maybe this won't happen because the Congress will look like this and the president won't get this done and we don't know what's the tax cuts are set to expire at the end of the year.

Speaker 3 So no matter who's president, there's going to be a major fight about taxes early on in 2025. And again, like $4 trillion is at stake here.

Speaker 3 And either they're going to be renewed for a decade or they're not. And that's going to mean a lot for people's taxes, for the deficit, for what people pay, for affordability.

Speaker 3 And so, like, no matter who wins, no matter what happens in Congress, this is getting decided next year. And so, people should focus on it as a big issue in this election.

Speaker 8 Outdated systems and inefficient communications are bad news for your supply chain.

Speaker 8 But with Verizon Business, everything just clicks.

Speaker 8 With our advanced connectivity solutions, you can automate your operations. Plus, you can keep your teams connected and on top of the job, helping you stay ahead of demand and the competition.

Speaker 8 It's the chain reaction your distribution needs. Learn more at Verizon.com slash distribution.

Speaker 10 Hey, weirdos, I'm Elena, and I'm Ash, and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 12 Each week, we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 10 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 9 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 10 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 12 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 7 Yay! Woo! Aye!

Speaker 13 Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odo, the only business software you'll ever need.

Speaker 13 It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. From CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more.

Speaker 13 And the best part, Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.
So why not you? Try Odo for free at odo.com.

Speaker 13 That's odoo.com.

Speaker 3 So the guy in charge of Trump's budget proposals during his first term, former OMB director Russell Vogt, may play a big role in a second Trump term.

Speaker 3 Along with Stephen Miller, Vogt has been floated by people close to Trump as a possible White House chief of staff, and that should scare the shit out of us.

Speaker 3 Vogt is currently spearheading the infamous Project 2025 blueprint that would turn America into a Christian nationalist paradise.

Speaker 3 And he has written that, quote, we are living in a post-constitutional time. I still don't know what that means.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think it means Trump can act like a dictator.

Speaker 3 Yeah, like who cares about the Constitution? That's sort of, yeah, that's what I took out to do. The Washington Post just ran a chilling rundown of who Vote is and what he's planning.

Speaker 3 You can read it and see what you think post-constitutional means from the article. Tommy, what should people know about Rust Vote?

Speaker 4 I mean, I think you gave the top lines some of the specific things he thinks is that we should no longer treat the Department of Justice like an independent agency.

Speaker 4 So that means the president can direct the Attorney General to target his or her enemies.

Speaker 3 He feels so strongly about that. Apparently, he said, if anyone brings up the DOJ's independence in a White House meeting, I want them out of the meeting.

Speaker 4 That's a rational way to think about

Speaker 4 the conversation. He wants to redefine illegal immigration as an invasion and use that authority to authorize wartime powers to stop it.
Not sure exactly what that means.

Speaker 4 They want, Rust Vote wants Trump to be able to unilaterally withhold funding appropriated by Congress. I think the Constitution is pretty clear about appropriations being Congress's job.

Speaker 4 So, basically, I mean, I think the big picture on guys like this is that any Trump term, a second Trump term, is scary, but there's a version of it that is primarily staffed by an army of Stephen Millers.

Speaker 4 And I would account this Russ Vote guy as among them, who not only have very scary and extreme views, but are willing to do things that are extra-constitutional to fully erode our democracy and push us into a situation where we're more like a country like Hungary, where our courts are packed with right-wing judges, districts are gerrymandered to entrench Republican control, the DOJ is going after the press, they're going after opposition leaders, and we're talking about like fundamental changes to the character of America that will be very, very difficult to walk back.

Speaker 4 And like that is what's so scary when you read about these people in totality, their plans, their staffing, and and the fact that they have just like a vengeful boss at the top of the ticket that is willing to do anything to win and then just punish the people he hates now.

Speaker 3 I also think that's a version that we're almost certainly going to get.

Speaker 4 It's the more likely version.

Speaker 3 Much more likely for a few reasons. One, there's a lot of Republicans, career officials, even Democrats who are just never going to work in a second Trump term, right?

Speaker 3 He lost a whole bunch of people at the end of the first term because of the whole insurrection thing.

Speaker 3 Two, they are giving loyalty tests to every single person who worked there, so they're going to be smarter in who they hire.

Speaker 3 So now they are scraping the bottom of the barrel and they are making sure that when they scrape the bottom of the barrel, they only get people who are super, super loyal to Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 And then the other thing is...

Speaker 3 There's a lot of like debate about, you know, is Trump going to spend time and effort doing all these horrible things? Or is he just going to be so lazy that he doesn't care?

Speaker 3 And he just, you know, sort of is corrupt and makes himself rich and tweets all the time and that's about it.

Speaker 3 You don't really even need to solve that debate on this because if he is not paying attention and he's just like an idiot hanging around the Oval Office watching TV and eating hamburgers, the rest of the government is going to be staffed by people like Vote who have a lot of power and can do all this shit without Trump.

Speaker 4 And they know how to use the levers of power. Also, they want to do something called Schedule F.

Speaker 4 They want to get rid of civil service protections, which will basically allow them to push out a bunch of professional technocrats from government and install political appointees.

Speaker 4 They've talked about going after attorneys at agencies who have stymied them at times by telling them things were not legal.

Speaker 4 They want to change the nature of those attorneys so they get the answers they want. So it's very, very scary.

Speaker 4 Trump, we were a little bit, look, there was very annoying narrative early on in the Trump administration about the Committee to Save America, all the adults in charge, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 3 I think those people on balance

Speaker 4 will a hell of a lot better than the second Trump term. But also, I think we benefited from the fact that no one one knew what they were doing.
It was chaos.

