Trump's Veepstakes Begin

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Greenlight today at greenlight.com slash podcast. Welcome to Pod Save America.
I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Tommy Vitor.

Lovett is, of course, a devout Christian, so he's taken one more day to fully celebrate Easter. And then he will have risen.
Maybe that worked. Yeah, I think it worked.
Alright, so on today's show, Trump's apprentice-style veepstakes has begun. Wall Street billionaires are coming to his rescue.
His truth social stock is tanking. Lost a billion dollars today.
And he continues to attack and threaten his political opponents and their families. Meanwhile, Joe Biden reaches out to Nikki Haley voters and move over Beyonce because RNC chair Lara Trump has dropped a banger.
Yeah, she is. But first, I hope all who celebrate had a happy Easter because the most online partisan Republicans certainly did not.

Everyone from Trump and Mike Johnson on down was outraged, outraged that Joe Biden issued a proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility, as he has for the last four years without controversy.

But the reason Republicans had a fit this year is because Transgender Day of Visibility,

which has been March 31st for the last 15 years, happened to fall on Easter Sunday. And the idea that a devout Catholic like Biden would dare to tell a group of Americans who've been targeted by hate and discrimination that they're loved and included on Easter of all days was too much for the anti-trans community.
To celebrate the day of trans visibility in and of itself is an affront to Christianity, but it's also a random day created by a random person out of Michigan in the same way that I could declare March 30th is the day of Lisa. Well, recognize it another day, not on Easter Sunday.
It's an affront to the Bible. Well, this is a clear effort and a coordinated effort to remove god from our society and to replace god with false gods and in this instance it's the trans community why do we why do we replace god with the trans god i didn't know we did that yeah um so i wasn't too surprised that this became a thing on the right no i didn't expect the magnitude of the freak out.
What did you make of the war on Easter? I just it's so manufactured. And we're so used to this manufactured outrage.
We're probably kind of numb to it, but it is exhausting and relentless. And it's just Republicans are able to do this in part because they have the media infrastructure to amplify it and they kick it up.
And then, you know, because Fox covers it, you get a bunch more Republicans who put out statements, and then it becomes a bigger thing. And the utterly phony nature of this faux outrage was best embodied by Caitlyn Jenner, who on March 31st, 2017, tweeted, hashtag trans day of visibility.
There's no better visibility than with sisters by my side, as a photo of Caitlyn with some of her friends. And then this weekend tweeted, I am absolutely disgusted that Joe Biden has declared the most holy of holy days, a self-proclaimed devout Catholic as transgender day visibility.
The only thing you should be declaring on this day is he, all caps, is risen. So I don't know.
I guess Caitlyn Jenner is fine with people saying she doesn't deserve to exist on certain days. But, you know, we've seen this a million times in the Obama years.
The main street media then covers the controversy that's kicked up by Fox News. And here we are.
It broke through in such a way and so quickly that it like got to all the normies in my life me too it's a that's why i was like okay

i get this like in 2015 16 2012 it could be like a a couple segments on a fox show a couple fox

hosts a right-wing radio the fact that we had the fucking speaker of the house donald trump

not really surprised there and like republican governors republican congressmen like it was

everywhere it's so and it's so fucking phony and you know it's phony because now that they've all Thank you. Like Republican governors, Republican congressmen, like it was everywhere.

And it's so fucking phony. And you know it's phony because now that they've all been corrected because they were all wrong because Joe Biden didn't pick the day and the day just happened to fall on Easter because these people don't know how fucking calendar works or they're all supposed to be devout Christians, but they don't get that Easter Sunday means that it's a different date every year, that it's been around for 15 years, that Biden has, you know, proclaimed it, has issued a proclamation for the last four years.
They're still doing it. They were still doing it today.
They're just like, they didn't, they didn't back down even a hint because it's just phony. No one's mad at Christ for resurrecting on Transvisibility Day.
You know what I mean? Why don't you ever hear that? What did you make of the fact that the Trump statement drew a distinction between Catholics and Christians? I'm no Hugonaut, but that, you know, that had my spidey senses. I know.
I heard people saying that it is a historic sort of slight from Protestants to Catholics. I think they did it because Trump was very annoyed after the last election that he didn't get more of the Catholic vote.
And I think that's partly because Biden won back some white working class voters and Biden's Catholic right and so I think that they are targeting they really want the Catholic vote and so they thought they would go after Catholics but specifically even though it doesn't make any sense but it's a slight on Catholics it's it's a suggestion that you're not really a Christian you're a Catholic you're another thing right well it says Christians and Catholics to the millions of Catholics and Christians but I mean what oh yeah oh you're saying really a Christian, you're a Catholic. You're another thing, right? Well, it says Christians and Catholics.
To the millions of Catholics and Christians. But I mean, Christians should encompass Catholics.
It of course does. One would think.
It of course does. But what really annoys me about this too, like this isn't some policy debate about gender affirming care or high school sports.
It is simply just recognizing trans people, a nice message of love and inclusion. And it's like, how does that hurt you, right? Like, even if you think being trans isn't compatible with Christianity, which I would say is bullshit, like, how does it affect you to have this fucking statement out? It's just childish.
I mean, I think, and it got to the normies in people's lives i think because there was the the first round of stories on the made-up controversy suggested that joe biden chose this day he chose easter sunday and they didn't have the context of this it's always been the 31st and that's been the case for 15 years and of with all lies like that took a lot of time to catch up to people who are reading about the story or maybe never will yeah that, that's right. Were you also enraged that the White House Easter egg contest doesn't allow for submissions that include religious symbols, which has apparently been the case for the last 45 years? I had to read about this one five times to try to get it, and I still don't think I do.
So the White House works with the American Egg Board to put on the Easter egg roll,

