Trump Stokes Border Chaos

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Welcome to Pod Save America.

I'm John Favreau.

I'm John Levitt.

I'm Tommy Vitor.

On today's show, Joe Biden wins the South Carolina primary, Nikki Haley does SNL, Donald Trump throws his RNC chair under the bus, and we all creep closer to regional war in the Middle East.

But first, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate finally unveiled a bill that would reform our border, asylum, and immigration laws while also providing aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and some humanitarian relief for Palestinians.

President Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Mitch McConnell all support the deal, but Donald Trump has ordered Republicans to kill it, and sure enough, Mike Johnson says it's dead in the House.

Still unclear if it can even pass the Senate.

Fortunately, we have some great intel on that.

Love it just talked to Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, the deal's lead Democratic negotiator.

So we're going to listen to what he says, and then we'll talk more about the politics.

Here it is.

Senator Chris Murphy, good to have you back on Pod Save America.

Yeah, awesome to be with you guys.

Thanks for having me.

You were the lead Democratic negotiator on this bipartisan border proposal that also includes funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

Can you talk briefly about what this proposal does and why people thought a compromise like this might not even be possible?

Yeah, well, you know, listen, first of all, it preserves the post-World War II order by saving Ukraine, by making sure that they have enough to fight throughout this calendar year.

That's good for Ukraine.

That's good for our fight to prevent the takeover of Taiwan.

That's good for our allies in NATO.

We wanted to get Ukraine money done last fall, but Republicans told us that notwithstanding their support for Ukraine funding, they wouldn't vote for it it unless the bill also included provisions to make changes at the border.

So we took them at their word and we spent four months negotiating changes in our immigration and border laws to help the president better manage the flow of people across the border.

Obviously, it's not great when you have 10,000 people showing up on a daily basis unplanned, but also to fix our broken asylum system, right?

You come to the United States, you apply for asylum, it can sometimes take 10 years to get that claim approved.

That's not fair either.

Now, I was pessimistic that we could get this done.

I mean, we don't normally have much success finding bipartisan compromise on the question of immigration, but we did it.

Senator Lankford, 9, Senator Sinema got a deal done on new powers at the border, a new asylum system, and the deal is going to be good for the country.

And it also gets Ukraine funded.

So it's now coming to the floor of the Senate, and we'll see whether Republicans were serious.

They said they wanted to pair border policy and Ukraine funding.

Maybe they didn't really really think we'd get it done.

We did, and now they have a chance to vote on a pretty landmark bipartisan achievement on both immigration and border reform and support for Ukraine, Israel, and humanitarian assistance.

Now,

this wasn't a year ago that Republicans were saying this.

This was as recently as December.

And there were a lot of people that said it couldn't happen, but that this is what Republicans were demanding for Ukraine aid.

Now you have, just a few weeks later, Donald Trump's agitating against the bill.

Your colleague and negotiating partner, James Langford, is getting censured just for the sin of participating in the negotiations.

You have Republicans like Mike Johnson coming out before the bill is done.

You have senators basically saying just the fact that Democrats and Republicans work together, is what Josh Hawley said today, is a problem in and of itself.

It does seem as though Senator Langford went out on a limb and now his colleagues are sawing it off.

Are you surprised by how quickly his Republicans turned against Republicans on this?

And behind the scenes, are

the sort of serious Republicans who have negotiated this deal frustrated?

Well, I wish I was shocked by it, but this is part of the reason why we were reluctant to engage in this conversation, because we knew that any bipartisan immigration reform proposal would be opposed by Donald Trump.

Why is that?

Donald Trump has no interest in solving the crisis at the border.

He wants to preserve chaos at the border because it's good for him electorally.

So you go into these negotiations knowing that even if you do get a deal, it's going to be opposed by Donald Trump.

And if it's opposed by Donald Trump, you know that there's going to be a bunch of Republicans that are going to side with him and his political interests instead of siding with what's good for the country.

So this is not an unexpected position to be in.

But I did think

with all these Republican senators telling Senator Lankford to go get a deal with me and Senator Sinema, that enough of them would stick with him to get the bill across the finish line.

That is not certain today.

It's not clear whether there will be just 15 or 20 Republicans that will stand with Senator Lankford and stand with the country to back up these common sense changes in immigration policy.

We will see, but it wouldn't obviously be shocking to anybody if Donald Trump ultimately won out here and his desire to preserve chaos at the border ultimately won the day.

So one argument in recent days is that President Biden doesn't need additional authority to control the border.

That must have come as a surprise to you,

especially as Republicans have been pushing for H.R.2.

What did you make of that argument?

So why is it called H.R.2?

Right?

It's H.R.2 because it was the second bill introduced by Republicans when they won the majority.

It was so important to them to pass new law giving the president new power to control the border that they made it the second bill that they introduced.

And so Republicans have been super consistent for the last year and a half about

the white hot need to pass new immigration laws right up until the point in which it was actually possible to pass new immigration laws.

Because most House Republicans weren't sincere about actually fixing the problem.

They have become so addicted to complaining about the problem.

They've been so addicted to using immigration and the border as a political cudgel come election time that they can't conceive of it going away.

The idea that there might be less scenes of thousands of people presenting at the border in an unplanned way this summer and this fall, that is paralyzing to many House Republicans because they don't have anything to run on other than criticizing the president on the border.

And so

this is new information to me that Republicans in the House are all of a sudden saying, well, the President doesn't need any new authority.

They've been pushing for that new authority right up until the point when it was possible that the new authority would actually become law.

What is your response to the criticisms from the left?

Because if you do want to pass through the Senate, you don't just need Republicans.

You need enough Republicans to overcome any Democrats you might lose.

What is your response to the criticism from the left that this is enforcement only and will lead to more hardships for people with legitimate claims to asylum while not actually reducing the chaos at the border.

Yeah, so this is going to be an old-fashioned compromise.

There are going to be a lot of Republicans who will vote against it, but there are going to be some Democrats that are going to vote against it.

And I think largely for this reason, this bill is not comprehensive immigration reform and it doesn't include a pathway to citizenship for undocumented Americans.

And I'm heartbroken over that.

But I do think that the situation at the border has become become so unmanageable on many days that it is threatening to unwind mainstream Americans' confidence in a legal immigration system.

And so if we want to preserve the asylum system and the refugee system, I do think we have to make some reforms to those systems and how the border is managed.

And I think that is in service.

of progressives' desire in the long run to be able to keep those pathways open.

But, John, the bill also does have some really important wins for progressives.

This bill includes the biggest expansion of family reunification visas in recent memory.

It includes, for the first time ever, a right to counsel for all migrants to the country.

It actually has government paid-for counsel for unaccompanied minors.

It gets work authorizations to migrants much quicker, right?

You have all these immigrants on the streets in homeless shelters because they can't work for a year after they get to the United States.

This bill fixes that problem.

So, yes, this isn't everything that progressives want, but I think it's important to make a down payment on reform to preserve sort of the bulk of Americans' faith in the system.