Speaker 4 It was like Steve Bannon, you know, just knifing his opponents in the press all day, every day. The second round will be streamlined.

Speaker 3 And this guy, Russ Vogt, I mean, he said he wants to stock federal agencies with disciples who would wage culture wars on abortion and immigration.

Speaker 3 He's not just against illegal immigration, but against legal immigration.

Speaker 3 He said that it isn't healthy, that we have to, he's questioned whether immigration at all is healthy, whether it's legal or not.

Speaker 3 He also argues for no separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society. And then on abortion, he said it's not just that he is very anti-abortion.

Speaker 3 He thinks that the family, quote, is a quote from him, the families of the West are not having enough babies for their societies to endure.

Speaker 4 There's, yeah, if you, um, if you hear someone just in your family or in your life talking about the declining birth rate, you should start to inquire about what they're reading because it's a real sign, it's a real red flag or orange flag by the Nikki Media.

Speaker 4 He also has talked about abolishing abortion drugs and talked about a Christian immigration ethic when it comes to immigration policy.

Speaker 3 That means it's white people only. Yes.

Speaker 4 It's very concerning.

Speaker 3 They interviewed this Mike Pence advisor

Speaker 3 for the piece.

Speaker 3 They interviewed Mark Short, who was the former chief of staff, and then someone else, this guy, Chapman, who's Hence's group Advancing American Freedom.

Speaker 3 And he said there's a marriage of convenience between Russ and Trump.

Speaker 3 Russ has been pursuing an ideological agenda for a long time and views Trump's second term as the best way to achieve it, while Trump needs people in his second term who are loyal and committed and adept at using the tools of the federal government.

Speaker 3 To me, that like perfectly sums up what we're going to get in a second Trump term is a bunch of like right-wing freaks, Christian nationalist freaks who like don't necessarily love Trump, but are like, oh, I can get in there and do all the shit that I've been wanting to do forever because he's kind of an idiot who's not going to pay attention and I'm going to have all this power.

Speaker 4 Yeah, use the mechanics and processes of democracy to subvert it. It's not good.

Speaker 3 Let's talk about Joe Biden. The president just returned from his trip to France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Speaker 3 He echoed Reagan with his speech at Ponda Hawk and talked about the struggle to defend democracy and tyranny.

Speaker 3 Predictably, MAGA World took this as an attack on their favored tyrant, even though Biden didn't mention Trump by name or allude to him in any way.

Speaker 3 Biden also didn't mention Trump when he visited the cemetery for Americans killed in France during World War I, though the campaign was happy for the coverage to note that it was the same cemetery Trump reportedly refused to visit in 2018 because it was filled with with, quote, losers who were, quote, suckers for getting killed.

Speaker 3 A story confirmed by Trump's former White House chief of staff, John Kelly. Tommy, what do you make of the contrast here?

Speaker 3 On the one hand, you know, suckers and losers, a deep cut. That is a deep cut from 2018, 2019, 2020, maybe.

Speaker 4 This story, that anecdote first emerged in an Atlantic story in 2020 that at the time was sourced to anonymous officials, but clearly what happened is Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, was at the Aspen Ideas Festival or something, and he got boozed up.

Speaker 3 one is.

Speaker 4 Boozed up with John Kelly, who laid this all out. And then last year, 2023, John Kelly got pissed off and confirmed everything on the record to Jake Tapper via email.

Speaker 4 He told Jake that, you know, Trump said the troops who were held as POWs or were killed were suckers, didn't want to be seen in the presence of amputees because it didn't look good for him, called dead Americans and World War II losers, refused to visit their graves in France because he didn't want to get his hair messed up.

Speaker 4 So like, now that that's on the record, I think like now we're cooking with gas, right?

Speaker 3 This, it, it shows how selfish Trump is.

Speaker 4 It shows how awful he is. It's visceral.
But what I think we're missing is like, John Kelly, go do an interview with Jake Tapper on camera about this. Yeah.
You know what I mean? I know.

Speaker 3 He really could use his voice on this.

Speaker 4 Biden is deeply, profoundly, personally offended by these comments. You can hear it in his voice.
But I think... Sunserved in Iraq.
Yeah, but I think what really matters is the messenger.

Speaker 4 And I think it will be even stronger coming from veterans themselves. And God, if you could get someone like John Kelly to be like, this is what he said to me.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I also found the MAGA reaction to the D-Day speech like hilariously telling.

Speaker 3 Breitbart, Joel Pollack, said that Biden's speech was, quote, a veiled attack on his domestic political opposition in the upcoming election.

Speaker 3 And Eric Erickson said, I don't think it was appropriate for Biden to turn the remembrance of D-Day into a political attack on his opponent.

Speaker 3 So I read the speech and I was like, I wonder if there was like one of those veiled Trump references. No, not at all.
It's just talks, he talks about hateful ideologies that aren't democracy.

Speaker 4 There's a lot of

Speaker 4 like maybe Trump people out there. I put Erickson in that camp of like, they're offended by him.
They know he is a bad person.

Speaker 4 He doesn't ascribe to their sort of like personal moral viewpoint, the views of the world, but they need to find a way to manufacture a way to get themselves to come back and support him again.

Speaker 4 So they just make up stuff like this.

Speaker 3 But it's just, it's like, oh, I was just talking about how democracy is good and tyranny tyranny's bad.

Speaker 3 That's an attack on your guy?

Speaker 3 I didn't know he was.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I didn't know this was 1930s Germany.