which is an event on the South lawn on Easter Sunday. My only experience of the Easter egg roll was, uh, one year I got my cousin Jeremy tickets and he went with his daughters.
Uh, and then I asked if he wanted to go again next year and he was like, nah, we're good. We're good.
It is very crowded. I think it was very crowded.
A lot of screaming kids sweating on a lawn so whatever but i guess yeah they don't allow religious egg designs they haven't since 1976 was gerald ford doing i guess but i guess my reaction was who cares but also why not if some little goober wants to make an egg with a crucifixion on it like have at it i don't get it either because there was a it's the same language they've used for 45 years and it's like no offensive symbols no partisan symbols and also no overtly religious symbols i imagine it's some kind of like you know civil rights liberties language where separation church and state and all that kind of stuff like but you know like like if you want to come to the easter egg roll with a big picture of jesus on your shirt great just don't put it on the fucking egg. So anyway, that's what's going on with Joe Biden on Easter.

Here's a fun CNN

chyron that was blaring

across the television screen yesterday.

Trump spends Easter Sunday

posting on social media about

quote, people that I completely

and totally despise.

He went on a

real tirade on his

fake Twitter. He also

posted about quote, the crucifixion

of Donald Trump. That's

Thank you. He went on a real tirade on his fake Twitter.
He also posted about, quote, the crucifixion of Donald Trump. That's, of course, appropriate.
That's appropriate for Easter. And he posted two pieces that call Trump, quote, a miracle sent and chosen by God himself.
Sure. So my opinion is that those Easter messages would weird out more normie voters than the current president saying nice things to trans people.
But what do you think? I feel like stories like this are when I feel the most like I'm either in a time machine or stuck in a sort of broken, endless loop of Trump. Because this happens all the time.
We get outraged. I think his followers kind of find it ironic and funny, I guess.
Some of the white Christian evangelicals probably believe more than we'd like to admit that he is some flawed vehicle from Christ. They do.
Now, obviously, Trump likes this response because this is essentially a format he uses. I Googled a random holiday just to see if there was a good example, John.
This is, I Googled Trump Veterans Day comments. This is from Veterans Day speech last year.
We pledge to you that we will root out the communist, Marxist, fascist, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections. So I think we actually covered that.
Was that Christmas? No, that was Veterans Day. Oh, Veterans Day.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. So I don't know.

There are probably a lot of voters.

We know from polling.

There are voters who hate this side of him.

They hate the tweets and the cruelty.

But I don't know.

I think the normies don't like this.

Normies don't like it.

I don't think they'll hear about it.

That's the thing is I think we need to like.

I mean, just the idea.

