Will the Supreme Court Upend 2024?

Speaker 1 Amazon has everything for everyone on your list.

Speaker 1 Like your husband, who hauls out the 40-pound canister vacuum to address a single-dropped popcorn kernel, he'll spend 12 minutes setting up, plugging in, and maneuvering.

Speaker 2 It's like using a fire hose to water a houseplant.

Speaker 1 Get him a cordless vacuum, and with Amazon early holiday deals, you can save big on home electronics. Now, Dustin can skip the project planning phase and go straight to tactical crumb elimination.

Speaker 3 What's poppin' listeners?

Speaker 4 I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week, I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time.

Speaker 4 Want to know about the fake heirs? We got them. What about a career con man? We've got them too.
Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins.

Speaker 4 Oh, you know they are represented because representation matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Beyer, Ira Madison III, Conan O'Brien, and more.

Speaker 4 Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.

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

Speaker 3 On today's show, the Supreme Court hears arguments as to whether Donald Trump can run for president after participating in an insurrection and prepare to decide whether his criminal trial for trying to overturn the last election will take place before the next election.

Speaker 3 And the DOJ decides not to bring charges against Joe Biden for mishandling classified info, even though the special counsel in that investigation decided to take a few shots at him.

Speaker 3 But first, Republican politicians have spent the week finding new ways to humiliate themselves just to keep the criminal defendant who lost them the last few elections happy.

Speaker 3 Nikki Haley, herself no stranger to humiliation after a bruising 30-point loss in Nevada to the formidable none of these candidates, did do a great job summing up the cost of her party becoming a cult.

Speaker 4 Look at what happened yesterday. Trump loses the case on having immunity for whatever comes next.
Republicans lose a fight on the border. They lose a fight on Israel aid.

Speaker 4 The head of the Republican Party loses her job. Everything Everything that Donald Trump touches, it's chaos.

Speaker 3 No notes from me. What about you? I mean, really wish she had

Speaker 3 found her voice a little bit earlier in this campaign. She might have beaten none of the above.

Speaker 3 Like the chaos message. Clearly, most Republican voters don't give a shit about it.
They either like Trump's chaos or they don't see it as chaos.

Speaker 3 But, you know, independents and swing voters have certainly rejected Trump and Republican chaos in 2018, 2020, and 2022.

Speaker 3 And And 2023. Don't leave that one out.
In 2023, yeah. So we'll see how that goes.

Speaker 3 All right, let's start with Congress, as Haley mentioned, where Republicans negotiated the toughest, most conservative immigration deal in decades.

Speaker 3 Then Trump ordered them to kill their own deal because he thinks chaos at the border will help him beat Joe Biden. So they killed it.

Speaker 3 They're moving ahead with a baseless and fairly useless effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas so that Trump can have a talking point on the campaign trail.

Speaker 3 But they failed at that because Republicans picked a creepy backbencher for Speaker who can't count votes.

Speaker 3 And now that the Senate potentially does have the votes to pass the aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan that a bunch of Republicans have said that they want, they're going to even greater lengths to embarrass themselves by saying things like this.

Speaker 6 Finally, I just want to ask whether or not this new bill that's just about foreign policy, whether you're going to vote in favor of it,

Speaker 6 Foreign money for Israel, for what's happening in Ukraine, what do you think of that standalone foreign policy bill?

Speaker 7 David, I voted no already a few minutes ago, and here's the reason why.

Speaker 7 Unfortunately, what this administration and Chuck Schumer, they are doing is using the crisis in Israel to support other priorities of the party. We should first secure our southern border.

Speaker 7 Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 No to the border deal because Biden doesn't need legislation to secure the border. And no to foreign aid because it doesn't come with border legislation.
That was Tim Scott, by the way.

Speaker 3 Tim Scott gave the best speech at the 2020 convention, once seen as the party's fresh-faced future. And now he sounds like a zombie Trump bot stuck on repeat.

Speaker 3 It is just wild that what the Senate is trying to do right now is the exact thing that Joe Biden asked them to do four and a half months ago.

Speaker 3 All they're voting on is his request for original requests for supplemental aid for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and a couple other things. That's it.

Speaker 3 And so we went through this whole process about negotiating a border deal, combining these things because Republicans said they need.

Speaker 3 They killed it in like 17 minutes and are back to just trying to pass the thing Joe Biden asked for.

Speaker 3 What a gigantic waste of time and tremendous incompetence from this goat rodeo of a political party that controls way too much of government.

Speaker 3 And they still might not pass the national security funding bill. They might not pass the aid.
And even if they do, where's it going?

Speaker 3 Well, that's what, yeah, what do you think happens now?

Speaker 3 So, first of all, the Senate Republicans are able to propose amendments to the foreign aid bill, and they want to amend it with, wait for it, border security proposals.

Speaker 3 So they want to,

Speaker 3 it's weird. They want to, if only they could pass funding for Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan, but also pair it with like tougher border security.

Speaker 3 Wouldn't it be they should do like a deal with Democrats where they figure out, oh, yeah. Yeah, maybe like Lankford and Murphy could get in a room together and try to figure this out.

Speaker 3 Just spitball in here. Yeah, those could be some ideas.

Speaker 3 So they're going to offer amendments, but we'll say it might pass the Senate because a cloture vote passed. And so there's enough, there's now enough Senate votes to pass this thing.

Speaker 3 And Mike Johnson hasn't yet said that it's dead on arrival in the House like he did with the combo foreign aid border bill.

Speaker 3 But he also has people like Marjorie Taylor Greene who has said that she'll file a motion to vacate if he lets aid for Ukraine come up for a vote. So what do you think happens here?

Speaker 3 I think it's pretty hard to imagine that Mike Johnson will be able to put a Senate-passed bill that includes funding for Ukraine on the floor of the House.

Speaker 3 I think that would be the, I think that I imagine Marjorie Taylor Green is right. The Senate said on Sayoffson, and that would be the end of his speakership.

Speaker 3 The whole reason they came up with this whole border security thing was to avoid taking that singular vote because

Speaker 3 voting on Ukraine aid, one, is a huge problem for him with the Freedom Caucus, but two, it drives a gigantic wedge through the middle of the Republican Party between your more traditional, neoconservative, anti-Russia types and the America firsters and then the people who like to cuddle up to Putin.

Speaker 3 And so he doesn't want to have that vote because it would be very bad for him. So that's what he's been trying to avoid.

Speaker 3 So it's hard to imagine that if they don't do the place where he drew the red line on border security, that he would just take this up and pass it.

Speaker 3 I mean, the guy seems not particularly good at his job. So maybe he will stumble ass backwards into doing it.

Speaker 3 But if you were, if you took what he said seriously, which I really recognize you should not based on the last few months of his speakership, it seems hard to imagine he would actually bring it up given that.

Speaker 3 But who the hell knows anymore?

Speaker 3 Also, as of this recording on Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump hasn't weighed in yet. But if Donald Trump tells them to, I'll vote against foreign aid, they're going to vote against foreign aid

Speaker 3 because they have no policy preferences of their own that they won't subsume for Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 I mean, like, I'm sure some of them still have, I'm sure some Republican politicians still have policy preferences. Some of them really like tax cuts for the rich.
They like to deport dreamers.

Speaker 3 They like to outlaw abortion. I can't think of a single policy preference they wouldn't sacrifice for Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 They have now put electing this man again as president ahead of policy beliefs moral beliefs their constituents their careers their reputations their own names in the case of ran and mcdaniel like i i i i actually we say cults like jokingly i don't see how the republican party is different than an actual cult

Speaker 3 i mean it's a strong statement there but it i it's hard to poke holes in i'll be honest with you i mean like

Speaker 3 How many Republicans, if Donald Trump, if Donald Trump told a bunch of Republicans to put on a collar, collar, get on all fours, and he was going to walk them around Mar-a-Lago with a leash in front of a bunch of television cameras, how many would say no?