Speaker 3 I mean, part of it is like he was directly talking about Vladimir Putin, right? He like mentioned Russia and Putin. But the fact that they take an attack on Putin is also now an attack on Trump.

Speaker 4 Or and he just comments about World War II and defeating the Nazis.

Speaker 3 It's fucking wild. So the Biden team has been much sharper and more direct in their attacks on Trump lately, especially on his status as a convicted felon.

Speaker 3 The vice president herself delivered a speech in Michigan on Saturday night where she went harder at Trump's conviction than I think anyone in the administration so far. Let's listen to Kamala Harris.

Speaker 14 Donald Trump openly tried to overturn the last election.

Speaker 14 And now he openly

Speaker 14 attacks the foundations of our justice system. Cheaters don't like getting caught.

Speaker 3 So there was also a political story about the Biden folks ramping up the campaign to, quote, calm Democratic nerves, where one senior Biden official is quoted as saying, the sky is blue and Donald Trump is a convicted felon.

Speaker 3 We're not going to shy away from what the reality is. What's your take? Do you see any difference in the campaign's approach over the last couple weeks?

Speaker 3 Any additional insight you gained from talking to Michael Tyler, who's the communications director at the Biden campaign? Was that the political story that also folded in

Speaker 4 like allowing Ukraine to hit targets in parts of Russia with U.S. weapons as like a campaign reset in Arabic?

Speaker 3 Yeah, campaign shake-up. That's one of the campaign shake-up things.
Yeah, so the whole story was a touch-overwritten written to me. Voters were clamoring for that.

Speaker 4 I don't think Jake Sullivan and the national security team was like, let's let him hit targets in Russia near Kharkiv. That'll get us to swing.

Speaker 4 No, but I was glad to hear the vice president just unload like that because it is a fact that he's a convicted felon. It is a fact that he led an insurrection.
It is a fact that he's a cheater.

Speaker 4 And whether it's like golf or marriage or campaign finance laws, he doesn't like getting caught. I do think it folds nicely into their frame of this is a guy running for himself and his rich buddies.

Speaker 4 The one like note that always kind of lands off to me is I do think they need to be careful about seeming angry at criticisms of the Justice Department or justice system at all, because the voters we really need know that the justice system is flawed.

Speaker 4 They know it makes mistakes. They know it can be racist and they know it can disproportionately harm poor people.

Speaker 4 And there are times in the messaging that's kind of like, how dare he attack our justice system? It's like, no, we're allowed to criticize the justice system.

Speaker 4 But what you need to know is this wasn't the system that found him guilty. This was 12 citizens who heard a bunch of evidence.

Speaker 3 On the wilderness this weekend, this latest episode is an episode focused on black voters, undecided black voters.

Speaker 3 And I talked to our friend Terrence Woodbury, who's conducted countless focus groups of black voters, as well as LaVora Barnes, who's the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party.

Speaker 3 And I asked them about this, about Trump's like, oh, I'm going to now win over black voters because they're also pissed at the criminal justice system.

Speaker 3 And they said the voters they've talked to, the voters LaVora talked to in Michigan and then Terrence did a focus group after the conviction, like they clearly think it's ridiculous that Donald Trump has something in common with them, right?

Speaker 3 And they think it's like kind of a racist statement to make. But Terrence said to me, he's like, there is something real in there.

Speaker 3 with feelings about the justice system and feelings about institutions in general.

Speaker 3 And I do think that the more effective message one set of rules for Donald Trump, one set of rules for everyone else, because everyone else who faces the justice system does not get anywhere near the benefits and the special favors that Donald Trump has received since he has been a convicted felon or since he's been a defendant.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no one else is getting to meet with their PO via Zoom with a lawyer from a country club.

Speaker 3 No one else could violate a gag order 10 times and not end up in fucking prison.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and Terrence, I think, made very similar points about the way we talk about democracy is not this sort of perfect system that we need to protect at all costs.

Speaker 4 It's, you know, something we need to constantly improve.

Speaker 3 Yeah. You can't be, I mean, the challenge that Joe Biden has, that every Democrat has now is defending democracy, which is also defending a set of institutions that people have lost faith in.

Speaker 3 And that's a real challenge.

Speaker 3 So you have to continue to be the person who's going to fight to fix those and make them fair for everyone against someone who wants to rig those institutions just for themselves.

Speaker 3 Like, I think that's the message.

Speaker 4 Yeah, broadly, it's challenging to be an incumbent right now.

Speaker 4 We just saw a bunch of elections in Europe for the EU parliament that didn't go very well for a lot of incumbents, including the French and the Germans and others.

Speaker 4 So, yeah, I mean, it's like it's hard to defend a system. It's hard to defend government generally because it's imperfect and flawed.

Speaker 4 And it's especially hard right now with inflation and coming off a pandemic when people feel like maybe the government didn't get it right at times.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And what worries me is the more people tune out and the less they pay attention, the harder it is on incumbents.
And it's not just an ideological thing.

Speaker 3 Like you guys have been talking about Rishi Sunak. Like he's in trouble, right? Like it doesn't matter where you are in the political spectrum.
He's a moron. He's a moron.

Speaker 3 But incumbents across the political spectrum are facing the similar sentiment, right? Which is, I'm just pissed off. I'm angry.
Who's in charge? I'm going to vote them up.

Speaker 3 And I think that that's why Biden constantly has to turn it into a choice.

Speaker 4 You're seeing elections all over the world where incumbents mostly are doing very badly.