And by the way, there's a lot of normies, normie voters who are religious, who are Christians or Catholic or whatever. And they don't think that they're not Trump supporters.
They don't think that he is some God. They don't think he is like Jesus.
No, probably not. And when he compares himself to Jesus and then spends Easter just attacking random people and never mentions Jesus.
Uh, they probably think that's weird. They probably think that's fucking, if they, if they heard about it, they would think that's fucking weird.
Yeah, it is weird. I think though, the religious in our, the, look, the evangelical Christians have been all in on Trump and the kind of normie voter religious folks.
I don't know. They don't talk about it too much.
So it hasn't got a lot of blowback the thing i do wonder about is um we used to talk about how people wanted politics to be boring again and that joe biden was kind of the answer there i wonder if that was a lie i wonder if we all got hooked on the like weird trump fentanyl of the vicious shit talking you know just like jarlingly different than what we're used to that people kind of miss the stuff. That's my fear.
Yeah, I think we we like it, meaning we the highly politically engaged people who like follow this stuff all the time. And I mean, we obviously hate Trump and are doing everything we can to avoid him being elected.
But I do think there is a very online or very like attentive to politics type of person who sees all this and is just like, you know, this is like every day and we're all caught up in it. I think that most people, first of all, like you said, I think it's what you said.
They're not paying attention. Most will never see this.
Most people will never hear about this controversy. Though if I was the Biden people, I don't know I'd do some targeted advertising about Trump, the fake religious asshole who's always talking about how he's persecuted because it does fit back into the overall message about him that he only fucking cares about himself.
One of the posts said that Trump posted this from a supporter said, it's ironic that Christ walked through his greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you. Jesus Christ dying for mankind's sins is much like Trump's inability to post half a billion dollars bond because he committed business fraud and was held liable for it.
Do you remember when Trump was asked by a reporter who shall not be named what his favorite Bible passage was. Oh.
And he was like, Corinthians 2 or something. He just got it completely wrong.
It was clear he'd never read a single Bible passage. I saw this.
Remember that McKay Coppins Atlantic piece in 2016? And the headline is Trump secretly mocks his Christian supporters. Yes.
It's all, he knows. It's all out there and they never care.
Yep, they never care. He does their bidding on abortion.
Yeah. Meanwhile, Joe Biden's message on Easter.
Easter reminds us of the power of hope and the promise of Christ's resurrection. As we gather with loved ones, we remember Jesus' sacrifice.
There's Joe Biden. There you go.
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Sign up for Greenlight today at greenlight.com slash podcast. In other Trump news, his search for a running mate to replace the guy his mob almost hung is reportedly getting serious.
Lots of interest in this job. Don't know why.
Politico says the campaign is currently busy vetting a list that includes the following candidates. Tim Scott, J.D.
Vance, Katie Britt, Marco Rubio, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, all the Dakotas, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Florida Representative Byron Donalds and Tulsi Gabbard, former representative from Hawaii, former Democrat turned crazy person. And here's a dark horse from convicted felon Roger Stone.
You know who I'd like? I just thought of this last night. Devin Nunes, 20-year member of Congress, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, someone Donald Trump is very close to and trusts entirely, Hispanic, a former farmer before he went to Congress.
I think he'd be an excellent choice. Not Hispanic.
I think he's Portuguese. He's Portuguese, not Hispanic.
Very different. Currently running Truth Social, a big, huge scam.
So that's a great choice. Funny.
All right. So we have been waiting patiently and responsibly for the Republican primary to end before engaging in silly and ultimately pointless VP speculation.
Now we get to let it rip. Yeah, let's go.
All right. Here's a few questions.
Who on that list do you think gives Trump the biggest political benefit? Okay. Let's see what you think about this one.
And by the way, the quote was, the Bible means a lot to me, but I don't want to get into specifics. Honestly, great answer if you don't know.
That is the funniest thing. It's a great answer.
What's a Bible passage that means a lot to you? I don't want to get into specifics. I don't want to spoil it.
I don't want to spoil it. What are the people that haven't read it? You got to read it yourself.
Truly the funniest thing ever. Okay.
What do you think about think about this on paper i kind of think the most valuable pick could be tulsi gabbard what yeah wait for it stick with me give it to me give it to me okay because if you pick a democrat that is the most surprising thing he could do it is the biggest tent argument right it's like is she still a democrat no but she was one okay you can say former she's elected democrat yeah and you know so you could make that argument that like i'm um you can't call me too partisan he picked a democrat for his vp right so it's a big 10 thing and then also uh trump knows that republicans are struggling with women uh especially after the dobbs decision and you could see tulsi as an asset there now that's on paper in practice she's really weird so there is and she's she's really weird and just gotten weirder steadily weirder over time remember the messages to putin like to camera yeah she's got a little she's a little too um little too putin friendly just very weird she she wouldn't do the very like the rfk jr type like i'm anti-war anti-establishment anti like populist would go there. She's in the military.
So I could, yeah. You know what? You sort of, you make a good case.
Call me Roger Stone. You make a better case than I expected for Tulsi Gabbard.
Who's your number one? Tim Scott. Okay.
I think for a political benefit, he's the one I worry about because I think he could create a permission structure for disengaged black voters, especially black men, young black men who don't like either candidate.

And the permission structure will allow them to back Trump.