Speaker 3 Like a handful, maybe?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it's basically what Ron DeSantis basically did before he ran for president. So, yeah, I think that's very, I mean,

Speaker 3 I don't think he listens to this podcast, but if he did, I imagine he will try to do that because I imagine

Speaker 3 he would enjoy the prospect of making some of them do that. I mean, they're all pretty close to doing that now.

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 3 figuratively, that's exactly what they were doing. That is exactly what they were doing.
Literally, who knows? I really want to see it, but figuratively, that is what is happening in Congress.

Speaker 3 Speaking of Republicans who've been completely neutered, Mitch McConnell.

Speaker 3 Do you ever think you'd live to see the day where Senate Republicans turn on Mitch McConnell for being too much of a squishy, bipartisan dealmaker, which is apparently what all his, or what a lot of his Senate Republican colleagues are doing now?

Speaker 3 They're like calling for him to step down. They want new leadership.

Speaker 3 I have spent probably more time than is healthy imagining Mitch McConnell's political demise.

Speaker 3 I, in, in the many scenarios in which I imagined that, I did not think it'd be one where Ted Cruz would get the upper hand on Mitch McConnell. So that was a surprise to me.

Speaker 3 Look, I think this is actually a pretty significant moment because the dominant figure of Republican politics the last 20 years is Mitch McConnell. It's not Donald Trump.
It's not George W. Bush.

Speaker 3 It's Mitch McConnell because all the things that Donald Trump does not exist without Mitch McConnell, right? You go Mitch McConnell helping change campaign finance laws going way back.

Speaker 3 Mitch McConnell stealing the Supreme Court seat to give voters permission to vote for Trump, even voters who did not like him in the 2016 election.

Speaker 3 I don't think Donald Trump wins that election without Mitch McConnell. And he's been this dominant figure in part because he ruled with power and strength.

Speaker 3 And the way the last 48 hours or so played out is a sign that he...

Speaker 3 He has lost his fastball.

Speaker 3 His reign is essentially over. I would be surprised if he is the Senate leader in the next Congress.

Speaker 3 Oh, and I think that's true, like, no matter who wins, no matter who wins the White House or the Senate, I think he's done.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and this, that's not even just age and capacity, it is his way of governing.

Speaker 3 Once, if you are, if you leave, it's actually some metaphors or like lessons for Trump here: is that he is he ruled with an iron fist for all this time.

Speaker 3 And once you've been exposed as weak, once the people get to look behind the curtain, it is over. And this week, he was the one who demanded that bipartisan deal.

Speaker 3 He shepherded it, he supported it, he brought it forward. Staff was was in the room the whole time negotiating.
And it blew up in his face. He misread the politics.

Speaker 3 And then he was a little bit more. He misread his right.
He misread the politics. He misread his own power.
And so this is the end of Mitch McConnell.

Speaker 3 It is the Mitch McConnell era in Republican politics is over. And the worst part about it is it's probably going to be replaced with something even worse than Mitch McConnell, right? Probably less,

Speaker 3 probably less

Speaker 3 effective in all the bad ways than Mitch McConnell, but even worse.

Speaker 3 Well, and there had been some debate because Mitch McConnell was like, well, you know, obviously he got rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court justices, but has said that he wants to uphold the filibuster for legislative issues.

Speaker 3 And there's some debate. Would he really do that or not? If they got back in power, wouldn't he get rid of the filibuster to pass an abortion ban or other priorities?

Speaker 3 That debate is moot now because there will be no Mitch McConnell. And the next Republican leader in the Senate will absolutely get rid of the filibuster.

Speaker 3 Do you think President Donald Trump is going to care about the history history and decorum of the Senate filibuster if it's standing in the way of him passing an abortion ban or some other piece of horrendous legislation he wants?

Speaker 3 Of course not. No, which is all the more reason why Donald Trump wins the presidency and Republicans win the Senate.
The chances of a national abortion ban, extremely high, extremely high.

Speaker 3 And I think they've gotten higher since Dobbs happened. Oh, 100%.
100%. I agree with that.

Speaker 3 We talked about how Trump and Republicans intentionally stoking chaos at the border is a huge political opening for Democrats. Biden started hitting them on that front from the White House this week.

Speaker 3 But I don't know that anything could be more politically effective than some of the sound bites we've heard from Republicans themselves.

Speaker 3 Here's ultra-conservative senator turned rhino-cuck traitor James Lankford talking on the Senate floor this week.

Speaker 8 In fact, I had a

Speaker 8 popular commentator four weeks ago that I talked to that told me flat out,

Speaker 8 before they knew any of the contents of the bill, any of the content, nothing was out at at that point that told me flat out, if you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you.

Speaker 8 Because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election.

Speaker 3 Fun fact, right-wing radio host Jesse Kelly is the person that James Langford was talking about. You know Jesse Kelly? Barely?

Speaker 3 See him on Twitter once in a while.

Speaker 3 He tweeted this clip and he took credit saying, he may be a eunuch, but I'll say this about Lankford. He's got great taste in radio.

Speaker 3 Called him a eunuch.

Speaker 3 He's a radio host, Jesse Kelly. Yeah, he's a radio host.
I don't know where, but. Yeah, you learn something new every day.

Speaker 3 How hard should Biden and Democrats lean in to this argument that basically Lankford was making? Do you think it's easy enough for voters to understand?

Speaker 3 As oftentimes, whatever's happening in Congress is quite difficult for voters to understand. It doesn't doesn't really break through.
But for something like this, can they get it to break through?

Speaker 3 They sure as hell got to try. I think it was great the president spoke out about it the other day.

Speaker 3 He should be speaking about it every day. He should talk about it in the state of the union.
Everyone should do it because it's not just, there are two reasons for this.

Speaker 3 One is border security is Biden's worst issue. In that NBC poll that we've all hate from last weekend, he's down 35 points on who you trust more on border control and immigration.
35 points.

Speaker 3 And here we we have a chance to go on offense on it. Now, I think you and I talked about this before on this podcast.
The argument isn't that Trump's weak on the border.

Speaker 3 It is that Trump put himself over the, over border security, right?

Speaker 3 And that, that to me is a message that is believable, that John Trump and Republicans put their own politics ahead of what was best for the country, because that leans, all your messages should be a sort of almost a nesting doll of your positive message and your negative message against your opponent.

Speaker 3 And that message against Republicans that they put them, that they're unwilling to work with Democrats.

Speaker 3 They want to put their own political well-being ahead of the country fits exactly into what is the most appealing part of Biden's brand to most voters, is that he is someone who is willing to work with anyone and everyone to get things done, that he is in it to help other people.

Speaker 3 And that's just the perfect contrast. And so.

Speaker 3 This is, it's not that this particular thing is going to break through and there are going to be people running around talking about the demise of the Lankford-Murphy compromise.

Speaker 3 It's going to be that this is a data point to tell the larger story, which highlights why people, what people don't like about Republicans, what they like about Joe Biden. So we got to run with this.

Speaker 3 It has to, it's, it is a rare opportunity. And it's not that often you get to go on offense on your opponent's best issue, which is border security.

Speaker 3 And I think that they need to expand it beyond border security. I mean, this is a message frame for all of the other issues, right?

Speaker 3 And it's an argument to make to voters who aren't happy with not only the border, but the cost of living, state of our politics, whatever. And Biden and the Democrats can say, we have solutions.

Speaker 3 We've been willing to reach across the aisle to get stuff done. We have gotten some stuff done by working with some Republicans over the last several years.

Speaker 3 But most Republican politicians in this party are only in this for Donald Trump. And Donald Trump is only in this for himself.
And I think you just run that play on every single issue.

Speaker 3 And you can point to a whole bunch of different examples.

Speaker 3 There's also like a, we haven't even talked about the tax bill that's moving through Congress that's bipartisan that would extend the child tax credit. Like, do we bet that that's going to get passed?

Speaker 3 I don't necessarily, I don't have a lot of hope for that, even though though it would be

Speaker 3 a huge difference. Right, exactly.
And like, do they want to give, oh, and Chuck Grassley, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley already said he's against it because it would give Joe Biden a win.