Speaker 4 And you're seeing instances where brand new political parties are getting propped up and created and peeling off big chunks of the vote because people are like, you know what? All politicians are bad.

Speaker 4 They're all the same. So let's burn it down or try something totally new and radical.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I don't just mention that as a downer.

Speaker 3 We should realize that this is not just a Biden problem that Biden's facing, right?

Speaker 3 And so that if Biden were anyone else, if he were younger, if he was like, you know, the most talented communicator America has ever had, right?

Speaker 3 He would still be facing a lot of these challenges because they're just systemic, which again is why you got to make it about the choice. A couple quick things before we go to break.

Speaker 3 Pride is in full swing, and you can help us hit our $100,000 fundraising goal for our Pride or Else fund in support of organizations fighting bans on gender-affirming care and protecting trans kids.

Speaker 3 You can donate directly to the fund, or you can let Crooked do it for you when you shop our new Pride or Else collection in the Crooked store. We'll donate a portion of the proceeds to the fund.

Speaker 3 Learn more at crooked.com/slash pride.

Speaker 3 And speaking of the crooked store, we're kicking off summer with an accessory sale. Tons of items are up to 30% off, so now's the perfect time to stock up on totes, candles, mugs, and more.

Speaker 3 Everything you need to add a little crooked to your morning coffee, your next canvassing shift, or your sock drawer. The sale ends at midnight.

Speaker 3 Head to crooked.com/slash store to get up to 30% off the best accessories. When we come back, the man himself, John Lovett.

Speaker 15 Hey, this is Will Arnett, host of Smartless. Smartless is a podcast with myself and Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman, where each week one of us reveals a mystery guest to the other two.

Speaker 15 We dive deep with guests that you love, like Bill Hayter, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Kristen Stewart, and tons more.

Speaker 15 So join us for a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed feed the smartless mind. Listen to Smartless Now on the Sirius XM app.

Speaker 15 Download it today.

Speaker 13 Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odo, the only business software you'll ever need.

Speaker 13 It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. From CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more.

Speaker 13 And the best part, Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.
So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odo.com.

Speaker 13 That's odoo.com.

Speaker 11 With TikTok ads, our revenue went up $10 million year over year during back-to-school season. Penn Foster is online education.

Speaker 11 TikTok is great because the reach is incredible for finding a lot of different types of audiences on the platform. Creator content at scale allowed us to easily develop and distribute creator-led ads.

Speaker 11 Our return on ad spend for TikTok is 21% higher than the Nexbus channel.

Speaker 3 Start growing your business today. Head over to getstarted.tiktok.com/slash TikTok ads.

Speaker 3 Whoa! There he is!

Speaker 3 There, look who's here! Well, well, well,

Speaker 3 I'm back. We're rolling.

Speaker 3 Did you find your way here in a raft? How did you get?

Speaker 4 He is offensively tan.

Speaker 7 The only thing, can I, I'll say,

Speaker 7 the only piece of news that has been spoiled for me is

Speaker 7 when I turned on my phone, it would have been spoiled anyway, but the first thing I saw that had a spoiler was a fundraising text from Roe Khanna telling me that Trump had been convicted, but then everyone had texted me that.

Speaker 3 Fucking Ro Khanna. Ro, you owe us a broken story.
Oh, so is everyone. They all did.
One's been a bit more. All of the fake bots did.
All of the fake bots. No, no, no, no.
Don't absolve him.

Speaker 3 Congressman Khanna, we want an apology.

Speaker 7 But yes, we do. But so he was, he was the first.

Speaker 7 Yeah, so that was, there was a crush of text about that, but that was the first one I saw okay so now that you're back

Speaker 3 we thought it would be fun to give you a little news quiz okay about what happened while you were gone uh this is a game we're calling the immunity idol can't save you now bitch

Speaker 7 and tommy had a baby

Speaker 3 all right so um as you just mentioned rocana did spoil the biggest piece of news for you about donald trump's conviction but we do have one question about some of what happened outside the courtroom which of these things did not happen did not happen so two of them them happened, one of them did not.

Speaker 3 A

Speaker 3 Donald Trump appeared on stage at a post-conviction rally in the Bronx with a rapper who's been indicted for attempted murder.

Speaker 3 B, Robert De Niro called a Trump supporter a fucking idiot during a Biden campaign press conference that he headlined outside the courtroom.

Speaker 3 C, Tim Scott went on Fox News to decry the verdict and actually ended up literally crying.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 7 That's actually very difficult.

Speaker 7 I don't think Tim Scott cried.

Speaker 3 Is that right? Yes. What? Yes.
I don't think he cried.

Speaker 7 I'm sure he did something very pathetic, but I don't think he cried. I don't really know what he did.

Speaker 3 I just okay. But how about Robert De Niro doing a press conference

Speaker 3 organized by the Biden campaign?

Speaker 7 So you know why I thought that was true? You know why I thought that was true? Is because you can get Robert De Niro to go to something in New York.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 7 That's right. Like it's basically, I think it's like, it's like a quick drive for him.

Speaker 3 That's why I figured it was. He'd get a press conference.

Speaker 3 He got in a heated exchange with with some with some hecklers trump supporter hecklers they were telling they were saying fuck him he was saying fuck you back it was a real

Speaker 3 that was before the verdict it was real new york

Speaker 7 it was before the any other questions about how the verdict went down well i mean so i guess what i want to understand is okay so he's a he's convicted he's so he's a felon yeah and my first thought was if again if i had like google or if i'd like gone to look at anything and i like i was gonna go find out what was happening it would be like to look up okay does ron de santis have have to give him his vote back?