And there are some important wins in here for progressives and immigrant right groups.

Yeah, I mean, I hear you sort of trying to strike a balance.

On the one hand, as you pointed out at the top, that this negotiation only took place because Ukraine funding was on the line.

But at the same time, that

there is a real crisis at the border.

It does threaten to change the politics of this issue.

Democratic mayors are dealing with this crisis as it hits their cities.

Do you believe this bipartisan immigration piece is worthy and good in and of itself?

Or would you not be behind this kind of proposal if not for the Ukraine hostage-taking?

I think it's worthwhile in and of itself.

I was reluctant to start this conversation because I didn't think it was possible to get a bipartisan immigration reform bill done.

And since it hasn't gotten a vote on the Senate floor, I'm still not sure that it's possible.

But I actually do believe that this isn't 2013 anymore.

I mean, back then, you know, there were maybe 500 people every day applying for asylum at the southern border.

Today, it's 8,000, 10,000 people.

And if you look all around the world, you are seeing left governments and center-left governments being brought down by the issue of immigration and hard-right nationalist regimes taking their place.

And so I think as a progressive constituency, as a democratic movement that cares deeply about preserving the pathways of legal immigration, we do need to understand that the status quo is not sustainable.

And that if we ever want to be in a position to win those fights on behalf of DREAMers or undocumented Americans, it frankly serves our interest

to show Americans that we can handle our existing immigration system in a more orderly way.

So I get it that this isn't the way that a lot of advocates thought this was going to play out.

Everybody thought that when you did a big immigration deal, a pathway to citizenship was definitely going to be there.

But I worry that if we don't take this step,

harder, more dystopian times are ahead of us when it comes to migration politics in the United States.

So one last question just on the immigration piece and the process.

Obviously, you know, there's a joint statement by Republican leaders in the House saying this thing is dead on arrival.

They don't want it to pass the Senate.

If it passes the Senate, what happens?

So I think they do not want it to pass the Senate because they know if it did and it had a good bipartisan vote in the Senate,

there would be a lot of pressure to bring it up for a vote in the House.

Because there are a not insignificant number of House Republicans who desperately want Ukraine aid and who are willing to look at the changes we made to the border on the merits.

So

Johnson just doesn't want to have to deal with the ratcheted up pressure that would exist on him, both on passing border reform and on passing Ukraine aid, if we get this bill out of the Senate.

If it fails, then he can just throw his hands up and say, well, you know, the Senate couldn't get their act together.

Until the Senate figures their stuff out, I'm just not going to do anything on Ukraine or the border.

So this is just a play to prevent him from having to figure out a path forward on Ukraine and on immigration.

And so it's a bluff, essentially, and it's a bluff that the Senate should call.

Okay, so we're going to play the rest of that interview later.

Senator Murphy also talked to Lovett about two equally important topics, war in the Middle East and pizza.

Yeah, you bet.

Yeah.

Connecticut pizza, to be specific.

Don't spoil it.

Well, I want to, I can't tell if he liked it or not.

Yeah, well.

But anyway, let's start with what we just heard Murphy say about the immigration deal.

He basically said he expected Trump and Mike Johnson to kill this deal, but still thought there'd be enough Republican votes in the Senate to pass it.

Now he's not so sure.

He also thinks if it does pass the Senate,

Johnson knows there will be pressure to give it a vote in the House.

Tommy, politically, do you think it makes a difference whether or not the Senate passes this?

I think the Senate passing this bill will definitely help Biden focus attention on it.

So to the extent you want a political fight, I think the Senate passage would be useful.

I don't think they need the Senate to pass the bill to make the case that Republicans are obstructing immigration reform because they think it might help Biden politically.

Republicans have given them all kinds of quotes where they say it explicitly.

And so Biden should have a field day with that.

I just think it will get easier, though, to get the press corps to cover what's happening if there's actual movement.

Obstruction, unfortunately, as we learned through years of Mitch McConnell, is hard for the press to cover.

Yeah.

It's kind of the same story every day.

Love it.

What was your take on it?

I think reading between the lines, it feels like there was maybe a hope that what the opposition to this

border agreement would look like would be the opposition to bipartisan budget agreements, right?

That it might more take the shape of that, where you have something that could potentially pass the Senate in a bipartisan way and then kind die

in the House or

meet right-wing resistance in the House.

I think that it does seem like

the number of Republican senators that have been willing to come out against this, I think, maybe is a little bit more than sounds like he expected, but I don't know.

I mean, I do think it only matters on the margins because whether it died in both chambers or just the House, Republicans decided to, out of fealty for Donald Trump, kill something important that they requested that is true regardless.

Yeah.

You can can tell that they, Republicans, really don't want it to pass the Senate.

Did you notice there's a concerted effort underway to make James Lankford the fall guy for this whole thing?

Trump said on Monday that he didn't even endorse the guy, which is not true.

There's a whole statement from him endorsing him.

Mike Lee's staff reportedly yelled at Lankford's staff at a meeting and accused them of betrayal.

So it is much harder for them to define this deal as the work of like some Roe rhino if it

passes the Senate, right?

Like they can't do that.

And so they don't want, because if Joe Biden and Democrats can go around being like, look, there's this many Republican senators voted for this bill, the House decided to kill it, Donald Trump did it.

It's just, it is a better argument.

I agree that you can make it either way, but I'd love it to pass the Senate.

It is like, I know it's sort of like we've set it, but like, man, what was said when Republicans first started saying we will not support Ukraine funding unless there is a border deal?

Like at the time, people said, oh, this is just their way of killing Ukraine funding because a border deal is basically impossible.

And then they get what is ultimately like, you know, there are parts that reform the asylum system.

There are parts that reform the visa system, but this is a border enforcement bill.

They got what they wanted, and they really did catch the car because they did.

I think they didn't believe the Democrats would actually negotiate and meet them that far.

Yeah.

They didn't believe it.

They got what they wanted.

And the kinds of things that they're now mad about are like Senator Josh Hawley is upset that the bill would give taxpayer-funded lawyers to certain migrants.

Chris Murphy pointed out that that would be for unaccompanied children who cross the border.

Like the things they're mad about are so ridiculous and outrageous that they're holding up to try to kill this bill.

It's just like, it shows you how trapped they feel.

And they're lying a lot about a lot of the provisions, too.

Some of the, like, they're mad about certain things that are real, like you just mentioned, and then some shit they're just lying about.

Yeah, I mean, there's a mix, right?

Then you have like Langford having to go on Fox and for instance to be like,

one of those doofs asked him, like, oh, there's this money in here that seems that Republicans are objecting to.

And Langford's like, yeah, I mean, that's money so people don't die of thirst in the desert, which is not something as Americans, we would support.

And then you have like Mike Lee and all these other guys like lying about what the provisions on the number of people.

that have to come in before these rules kick in.

And they're using that to say like, oh, they want to allow 1.8 million undocumented people into the country, which is, again, just like a bold-faced lie.

I wonder if, you know, it's like, there are all these Republicans that worked on this deal.