Speaker 3 Well, it would also like alleviate poverty for millions of children. But like, you know, they don't give a shit.
I just think

Speaker 3 this is a really important thing, really important message to get across. I think he's, Biden especially has to do this in the State of the Union.

Speaker 3 The Grassley quote and some of the other ones that we've mentioned are just a real example. Have you ever seen a group of people who are more apt to confuse the script and the state's directions?

Speaker 3 Like, you're not, that's the reason you're killing the bill. It's not what you're supposed to say about why you're killing the bill, you fucking knuckleheads.
So thank you for that.

Speaker 3 So Trump has convinced Republican politicians to basically paralyze Congress, potentially let Vladimir Putin roll through Europe.

Speaker 3 He also got Republican Party leaders to essentially rig the primary process for him, which is why Nevada gave him his own caucus tonight, Thursday night, that will award him all the state's delegates.

Speaker 3 But you know what? All this was still not enough.

Speaker 3 Even though RNC chair Ronna McDaniel rigged the primary and even changed her name for Trump, she will reportedly step down after the South Carolina primary so that the boss can replace her with some stop the steal goon from North Carolina.

Speaker 3 It sure seems like Donald Trump has a stronger grip on the Republican Party than he ever has, despite losing them the last three elections and facing 91 felony counts. What's up with that?

Speaker 3 Are they just giving their voters what they want? What's Donald Trump has never been more popular with Republican voters than he is right now.

Speaker 3 That's why this is, we can blame, yes, are a bunch of these politicians weak,

Speaker 3 amoral, immoral human beings, unwilling to take the slightest bit of a stand for, on behalf of, for patriotism and history and all that, of course.

Speaker 3 But the reason this is happening is Republican voters, particularly the ones who vote in primaries, love Donald Trump. They love him more than any of these other Yahoos.

Speaker 3 And so you guys are having this conversation about why people are endorsing Trump when he's just going to toss you aside, like Rona, Romney McDaniel.

Speaker 3 And it's because you're going to lose your primary. The people who don't endorse Trump, they get set, they're done, right?

Speaker 3 The handful of fucking morons who endorse Ron DeSantis are in a world of hurt right now because Donald Trump's going to make him pay for it. And get Romney out of the party.

Speaker 3 James Lankford's going to get a primary in 2028. Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin, who was one of the few Republicans who voted against the Mayorkis impeachment, now the party's pissed at him.

Speaker 3 They're like, you know, sick in the base after him. He's going to probably have a primary.
Like, it's just every single person. Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Jeff Flake.
Remember these people?

Speaker 3 They're all stood up. They're all out of toes.
Mitch McConnell now. Mitch McConnell.
Exactly. They're all toast.
So at least, I mean, there's the lesson here, I guess, is either you are all in.

Speaker 3 and up Donald Trump's ass, or you're all out and you light yourself on fire like Liz, like Liz Cheney did, in Mitt Romney's story, right?

Speaker 3 Where you at least can go down fighting for something you care about. The people who sit in the middle, like Mitch McConnell, they're the ones who end up getting completely screwed in this.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I will say that

Speaker 3 it is a cycle here,

Speaker 3 the cult dynamic, because it's not just that these Republican politicians have no choice because the base loves Donald Trump so much.

Speaker 3 The base loves Donald Trump so much because all these Republican politicians are constantly saying how much they love Donald Trump. And so is the right-wing media.

Speaker 3 And so because these Republican politicians are so scared of saying what they really think about Donald Trump, a lot of them, then the base is like, oh, all the people I'm listening to, all the information I get, all the media I see, all the leaders I see on TV, all the Republicans I vote for, they all love Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 So of course Donald Trump's awesome. Can I say one thing about the Rana firing? Yeah.

Speaker 3 She was pretty bad at her job.

Speaker 3 I mean, let's just be honest here, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, and how hard was the job at this point? Well, she's in charge of the Republican Party, and the Republicans lost the 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2023 elections.

Speaker 3 So almost every single year she was in charge of the RNC, they lost seats. So, you know.
Yeah, well, lipstick on a peg here. She's got Donald Trump as the party leader.

Speaker 3 I'm just the irony.

Speaker 3 The guy that fired her is the reason the Republican Party is doing so poorly. That may be.

Speaker 3 I'm not saying that she is the main reason they kept losing, but her record is not one you can really take to the bank either. I mean, she's a terrible human being.
I think that seems pretty clear.

Speaker 3 A person completely incapable of shame or self-awareness, but also pretty piss-poor record as RNC chair.

Speaker 3 Think she'll go back to Rana Romney, McDonald? I think she'll put the Romney back in now that when she's gone?

Speaker 3 I hope she, if she shows up at a Romney family reunion, Mitt just slams the door in her face.

Speaker 3 I guess he said nice things about her already. He said nothing but love for my cousin.
Oh, Mitt. Come on.
It's just too nice, Mitt. What thicker than water, I guess.

Speaker 3 So let's talk about one of the last institutional bulwarks against a second Trump term, the judicial system.

Speaker 3 On Thursday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case that will decide whether Trump could be kicked off the ballot in Colorado. It certainly sounded like they will rule in his favor.

Speaker 3 The conservative and liberal justices were skeptical of Colorado's case, with most of them making some version of the argument that a single state shouldn't be able to decide who the rest of the country can vote for.

Speaker 3 Notably, they didn't say much about Colorado's finding that Trump did, in fact, participate in an insurrection. They seem to want to stay away from that.

Speaker 3 So to be continued there. So our usual disclaimer here, we will save the legal analysis for our friends at Strict Scrutiny.

Speaker 3 You should absolutely listen to the great conversation on Wednesday's pod about this case between Kate Shaw and Lovett, who he actually has his LSAT score tattooed across his back. Did you know that?

Speaker 3 I'm not surprised to know that. No.
And also, you should check out

Speaker 3 Strict Scrutiny dropped two bonus pods this week, one on the 14th Amendment case and one on the Trump immunity case. So check those out.

Speaker 3 But Dan, for us political hacks, do you think there will be political implications from what seems like it'll be a win for Trump here? I don't think so.

Speaker 3 While I don't feel as strongly about this as John Lovett, I've always had some

Speaker 3 political anxiety about how this was going to play out, in part because I always assumed the Supreme Court would just put Donald Trump back on the ballot.

Speaker 3 And so we're having this conversation that gives Donald Trump the opportunity to argue the system is being weaponized against him. The Democrats are the ones who are anti-Democratic.

Speaker 3 Democrats are the ones who are interfering in the election, which is all bad faith bullshit.

Speaker 3 But it feels like this is going to be dispensed with pretty quickly. And I don't, I guess maybe

Speaker 3 Trump will try to use this as a way to say that he's not an insurrectionist. Yeah.
But he'll definitely do that.

Speaker 3 He can do that, but that is going to be so overtaken by what happens in the January 6th trial that I know we'll get to. So, yes, he could say that for a few days.
I'll send some truths about it.

Speaker 3 The glorious Supreme Court says, you know, rules for Donald Trump. I'm not, I did not engage in insurrection.
He can say all those things.

Speaker 3 But then what will really matter is what a jury, if this trial happens on time, that a jury of 12 citizens, what they say about whether he committed insurrection or not.

Speaker 3 And so this is a little ephemeral.

Speaker 3 I'll also say that even if for some reason, unlikely reason, the Supreme Court decided that Donald Trump couldn't be on the ballot in Colorado, like, can you imagine the political fallout from that?

Speaker 3 That he's not on the ballot in Colorado. Other states have decided that he is on the ballot.
It doesn't necessarily even line up with the political leanings of the state, right?

Speaker 3 Like Illinois said he should be on the ballot. Maine said no.

Speaker 3 And can you imagine like some Republican state saying no, he's going to be on the ballot? And the Democrat state, I mean, it could be a, it would have been a fucking crazy, crazy

Speaker 3 disaster, I think. Yeah, that's what, that's ultimately what always gave me, like, I'm not here.