Speaker 3 Like, oh, oh, so that was, it's funny. That was one of the first questions.

Speaker 3 The Florida law is if you're out of state or if you were convicted out of state, it's up to the state's laws that you were convicted in. So New York, unless you're in prison in New York, you can vote.

Speaker 3 Okay, okay, okay, all right. That was

Speaker 3 someone asked Ron DeSantis and Ron DeSantis said, of course, oh, I will, I will, if, if necessary, I'll do whatever we need to make sure he gets his vote back.

Speaker 3 Even though other convicted felons in Florida, despite the passage passage of Amendment 4, the ballot measure,

Speaker 3 they still have to pay all these fees in order to get their rights back.

Speaker 4 Trump did a Zoom with his probation officer today.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Today was the probation officer meeting, and the sentence will be July 11th.

Speaker 3 This is so fun. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Hold on. Okay.

Speaker 7 So wait, what?

Speaker 7 Oh, wait, wait, when's sentencing?

Speaker 3 Sentence is July 11th.

Speaker 3 Three days before the Republican National Convention. Perfect.

Speaker 7 But if it's, I mean, if he's sentenced to jail, they don't, it could happen that day.

Speaker 3 No, because the sentence, he probably won't have to serve the sentence until the appeals process goes through, and the appeals process will push it well past the election. So we're not going to get.

Speaker 7 Because Martha Stewart eventually said, fuck it, take me to jail. Right.
So

Speaker 3 we're not going to get Trump jail time before, we don't think, before the election. But

Speaker 3 about nine hours of deliberation, and they came back with the verdict.

Speaker 7 Have we heard from any of the jurors? Have any of the jurors done any press tours?

Speaker 3 No, but there was a hoax where someone on Facebook posted a

Speaker 3 post on Facebook that that said, hey,

Speaker 3 my cousin is a Trump juror. And guess what? He's going to be convicted.
And then Judge Mershon had to like say that this is a post that was there. And then MAGA was like, this is it.

Speaker 3 It's going to be a mistrial. And then the guy was like, I'm a shit poster.
It was just a joke.

Speaker 3 That just happened this weekend. That's a recent one.
Wow. Okay.
We haven't heard from any of that. There was a whole story about maybe one of the jurors was a Trump plant.

Speaker 3 Everyone was worried before the verdict.

Speaker 3 that like Mark Caputo for the Bulwark wrote this whole thing that was like, there's this one juror that every time Trump and all of his friends come into the courtroom is like smiling at them and nodding and they lit up when J.D.

Speaker 3 Vance walks.

Speaker 4 It was the entire story about eye contact.

Speaker 3 Wow. Entire story.

Speaker 7 And so nine hours. Yeah.
Nine hours. But they said, yes, they convicted on all accounts.
All counts.

Speaker 3 34 counts. Wow.

Speaker 7 Oh, there's lots of specious reporting that Trump may have been sleeping and farting throughout the day.

Speaker 4 No, without.

Speaker 3 He was sleeping.

Speaker 7 Sleeping and farting was reported before I left.

Speaker 3 Okay, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 Well, the farting was ongoing, so you know.

Speaker 7 Was there any new farting?

Speaker 3 There was no new farting.

Speaker 3 You didn't miss any new farting.

Speaker 3 Yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 All right, Tom.

Speaker 3 So there was some big debate news while you were gone.

Speaker 4 Which of these things didn't happen?

Speaker 3 Okay. A.

Speaker 4 Joe Biden challenged Donald Trump to two debates in a video that ended with, Make My Day.

Speaker 3 B.

Speaker 4 Donald Trump said he wants Joe Biden to take a drug test before they debate.

Speaker 7 He said that before. I believe that that's real.

Speaker 4 C, the two campaigns couldn't agree on the rules. The moderators were the networks, and as of now, there are no debates scheduled.

Speaker 3 D.

Speaker 4 The first debate will be in June, and the second will be in September.

Speaker 4 One did not happen.

Speaker 3 Only one did not happen.

Speaker 7 I'll say no debates.

Speaker 3 We got a debate. We got a couple weeks.

Speaker 3 June. The night between our Brooklyn event and the Boston PSA show, Thursday night, there's going to be a debate.

Speaker 7 What?

Speaker 7 Was it like a game of chicken? Why are we debating in June?

Speaker 3 It was.

Speaker 3 It happened so fast. It happened so fast.

Speaker 3 One day, biden released this this video said that they want to do away with the commission great and we made the sets so it was in it was first thing in the morning that biden campaign released the video and within like two hours the trump campaign was like we agree let's do it done two debates one in june uh jake tapper danabash cnn in atlanta and then this no audience that was part of the rules and they get to cut off your mic if you go past that's good so it's like all the rules that the biden folks wanted which is really weird that trump agreed to it and then the second one is ABC, I believe, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 3 ABC in early September.

Speaker 4 Hosted by Cat Turd2.

Speaker 3 Okay,

Speaker 7 they got Cat Turd 2. And yeah, honestly, I can't even remember some of the people we hate.

Speaker 3 Well, here comes the next one. And the vice presidential debate's going to be, they haven't figured out the date yet, but they've agreed to that sometime after.
Obviously, Trump picks the VP.

Speaker 7 Right, right. I was about to say, I was like,

Speaker 7 right.

Speaker 4 Okay, so we don't know who that is yet.

Speaker 7 So it has to be after.

Speaker 3 But wait.

Speaker 7 But why? I don't understand. They've never, it's it's before they're even officially the nominees.

Speaker 3 I know.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's weird. I know.