Now they're having kind of the lies Republicans normally reserve for us kind of visited upon them.

Oh, yeah, it's great.

It's funny watching Lankford be like, what is this party?

Yeah.

What are they doing?

They're, he, at one point, Lankford said, I, I just want people to read the text of the bill because right now I think they're making a lot of their judgments based on Facebook posts.

I'm like, what?

Not your fellow Republicans.

Can you believe it?

And then he's like, what?

You know, Mike Lee asked for three weeks to read the bill, but came out against it before it was out.

What's going on?

I've never seen that happen with my party.

There's gambling.

There's gambling in this casino.

Well, so Trump and a lot of these Republicans opposed to the deal are calling it open borders.

It is, of course, not.

They're calling it an amnesty bill.

It just grants no amnesty to anyone.

Immigration activists and some progressive Democrats are saying it's too harsh and restrictive.

Obviously, both can't be right.

What do you guys think?

I mean, it's absolutely not an open border amnesty bill.

It's $14 billion for border enforcement.

It reforms the asylum process.

They make it harder to get into the country the authority to close the border if too many people cross unlawfully it forces border wall construction so that's just nonsense i definitely understand the criticism from the left especially the fact that and you addressed this with senator murphy this doesn't provide a pathway to citizenship for the dreamers for kids who are brought to the united states by their parents have lived here their entire lives and face deportation to countries they've never lived in maybe don't speak the language, don't know anybody, right?

Like that is a tough pill to swallow.

But, you know, the other thing that just for context, like there are all these changes to the asylum process, including the ability for the president to shut down the border between ports of entry, but those provisions sunset after a couple of years.

So they're not permanent changes.

It is seemingly designed to address what they feel like is an acute crisis that's been happening over the last couple of years.

So, you know, Murphy's response, well, I'll let you guys listen to Murphy's response to that argument.

I found it compelling.

I do think there is real concern that people feel like the entire immigration system is totally broken and are so angry about it that they're only going to support more draconian things first before they are willing to reform the entire system in ways that progressives might like.

I think that there was a longtime hope that you would pair pathway to citizenship with stricter border enforcement to get some kind of a compromise grand bargain on immigration.

I think that is long gone.

And you were never going to get a pathway to citizenship through this House.

We're not even going to get an enforcement-only bill through this House.

So that was never on the table.

And the only way you're going to get get a pathway to citizenship is now if you have 60 Democratic votes in the Senate or get rid of the filibuster and a Democratic president, Democratic House.

That's the only way we're getting a pathway to citizenship.

And doing an enforcement bill now doesn't mean that you can't get that later because there's no more such thing as a grand bargain where you get both anymore.

So what you need for a pathway to citizenship is you need the Democratic votes you need in the Senate.

I do think that the challenge on changing the asylum laws, like you said, is if you're limiting applications for asylum to ports of entry, you definitely could have migrants with legitimate asylum claims get turned away because they either couldn't show up at an official port of entry, you also have to prove that you couldn't relocate to a different part of your own country and prove that you're fleeing persecution or torture, not just economic hardship or potential violence.

And of course, it doesn't do anything to address the root causes of migration, as we've talked about before.

So it is like, you are going to get some asylum seekers who are legitimate asylum seekers not being able to get asylum because this makes it more difficult.

And they would say the reason we're doing that is because when the border is overwhelmed, what else are we going to do?

Right.

And this is the point that Jayapal made, which is that this will result in people who have a legitimate claim being in potentially more dangerous circumstances in Mexico, unable to apply.

But at the same time, right now, if you have a situation in which if you can apply for asylum and the process is so broken that it will be 10 years before your claim is fully adjudicated, that is both uncertainty for people who have legitimate claims and also a way for people who don't have legitimate claims to be in that line with people who desperately need to be in there according to the rules because they know that there's 10 years before this will ever come before a judge.

Yeah, and I honestly, I don't really have an opinion on this bill yet.

Like it came out today, but it's worth noting that for a while, the

conversation and concern about the border was like a Fox News, right-wing media-driven thing.

Now you're seeing mayors in liberal cities saying they're overwhelmed, their services are overwhelmed, and they need help in York, Denver, places like that, all over the country.

Well, and even progressive Democrats and others who've come out against this bill have said that the system is broken.

They know the system is broken.

And I do think that Murphy's points about the sort of progressive wins in this bill, like I hadn't heard those before, the idea that, you know, also it's going to increase legal immigration, another 250,000 visas over five years,

lawyers for migrants who need them, especially children, faster decisions, like you said.

And it lets migrants who pass asylum screenings get work permits so they can actually work.

Because a lot of the migrants who are in the cities and don't have homes and are on the streets, it's because they can't work in shelters.

And the point that Murphy makes, too, that like, or it's been 40 years since there's been any kind of a big immigration reform.

We watched that reform fail under the Bush administration, under the Obama administration.

And

it just, if the situation at the border gets worse, that will create even less space for any kind of compassionate and

like kind of more progressive and just system.

It just creates political space for people like Trump to operate and scare people.

You know, like when Abbott and DeSantis did their little stunts.

Governor of Texas.

Governor of Texas and Ronas Sanzis.

You know, he's in purgatory.

They

did their little, the, the, the stunt of sending planes to Martha's Vineyard and everybody said, oh, this is a, this is a disgusting political stunt, which is what, which it, which it was.

But what's worse than a disgusting political stunt is an ongoing busing operation that sends thousands upon

thousands of people to cities across the country because that had a legitimate political impact.

That was just effective.

And when it stopped being a stunt, it started becoming a policy, it did change the politics around this issue for those mayors, for example.

I think Murphy's...

He's a world O at heart.

And he's looking around Europe.

And

there's a big European election in June and you're seeing a polling show.

A A lot of these right-wing parties are ascendant and doing really well.

And a lot of the center-left parties are hurting.

And some of that is driven by concerns about migration and the feeling that the system is broken.

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Okay, so

Senator Murphy and the three of us were just having sort of a reality-based conversation about what's the best policy to fix the border.

Just to give everyone an idea as to how Trump and Trump media is discussing immigration, here he is during a sit-down interview with Maria Bardiromo over the weekend.

Look, I want China to do great.

I do.

And I like President Xi a lot.

He was a very good friend of mine during my turn.

Well, look, COVID, COVID cover-up, intellectual property.

When COVID came.

The list is long from our number on adversary, so I don't know if he's a friend.

No, but I got along with him great.

I'm not sure he loved what I was doing because I was getting along with him.

I don't think he wants you in the White House Mr.

Speaker.

No, no, he doesn't.

Their market almost crashed when I won Iowa and New Hampshire.

The market went down tremendously.

The Chinese are paying $35,000 a head, $50,000 a head to come to the southern border.

They're paying the drug cartels this money.

The number of Chinese nationals, and they are military-aged men, you're right, up 1,100% year over year.

Are they being directed by the Communist Party to come here?

I believe so.

I believe so.

The heads of these countries are smart.

They're not sending the people that are doing a great job and that they love in the country.