And these are, by the way, these would be voters who do not pay close attention to politics, are not partisan Democrats, consider themselves moderate, who, by the way, are the, if we're to the extent that democrats um have an issue with black voters it is those black voters that that the party's worried about that have been drifting away from the party and i think tim scott again if you haven't paid attention to the primary he's young he's seemingly genial like and i and i think that trump i could see the campaign wanting that and i could also kelly ann conway made a pitch for him in a New York Times op-ed. So that's the one that I kind of worry about.
Counterpoint to weird. That's why I think that Trump might not want him.
Yeah, there are some vibes there. I mean, I think Byron Donald's is similar.
You can imagine the campaign wanting an African-American VP to help reach out to black voters. He does create that similar permission structure.
But also, CNN had a recent report about how much byron donald uses shit on trump on facebook yeah including comparing the birther attacks to being a 9-11 truther so you do think that one might sting a bit and also how many people are they going to have move out of florida for donald trump because he's also from florida like just like rubio this gets you my favorite option which is you get rubio to move out of Florida and then you don't pick him. Oh my God.
That's so funny. Because under the Constitution you can't both be from the same state.
You get him to move. Where can we have him move? Jersey.
We get him to move to Jersey and you just don't pick him. Just kidding, Jersey.
That's such a great idea. Probably the biggest way to say Georgia.
Yeah, right. Any others? Any other favorites you like? In terms of like helping him politically I honestly don't think I mean there is the like he picks a woman so that helps him politically I don't know I think it very much depends on who he picks like I don't know how well Kristi Noem wears after a while she's like selling veneers you know that's weird why is she doing teeth ads I don't know for out of state dentists i don't think sarah huckabee sanders gets you much no right what if doug bergam writes a big check that that well that's i guess that could would help him politically a big check yeah that's that's a possibility katie brit i wonder like right now she's super mockable because of the state of the union response people who know her were sort of surprised how bad she was so i wonder if she could possibly fix that over time yeah now her expectations are low but i think honestly i think most of these people are like a just a net neutral like i don't think they help or hurt politically though i do like i said i do worry about tim scott well with katie brit there's a non-zero chance that she uh crawls through your tv and kills you like the girl in the ring i know it's like's like, can she shake that? Can she shake that weird? I don't know.
I don't know. But in terms of the negatives generally, I mean, I do think the downside to Brit, Kristi Noem, Byron Donald, Tulsi, and to probably a lesser extent, J.D.
Vance, is that they are just less well-known. And so you have more of an opportunity to define them.
You probably remember this. Actually, you guys might have all been at the convention.
When McCain picked Palin, we were sitting around at Obama HQ, like literally Googling her name and learning about her for the first time and also finding brutal opposition research hits on her in real time. And she's obviously like a singularly terrible pick, but there was a bit of this with Pence too, because people didn't really know him that well outside of DC.
And they were digging up his old columns, like attacking Mulan or whatever. And you know, there was, there was a lot of space there to define them nationally.
Well, and Pence turned out to be just a nothing burger. Yeah.
Right. Like didn't help him, didn't hurt him, was just there.
Just around. Which is exactly, yeah.
Until he almost wasn't. Which is exactly what Donald Trump wants, right? Like he doesn't want anyone to outshine him.
He just wants someone to be loyal, sit next to him and then overturn the election if he needs them to do that. Right, exactly.
That's all he wants. So do you think there's anyone who would be a political net negative like a Sarah Palin? Like, I don't know if there's anyone in this crowd, like maybe Gabbard if she goes sideways.
She's got the sideways potential. Not an obvious one, but I do think the lesser known ones create the most risk for you.
I think that Rubio, and this is the Byron Donald's problem too, I think like playing clip after clip of Marco Rubio saying what he said about Donald Trump as he's the running mate is a problem. Yeah, that would not go well.
I don't think it would. It would not wear well.
All right. Who do you think would be the worst slash scariest president if Trump gets the hamburger from heaven and this VP becomes president? So setting aside the Katie Britt crawl through TV like the girl from the ring thing, J.D.
Vance, I think, to me. That's awesome.
That was mine. Yeah.
You probably read the long political piece I did. I didn't.
No, you're a better reader than I am. Well, lucky you then, John.
I get to tell you about it um I what it told me was that he is more sincerely committed to the America first uh white Christian nationalist project that we're seeing out of the Heritage Foundation and these other think tanks than I thought and maybe it's a different project than Trump um and it made my hair stand on end and worry about him. The question with him has always been like, is he the J.D.
Vance from his book that seemed more reasonable? Hillbilly. Yeah, Hillbillyology, which I read at the time.
I thought it was pretty good. And I know you're not allowed to say that anymore.
No, no, I do. In Twitter circles.
But it was interesting. And it seemed like an effort to better understand people's problems and solve them.
I think he was wrong about all his solutions. But the J.D.
Vance that we've all gotten to know since is scary and isolationist in bad ways and just a bad person and a demagogue. And I actually don't think he is bullshitting us.
No, I believe that. Like I think he has been radicalized.
I agree. And I think he's pretty smart, certainly smarter than Trump.
I kind of think he's like what people thought de santis might be but like the real the real deal smarter to santis so i do i worry about him a lot yeah all right now getting inside trump's mind which is always fun who do you think he wants and who do you think the campaign wants i've already i think the campaign wants scott maybe rubio they want uh someone to help with certain demographics that'd be my guess guess. I mean, listen, if you're Donald Trump

and you're picking like a roll dog

and someone you've got to have around all the time,

I think he probably wants JD.

They seem like there's kind of a buddy-buddy thing going on.

I think Don Jr. is friends with JD Vance,

which Trump won't totally hold against him.

But, you know, it's out there.

So I could see them being buddies.

And there also seems to be a genuine friendship relationship

with Kristi Noem that I don't totally understand.