Speaker 3 I'm not one to argue with, I don't know, a Larry Treiber, a Kate Shaw about the constitutional merits of this, but what always gave me political anxiety was it was the worst of all worlds was you were going, he was going to be off the ballot in one or two states that were non-competitive.

Speaker 3 And so we would not be stopping Donald Trump in insurrectionists from coming to the White House.

Speaker 3 We would just be giving Donald Trump, an insurrectionist, the opportunity to weaponize the decisions by a few states that may help him return to the White House as an insurrectionist.

Speaker 2 Hey weirdos, I'm Elena and I'm Ash and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 9 Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 2 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 2 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 10 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 11 Yay! Woo!

Speaker 12 With TikTok ads, our revenue went up $10 million year over year during back-to-school season. Penn Foster is online education.

Speaker 12 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 12 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 A BetterHelp ad.

Speaker 11 This November, BetterHelp is encouraging people to reach out, grab lunch with an old friend, call your parents, or even find support in therapy.

Speaker 13 BetterHelp makes it easy with its therapist match commitment and over 12 years of online therapy experience, matching members with qualified professionals.

Speaker 11 And just like that lunch with an old friend, once you do reach out, you'll wonder, why didn't I do this sooner?

Speaker 3 Start now at betterhelp.com for 10% off your first month.

Speaker 3 So the court will also likely decide next week whether to weigh in on the D.C. Circuit Court's decision that Trump is not immune from prosecution.

Speaker 3 If they do, the speed with which they hear the case and issue a ruling could mean a summer and potentially fall campaign where Trump is tried and potentially convicted for an attempted coup. Or...

Speaker 3 The trial could be delayed until after the election, and if Trump wins, never happen at all. High stakes.
High stakes, Dan. Yeah.

Speaker 3 What do you think a campaign looks like where the Supreme Court drags its feet and the trial gets pushed?

Speaker 3 And what does one look like where Trump is sitting in court being tried for election subversion in the middle of both party conventions in the summer?

Speaker 3 Weird. Seems really, the whole thing seems quite weird.

Speaker 3 Regardless of the timing,

Speaker 3 What I think this is going to come down to is

Speaker 3 a huge battle to shape the outcome. Because we know from the polling, this NBC poll, where Biden's down five, but he wins by two.

Speaker 3 If you ask people if they would vote for Trump if he's convicted, the exit polls would show that four in 10 New Hampshire voters and

Speaker 3 one in three Iowa voters, Republican primary voters, would not vote for Trump if he were convicted or would not see anybody fit for president.

Speaker 3 All the polling shows that a conviction is very, very bad for Trump. It would likely cost him the election as of today.

Speaker 3 But he has every day between now and a verdict to try to undermine that outcome by, you know, raising questions about the politicization of it, just, you know, all of his stuff about two-tier systems of justice and Joe Biden's weaponizing the government against me and all of this.

Speaker 3 And so you're in this battle and there's going to be this tremendous asymmetry because Donald Trump, the two people with the biggest bully pulpits or the, or the biggest bullhorns in America, American politics are.

Speaker 3 Biden and Trump. And Trump will have every single day to claim that this the system is being rigged against him.
It's a bunch of bullshit.

Speaker 3 That it's a liberal judge, blue city, liberal city, you know, all of that to try to undermine the outcome. Prosecutor

Speaker 3 Joe Biden has me on trial. He's prosecuting me as I'm running.
Yeah, it's good. He's going to do all of that.

Speaker 3 Because he's just got to move

Speaker 3 a small handful of people to think that

Speaker 3 they

Speaker 3 to think that it's been rigged against him, right? To not buy the verdict, not to buy a conviction as a disqualifying event.

Speaker 3 And Biden, who to date, for following the normal protocols of normal politics, the policy of the Department of Justice, has not commented at all on these federal investigations into Trump, is going to say nothing about it?

Speaker 3 It's, I don't know how

Speaker 3 I don't even know how this camp.

Speaker 3 And like, what does the Democratic convention look like if every day of the convention, we have speakers at night and Biden's out there speaking and the first lady and they get Obama to speak, whatever.

Speaker 3 And like split screen, Donald Trump's in court.

Speaker 3 Like what happened to the debate? If a debate were to happen, it's just, it is, this election is unprecedented in so many ways. I mean, you have an insurrectionist running.

Speaker 3 You have the former president running to get his job back.

Speaker 3 We don't have a real, a real even based understanding of what's going to happen because the 2020 election was so unusual because of it took place in a pandemic.

Speaker 3 And so it's incredibly unprecedented, but just like imagining how

Speaker 3 these two sides are going to interact when one side has decided to, for all totally understandable reasons, to not talk about what is the biggest issue, would be the biggest issue, the biggest news story happening every single day.

Speaker 3 I imagine at the convention, everyone who does not work for the Biden administration can talk about it in some way, shape, or form, but the president and I imagine the first lady and the vice president.

Speaker 3 Nikki Haley's talking about it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So it's like, of course Democrats should talk about it. We got, we don't, at first it was just, you know, PSA guest Chris Christie.

Speaker 3 But now, now, now it's like Nikki Haley is out there talking about Trump and his trials and his immunity.

Speaker 3 Like, it's, of course, we have to talk about it.

Speaker 3 And what I think Democrats have to recognize in this, because if Joe Biden's not going to talk about it, other Democrats are going to have to find a way to push back against what Trump is saying, is Trump starts with an advantage here.

Speaker 3 In the polling last year when these indictments came down, the majority of people, including a majority of independents, thought that the, that the, one of the re one of the main reasons why these indictments were happening was to stop Trump from winning the election.

Speaker 3 They believe that politics is at play here because people are incredibly cynical about what is happening right now. They're incredibly distrustful of government.

Speaker 3 And the voters who are going to decide this election are often the ones who are most cynical and most distrustful of politics. And so it's not simply

Speaker 3 just us all believing that this is going to be totally fine and then a conviction in itself will stand. Trump has the ability

Speaker 3 to

Speaker 3 undermine it with enough people that he could still win when that happens and this is the point where i should absolutely plug the latest episode of polar coaster where i talked to celinda lake the democratic pollster on this very question of how a conviction would impact the 2024 election she's got a lot of really good insight from polls and focus groups she's done about how voters are uh consuming the the trials and the indictments and and how they're thinking about it so check it out i can't wait to listen to that one i also think that for as much as you want to talk to voters now and do focus groups now, like it's just really hard to predict what the media and information environment is going to be like in the middle of a trial and what it's going to feel like if a jury convicts Trump and there's headlines all across the country and the world and across and like an everyone's screen everywhere that says Donald Trump has been convicted.

Speaker 3 Or not convicted. Or not convicted, right? Yeah.
Or not convicted. And I do think how the trial, even and even before the conviction or

Speaker 3 not conviction,

Speaker 3 how the trial plays out and how people understand how the trial is playing out, how it's covered, how it's talked about, not just from Donald Trump, but from the mainstream media, by Democrats, everyone else, is going to be hugely important in how people process the information and ultimately make a decision about Trump's guilt and whether they're going to vote for him or not.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's just like the testimony. You know, there's this big story in the New York Times magazine about Mark Meadows and all the cooperation he's done.
What you said if someone hired him.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we even talked about that. Yeah.
Meadows, apparently Meadows got immunity. Yeah.
And

Speaker 3 sat down for five hours to talk about Donald Trump, the guy who was his chief of staff with him during the from the end of the November election through January 6th and after.

Speaker 3 He was right there and he just testified for five hours and got immunity.

Speaker 3 It was the point of contact between the Proud Boy, the war room that Roger Stone was in with the Proud Boys and the White House.

Speaker 3 But there are these going to be these moments there. Is there going to be a mistake someone makes

Speaker 3 that Trump or other people can use to suggest that the system is being rigged against him?

Speaker 3 I mean, it's been a long time, very, very long time since you've had a trial like this that has, I mean, really OJ, I guess, before. I was going to say, this will be bigger than OJ.