They're sending people for the most part that they don't want, and they're putting them into caravans.

You know what I love there is he's playing the old hits, the original hit, right?

They're sending them the right.

And then he's got some new stuff, right?

Which is I love my communist dictator friend who's also directing

military-aged men to come to invade the southern border.

He's loved Xi for a while.

He's a central casting character that he always talks about.

But I haven't heard about the sending the military-aged men to the southern border yet.

That seems like a new one.

Yeah.

Also, the Chinese version of the S ⁇ P 500 is down 25% over the past year.

So I'm not sure it's just a Trump thing.

Trump also called the deal a gift to Democrats, a death wish for Republicans, and said that immigration shouldn't be tied to foreign aid in any way, shape, or form, which is the exact opposite of what Republicans in Congress have demanded for the last several months.

It's the whole reason we got into these negotiations in the first place.

It's just like,

I said this to Murphy.

This wasn't two years ago.

It was December.

It was December.

It was a month ago, a month and a half ago.

They were like, we will not do this unless you come to the table on the border.

And then Democrats come to the table on the border and make this kind of a deal.

And they're like, how dare you make a deal like this?

We should never have tied these two things together.

It's like, you know, we,

whatever.

It's also wild.

It's also wild that he's just, he's like, just so transparently calling the deal a gift to Democrats and a death wish for Republicans.

Like he's he's always so open about the politics.

In part because he knows that's the thing that will upset the base the most.

You know what I mean?

They're not necessarily upset about migration.

If Donald Trump came out in favor of this bill, they'd probably all support it.

But they know they like hating on Democrats and they like owning the lips.

Negative partisanship.

He knows, he gets it.

And Trump knows that the economy is like slowly but...

steadily improving and he now wants to run on immigration and he's going to call Biden the open border guy who lets I don't know caravans of hot Chinese soldiers with a bowler or whatever like across the border.

They're always hot.

They're always hot.

They're always hot.

Remember when what's his name?

Steve King was like, they've got calves the size of cannabis.

Part why you got to throw out the cabinets.

It's a very fascist.

Yes, the sexualizing of the of the young man.

Like even Holly was out there being like, so so I just

I do think that like all of these Republicans saying just so brazenly like this would be good for Democrats.

That's why we shouldn't do it is very like, you know, they may live online and it may play with the base, but like

there are still things that, like, consistently people say they want.

And one of them is people in Washington to work together.

Totally.

Well, it's now.

And also,

it's now the essence.

They've boiled it down to the essence of the Republican platform.

That's all there is.

There is no policy anymore.

There is no issue they care about.

There's no platform.

There's no platform.

Their message is we will do whatever.

makes the Democrats mad.

Like owning the libs is the only message, is the only platform.

And people say, well, well, they do, they like tough borders and they're tough on immigration.

No, clearly not.

This is what they want is they just want to piss Democrats out.

Yeah, and like Schumer or McConnell were talking about how well they were able to kind of work together on this negotiating process.

And Holly points to that and says, that's the problem.

The problem is just the idea that Democrats and Republicans work together.

Like Lankford gets censured before the bill even comes out.

So that's just for the act of talking with Democrats, of just like negotiating with the enemy.

And like that may work online, that may play to a small subset of Republicans, but that is like anathema to a lot of the normies out there that ultimately do have a say in politics.

Totally agree.

And this is, again, why I think during the State of the Union, Joe Biden should use that opportunity to talk about how he came all this way to work with Republicans and made a bunch of compromises and wants to do something for the country.

And why can't they do it?

And let everyone see, because a lot of people are tuning in who don't like the message that we're going to do whatever's bad for Democrats.

And they can see who's willing to compromise and who's not.

And like, I do think that's a stage too that's like big enough.

I mean, you know, when this negotiation was first on the table at the end of last year, we were talking about it.

And, you know, there was this question of like, how much will Democrats have to be dragged to this kind of a debate?

And even Biden's, you know, like, will Biden be saying he's for it because he has to be?

And a lot of people looking at this saying, no, if he's going to be negotiating on the border, he shouldn't say, I'm doing this because Republicans want it.

I'm doing it because I'm here to solve a problem.

Well, Republicans have now made that a much more believable message because now we, I mean, we're going going to be a situation where Joe Biden is going to be at the State of the Union begging Republicans to go along with a border security deal.

Can't you imagine him?

It's unbelievable.

He can do it in a way that's not like, that doesn't sound like an attack either to really land to them.

He can have James Lankford stand up.

He can say, thank you.

You and I don't agree on much.

You're one of the most conservative members of the whole Senate, and I really appreciate it.

He's a ghostly white man from Oklahoma.

Looks like Edward Cullen's father.

Yeah.

And, oh, you hear those booze?

They don't like you anymore, do you?

Because you agreed to do something good.

You know, you can do work with the Democrats.

Yeah, there's a lot of opportunities.

John's going with the magnanimous version.

The hackish version is you'd be like, these guys voted against billions of dollars to combat China, right?

Like, that's like the Taiwan piece of this.

These guys voted against allowing our Afghan allies who fought and died for U.S.

service members to become citizens of the United States.

Republicans might actually hate that.

But like, you know, there's some like, there's some other pieces of this bill that are bad politics.

Twilight.

If you vote against it.

Twilight.

Yeah, Twilight.

I got it.

Cullen Brothers?

Cullen.

I don't know Twilight.

I think it's famous.

Cullen.

Name another famous vampire.

I'll tell you that I have to.

I'll tell you that the dials, the dial tests, they'll go on the magnanimous one.

That's what will get them.

It won't be the money to Taiwan.

No, absolutely not.

The reason Republicans were hammering this issue and have hammered this issue for years is because

their position is more popular than the Democratic position.

Voters in the country, if you ask people, if you poll people, Republicans have more support on immigration than Democrats.

that is the reality we've been living in that's why they made this gamble that's why they demanded the border security money that's why they picked this fight not just among republican voters not just among independent voters with like basically every single demographic group that there is biden's approval is 18 on immigration yeah and it's not because people think he's being too tough no all right so trump also used the interview with uh bartaromo as an opportunity to toss under the bus the rnc chair who literally changed her name for him let's listen how's rhonda mcdaniel doing uh i think she did great when she ran michigan for me.

I think she did okay initially in the RNC.

I would say right now

there'll probably be some changes made.

Do you guys feel like he decided to do that right on the spot?

Like he had not.

He just was like, you know what?

I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it.

He was yes ending.

It was just like improv.

He's like, never.

He was just like, sure.

Sure.

I saw some that are people being mad at her.

Yeah, I'm in.

I love it.

I mean.

Remember when Vivek Ramaswamy screamed at her from stage, tried to get her fired on the spot?

I forgot about that.

Tried to get her to come up and debate him, I think.

I forgot about that.

This woman helped Donald Trump change the rules of the Republican primary so that he could win enough delegates to wrap up the nomination on Super Tuesday.

And then even before that...

He wins New Hampshire and she tries to push Haley out of the race.