Speaker 3 And oh, and RFK is very upset about it, which we're going to get to next. RFK is very upset about it because he thinks that he could qualify

Speaker 7 for the commission debates.

Speaker 3 Well, and CNN has rules that you have to be 15% in four national polls or you have to be on the ballot in enough states that equals 270.

Speaker 3 And RFK, I think, has hit the polling threshold, but not necessarily. He's saying he hit the

Speaker 3 ballot thing, but no one else has confirmed that yet.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's a problem.

Speaker 3 Well, that's something. But he thinks he can get it by September, but I don't think he can get it by June.

Speaker 3 But we don't know. That's still ongoing.

Speaker 3 Speaking of RFK,

Speaker 4 it is June. 17 days.
Yeah, 17 days.

Speaker 3 Can you imagine that? It's going to be a big

Speaker 3 last week. It's going to be before after the show.

Speaker 3 It's between shows.

Speaker 3 It's Thursday, so we have the Brooklyn show Wednesday night. The debate is Thursday night after our book event.
And then Friday night is the Boston show. Oh, wow.
It's good content. It's good content.

Speaker 3 Okay. Great content.
So some RFK news when you were out. The New York Times, big story in the New York Times, reported that RFK Jr.
has suffered from what medical issue?

Speaker 3 A, a drug-resistant STD that could have been prevented with the vaccine. B, a parasitic worm that ate part of his brain.
C, a hospitalization caused by taking too much ivermectin.

Speaker 7 One's true? One is true.

Speaker 3 Sorry. Yes,

Speaker 3 one is true.

Speaker 7 STD?

Speaker 3 Brain worms. Brain worms.
He has brain worms?

Speaker 3 He had a worm that ate part of his brain.

Speaker 4 In 2010, he was experiencing memory loss and mental fogginess. So he went to a doctor and they determined that there had been some sort of worm in his brain that consumed a portion of it.

Speaker 3 What? Do we know that?

Speaker 7 And then died.

Speaker 3 And died in his brain.

Speaker 3 He's fully recovered from it. Well, considering that.
So says RFK Jr.

Speaker 3 You can't fully recover from a brain eating your worm eating your brain.

Speaker 7 They don't, that part, those don't grow back.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, no kidding. That's that happened for Thurf Kid Jr.
Actually, honestly, okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 7 That's how that's how you go from being an environmental lawyer to whatever this is. Doesn't explain the people around him.
Maybe it's contagious.

Speaker 3 So, well, speaking of the people around him, there's also a big story that his VP candidate did have sex with Elon Musk while on ketamine at a party.

Speaker 7 I mean, I feel like the ketamine part is sort of comes with the territory.

Speaker 3 Tell me, go ahead.

Speaker 7 Does it make it better or worse?

Speaker 3 I don't know. I don't know.
Okay.

Speaker 4 There was a pretty wild Supreme Court controversy a few weeks ago that is still making big news.

Speaker 3 We're going to take it in a couple parts.

Speaker 4 First, what expletive did a neighbor say to Justice Alito's wife as the two of them, the justice and his wife, were out taking a walk that sparked this multi-week controversy? Is it A, slut?

Speaker 4 B, shit for brains.

Speaker 4 C the C word.

Speaker 3 Oh,

Speaker 7 it can't be the C word, can it? I'm going to say shit for brains.

Speaker 4 See you next Tuesday, pal.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry. Someone, what?

Speaker 7 Someone on the street just... So, so Alito's wife got astray.

Speaker 3 Oh, it gets so much better.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 4 So this is, so it's the facts of how this fight originated. We'll get to that.

Speaker 4 So this fight escalated when Mrs. Alito did what?

Speaker 4 A keyed a neighbor's car. B harassed a neighbor on social media with a fake account.
C flew a stop the steal flag outside their home, the Alito home.

Speaker 7 It's got to be the fake account, right?

Speaker 3 Oh no.

Speaker 3 Mrs.

Speaker 3 There was a stop the steel. There was an upside-down American flag flown a couple weeks after January 6th outside the Alito's home, and the neighbors got a picture of it.

Speaker 3 It was on the front page of the New York Times.

Speaker 3 Samuel Alito.

Speaker 7 Samuel Alito.

Speaker 7 I'm sorry.

Speaker 7 Flags are not like, oh, whose spouse's flag is in front of that?

Speaker 3 Well, it's funny you should say that. It's his flag.
In Alito's very long explanation letter, he said, I cannot control my wife and the flags that she flies.

Speaker 3 What are you talking about?

Speaker 3 What are you talking about? It's my wife's flag. That is the dumbest fucking fucking thing.
My wife is fond of flags. I am not.
That's what the letter said.

Speaker 3 This isn't a letter. What the fuck? This isn't a letter when he refused to recuse himself from Junior.

Speaker 7 So you're telling me Justice Samuel Lito had a stop the steel flag flying outside of his fucking house?

Speaker 3 Just a couple weeks after it was an upside-down American flag.

Speaker 7 An upside-down American flag?

Speaker 3 Yeah, and he said he also claimed the letter. I didn't know what it meant.
I don't know. Just people.
It's a distress flag.

Speaker 7 It's a distress flag?

Speaker 3 Last part of this. It gets, yeah, it gets funny.
Things got even worse.

Speaker 4 News outlets then reported that Miss Alito did what?

Speaker 4 A raised a second stop the steel flag outside their vacation home.

Speaker 3 B was heard blasting the J6 choir song in her car. No.

Speaker 4 C was spotted wearing a QAnon t-shirt in her backyard.