Speaker 3 This will be bigger than the OJ trial. But will there be cameras? No, right?

Speaker 3 I don't believe so now. Yeah.
That's the huge difference.

Speaker 3 But you'll have Donald Trump going out every day, if he's there

Speaker 3 and speaking to the press. And how are, what is the operation to push back against that? When you, if, you know, what is Biden going to say at a rally when Trump says something, but he can't comment.

Speaker 3 It's all, I mean, there are a lot of things to figure out here, but it is, I mean, it's this giant, all, this is everything that we're talking about, about the economy and the jobs numbers and GDP and what the polling says and the border security, but all these things

Speaker 3 are very important. And they're going to be in an election.
Everything's important.

Speaker 3 But then we have hanging over your head, the biggest, most unpredictable thing that's ever happened in a presidential election

Speaker 3 coming coming at some point, hopefully, right? Depending on what the Supreme Court does. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I do, you know, listening to the justices today and the fact that they didn't touch or didn't really talk about the federal court in Colorado's decision that he participated in an insurrection, it does make me think they're like,

Speaker 3 I can't, I find it really hard to imagine.

Speaker 3 And of course, anything is possible, but I find it really hard to imagine that the Supreme Court is going to say, you know what, we're going to kick this case.

Speaker 3 We're going to make it impossible to have this case heard before the election. I just find it, I find it really tough to believe that.
But who knows?

Speaker 3 They're the Supreme Court and there's a bunch of Trump appointees on it and who knows? But seems, I don't know. I don't know.
From hearing them today,

Speaker 3 I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know either. Obviously, all the smart people seem to have that position.

Speaker 3 I will say there are moments when the fact that I'm a little older than you, or maybe significantly older than you, comes into play. And one of them is I was sitting,

Speaker 3 Bush V. Gore, right? I was in Florida in a room with all the smartest lawyers that worked for Gore.

Speaker 3 And they were all saying there's that, and all the legal experts were saying that it seemed incredibly unlikely the Supreme Court would intervene and stop the count in Florida.

Speaker 3 Then the Supreme Court intervened and stopped the count in Florida. So anything, and that was a Supreme Court that was much less political than this one.
I'm just saying anything is possible here.

Speaker 3 If I had to bet one way or the other, I would bet the way you bet. But

Speaker 3 there's a middle ground where they just delay this thing so late that maybe the trial can't happen, right?

Speaker 3 Where they don't award, this is something they talked about on the strict scrutiny pod that was very helpful.

Speaker 3 Is maybe they don't agree with Donald Trump's argument, but they hold hearings, they have a hearing and they make a decision, and it pushes the case off long enough that it becomes impossible to finish it by October.

Speaker 3 And that may, that's probably not the outcome that John Roberts wants, but it may be the outcome that

Speaker 3 enough MAGA justices want.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Although, as Kate said to Love It on Wednesday's pod, everyone will know pretty early on in this process whether the Supreme Court is acting in a way that will push the trial past November or not.

Speaker 3 And everyone should respond accordingly based on, you know, when they issue the stay, if they issue the stay, when they take the case, when they deny cert, not deny, right?

Speaker 3 All of that stuff is going to tell us what the timeline is probably going to look like. So we will know soon enough enough what the plan is here.
All right. Speaking of just stomach-turning

Speaker 3 topics, we saved the most fun for last. It appears Trump's 2024 opponent won't be getting indicted anytime soon.

Speaker 3 The Justice Department just released the final report from special counsel Robert Hur, who has decided not to charge Joe Biden with any crimes related to his own mishandling of classified information.

Speaker 3 Hurr did find evidence that Biden, quote, willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen, but that evidence, quote, does not establish Mr.

Speaker 3 Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The report went on to say that a jury would need to find that Biden willfully retained the classified info.

Speaker 3 And then they speculated that the jury would be unlikely to convict because Biden and his lawyers would likely present him as a, quote, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.

Speaker 3 And it goes on to cite numerous examples of Biden having memory issues issues during his interview with the special counsel.

Speaker 3 It was basically just an in-kind donation to the Trump campaign from Robert Hur, a former Trump appointee and a former clerk for Justice Rehnquist, appointed by Trump to be U.S. Attorney in Maryland.

Speaker 3 Though, as Biden pointed out in his response, he spoke at the House Democratic Caucus on Thursday, the report also laid out the difference between Biden and Trump on the classified documents issue.

Speaker 14 As the special counsel wrote, and I quote: several several material distinctions between Mr. Trump's case and Mr.
Biden's are clear. And by the way, this is a Republican counsel.

Speaker 14 Most notably,

Speaker 14 after given multiple chances, he returned classified documents

Speaker 14 and avoided prosecution. Mr.
Trump allegedly did the opposite.

Speaker 14 According to the indictment, he has not only refused to return documents for many months, he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then lie about it.

Speaker 14 That's the distinction.

Speaker 3 That is the distinction. So this sucks.

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 3 it is like, everyone remember what happened with James Comey in 2016? This is like 50 or 60 years ago.

Speaker 3 This was, I mean, it wasn't a press conference, so I guess that part's better.

Speaker 3 But the report itself, like worse than what Comey did, because this guy went out of his way to just take shots at Joe Biden's memory.

Speaker 3 Only in our world can a report exonerating Joe Biden saying he will not be charged with a crime that Donald Trump was charged with and lays out in a clear detail, as President Biden just did, the differences between what Biden did and Trump did.

Speaker 3 Can that be bad news, right? That should be good news, right? He's not, he has not been indicted. He's not been charged with a crime, but

Speaker 3 the

Speaker 3 absolute

Speaker 3 partisan hackery involved in doing this, the way he did it, is just,

Speaker 3 I mean, it's honestly breathtaking. It is breathtaking the way he did this.
He didn't have to do any of those things that wasn't necessary for it.

Speaker 3 The part that Joe Biden read is why Joe Biden wasn't charged with a crime. It's not that he has bad memory.
Like, what did this guy think he was going to do?

Speaker 3 Joe Biden's going to get up there and the jury was going to be like, oh, I'm sure this guy forgot his classmate information. That was not going to be the defense.
It is, I mean, it's, it's really,

Speaker 3 um, I mean, I can only imagine how pissed the White House is.

Speaker 3 It is, it's pretty stunning what, but maybe not surprising, and maybe should be an argument against appointing Republican special counsels who work for Donald Trump to investigate Democratic presidents by choice, which is what Merrick Garland did.

Speaker 3 But just it's bad. It is very bad.
And it is, and it's going to, I think this is one of those things that is going to

Speaker 3 be,

Speaker 3 it's going to be a topic of discussion for the next period here. There's going to be several new cycles about this because it,

Speaker 3 there's always, you know, these things, there is these two moments that were Biden.

Speaker 3 misspoke and said and gave the wrong names of uh European leaders, which is something that I will say, having known Joe Biden a long time, he could have done 20 years ago, right?

Speaker 3 Just that is not, it is not a sign of his age. It's just when he's up on stage, that happens sometimes.

Speaker 3 But when you have those two things, they're like bubbling, and then you have the special counsel do this, you can see it on Twitter, you can see it in the text messages that we've gotten from Democrats freaking out about it.

Speaker 3 It's going to, it's going to kick off a panic cycle among Democrats, and it's going to be really annoying. Yeah, I mean, I get it.
Like,

Speaker 3 look, so you know, they go through and the characterization of Biden's memory, right? Because a lot of people in a lot of interviews with investigators say, I have no memory of that.

Speaker 3 I have no memory of that. I do not recall, right? People are sending around clips.
Trump did that in his interviews a bunch of times, a whole bunch of other people.

Speaker 3 The Biden folks have put out, sent a letter to the special counsel where they had tried to get them to take out some of the more subjective descriptions of Biden's memory in there because they noted that, you know, at one point in the report, the special counsel talks about Biden's former counsel forgetting something and describes it as his memory of these events could well have faded over the course of more than six years.