She's the fucking RNC chair.

She's supposed to be neutral.

And that is still not enough loyalty for Donald Trump.

The entire party is bent to his will.

They don't say anything when he recruits terrible candidates who lose critical races.

They do not say anything when he says, you know, criticizes their fundraising, even though he is cannibalizing their small dollar fundraisers to fund his PACs and his various legal defense funds.

Like he is harming the RNC, and he's blaming Rona for it, and it's great.

But it's also like...

I love it.

What more do you need if you're one of these Republican politicians who are like, who know that this is a bad idea to endorse Donald Trump and support him again, who said bad things after the insurrection about Donald Trump?

I want him to be accountable, all this bullshit.

And now you're going to endorse him again.

No matter what you do, he is going to toss you aside at some point.

No matter how much you kiss his ass, suck up to him.

You can be Tim Scott behind him at the New Hampshire thing, say, I love Donald Trump.

He is going to screw you or have the mob try to kill you.

I do think it's like some way

he's going to do it.

I do think it's like, just deal with it.

It's like Shaharazad.

You want to tell him a story to stay alive for one more night.

Like every person that goes in.

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights.

Okay.

Familiar.

Time familiar, but technical.

That's why I figured, you know, you know, you got to get this.

But the Twilight reference.

But like, even like, you know, I can't.

I was looking for a vampire.

But, but that.

Interview with the vampire.

I remember, I can't remember who it was.

Maybe it was Chris Christie or one of them just talks about like when you take a job with Trump, somebody pulls you aside and tells you at some point he'll turn on you.

You just have to keep that off for as long as possible.

And all these people people made their dirty little deal knowing exactly what kind of person he is.

But also, there's nothing Trump, Trump knows, like when someone like Tim Scott kind of supplicates the way that they do, like, he doesn't respect it.

He doesn't respect it.

He knows, like, oh, this person's weak.

I can, I can bat them around for a while.

And when they're done, I can dispose of them and they won't pose a problem because they're weak.

Look, you get handed a little package, it's ticking.

It's going to blow up in your face at some point.

But, you know, if you go after him now, it's going to blow up in your face now.

It's probably what they're thinking.

It's just

a longer fuse.

It's wild.

It's wild.

Speaking of Republicans who are on Trump's shit list, Nikki Haley is really embracing her new gig as a rhino establishment chill.

She made a surprise appearance on SNL over the weekend in the cold open.

Let's listen.

Okay, our next question comes from someone who describes herself as a concerned South Carolina voter.

Yes, hello.

My question is, why won't you debate Nikki Haley?

Women are terrible with money.

In fact, a woman I know recently asked me for $83.3 million.

And you've spent $50 million in your own legal fees.

Do you need to borrow some money?

Nikki Haley, Joel Osmond, we call her six cents.

Remember that one?

I see dead people.

Yeah, that's what voters will say if they see you and Joe on the ballot.

He's so good.

James Austin Johnson went from like, I look, I don't know, I saw him on TikTok, and then like the next day he was on SNL.

And when you saw him on TikTok, he was like running around the streets doing this impression, and it was so fucking good.

It's the best one.

It's amazing.

So, you think that'll close the gap for Nikki Haley in South Carolina?

That appearance?

I think a lot of undecided voters in the South Carolina primary are going to tune in.

It's pretty wild.

It's pretty wild that Nikki Haley just goes to SNL and they just do just a solid chunk of just like Nikki Haley propaganda on her.

Yeah, it actually, what I thought was, like, man,

like, maybe she's weakening, but like

tough if she makes it.

I will say SNL does that for every politician who agrees to be on SNL.

They're pretty nice to you.

Yeah, they get, they're pretty nice to you.

Yeah.

They let you make fun of your opponents.

I wasn't more, I wasn't even, I was just sort of like notice, just sort of like noting it, like, wow, like they just, she just came there, did, did three solid hits on Trump.

They did one joke at her expense around slavery and got out.

She's at the YOLO part of the campaign.

This is just, she's just having a good time.

She knows it's over.

Might as well say kind of what you want to say.

She's saying most of what she wants to say, not all of it.

Do some things like SNL, which probably won't endear you to the hardcore Republican base.

But, you know, she's really trying out for her.

I'm telling you, she's just, she's one appearance away from sitting right at this table.

Hey, hey, honestly.

And, and by the way, and we're not saying no.

No.

Do you think Nikki Haley hasn't been on this show because we said no?

How are the comedic chops?

Could she do some lowly?

No.

She's, I mean, look, she's...

She handled it okay.

She handled it fine.

She's a

very good politician.

She's just a very good politician.

She did put in a little like kind of

spin on why it's okay if she loses South Carolina.

I thought that was interesting.

That was novel, right?

Saying, like, well, you know, oh, like, you know, because they asked her, like,

the Trump impersonator said, Oh, you're going to lose your home state.

You lose your home state.

You lost New York.

It's interesting.

It's interesting.

Well, that's just because she's sticking around.

She's sticking around through Super Tuesday.

I love it.

So the Republican primary in South Carolina obviously isn't for a few weeks, but the first official Democratic primary took place there on Saturday.

And in a stunning turn of events, Joe Biden narrowly edged out his opponents with 96.2% of the vote.

Marion Williamson got 2.1%.

And Dean Phillips pulled in a whopping 1.7%.

Only about 4% of the electorate turned out.

It's just about 130,000 voters.

But the Biden campaign and allies like DNC chair Jamie Harrison and former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina pointed to the results as evidence that the polls are underestimating Joe Biden's support.

And they were all citing an Emerson poll from early January that only had Biden at 69%.

Nice.

Early rear edging, too.

So edging and both of them.

So I've got that for a bit.

I have a few thoughts on this.

Okay.

I want to hear that.

I very much understand the desire to stop the collective Democratic freakout over all the polls that have Trump leading Biden, which is all the national and state polling averages right now.

Non-individual polls.

All the averages, both nationwide and in the swing states, show that Trump is leading.

I don't think that the best way to stop that freak out is to cherry-pick good polls, unskew bad polls, yell at the media for covering the bad polls and not covering the good polls.

And I really don't think that Joe Biden overperforming a single month old Emerson poll by 20 points in a primary election against Marion Williamson and Dean Phillips with 4% turnout can tell you anything significant about anything,

about Joe Biden's general election strength, about how he'll perform against Trump, against polls, about anything.

Well, that's where we disagree.

Yeah,

you're obviously right.

Also,

I just,

I felt this, look, I understand why there's this desire to reassure and like, because panicking doesn't really get us anything and we have to, we have to give.

We listen to Keeping the 1600s.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We were there.

But, but, but, like, there's, I think, this desire to like, this is, assuming what we're heading towards is a close election, then the turnout among Republicans in an Iowa caucus is not going to tell you much.

The turnout of Democrats in an uncontested South Carolina race is just not going to tell you much because anything you tell you has to have a huge error bar on it.

And this election will be determined inside of the error bar.

So just a special election is not going to tell you much because it's a different electorate.