I'll see them being buddies. And there also seems to be a genuine friendship relationship with Kristi Noem that I don't totally understand.
Also, you know, Trump's presentation person, right? He's a central casting. Yes.
Look at this attractive woman that I have as my running man. And he feels like that about men, too.
You have to look good to be around Trump. To fly Air Force One, you have to be smoking hot.
You have to look like Tom Cruise, but better. Even though that has not worked out for him with some of the people that he has had around him, but that is what you, he says that shit a lot.
He talks about, no, all the generals are out of central casting. Yes, they're all, yeah, he does it when he's like, they're manly and they're tough and they're big muscles, you know.
So Trump has also been cozying up to some Wall Street billionaires, if Doug Burgum doesn't come through with the check, both as potential Treasury secretaries and donors to his cash-strapped campaign. He's got a fundraiser in Palm Beach this weekend on Saturday that his campaign claims will raise $33 million, which would break Biden's record of $25 million from last week's event with Obama and Clinton.
Trump's is being co-hosted by billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson, who famously got rich off the subprime mortgage crisis. Nice.
And is now reportedly a candidate for treasury secretary. Great.
There's also a bunch of rich people going who at one time or another said they were done with Trump. One donor told the Wall Street Journal, quote, there are a lot of Wall Street people who tried everything else and are in the process of coming back to the party and Trump.
Oh, well, they didn't, uh, they didn't like the attempted coup and insurrection, but, uh, you know, it's really bad. A higher marginal tax rate.
That was Melania, right? That quote. Yeah.
So let me channel my inner, um, Ben LaBolt for a second, White House communications director. If I were a reporter covering the Trump campaign, I would probably wait to see some receipts before I reported that it was going to raise $33 million at an event.
It's possible, but the Biden fundraiser with Obama, Bill Clinton, Stephen Colbert at Radio City, a venue that seats like 5,000 people, raised $25 million. And that was like unheard of.
I couldn't believe it when I saw those numbers. So again, like this event with Trump could raise 33 million.
The reason is because of a bunch of Supreme court rulings that did away with donation caps. Uh, and now if you're a Democrat, you can be asked to write a check for $929,600 to the joint fundraising committee that goes to the Biden campaign, the DNC, Democratic state parties.
That's before you get the super PAC. So basically, God help you if you're a rich Democrat and Jeffrey Katzenberg has your number.
That's going to be bad. That call is coming.
So who knows? Maybe they can find 40 billionaires to write an $800,000-some-odd check to the Trump victory fund. But I doubt it it.
I just I know it shouldn't be surprising, but these fucking billionaires coming back to Trump who were like, yeah, no more after January 6th. You know, they all wrote their little missives and maybe it was on Twitter or maybe it was on their email list to their rich friends.
You know, never again. No more Trump.
And now they're only back because they only give a shit about themselves and their money. And that's who they're going to gonna they're just like Trump right like and they're gonna take care of rich people if they get back to the White House and he gets back to the White House and they play a role in it and it's all a scam these people all think that Trump voters are fucking rubes they have no respect for them they just don't care it's just like how Trump feels about the evangelical Christians feels the same way about his other voters it's just he just wants rich friends around.
That's all he wants. We love the rubes.
You can imagine saying it at an event. I mean, we dealt with this same stuff in the Obama years.
We had a bunch of Wall Street types support Obama because they thought he was inspiring. They were ready to move on from the Bush years.
And then they got really sad because during the financial crisis, there was rhetoric coming out of the Democratic Party in the White House that was anti Wall Street. That's right.
Listeners, you might be surprised to learn that the big thing that we dealt with in that first year was people angry at Obama because he was too tough on Wall Street because their feelings, their feelings were all hurt because I don't know, they almost ruined the global economy. And we had to remind them that, you know, this administration is the reason there aren't people with pitchforks in your office right now.
Yeah, and we didn't want to, like, give them more bonuses but paid for by the fucking taxpayers. Yeah.
But, you know, look, I think the challenge is always going to be that at the end of the day, these donations are investments for Republicans because they pay off a bunch of Republicans now and they cut their taxes later.

If you're supporting a Democrat,

you're probably going to get your taxes increased if it can get through Congress,

which will be difficult.

And that's what these people really care about.

Honestly, that's what Elon Musk cares about.

That's what David Sachs cares about.

That's what all these people...

Less taxes regulated.

They feel attacked

because all they do is just sit on Twitter,

sit on social media, and have their brains poisoned by the internet. And then they're worried that someone's coming for their money.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think the richer you get, the more paranoid you get. Two quick things on fundraising that I just wanted to flag.
Did you see that today Trump sent an April Fool's fundraising email with the subject line, I'm suspending my campaign? I did see that. And then at the bottom he said, just April Fool Fool's just kidding.
I will never surrender. I will never surrender.
Easy, buddy. But Josh Dossie from Washington Post had a great story about how Republicans are having a hard time with small dollar fundraising because they just abuse their donors and their lists with messages like that.
Yeah. And I guess they talked to the story talked about how.
I'll just say Democrats in glass houses. Oh, well, listen, if you guys if I texting stop is my kink.
It's all I do. I complain about it.
All my friends complain about Hannah was complaining about the other day. It's awful.
The story talked about how they've been trying to diversify away from only Trump messaging because that was doing the best. But they were like doing it too often.
But they've been struggling. And it said, quote, one such message, a sweepstakes to meet Pence raised less than $500, according to people familiar with the 2022 sweepstakes.
So again. Wait, whose message was that to meet Pence? It was a donor email where you could win a sweepstakes or meet Mike Pence and it raised $500.
I'll tell you a message about Mike Pence that would have raised some money. I know, I know.
It would have been hang out with Mike Pence, but not hang out. Yeah, yeah, a little different.
Yeah, tweak it. So it does seem like Trump really needs all this money.
Did you see that he lost a billion dollars today, Monday, after shares of his fake media company dropped by 20%? So yeah, DJT, the stock, ended the day down 21%. Which, I don't know, I guess they, they, they filed some paperwork that showed, uh, they lost 58 million.
So that's not good. Yeah.
That's not good when you're in one year, in 20, yeah. In 2023, $15, yeah.
And they, uh, and they generated a 4.1 million in revenue, which is not great, but I mean, I, it was surprising to me to see it drop 20% because, again, this is not a financially viable company at the moment.