Speaker 3 So like very, like when other people that they interviewed for this forgot something, they just said, oh, it could have, it was a long time. They could have forgotten.

Speaker 3 But with Biden, they were like, he's a senile old man. Like it was just that blatant.
And, you know, they use examples of like, he would say things like 2013, was I still vice president then?

Speaker 3 Or 2009, was I vice president then? At one point, he forgot he couldn't remember the year that Bo died. And, you know, all of this is happening.

Speaker 3 It was a five-hour interview apparently that took place the day after the October 7th attack in Israel. And so, and they have this special counsel like thanking him.

Speaker 3 He's like, I know you're dealing with a lot right now. Thank you for sitting down for five hours.
Right. So there's all these like extenuating circumstances.

Speaker 3 None of it's going to matter to the right or to like how this gets out in the media and how this hits people, right? People are just going to see like, you know, he's

Speaker 3 the line. He's like a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory, right? Like that's just going to be what people remember.
And so, uh, yeah, it's, it's bad.

Speaker 3 And I, I, like, what do you do about it if you're the White House? I think the, look, they have been dealing with age concerns from the very beginning.

Speaker 3 And it's not because of the media or Republicans. It's because like anyone who sees Joe Biden speak has that concern.

Speaker 3 And I think the only way to handle it is for Joe Biden to like go out there more and reassure people and talk and sit for long interviews and, you know, debate Donald Trump and do all the things that you have to do.

Speaker 3 Like, and if they're not confident he can do that, then that's a bigger fucking problem. But if they are confident he can do that, then he got, he's got to go do it.

Speaker 3 Because like you can yell at the media all you want and we can certainly yell at Robert Hurr because he's a fucking asshole for doing that. And it was completely inappropriate, but it's happened.

Speaker 3 And people are watching Joe Biden every day and they're seeing clips of him on TikTok that are in other places in social media that are way worse than when you actually speak to the man or see him sit down for an interview for a long time.

Speaker 3 And so I guess I think the only way through this problem is to like get out there more. I don't know.
What do you think?

Speaker 3 The other thing that happened this week that sort of led to this was the White House's decision to not have the president do the Super Bowl interview. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Which I sort of people were very worked up about that. As someone who staffed six Super Bowl interviews, they're always sort of weird.

Speaker 3 Like they're all serious, very serious policy interviews while people are waiting, are eating wings, waiting for the Super Bowl to start. So it's always, it's always weird.

Speaker 3 And so I was sort of like, yeah, I probably would have done it, but it's not, everyone thinks it's an obvious layup, but people, no one wants to hear you talk about Gaza and Israel while they're waiting for the Super Bowl to start.

Speaker 3 Like that's just not how people consume information. But

Speaker 3 I might call them back and just say, let's do it right now.

Speaker 3 And it's, yeah. And Biden was going to have to do things like this

Speaker 3 no matter what came in, whatever Robert Hurr, whatever the fuck his name is, says in his report. Like this is not going to change the dynamic.
It's just going to highlight the dynamic and just becomes

Speaker 3 another reason why the dynamic of people being concerned about the president's age and competence will

Speaker 3 has brought, it's gone to the top of the news cycle again.

Speaker 3 Like in that NBC poll, and I can't remember the exact numbers, but I think there's like a 19-point swing between 2020 and now on who you believe to be more competent and effective between Biden had a nine-point advantage in,

Speaker 3 maybe it's even more than i think biden had a nine nine point advantage in 2020 and the in the nbc news poll right before the election i think he's down 16 now um and so part of that is people don't see enough joe biden and the only way to change that is for people to see more joe biden and

Speaker 3 this is just you're there are two parts of these things right there's how do you stop the news cycle from happening which is something like

Speaker 3 doing the Super Bowl interview where you just tell people.

Speaker 3 And then there's how do you just start deal with the larger concern that is the largest impediment to Joe Biden's re-election is questions about age and capacity is to go out there and show everyone that you can do the job by engaging with people, being in debates, all of that.

Speaker 3 And so he's going to have to do no matter what. I think the urgency probably like bumped up a few weeks because of this report.

Speaker 3 And, you know, when we were in the White House, we hated the part of, you know, media coverage that was all about the president's performance, right? Was, was, was Barack Obama angry enough?

Speaker 3 Was he too aloof? Was he this? And then it's like it's, you know, figure skating judges, I think think, is what Pluff used to call it. And they would judge you by your performance.

Speaker 3 But like, that is unfortunately the reality we live in.

Speaker 3 And Joe Biden's performance when he speaks, when he gives an interview from now until November is going to be a huge part of whether he wins the election or not. Huge.

Speaker 3 Even like we've been talking about the economy as a challenge for him. And we've seen now over the last several weeks, economic sentiment is getting better, consumer sentiment is getting better.

Speaker 3 It's starting to show up in the polls that voters are thinking the economy is improving and it's not yet redounding to Joe Biden's benefit. And part of that is because

Speaker 3 the concerns about his age persist.

Speaker 3 And the only, like the only way to, to address that is with Joe Biden himself, right? Like the campaign's message is good. The White House's message is good.

Speaker 3 He's been like, I totally agree that he's been a excellent president.

Speaker 3 I have huge problems with his Gaza policy, huge problems, but like legislatively, domestically, like he's, he's all of that stuff is firing on all cylinders. But like, I'm telling you, he's got to,

Speaker 3 he's got to perform, right? And he's got to like allay these concerns and fucking Robert Hur just put them front and center.

Speaker 3 The Super Bowl interview, I will say one other thing about it is people generally think it's, you're going to get 100 million viewers and you're not, because the interview actually happens like two hours before the Super Bowl.

Speaker 3 And so I think it's when the last one Obama did was like 15 million people. Trump had like 14 million when he did it.
But that's still the biggest audience that he would get

Speaker 3 for a while, except the State of the Union, which is coming up in a month, like a month from today. And that now

Speaker 3 the stakes are always high in the State of the Union. They're always high in the last state of the Union before the re-elect.
And now they're even higher.

Speaker 3 And because that'll be an audience of 20, 30 million people.

Speaker 3 And I will say, again, this is not about the fact of whether he is competent and up for the job and mentally all there and all that kind of shit. Like someone

Speaker 3 was tweeting an excerpt from an old politico story about Kevin McCarthy, where it said, like, on a particularly sensitive matter, McCarthy mocked Biden's age and mental acuity in public while privately telling allies that he found the president sharp and substantive in their conversations, a contradiction, a contradiction that left a deep impression on the White House.

Speaker 3 It's like, yeah, guess what? Yeah, it's bullshit, right? And like,

Speaker 3 I saw Biden last December, and he, I've said this before, like, he remembered, he recognized my mother-in-law having met her four years earlier at one Katie Porter event.

Speaker 3 And he like recognized her in the White House and then told us stories and told my father-in-law stories about like the Bork confirmation with a level of detail that frankly was alarming.

Speaker 3 It's not like he forgot anything. Like he knew every single thing that happened back in the 70s.
So it's not like, it's, it's not the fact of his mental acuity. It is the perception.

Speaker 3 And I realize that's frustrating, but like that, it's, it's the biggest task. The biggest task is to fight that perception.

Speaker 3 This is a very important point you made, which is if the things that Robert Hur claimed in his report were happening all the time,

Speaker 3 we would all hear about it, right? Because isn't that Biden's meeting with Republicans all the time? He's meeting with people who are with Democratic senators. Washington has a tremendous uber mill.

Speaker 3 And just everyone would know if Biden was having huge mental lapses in meetings with people.

Speaker 3 It was just that you wouldn't, because it is the single biggest issue in the election, and Democrats cannot stop panicking privately to reporters. So you would be hearing about it.

Speaker 3 And the fact that you're not from Republicans or Democrats, other than the Republicans who are clearly lying like McCarthy, is evidence that what Robert Hurr is saying is not an accurate portrayal of how Joe Biden is on every single on a daily basis.