Speaker 7 Wow. I honestly could.

Speaker 7 There's no, there's no, I don't know what the truth could be anything.

Speaker 7 I'm going to say, I'm going to say QAnon shirt.

Speaker 3 Second Stop the Steel flag. They're a vacation home in New Jersey.
They have a second home in New Jersey. Two years later.

Speaker 7 Two years later. Two years later.

Speaker 3 This is the Appeal to Heaven flag, which is another sort of like right-wing Christian nationalist flag that was associated with Stop the Steel

Speaker 3 people.

Speaker 3 And so that's their second flag. He also said he's like, I thought that was a flag that dates back to the Constitution because

Speaker 3 apparently they did, the founders flew flags like that. I don't know.
It's wild. There it is.
There it is outside their house. Yeah, that's the flag.
That's the ill-to-heaven flag. Oh, man.
Well,

Speaker 7 Justice Samuelito had to stop the steal flag flying in front of his home. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And he won't recuse from the immunity case.

Speaker 7 It's unbelievable.

Speaker 3 Which has not been.

Speaker 3 Spoiler has not been decided yet. We're still waiting.
Still waiting on that one. Yeah, I guess.

Speaker 3 They haven't taken any of the big cases yet. Or we haven't heard any of the big cases yet.
Wow. I know.
I know. And like,

Speaker 3 here's a pub quiz. Do you think Senate Democrats are investigating Sam Alito over this and subpoenaing?

Speaker 3 No. Dick Durbin, I think, sent a few nice letters.
Dick Durbin's disappointed.

Speaker 4 He's disappointed. You know?

Speaker 3 And Roberts, did Roberts weigh in? I think Roberts weighed in.

Speaker 4 Well, no, the Senate Democrats asked Alito to recuse. And in his response back, which came from Alito himself, because he has to make the decision.
Roberts doesn't make it.

Speaker 4 That's where he included the language. It's like, my wife is a flag enthusiast.
I am not.

Speaker 7 A flag enthusiast? She's doing semaphore.

Speaker 3 Some welcome news. Which of these Trump associates will report to jail in just a few weeks for a sentence that will last through the election? A.
Rudy Giuliani. B.
Steve Bannon. C.
Roger Stone.

Speaker 7 Giuliani convicted of anything?

Speaker 7 I'm going to say Bannon.

Speaker 3 Bannon's going to jail. Bannon's going to jail.
July 1st. Through November.

Speaker 7 For what crimes?

Speaker 3 Contempt of Congress. Okay.
Okay. Okay.
And he kept trying to...

Speaker 7 Because

Speaker 7 those are running. Those are still happening.

Speaker 3 He kept trying to appeal, appeal, appeal, and finally the judge was like, I'm not letting you just hang in limbo and appeal this for

Speaker 3 an indefinite amount of time. You're going to jail.
Wow. And he gave this big press conference saying, I'm doing it as a patriot.
You're never going to shut me up.

Speaker 7 So if anybody's, you know, Tommy's got a free 45 minutes a day now.

Speaker 3 That was my

Speaker 3 sending them on.

Speaker 3 Guess a co-host of the war room right here.

Speaker 7 See if he can pitch something and fill his conviction.

Speaker 3 Bonus question. Trump recently kicked off Pride Month by kissing which convicted felon pal on stage at a rally in Arizona?

Speaker 3 Wait.

Speaker 7 Convicted felon kicked off pride?

Speaker 7 Oh, convicted, kissed a convicted felon for pride.

Speaker 3 Well, it wasn't for pride. For pride, just how he kicked off pride.

Speaker 7 I just don't know if that's a, that feels like a, is pride a red herring? I guess it is. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Bit of it. Bit of a red herring.

Speaker 7 Who is a convicted felon?

Speaker 3 Trump had pardoned him.

Speaker 7 Trump kissed a pal.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 7 just strange. He doesn't really kiss.

Speaker 3 That's what he said after he kissed him. He goes, I don't usually kiss men, but this guy.

Speaker 7 Well, that's,

Speaker 3 I don't know who. Joe Arpaio.

Speaker 7 Oh, I would never.

Speaker 3 Joe Arpaio never got.

Speaker 7 I was trying to think, I couldn't think of Arizona kids.

Speaker 3 I think I was a bonus.

Speaker 7 And I was thinking of the electors, but none of them. Okay.

Speaker 3 Even though Rudy's not going to jail just yet, there was some other fun Rudy Giuliani news. During his 80th birthday party,

Speaker 3 what did one guest do after serenading him that made headlines the next day? A

Speaker 3 got caught on a hot mic using a slur for Italians. B served him with a subpoena.
C, vomited on Rudy and his date.

Speaker 7 I'm going to say, I think the darkest is vomiting, so I'm going to say vomiting.

Speaker 3 Served him with a subpoena.

Speaker 7 That's actually, yeah, maybe that is dark party.

Speaker 3 The Daily Mail headline was: Guests at Rudy Giuliani's 80th birthday scream and cry as the party ends with him being served a subpoena.

Speaker 7 Honestly, I take back what I said. That is the dark party.

Speaker 7 That is so, man. You're just sitting at your 80th birthday party and it ends with you being handed a subpoena.

Speaker 3 I forgot that the best part was he, he tweeted at the Arizona Attorney General

Speaker 3 from the birthday party and was like, if you don't serve me by midnight, it expires and you can't get me. And then he has like these like women in the background, these young women at the party.

Speaker 3 And they, and so

Speaker 3 two hours later, they serve him.

Speaker 7 They served him at the party. That is so fucking funny.