Panic isn't helpful.

It's also not helpful to tell people that every piece of bad news or good news is somehow evidence that Joe Biden is being underestimated yet again.

It's just like it's fighting a battle that doesn't need to be won.

Right, right.

Like the battle is not over whether Joe Biden is properly estimated and whether the polls are correct.

The bat, like we shouldn't be panicked, but we should be worried and we should use that worry to motivate us to like do some work and volunteer.

And that's less likely to happen, by the way, if you tell everyone, you know what?

It's fine.

They're all, everyone's hyperventilating.

The polls are all great.

Joe Biden's going to do it.

Because then you might get people who say, okay, I'm just going to stay home and I'm going to be fine.

Like, use the worry to motivate people.

Don't just keep telling everyone everything's fucking fine.

Yes, I think we need to get the worry into a place where people feel that these polls are reason to believe that Joe Biden could very well lose unless everyone does everything they can, right?

Isn't that what you, that's all we need?

Can we just talk about how Marianne Williamson beat Dean Phillips?

I mean, how does that happen?

He went there.

That is he appeared.

Absolutely brutal.

He also set the bar.

He was like, look, if Joe Biden gets 95%

in South Carolina, that's enough.

That's what Dean Phillips said.

And

he said it at 95%.

Joe Biden got 96%.

I mean, if I were the Biden campaign, I would just be pointing the reporters to the fact that a lot of them were looking at the primary schedule this time around and the changes that had been made and the fact that you had this weird kind of looming zombie New Hampshire primary happening where some challenger could have gotten a big percentage and made Joe Biden look bad.

And that didn't happen.

That would be my argument argument about strength.

Right.

I mean, like one incumbent president is getting 95% of the vote in South Carolina.

The other, for all intents and purposes, incumbent president is

still fighting off a challenger who will do far better than that.

I think the other thing you can take from the results is, and you got this in New Hampshire too, there's not much of a protest vote against Joe Biden right now.

People are not turning out to protest Joe Biden and vote against him.

You didn't see it in the Raid-ins in New Hampshire.

You haven't seen it in South Carolina.

We will, of course, see in Michigan, where there's now an effort to vote uncommitted for people who are pissed at Joe Biden there.

But we're not seeing that.

What we're seeing is, if anything, you know, the turnout in South Carolina was very low, as it's expected to be in a primary where there's Joe Biden versus two candidates who are not like serious, serious candidates.

But yeah,

I don't think it tells you.

Protesters just go into events.

Do you guys see that Jamie Harrison, the DNC chair, said that he was open to seating the full New Hampshire slate of delegates?

He did.

Totally walked it back.

So the context for our listeners, like Biden told the DNC to change the order of the primary process to make South Carolina first, but New Hampshire has a law that says, actually, we have to go first.

So they went first, which means under the DNC rules, that's supposed to result in you losing half of your delegates to the convention.

But since Biden won, I guess Clyburn, Congressman Clyburn, and Jamie Harrison, the DNC chair, just decided like, no harm, no foul.

Let's just seed them all and try to mend this rift with New Hampshire.

I know.

I'm not sure what to think about that.

Like, okay, great.

I couldn't tell if it was on the fly or if it was planned.

I guess they just want everyone.

I think it felt a little on the fly, didn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah, because Clyburn floated it, and then Harrison goes, Well, when the boss speaks,

which is great.

Maybe it's one of those things where

it's better to kiss ass than each shit kind of a situation.

I like that.

And in terms of party chairs who have to suddenly turn on a dime when the boss says something, Jamie Harrison in a much better position.

Could be Rona McDaniels.

Yeah, it could be much worse.

He was like, the boss speaks.

We got to sit in New Hampshire.

Ronnie McDaniel's like, the boss speaks.

And I'll see you later.

Good point, boss.

And one more thing.

If you want some poll sanity, some real informed analysis, Dan hosts a show now here on Crooked Media called Polar Coaster

that you can get if you sign up as a friend of the pod.

You just go to crooked.com slash friends to sign up.

And I think he's got a great episode this week with Democratic pollstress Linda Lake.

So obviously, Biden's also dealing with the political fallout from a Middle East conflict that seems to keep getting bigger and deadlier.

The president ordered missile strikes against Iran-backed militias in retaliation for a drone attack that killed three American service members and wounded dozens of others.

The White House says there will be more strikes to come.

Republican hawks are mad that Biden didn't just attack Iran.

Though Trump hasn't said anything beyond his initial response to the drone attack, which he blamed on Biden being weak and said that he has us, quote, hurtling toward World War III.

Tommy, what are your thoughts on first the strikes and then on how Trump is responding to the growing conflict in the Middle East?

I mean, on the strikes themselves, I was relieved to hear that Biden didn't even consider hitting targets within Iran itself.

That would have been a crazy escalation.

It sounds like they hit like IRGC-linked targets in Iraq and Syria.

They might be considering more strikes in the future.

They keep hinting at them, but we don't know.

But the broader point is it's clear that the core driver in this uptick in violence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen is the ongoing war in Gaza.

Until we get get a ceasefire in Gaza, there will not be an end to these attacks on U.S.

personnel or on ships in the Red Sea.

So that's what I would love to see happen and them focus on.

The Trump piece of this is very interesting, though, because his comments or lack of comments since October 7th, the Hamas attack, I think tell you a lot about the Republican Party and its politics.

Because remember, Trump's initial response to the Hamas attack was to criticize Netanyahu, attack him for not being prepared, and then he praised Hezbollah for being smart.

And then he said, Netanyahu let us down in 2020 when we assassinated this Iranian general named Qasim Soleimani, and they didn't back us or something, which I don't even, it was not at all true.

So clearly, someone in Trump's camp said that was a disaster.

They mopped it up, and then they said, just shut the fuck up for a little while.

And so since then, his message has been, Biden is weak.

None of this would have happened if I was president.

That is his reaction to everything.

And so I think the reason for that is Trump knows his party is split on these issues.

Like you have your hardcore evangelical base that will say, do everything possible to defend Israel to the hilt.

Then you have some sort of like residual neocons, the Lindsey Grahams and the Tom Cottons.

But then you have Tucker Carlson and this flock of Republicans that are like anti-war.

They're trying to figure out why are we even overseas?

Why do we have troops in Jordan or Syria or Iraq anymore?

Good question, by the way.

And so Trump needs all of them.

And he's doing this dance where he's just trying to say nothing to appease everyone.

And I don't know.

It seems like it's kind of working.

Yeah, I mean, look, the Trump, Trump sort of like, it was, we used to call it like the neocon paleocon like thing.

And like Trump going after Bush in those early 2016 debates were one of the ways in which he kind of, I think, signaled that he was willing to take on kind of like Republican shibboleths and like kind of push back against the neocons.

And I mean, remember there was that, that fucking awful Maureen Dowd column about like Donald Trump the dove.

Oh, yeah.

Hillary the Donald the dove.

Well, I think that Trump realized that, okay,

what are the most unpopular aspects of the Republican Party to most voters back in the 2008 era?