They're not trading on fundamentals. I'm not Apple.
There's no price to equity. It's a meme stock.
And so, I don't know. I think we're all just waiting to see if Trump gets permission to dump shares early from his board.
I know, but I wonder, I saw something that if he, even if they vote to let him dump his shares early, they could be like, that could be an SEC violation because they're not, they're not, they don't have the interest of the company in mind there. I also wonder if part of the drop was due to like in that filing, the company accountants warned that the losses are so severe that they quote, raise substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue.
Yeah. Well, so the point of the SPAC merger is they merged with that DWAC company and they should now have access to $300 million because of that merger to run and grow the thing.
But, you know, it sounds like they're burning through that pretty fast. DJT is also the most heavily shorted stock, I think, in the entire stock market right now.
So a lot of investors are betting it will go down. But yeah, the value of the Trump shares went from $6 billion last week to $3.7 billion today.
So that's a tough week. That said, it could all go back up.
It's not trading on fundamentals. It's momentum, Infomo, like a meme stock, like the crypto.
Is this going to follow the polls, do we think? I think so. I mean, I think ultimately think ultimately this is a bet on him yeah you know but um until then like you know there's all these shit coins and you know cryptocurrencies like the pepe coins got a three billion dollar market cap like there's there are people who like to buy this stuff it's grift all the way down when it's time for an adventure why stress over the details explore with the best 2.
We'll see in no time. Get a quote today.
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All right, so after a two-week break from campaigning, Trump is in Wisconsin and Michigan this week where his campaign says he'll give remarks on, quote, Biden's border bloodbath. Just owning the bloodbath.
Biden's border bloodbath. I know.
It's a lot of bees. A lot of bees.
This comes after Trump posted a video last weekend that includes an image of Joe Biden hogtied in the back of a pickup truck and several posts where he attacks the daughter of Judge Juan Mershon, shares her name and picture and says that her father should be removed from the hush money case because she apparently runs a consulting firm that apparently sometimes works with Democrats. Alvin Bragg, the district attorney, responded by asking the judge for a broader gag order.
There's already one in place on Trump that also protects the judge and his family. So certainly not the first time any of this has happened.
Obviously worries people like us. Do you think it resonates or breaks through with most voters? The Biden campaign today actually held a press conference and they had some ahead of this trip by Trump to Wisconsin and Michigan.
And they had some a couple police officers who served on January 6th sort of talking about Trump's threats of violence, how he incites violence and sort of the effects that it had. Yeah.
I think that strategy is smart. I think if you can, if you treat it as a one-off, it probably won't work, especially the, the image of Biden hogtied on a truck.
I mean, that's sort of like, I don't know, some weirdos truck. It's kind of truck nuts adjacent.
I don't know that people.

The whole thing's weird. It's just odd, right? The attack on the family of a judge is wild.
And I do think it's just worth pausing for a second that Trump, just to explain what's happening, Trump is attacking the adult daughter of a New York Supreme Court judge and saying her political affiliations mean her father can't be fair and impartial. Meanwhile, the classified documents case in Florida is being overseen by Aileen Cannon, who Trump literally appointed to the job.
And by the way, if these things get appealed up to the Supreme Court, there'll be three more Trump appointees there just waiting to bail him out. So we're already in such a dumb place.
The fact that we're debating this and calling it sort of rigged and unfair to him as opposed to him literally being before a judge who he gave the job to is absurd on its face. But I do think on the violence point, like one off, people will probably just not see it or pay attention to it.
But making it a broader story that ties back to Jan 6, I do think that's real. I do too.
And I think it's important for, again, like there's people who are tuned into politics like us. And then there's people who aren't, which is most voters.
And there's also a for people who think that Trump bears just some responsibility for January 6, which is like a good chunk of voters. They think, you know, they think he was bad, but they don't quite think it was all his fault.
Right. And not necessarily Trump supporters either, just like sort of undecided, moderate and in the middle of voters.
I think for them, the most effective arguments is like what Trump will do if he gets a second term that could incite violence. So releasing a bunch of people from prison who were convicted by a jury of their peers for beating the shit out of police officers on January 6th.
I think people would not like that. The fact that he and his advisors have talked about invoking the Insurrection Act so that he deploys the U.S.
military against fucking protesters. That seems scary.
Like the fact that he said police officers should be able to shoot suspected shoplifters on the spot when they walk out of a store. Like those are the things that I think are those those are more powerful arguments just because a, he said them and promised them or whatever else.
And people can say, Oh God, if he, if he becomes president, that kind of, that kind of world could, we could be living in that kind of world. Yeah.
It's certainly the case that it's weird and wrong to tweet out a photo of your political opponent being hogtied and taken somewhere for, to do bad things to them. It is part of a broader pattern of him, I think, normalizing political violence and celebrating it.
I mean, I've forgotten about the comments about shooting shoplifters, but it also reminded me of when he was speaking before a bunch of police, and he talked about how he encouraged them to rough suspects up when they shove them in the car and stuff. And now he's got a policy to match that for the second term.
He wants to indemnify all police officers in the whole country, which is gonna be hard to do as a federal law. But like it's same thing.
He wants mandatory stop and frisk in every community in the country. And he's going to cut federal funding to any locality that doesn't have mandatory stop and frisk.
Deportation raids. They're into cities and have like again armed soldiers and agents of the state knocking on people's doors raiding workplaces and checking for people's papers to see if they're actual citizens like all that stuff has uh like is more likely to cause violence than any kind of image yeah and listen i i think obviously people saw the police brutality spill out into the public space and on George Floyd's murder.
And, you know, I think a lot of those things go way too far. Yeah.
And actually, if you explain to an average voter that you won't stop and frisk in every community, they would think that's crazy. Because look, a lot of this is racist.
Yeah. And it's a lot of people who don't live in big cities like New York and L.A.
being like those people in those cities read people of color need different laws to keep the city safe than I do in my community in Ohio or whatever it is. He does have a big advantage on crime and immigration.
But that's a bridge too far. Yeah.
And I think what you said, like the Biden campaign using, you know, this controversy to then do a press conference with police officers, like taking it back to January 6th, I think is very smart because I think that really resonates with people. You can't just be like Twitter outreach bait.
Yeah. So Biden campaign is also stepping up its outreach to Republicans, especially Nikki Haley voters who aren't yet sure if they'll support Trump in November.
The campaign is out with a new digital ad that Biden tweeted with the message, Nikki Haley voters, Donald Trump doesn't want your vote. I want to be clear.
There's a place for you in my campaign. And here's the ad.
Bird brain. I call a bird brain.
He's gone haywire. There aren't that many never Trumpers anymore.
How do you bring these Nikki Haley voters back into the tank? I'm not sure we need too many. So seems like a smart move to me.
I'm interested to hear what you think. Our pal Jonathan Martin has a piece out in Politico where he argues that Biden himself hasn't done enough outreach to Republican politicians who've said they don't want to support Trump.
People like Haley, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Larry Hogan, et cetera. What do you think's going on there? I think the ad's smart.
I think we need to build the biggest, broadest coalition possible. Again, from never Trump to, I guess, from maybe trump to dsa left and i think uh criticizing outreach to any one of those communities is stupid and i think we need to learn from the left and other countries to figure out how to build big coalitions in terms of the jonathan martin piece it was it was interesting i didn't i was it surprised me me too larry hogan is the one exception in there because he's running for Senate in Maryland and kind of winning at the moment.
Right. Um, or I was wondering if in J Mart's piece, the point was like, maybe he should have reached out to Larry Hogan before he jumped into the Senate race.
That's possible. That's possible.
But at the end of the day, I mean, these guys have big egos. They need some love and some coaxing to your side.
And if you think about it just in terms of psychological terms, I mean, if you're a Chris