Speaker 3 I think that's really just important.

Speaker 15 Yeah, no, it is.

Speaker 3 And it's it well, but the sense you get from him a lot of times when he speaks is not that he's not all there, but it his performance feeds into the impression because sometimes it's low energy.

Speaker 3 Sometimes it seems like he's mumbling and swallowing his words. He's obviously got spinal issues that means he's shuffling around.
So it just, it exudes old man,

Speaker 3 even though like the words he's saying and his ability to like communicate in private with people is extremely sharp. So like that's just something that they got to work on.

Speaker 3 And it's ridiculous that the fucking fate of democracy depends on that, but that's where we are.

Speaker 3 This is, this is like our personal nightmare is that somehow the thing we've decried in politics our entire careers

Speaker 3 is that it comes down to optics, the things we hate most. That's me.
The fucking optics election. Great.
Right. And we can all screenboat optics or, you know, do something about it.

Speaker 3 So it's, it's brutal. All right.
Enough of that. When we come back, we're going to talk about the Super Bowl a little bit, just to end on something light.

Speaker 3 What's popping, listeners?

Speaker 4 I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week, I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time.

Speaker 4 Want to know about the fake heirs? We got them. What about a career con man? We've got them too.
Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins.

Speaker 4 Oh, you know they are represented because representation matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Beyer, Ira Madison III, Conan O'Brien, and more.

Speaker 4 Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 Think advertising on TikTok isn't for your business?

Speaker 16 Think again. With TikTok ads, we went from 250,000 downloads to over a million downloads in less than a year.

Speaker 17 I'm Eve, I'm Anam, and we're the co-founders of Alinia. Alinia Advis is an investing ad for Jan Z.
We run 50 new ads per week with three variations thanks to TikTok's Smart Plus campaigns.

Speaker 17 If you're not advertising on TikTok, you're missing out.

Speaker 3 Drive more app downloads only on TikTok. Head over to getstarted.tiktok.com/slash TikTok apps.

Speaker 3 A BetterHelp ad.

Speaker 11 This November, BetterHelp is encouraging people to reach out, grab lunch with an old friend, call your parents, or even find support in therapy.

Speaker 13 BetterHelp makes it easy with its therapist match commitment and over 12 years of online therapy experience, matching members with qualified professionals.

Speaker 11 And just like that lunch with an old friend, once you do reach out, you'll wonder, why didn't I do this sooner?

Speaker 3 Start now at betterhelp.com for 10% off your first month.

Speaker 3 All right, we're back. And I said we were going to come back and talk about the Super Bowl.
So naturally, we had to bring on John Lovett.

Speaker 15 Boy, am I excited to talk about the Super Bowl? An event I absolutely knew was happening this weekend. I certainly didn't ask in our meeting yesterday about this very episode.
That's on Sunday.

Speaker 15 At which point everyone's eyes turned away. And speaking of eyes, there will be 114 million pairs of them tuning into the big game on Sunday,

Speaker 15 during which they'll gamble an approximately $23 billion in Super Bowl wagers. And now it's your turn.
Dan and John. It's time for the betting boys to put it all off the line.
Here's how it works.

Speaker 15 I'm going to give you bets. Then I will give you the odds.
You have to decide whether or not you want to wager. In a game we're calling all bets are shaken off.
Now, here's how it's going to work.

Speaker 3 First of all,

Speaker 15 the stakes aren't cold hard cash. They're your dignity.
On Thursday, we will check in and see which of you came out ahead and which of you came out behind. The losers reward humiliation.

Speaker 15 The loser will have to send out a painfully earnest tweet crafted by the team begging Taylor Swift to endorse Joe Biden.

Speaker 3 Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 15 Boy, am I glad I'm hosting instead of playing, is both what's written on this and what I'm feeling.

Speaker 15 But first, because our audience is a strong, quietly head to another room and listen to a podcast until the halftime show vibe, we wanted to quickly answer the question: what is sports betting?

Speaker 15 And here's the gist. People bet on the game, but also on other silly aspects around the game, like how long the national anthem will be.

Speaker 15 And the less likely the predicted outcome, the longer the odds, and so the more you can win. To keep this simple, each wager will be 100 crooked bucks.
Each of you can make five bets.

Speaker 15 You must bet five times, and

Speaker 15 there will only be seven opportunities. In other words, you can skip two.
Okay. But you're going to have to bet five times.

Speaker 3 Okay. Okay.

Speaker 15 So you can skip a maximum. Okay.

Speaker 3 It takes notes here then. This is complicated.

Speaker 15 First up, what color will the Gatorade dumped on the winning team be?

Speaker 15 You can choose between orange, red, or blue. Orange, the odds are plus 240.
No yellow, huh? Blue, the odds are plus 430. Red, the odds are plus 490.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry, could you do the odds again?

Speaker 15 Orange, 240. Blue, 430.
Red, 490. Red being the longest shot and the most delicious.

Speaker 3 I'm going to take orange. Can we both take the same bets or no?

Speaker 15 Yeah, you can. Okay.
If you want.

Speaker 3 You're going to take her. And what are you going to wager?

Speaker 15 You have to wager. You're waging 100.
So you're just going for it.

Speaker 3 You're going for the 100 and everything. So we're not splitting our 100 up among the five boats.
No.

Speaker 15 Okay. No, no, no.

Speaker 3 You have 500.

Speaker 15 You're going to bet five times. You're going to bet.
So I tried to simplify it. You can bet five times.

Speaker 3 But then the winner is the person who makes the most money, not who wins the most bets, right? Correct.

Speaker 15 Correct.

Speaker 15 Yes, Dan.

Speaker 3 That is right.

Speaker 15 You got it.

Speaker 3 Perfect. Okay.

Speaker 15 And I didn't have to Google. How do sports betting work? What does the plus 240, minus 110 mean? I had to like figure it all out.
I didn't have to do that.

Speaker 15 All right, Dan, you want in on the Gatorade bet?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I will take the red.

Speaker 3 Wow. Dan takes the red.

Speaker 15 Okay. What did you take? You took Arch.

Speaker 3 Yep. Okay.

Speaker 15 What surprise guest will Usher bring out during his halftime show? You have three options. Justin Bieber, it's minus 200.

Speaker 15 That's just so people understand: if you bet 100, you'll net 50.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 15 Nikki Minaj, plus 310. Taylor Swift, plus 550.
I actually think those are pretty.

Speaker 15 I would think you'd get better odds on that if I was being honest.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I thought so too. That'd be wild.
Wild. But

Speaker 15 that's what the sports book says.

Speaker 3 And I listen to that.

Speaker 3 They're trying to get people to bet that's Taylor Swift money because it's free money for the sports books. Yeah, that's right.
That's right.

Speaker 3 And so Bieber is what?

Speaker 15 Just minus 200. You bet 100,

Speaker 15 you're going to net 50.

Speaker 3 Sure.

Speaker 15 People, I guess, are, people would not be surprised to see Justin.

Speaker 3 I'm skipping this one. Yeah.
I'm skipping. John's out.
I'm skipping this one.

Speaker 3 I don't think any of them are.

Speaker 3 I think people know Bieber's coming, which is why the odds are so poorly.

Speaker 3 I

Speaker 15 insisted on this question. Who will have more completions? Purdy or Mahomes?

Speaker 3 Mahomes.

Speaker 15 And I don't think it means sexual completions. I think it must mean some sort of sports thing, catching and throwing and so forth.

Speaker 15 Obviously, I don't know who I like more, Purdy or Mahomes?

Speaker 15 Anyway,

Speaker 3 what what do you have to give up for Mahomes?

Speaker 15 It's 100.

Speaker 15 It's plus 110 for both. It's just who's going to have more between the two of them.
They're basically, they're even.

Speaker 3 Plus 110 for either. I'll take Mahomes.
I'm going to take Purdy.

Speaker 3 Wow. There it is.

Speaker 15 There it is.

Speaker 3 Love it. Just as a piece of information that I think you would appreciate is that Brock Purdy was the last pick in the draft, which means that he is known.