Warmongers, helping the rich, and

on cultural stuff, pretty weird and out there, right?

And abortion's obviously the best example now after Dobbs.

But, you know, some of the Ron DeSantis stuff got a little too weird.

People like Mike Pence.

Get a little too weird.

Yeah, people like Mike Pence.

And so in this election now, he's trying to trying to back off from, he's, he's, he's taking credit for Dobbs.

It's just, he's, he's, this is just mirrors what he's doing here.

He's trying to keep everyone in the party happy.

He's taking credit for Dobbs, taking credit for the Supreme Court, but he's like, I don't know if I want to go endorse the six-week ban, right?

And on

in 2016, on the economic stuff, remember he was talking about closing the carried interest loophole and the hedge fund guys and all that bullshit.

And now, and for, and since he ran against Hillary, he's he's been calling Hillary Biden these people warmongers, right?

Wants to call Democrats warmongers.

So he's he's trying to and I think the key for Democrats is to make sure that he does not run away from his own record on all of these issues because he was as you said he's he was not like the Donald the dove.

No, look on Israel he gave BB Nintendia everything he wanted.

He moved the embassy to Jerusalem.

He recognized Israeli sovereignty under the Golan Heights.

They negotiated all the Abraham Accord agreements, worked for these bilateral normalization deals between Gulf autocrats and Israel.

And in some of those cases, like the U.S.

would just give giant concessions to the country that was in Israel.

Like the UAE got a huge arms sales deal, for example, right?

So Trump, if he were president right now,

would probably be giving Netanyahu even more support, pushing far less hard for a ceasefire agreement,

would care less overtly about civilian casualties.

I don't say any of that to suggest that I'm happy with Joe Biden's handling of what's happening in Gaza.

I want to see see us loudly criticizing Netanyahu, the conduct of the IDF in this war, and pushing publicly for a ceasefire and not just doing it behind the scenes.

But I still think Trump would be a lot worse if he were president right now.

Yeah, I mean, he loves dictators, and he loves dictators because, and he, he, he, they, he thinks that they provide order in their countries, and he doesn't care what they do to their own citizens in terms of Bibi Netanyahu.

It's the Palestinians.

Like, he doesn't give a shit how people are treated around the world, but he's chummy with these dictators because he likes authoritarianism and he thinks it provides order.

Like, that's, that, that tells you all you need to know about Trump.

And so I do think that, like, making sure that people know that and knowing how dangerous he could be on the world stage, and then also on the economic stuff, you know, he wants to give another fucking huge tax cut to rich people and to corporations.

Yeah, I mean, like, his, you know, once, once he got into office, I think it was actually a policy nightmare, but uh, on economics, but actually a political boon that Donald Trump wasn't the populist he said he was going to be.

Like, if Donald Trump had actually been

governed the way he talked about governing,

we wouldn't have been in a much worse political situation.

It mattered that he tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

It mattered that his biggest economic achievement is a massive tax cut for the wealthy.

It will matter in 2024.

If he married up culture war with an expansion of the welfare state, like a lot of populists do, that would have been incredibly powerful.

It's like a mix of nationalism and socialism.

Put those two things together.

At the end of the day, the challenge for Biden is he has actual responsibility right now.

He's not just like true thing from Mar-a-Lago like Trump is.

And honestly, and that's why Trump, it was so tough for him in 2020 in that race, because Trump had the responsibility because he was president.

He loves being a challenger.

He loves just fucking throwing rocks from the sidelines.

And I do think, too, it's like you just like step back from this.

And like, you know, we've just been through like an endless news cycle of every media organization in the country losing jobs and we have like misinformation spreading rampantly online.

The Republican Party no longer believes it is necessary to have a platform.

There was a time when you actually had to articulate a competing vision for what you would do as president.

You couldn't just say everything he does is bad.

And if I were president, things would be better.

The market is up because I will be president.

The market is down because I'm not president.

Chinese market also down.

Also down.

These things are, these things would be, these things wouldn't.

You'd be laughed out of the room.

Yeah.

And now there's no, because like the

like media is consumed in such a fractured way, and there are fewer kind of gates gates on like what is acceptable, what is treated as legitimate,

what reaches people.

These Republicans feel like they are safe to make these ridiculous, ridiculous arguments.

Yeah, I mean, Biden needs the economy to keep improving.

He's the highlight the choice between him and Trump and the extremism of the Republican Party, but they have to broker a ceasefire agreement.

in Gaza, and they have to publicly lean on Netanyahu to include conditioning future military aid to Israel and and have a carrot and stick approach, not just a hug baby approach.

And I will be mad about this until it happens.

And then one more thing he needs to do is like just before every speech, just like do some jumping jacks, push-ups maybe, just show everyone he's in a.

That's what you're going to say.

And one thing is he got to press that, he's got to

make sure these juries he's put in place convict.

Joe Biden, Joe Biden worked so hard to get all those jurors right there, and now they got to fucking bring the hammer down.

Oh, we should politicize DOJ.

I wish we could.

He's doing a terrible job.

I know.

His son's gotten indicted a couple times now.

Corey Horse.

Bird came under investigation.

How pissed would you be?

Like, can you guys stop indicting my relatives?

This is not why I installed you.

By the way, there's a special counsel out there that the Biden team is preparing for this week to

his own classified documents case.

Remember that?

That's coming back.

Remember the good old days when JFK appointed his brother?

What happened to that?

Well, the brother's son.

Now we're dealing with that.

Right.

Yeah.

Guess that's right.

Yeah.

So, anyway, you asked Chris Murphy about, not any of that, but about the Middle East and pizza.

Sure.

And we're going to listen to the rest of that right after the break.

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Senator, before we let you go, I did want to ask you about a couple other pieces of the proposal.

Specifically, how urgent is the Ukraine funding right now?

What happens if it doesn't pass?

Yeah, Ukraine will lose the war.

And it's possible that the tide could start to turn relatively quickly.

Right now, on many days, Ukraine is firing one quarter the artillery shells that Russia is on the other side of the line of contact.

It used to be that when Russia sent missiles to Ukrainian cities, Ukraine could shoot almost all of them down because they had enough interceptors.

on some days, they shoot only half of those missiles down.

We are on the precipice of a disaster.

This isn't theoretical any longer.

And, you know, I don't want to be hyperbolic, but man, like, history does sometimes repeat itself.

And if Putin gets his hands on Ukraine and sort of does so because the West and the United States stuck with an ally for like two seconds,

he will consider moving on NATO.

And then that is U.S.

troops in the fight.

So we do have a direct personal interest as a nation in making sure that Ukraine has what it needs.

And we're

months away from the tide turning in this war, potentially in a pretty disastrous direction.

One other piece of this is the Israel funding.

Senator Bernie Sanders has come out against additional aid for Israel without any conditions.

Would you like to see conditions as part of a package like this if it were possible?

And

do you see a political shift on that issue, given how dire the situation is and how the conflict is escalating in the region?