Christie, your entire life is built around your identity as a Republican elected official,

your friends, your donors, your coworkers, right?

Like you need to feel some sort of pull and love from the other side that you'll be welcome.

And we're not necessarily very good at that in the Democratic Party.

We love to just shit on people and never let them be forgiven for their past political sins right um and then we have debates about whether it's like morally right or wrong to do that put that aside it's just about politics do we want to win the election or not i i'm not saying yeah right i'm not saying that you um you buy your children biographies of these people and treat them like a mentor just like let's get their votes let's get their endorsements you don't have to nominate them for the profile and courage award and you know what like chris christie's an effective messenger and he's someone who is very close with trump and can attack him in personal ways and get in his head and reach a certain subset of voters so i don't mike pence maybe not the best use of time i'm not sure i'd be having joe biden call mike pence but i don't know who cares give him a call what does it hurt it's probably the first time his phone would ring in like a year and a half so i was i was really wondering like what's going on there and there's only two explanations i can think of one it was just too early and like they're gonna get to it and they're just starting to like start the campaign now so maybe that was it even though i think right now is not too early at this stage in april but then the second one is like, are they worried about progressive blowback if it leaks that he was calling all these people? But again, the campaign put out the ad reaching out for Haley voters, so they can't be too worried about that. And as J.
Mart says in the piece, like Biden, of all people, he's still telling fucking stories about, you know, Strom Thurmond. Like he loves reaching out to Republicans.
So I'm confused. Yeah.
My read on the current Gaza policy is not a ton of concern about lefty blowback from people like me. Listen, I think if you're mad that Joe Biden called Chris Christie, you probably should worry about other things, you know, and I think if you're mad about that, like you're it's politics.
Find me a person who was going to vote for Joe Biden and then said, no, no, no, no. He called Mitt Romney and Chris Christie.
I'm out. Yeah.
So find me that person who was gonna vote for joe biden and then uh said no no no he called mitt romney and chris christie i'm out yeah so find me that person i think it would be worth calling mitt romney it'd be worth calling chris christie it'd be worth i don't know i guess lobbing a call to mike but send him an email send pence an email and again no one's saying you have to like just give them a policy win right you don't you're not giving them anything this is not a negotiation it's uh it's a it's a political touch to see if they'll come to your side. Yeah.
I mean, Mark Esper, Trump's defense secretary, who said a couple weeks ago that Trump was like, hey, can't we have the military shoot the protesters, the George Floyd protesters? So that's him. Over the weekend, he said, there's no way I'll vote for Trump.
But every day Trump does something crazy. The door to voting for Biden opens a little more.
And that's the exact kind of person that we need. And that person is in a lonely place, right? Because they're bucking their party.
He was run out of town by Trump. Trump criticized him personally.
They called him Jesper. They made fun of him.
They mocked him when he was defense secretary because he never should have had the job. He's a joke.
He's a lobbyist. But yeah, now he needs a love from the top.
And maybe he'll do an ad for you. That's all we're looking for here.
We're just looking for some ads. All right.
Before we go, we save the best for last, Tommy. New RNC co-chair slash aspiring pop star Lara Trump released a new single on Friday called Anything is Possible, of which her career trajectory is certainly living proof.
Here's a sample of the sure-to-be chart-topping banger.