Speaker 3 And apparently there was someone who is part of the singing of the happy birthday who served him.

Speaker 7 So he's taunting them. He's taunting them that you can't serve me.
I'm at my 80th birthday party. Yep.
And they had somebody at the party. They got that.
That is so cool. So good.

Speaker 3 That is so good. That was a fun one.

Speaker 7 There was that story where he was overheard at Mar-a-Lago saying, like, every day it's like waking up in a nightmare.

Speaker 3 Remember that?

Speaker 7 It was like just like his every life, his day, his life has become like a fucking funhouse mirror terror of what his life was supposed to be. He can't understand it.

Speaker 3 Anyway.

Speaker 4 Okay. Final one.
Congress was as productive as ever while you were gone, sure. Which of these things did not happen?

Speaker 4 A Democrat Jasmine Crockett told Marjorie Taylor Greene she had a bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body during a congressional hearing.

Speaker 4 MTG referred to Lauren Boebert as, quote, the Beetlejuicer in chief during a House Republican caucus meeting.

Speaker 4 C, AOC called John Fetterman a bully after he compared the House to the Jerry Springer show.

Speaker 7 Two of those did happen?

Speaker 3 No, one of those didn't happen. The other two did happen.
Okay, okay.

Speaker 3 Fetterman, a bully.

Speaker 7 Beetlejuicer in chief.

Speaker 7 Blonde, butch

Speaker 3 bleach blonde, bad, built, butch body.

Speaker 7 Thank you. I think that feels, honestly, that feels, I think that that's real.

Speaker 7 And so, Beetlejuicer in Chief.

Speaker 7 I'm going to say Beetlejuicer in Chief is fake.

Speaker 3 Nice. All right.
Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 3 Okay. All right.
All right.

Speaker 3 In fact, after she called Marjorie Taylor Greene a bleach blonde, bad built butch buddy, Marjorie Taylor Greene started the whole thing as you big surprise by saying something that was rather racist that I can't remember now.

Speaker 3 And then they started selling bleach blonde bad built butch buddy merch.

Speaker 7 I mean,

Speaker 7 it's a beautiful turn of phrase.

Speaker 7 You got to own that. You got to take that back.
I get that.

Speaker 3 It's poetic. And then it was one of those, like, you know, obviously everyone realized that MTG was at fault, but everyone was like, oh, Congress is crazy.

Speaker 3 And Fetterman called called it a Jerry Springer show. And then AOC went after Federman for

Speaker 3 what you said. You're gone.

Speaker 3 Jasmine Kruck is trying to trademark it. I can't.

Speaker 3 I just Googled that. I just like,

Speaker 7 I know it's my job to know what's happening. I understand that.

Speaker 7 And I guess I'll have to keep knowing what's happening.

Speaker 4 What you're learning is how little value there is in some of, most of what you missed. Right, right.

Speaker 7 That's interesting. That's interesting.
That's interesting. But keep downloading.

Speaker 3 It was a funny social experiment that, like, I guess you knew about the verdict, but like, what's the most shocking news? And the Alito flag. The Alito flag.
Well, I mean, here's it.

Speaker 7 Here's, I think here is what's shocking. That story began with someone on the street calling the wife of a Supreme Court justice the C-word.
And by the end of it, you're like, I get it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I see how that happened.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the timeline's all weird. Like, the Alitos claimed that this neighbor, the neighbor couple put up some signs that were offensive to them.
So that's why she hung the Stop the Steel flag.

Speaker 3 But then she did it in response to the C word, but that's not true. But then...
Not in response to the C word. Okay.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but then the timeline got all unraveled. So basically, the Alitos are lying about this in addition to flying multiple insurrection flags.

Speaker 3 So you got Ginny Thomas, Martha Ann Alito, some just

Speaker 3 some real housewife shit.

Speaker 7 The fact that at a Supreme Court justice's home, two homes, there could could be two right-wing,

Speaker 7 one blatant stop the steel flag flying.

Speaker 7 And like that only comes out because of, I guess, like a similar beef as the one that happened between.

Speaker 3 One more. Oh.
The Washington Post had this story right after it happened and decided not to run it.

Speaker 7 They were like, oh, it was just a dispute between Mrs.

Speaker 4 Alito and a neighbor.

Speaker 7 But they knew about the flag?

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And the Times ran it just recently.

Speaker 7 But it's such important news.

Speaker 3 There's really important news. There's a whole thing thing that's big and important in the news.
There's a whole

Speaker 3 drama going on with the Washington Post, too. Oh, yeah.
Anyway, welcome back.

Speaker 4 It's great to be back, Miss.

Speaker 3 Welcome back. That's our show for today.
We'll be back with another episode on Wednesday. Bye, everyone.

Speaker 3 If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends.

Speaker 3 And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more.

Speaker 3 Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a crooked media production.
Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.

Speaker 3 Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira Wakeem is our senior producer.
Reed Sherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

Speaker 3 Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer.
Madeleine Herringer is our head of news and programming.

Speaker 3 Matt DeGroote is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Toles, Kirill Pelaviv, and Molly Lobel.

Speaker 16 Pandora makes it easy for you to find your favorite music. Discover new artists and genres by selecting any song or album, and we'll make you a personalized station for free.

Speaker 3 Download on the Apple App Store or Google Play and enjoy the soundtrack to your life.

Speaker 13 Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odo, the only business software you'll ever need.

Speaker 13 It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. From CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more.

Speaker 13 And the best part: Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.
So why not you? Try Odo for free at odoo.com.

Speaker 13 That's odoo.com. odoo.com.