Speaker 3 The last pick of the draft is always known as Mr. Irrelevant.
And so it is quite a story that Mr. Irrelevant is playing in the Super Bowl as a starting quarterback.

Speaker 15 What a mean name for somebody who gets to be in the NFL.

Speaker 15 The irrelevant people are the people that weren't picked at all.

Speaker 3 Well, usually the person who's picked last doesn't last in the NFL very long. So it's their favorite thing.
Right, right.

Speaker 15 Next up, will Taylor Swift win more Grammys or will the Chiefs of Kansas City score more touchdowns? So the odds for Taylor having more Grammy wins, that's minus 200.

Speaker 3 Are we talking more total Grammy? Like, we already know her Grammy wins. Right, we already know.
Right.

Speaker 3 By the many wins this year or total?

Speaker 3 It must be this year. It has to be this one.
Otherwise, it's like 23, so it would be.

Speaker 3 Right, no. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 15 Will Taylor have one more Grammys this year? Will the Chiefs score more touchdowns in the Super Bowl? Taylor having the edge, that's minus 200. Chiefs scoring more touchdowns, that's plus 150.

Speaker 3 Did she

Speaker 3 look up? How many Grammys did she win?

Speaker 15 Two. She only won two.

Speaker 3 Oh.

Speaker 3 And the Chiefs have more touchdowns? As Chiefs' touchdowns.

Speaker 3 Oh, I think.

Speaker 15 So will the Chiefs have three or more touchdowns is really what it's saying. If Taylor has one more Grammys, minus 200.
If the Chiefs score more touchdowns, plus 150. If they have the same push.

Speaker 3 I'll let you go first, Dan, because I've been going. I'll take the Chiefs scoring more touchdowns.
I'll take that too. Wow.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. Okay.

Speaker 15 Next up, will Travis Kelsey have more catches than Taylor Swift Grammy nominations?

Speaker 15 Over 6.5 catches?

Speaker 15 That's minus 200. Under 6.5 catches, plus 135.

Speaker 3 Wait, will they have more...

Speaker 3 What is it?

Speaker 15 Will Travis Kelsey have more catches?

Speaker 3 Kelsey's catch. Okay, got it, got it, got it, got it.
Catches. And it's 6.5 is the line.

Speaker 15 6.5 is the line. Over 6.5, minus 200.
Under 6.5, plus 135.

Speaker 15 Wow, so he must be very good. That's a lot of times to catch it.
I assume. Six?

Speaker 3 He is.

Speaker 3 He's quite good.

Speaker 3 I'll do the over. Dan, what do you think?

Speaker 3 I will also do the over. Wow.
Okay. Okay.
Okay.

Speaker 3 Really, this is right now. This contest is coming down to the Gatorade color.

Speaker 15 No, no, no, no, no. Purdy versus Mahomes.

Speaker 3 Yeah, the odds on those first. But the odds on if it's Red Gatorade.

Speaker 15 Yeah, if it's Ray, Gatorade, it doesn't matter. Dan's walking away with this fucking thing.

Speaker 3 Fuck, I hope it's not Red Gatorade.

Speaker 3 Both teams are red.

Speaker 15 Who will be the first person shown next to Taylor Swift during the Super Bowl? Jason Kelsey, plus 500. Ed Kelsey, plus 900.
Scott Swift, plus 700. Kara Delavine plus 900.
Gigi Hadid plus 1000.

Speaker 15 Good. Wow.

Speaker 15 That's exciting. Huh? You see Gig Hadid in that fucking booth? It's $1,000.
That's cool as hell.

Speaker 3 What if, what, this is, it's really tough. Like, how do they do this bet? What if, what if we see Taylor and Jason is next to her and Kara's on the other side? Which very possibly.

Speaker 3 I don't, I don't know. Then the vet voids.

Speaker 3 Then the vet voids.

Speaker 15 The bet void. The bet voids.
You also can skip to the the next one. You don't have to do this bet.

Speaker 3 You can skip to the point. Can we hear the next one and then come? No.
Oh, okay. Okay.
No. That's fair.
Okay. I'm going to skip this one.

Speaker 15 Again, it's Jason Kelsey Swift.

Speaker 3 I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it.
Kelsey, Scott Swift, Terre Delavine, Gigi Hadid. Okay.

Speaker 3 Finally, you both have to bet.

Speaker 15 The most important question.

Speaker 15 Will Travis Kelsey propose to Taylor Swift?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 15 plus 1,000, which is crazy. Which is like, I think it's more likely that Taylor is seen with Gigi Hadid.
Roughly the the same odds as Taylor and Gigi Hadid and Taylor getting proposed to.

Speaker 15 It must mean that, yeah, anyway, the no

Speaker 15 is unfortunately minus 3,000. What? Which means that if you bet you're 100, you could net $3.

Speaker 15 So the question is, do you want those $3, which I don't, which could make the difference if we crunch some numbers or...

Speaker 3 But otherwise, you lose $100.

Speaker 3 Well, sure.

Speaker 3 Because it's not going to happen.

Speaker 15 No, no, no. If you bet, if you, right.
Well, I'm saying saying you're betting, that's the thing. You're betting on a dream.
You're betting on love.

Speaker 15 You can, you can just try to keep your hundred and maybe win $3,

Speaker 15 or you can push your chips forward and think Travis gets on one knee.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm going to, I guess, yeah, I should have bet on the, should have bet on the

Speaker 3 Ed Kelsey bet.

Speaker 3 Ed Kelsey.

Speaker 15 I feel bad for Ed Kelsey in this because it's like, I think Ed Kelsey being seen next to Tyler Swift is only slightly less likely than the proposal.

Speaker 3 But Like, why not?

Speaker 3 Why not Travis Kelsey's mom? Like, why is she not on that list? Yeah, I was going to say, why is she not on that list? Why not Jason Kelsey's wife?

Speaker 3 What about Britney Mahomes? Yeah.

Speaker 15 I don't know who any of those fucking people are, but the point is, these are the ones that I think

Speaker 15 had real exciting aunts. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 15 But you know what? We can't go backwards.

Speaker 3 Okay, I'm just going to bet no then. You're betting no.

Speaker 15 You won't bet on the, you won't bet on Dan. I'm betting no.

Speaker 3 I'm also betting no, but I would have bet if you, if there had been, what are the odds on? He gets out on one knee proposes she says no

Speaker 3 Okay, hold on hold on hold on.

Speaker 15 All right, you know what? Let's make this more interesting. I'm taking the odds up to 2,000 2,000 that that Travis will get on one knee.
You'll take the whole fucking thing.

Speaker 3 No, it's not. There's no way it's happening.
Why?

Speaker 3 Okay, she usher brings her out. She performs.

Speaker 3 Travis runs out onto the field from the locker room and then asks her to marry him after the performance. You want that?

Speaker 3 What happens if you want that? What happens if someone dumps Red Gatorade on Travis Kelsey after he proposes? And then Robert Herr walks out on the field, indicts them all. Yeah.

Speaker 15 No fun for anybody.

Speaker 3 Trump 2024.

Speaker 3 All right. Well, we all heard it.

Speaker 15 We all have the odds. Basically, a lot riding on Red Gatorade at this point.

Speaker 3 And which quarterback has more completion?

Speaker 15 Yeah. And that's what this was always the thing that was most important to me, this Purdy fellow versus Mahomes.

Speaker 15 And, you know, we'll run the numbers, we'll crunch the numbers, and we'll see what happened, and we'll see who has to

Speaker 15 beseech Taylor on social media.

Speaker 3 Can't wait. Thanks, everyone.
Bye, everyone. We'll talk to you on Tuesday.

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 Woakim 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 Seglund and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer.
Madeline 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 Pelavieve, and Molly Lobel.

Speaker 2 Hey weirdos, I'm Elena and I'm Ash and we are the hosts of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 9 Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 2 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 2 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 10 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 3 Yay! Woo! Aye!