Talking to that little girl, riding on the Pegasus, tell her everything's gonna be alright. Don't think, just jump, you can't give up know that anything is possible oh oh what is the pegasus saul made that clip too long yeah it's really horse.
Okay. I can't ever look.
That is, I didn't think I'd have like third hand embarrassment for someone like Larry Trump, but I genuinely do. Her don't back down cover.
First of all, you can't cover like an iconic Tom Petty song when you have no talent. That's where you should get.
That should be the last thing you cover. I sent that other Lara Trump song we just heard to my friend,

Ryan,

who,

you know,

well lives in LA here.

He went to Berkeley,

played at a bunch of really big bands.

He runs,

um,

studio sessions for huge artists.

He mixes,

he's a tremendous musician.

He's like one of the,

he's a musical genius.

He does scores TV and film.

Now he was so offended by the production quality.

Oh,

interesting.

It was like the auto-tune.

He sounds like a nasal robot.

She does sound like a nasal, yeah.

The engineering upset him. And I think he was just so mad because he knows, like, if you're rich, pay someone to make you sound good.
She didn't even do that. Fucking horrific.
So, not to be outdone, the DNC responded with their own self-described summer party anthem about Lara Trump and the RNC called Party's Fallin' Down. Let's listen.
Lara Trump, what's going on? You're running the RNC, but it's a sad song. Oh, Lara, Lara, what have you done? The party's falling down, It's no longer fun.
Oh, Laura, Laura, can't you see? The leadership's sinking from your peak. Okay.
How many times have you listened to each song since Friday? Have you had that on repeat? Laura, I can't do it. More or less than Cowboy Carter.
It hurts me. Did the DNC one, was it just AI generated AI generated I think it was I have a lot of questions about the DNC one Was it AI generated How long did it take to put that together I hope the answer is 10 minutes I think it was probably not a lot of time In which case fine Look Everyone knows this music is formulaic And that song will probably be playing at like ultra in Miami next year or something.
But yeah, I kind of like them trolling her. The more time Laura Trump spends in the studio, the less time she's fundraising or whatever.
I don't know what she'll be doing. I mean, all the money.
What's amazing about this? This really is like banana republic shit. Trump installs his daughter-in-law at the RNC.
She greenlights this fundraising waterfall where all the checks that come in to the Trump fundraising committee first go to his PAC that does legal defense funds. She purges the entire committee.
Purging the staff. She's asking people if they're election deniers before they can get hired.
Yeah, you have to say the sky is red before you can get a job there. You probably have to say her song is fucking awesome.
Yeah all that said trump could still win it's 50 50 so i don't know what that says about us i just had an idea what i think that you and uh our pal brian tyler cohen should do uh liberal tears where you draft worst political songs oh that's good like the hillary in the house song that's a great song. Why would you ever say that? Well, I'm saying that maybe, oh, I guess you guys always do the worst.
Because it's a beautiful song, Hillary in the House. What about the Obama girl, remember? That was tough.
There's just, there's Mitt Romney singing Who Let the Dogs Out? I mean, there's a... Right? Mitt Romney.
I think this is a whole episode. Mitt Romney just stumbling into a photo with like four or five younger black males.
And the only thing he could think to say was who let the dogs out. It was so horribly, horribly embarrassing.
There's a rich history of these. Will.i.am.
Oh, yeah. Will.i.am turned our speech into a song.
Not ours, pal. Yours.
A bunch of celebs were in that. What was it? 2008.
It was weird times. Yeah.
Better times. Better times, but weird times.
The cringe was embraced and it was mainstream and it didn't feel like cringe in the moment. It felt a little more hopeful.
This felt pretty cringe. Although I had, our staff was cringing about the parties falling down.
I had not listened to that, but I had also not listened to the Larry Trump thing.

The parties falling down is like,

haha, cringe, whatever.

The Larry Trump thing is like,

I don't think I can listen to it again.

Her range is like half an octave.

I did it for this pod and I did it once before this pod

and I don't think I can ever do it again.

She's singing from up within her nose,

it sounds like.

Just so nasal.

Anyway, I wish her all the best.

All right, few quick housekeeping notes

before we go.

If you haven't heard yet,

we're hitting the road. Pod Save America is hitting the road this summer for the Democracy or Else tour.
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Also, we're mentioning this outreach

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Well, if you want some actual facts

behind it on the polling,

Dan Pfeiffer's got you covered.

In the latest episode of Polar Coaster,

he talks to guest Alyssa Cass

about the Haley voters

that could absolutely swing the election.

I just listened to the episode this morning. It's fantastic.
Take a look. But to get access to this series and other subscriber exclusives, you got to head to crooked.com slash friends.
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