Listen, the number of civilian casualties in Gaza is unacceptable.

It ultimately does not accrue to the benefit of Israel for this many civilians to perish and for Hamas to essentially have a permanent organizing platform.

I've never been terribly afraid of applying basic human rights and international law conditions to the aid we send Israel or any other nation.

We're obviously going to potentially have amendment votes on this bill in the Senate, and one of them may be a pretty straightforward bill to say for all the countries receiving aid in this bill, you've got to comply, and there's got to be a certification of compliance

for basic human rights laws.

And to me, that shouldn't be anything any of our allies should be afraid of.

Does the standalone Israel proposal that Republicans are pursuing in the House complicate this already complicated path?

Or do you think that's sort of a feint?

What do you think?

Aaron Powell, I don't think it complicates the path in the Senate, because in the Senate, we still do have a bunch of Republicans who want to fund Ukraine and who know that the Israel-only bill in the House is really about one thing, avoiding funding Ukraine.

So I think Democrats and Republicans, for the most part, in the Senate understand that if we're going to do funding for Israel, we have to do it at the same time as Ukraine.

This deal is being put forward in the context of a war between Israel and Hamas, the deadly attack on U.S.

troops, violence escalating in the region.

President Biden has talked about wanting to avoid a broader regional conflict, but you also have Secretary of Defense saying that what we've seen is only the start of the U.S.

response.

When does a broader conflict in the region become a broader regional conflict?

And what kind of military authorization do you believe is not only needed, but also one that you would support?

Yes, so I asked this question to the administration about a week ago.

Senator Kaine, along with two of our Republican colleagues, sent a request to the administration to give us their justification, in particular for the attacks inside Yemen.

I can't figure out what the existing legal authorization is for ongoing attacks against the Houthis inside Yemen.

I also think they will likely need an authorization if these attacks against Iranian proxies continue.

Listen, I certainly would be

open to a limited authorization of force to make sure that the message is sent all throughout the region that if you attack U.S.

forces, there is a consequence.

I have no desire for this to expand into a direct confrontation with Iran.

And I think at some point we have to step back and understand

that our unprotected force structure in the region, frankly, makes our troops there targets for

low-cost, provocative confrontations with the United States.

When Joe Biden was sworn into office, I made a very immediate recommendation that we dramatically draw down our forces in the region, in part because I worry that it would make these kind of conflicts very easy for our relatively unorganized non-state actor adversaries to prompt.

And I think we're seeing that reality.

Listen, we have to respond, but we don't need to be spread as thin and as unprotected in the region as we are today.

And I hope that this is

a reason for us to reconsider our forced presence throughout the region.

I'm going to to switch gears now and

as hard as a person can.

I owe you an apology.

And here is what I owe you an apology about.

Read on.

A few years ago, I made some glib comments about Connecticut pizza.

You did.

You did.

And I ended up spending a portion of the pandemic in Connecticut.

And I want to tell you, I am sorry.

Connecticut makes some of the best pizza in the United States of America.

It is in the conversation for number one.

But I would, I, as a person from New York, would still, I think, ultimately choose New York.

But I wanted you to know that you were right,

I was wrong, and I apologize.

You know, really, no matter what happens to this comprehensive border and Ukraine bill that I have bled and sweat the last four months, it really doesn't matter anymore because this apology is really,

you know, it's just, it's just worth

it.

So,

what's the number one

pizza for you in Connecticut?

Pepe.

I love Pepe.

Come on.

So good.

I'm a modern guy,

but they're all good.

All right.

Sing the gospel, man.

Let people know.

I'm doing my part.

Come to Connecticut and see what John's talking about.

All right.

Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much for your time.

Thanks, man.

All right.

Thanks to Chris Murphy for joining.

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All right.

Anyone have anything else?

How about those Grammys?

How about those Grammys?

I did.

I don't watch a lot of ward shows.

I really like the Grammys because they're like, hey, what if instead of self-indulgent speeches and awards, we make this like a cool one-of-a-kind concert experience?

Well,

I really enjoyed that.

I liked we said we got we got Joni Mitchell doing both sides now.

Yes, we've got we got a new song from Billy Joel.

Interested.

I missed that, and then you had Tracy Chapman

doing a fast car with that gentleman, Luke Homes.

Now, I like I have to say, like I, when, when the Luke Combs version of fast car was like going around,

it was like, I was like, I don't know, what are we doing here?

What does that head tilt mean?

It means like you can't see it, but there's a lot of.

Have you ever seen the first?

I may get my history slightly wrong, but there was a moment where Tracy Chapman performs Fast Car, maybe for the first time or maybe.

At Wembley Stadium.

At Wembley Stadium.

She subbed in for Stevie Wonder, I believe.

With like 10 minutes notice.

And she sings this song and like fast, it just.

A stadium is like captivated by this, this incredible song.

Imagine you're expecting Stevie Wonder, and this person you don't know comes out, and it takes like two minutes to get to the chorus.

And then the chorus hits, and they're like, oh my God, this woman is incredible.

you can see it such

and there's something so magical about that and it is her song and there was something about seeing it like i don't know in the in this sort of like this country guy kind of like there and then people being like oh i love that i love that luke homb song oh it's a cover i had no idea maybe a little i mean well that's what all the cats did

but that's the story of every cover right like so there was i think um there was a sort of a justifiable controversy and discussion around the country music charts, which are famously biased against women and people of color.

Like Jason Isbel talks about this all the time.

His wife, Amanda Shire, is a famous country star.

She's incredibly talented.

And they're just like furious that they can never both chart at the same time.

But that wasn't Luke Combs' fault, right?

Like, he just loved the song and he covered it and it got the song to number one in the country charts.

And I think because that happened, it created this conversation about the song and it led to Tracy Chapman performing it for the first time in years and years and years.

And the way that he talked about her was so wonderful and like really gave her her due.

That's right.

I got that.

It got me back a little bit because I feel like I felt like her embracing of the fact that he is now performing the song made it, made me more comfortable with it.

But part of it is also just like, I don't know, like we saw both sides now and you see Fast Car and it's a little bit unfair because like, you know, those are two of the greatest songs of like the last 50 years.

And then you're just sort of like, God damn it.

Like where like,

where's that?

Or more of that.

I think the

Luke Hombs Trace Chapman performance was cool because the way he hung back and was like, this is not about me.

Even his voice, he like kind of hung back.

And then when they started applauding, he was like pointing to her.

And I thought that was nice.

But also, it just hearing that song performed reminds you that there are songs and there's famous songs and there's like anthems.

You know what I mean?

And that song is iconic in like five notes.

You know, you don't even hear her voice and you know what it is and you know you love this song and the next five minutes are going to be good.

Yeah.

It's also just sort of

there's a, there's like, there's politician good, there's TV good, there's movie good, and then there's like rockstar good, like rock star charisma and

nothing quite like it.

Anyway, Grammy's good.

Grammys are great.

It was a great job.

Good for them.

All right, everyone.

We'll talk to you on Wednesday.

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