2023 Holiday Mail Bag!

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My name is Niccolo Mainoni, and for years I have been obsessed with one of Europe's greatest mysteries. Who killed God's banker? The wire said, Calvi found dead.
Suicide? Question mark. What truly happened to the banker who had the Vatican, the mafia,

and a secret far-right branch of the Freemasons all pounding on his door?

From Crooked Media and Campside Media, this is Shadow Kingdom, Season 1, God's Banker.

Find it wherever you get your podcasts or get early access to the full season

by joining Crooked's Friends of the Pod at crooked.com slash friends.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Jon Lovett.

I'm Tommy Vitor.

I'm going Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett.
I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
Welcome to our annual holiday mailbag episode. It's here, guys.
I can't believe it. It's here.
And thanks to everyone who sent in questions via Twitter, Instagram, and, of course, our Friends of the Pod Discord. And Threads, bud.
Threads? Well, Well, threads of the pod? Is that a thing now? We got some threads. I just read what's on my script.
I'm just saying. I'm not, no criticism.
Just also reminding people about threads. It is an Instagram thing.
Yeah, that's right. Anyway, enough of this.
Let's get right into it. We got a lot of questions like this one from at Neens23 on Twitter.
Are you concerned about Biden's position on the war in Gaza and how this will affect voter turnout, in particular with younger voters? Tommy? I am concerned. I think the polling is a little weird and all over the place on this, right? As of recently, there was a CBS poll from early December that showed 38% of Democrats think Biden has shown too much support for Israel, and that's up from 20%.
I think that's sort of weird phrasing, though. I don't know what support means.
Kind of got to define that. Yeah, right.
I don't like vague polling. There's also, in that same survey, 26% of Democrats want Biden to support pro-Palestinian protests in the U.S.
There was another previous poll, though, that showed Democrats approval of Biden's handling of the situation in Gaza went up from 50% to 59% right around the ceasefire, I think. So again, polling is a little all over the place.
My concern is more anecdotal. I've had a bunch of conversations with Arab American friends or Muslim American friends who say they're hearing from people that they feel demoralized, they don't know if they can vote.
They feel like they were let down based on their support for 2020. So there's pockets of this happening in Michigan that's been highly reported or swing states like Pennsylvania.
So I think it's something that, you know, Biden has time to fix, but he should keep an eye on and be aware of. Yeah, and I mean, I will say this, like if you are

upset or

upset, has time to fix, but he should keep an eye on and be aware of. Yeah.
And I mean, I will say this, like if you are upset or disappointed or outraged with Joe Biden over Gaza, like you have every right to feel that way. And I don't think it's very effective because I've seen this here and there to tell Muslim Americans or Arab Americans or any Americans who are on the fence about voting for Biden in 24 because of Gaza.
Like, well, if you if you don't vote for him, you know, good luck with the Muslim ban. But I also do think it's possible and even reasonable to vote for someone that you are angry with or disappointed with.
And I think that because at the end of the day, your vote is not about rewarding or punishing Joe Biden or Donald Trump or really any politician. It's about choosing between two different outcomes that will each have tangible real life consequences for you and millions of other people.
And in a closed country that's 50-50, your vote can be decisive in those outcomes. Also, don't wait until 2024.
You can be active now. Call your congressman.
Yes. Say, hey, I'm disappointed in the lack of effort to push for a ceasefire or delimit civilian casualties in Gaza.
I want you to do more. I want you to urge the administration to do more.
And there is a $14 billion request for aid to Israel that you will ostensibly vote on in the new year. Tell your Democratic senators, don't vote for that bill if there's no conditions.
Don't give Bibi Netanyahu a blank check. That is one way to get involved for sure.
Dan, Sea Otter Friend asks, this is my favorite part of the mailbag episode. I do love the names.
Me too. So Sea Otter Friend asks, what should one say to swing voters who don't believe democracy is on the line? Don't tell them democracy is on the line.
No, look, democracy is 100% on the line in this election. Donald Trump is being very explicit about what his specific plans are, if he gets it into power, whether he says he's going to be a dictator on day one, or all the stories we read about how he's going to weaponize the federal government to reward his friends, protect himself, and punish his enemies.
But if we simply make the case say democracy is on the line, or this could be the end of democracy, that's something that means very little to a lot of people, right? It simply is just saying, here's this political system that most of you think doesn't work very well, and here's this guy who's going to shake it up or destroy it or whatever version they say. So I think, say a few things.
One, you should be very specific about the things that Donald Trump is going to do and how it's going to affect your lives. And if you want to make a broader argument, I would spend less time talking about how the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy and more about the threat he poses to people's personal freedoms, right? Whether that is what books you can read, what healthcare decisions you can make whether you can access an abortion whether you know what access contraception who you can love all of those things are going to be at risk because we have an authoritarian who will not abide by not just norms but laws when in office unless people don't want to vote in any other elections maybe they want they want this to be the last election they voted yeah in which case given the tempo of emails from democrats that could be appealing yeah a lot of time back yeah if you skip this way it's like uh it's like when uh uh homer simpson's boss said if you don't come if you don't come in friday don't bother coming in monday and he's like cool four day weekend uh yeah i do think that like i think like republicans like their strength they they go to people and they say, you're not wrong to care about this, right? Like give into that feeling, that bad feeling that you have given to that worst instinct.
And I think Democrats are our mirror image of that is less successful, which is you're wrong not to care about that, which is like hectoring people into caring about something the same way that we do. And I do think that people are telling us what they care about.

Abortion is something they really care about.

Access to healthcare is something they really care about.

And I don't think we need to

send mail out copies

of How Democracies End by those

two professors. I don't think

we can get people to read that.

How Democracies Die. I'm sorry.

I don't know that mailing copies of that work.

I can correct that, but I cannot tell you the names.

Levitan, Stephen something?

A couple of fucking nerds from one of those anti-semitic institutions up north i'm not sure which one oh boy wow coming out hot it's a great book uh it's a great book but long on problems short on solutions but still pretty good i like that that came on they came on love it or leave it They were good. Let's keep it loose.
Let's keep it loose. Alright.
Honestly, I really do appreciate you changing the tone from the top there. That's better.
There we go. Great.
Alright. This one came from Chelsea Amory.
I'm all for backing Biden since this is most likely, but I am genuinely curious if it weren't the case, who would be a good alternative for the Democratic Party? I'm not talking about who was already in the race. Yeah, we know you're not.
But potential people you would like to see as an option. Okay, that's a fun hypothetical, right? So if Joe Biden wakes up tomorrow and tells us he changed his mind and he isn't running for re-election, which every piece of available evidence says will not happen, but if he does, a bunch of candidates would jump in the race.
Kamala Harris, most certainly, probably Gavin Newsom, probably J.B. Pritzker.
I do think that the strongest general election candidate would be someone from outside Washington. Oprah.
One in a swing state. Barack.
Younger. Not too lefty.
Not too centrist. Hey, what if uh fixed a highway pretty quick not a lot of baggage uh beyonce i land on knows his way about knows his way around a cheesesteak yeah so josh shapiro governor of pennsylvania definitely up there i think gretchen whitmer gretchen whitmer is so popular in michigan has now won twice has like a great story to tell state we need need.
Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro are two. Those are my two top right now.
And I think even though he's a senator, I would also throw Raphael Warnock in there because he's still relatively new to D.C. and he has won twice in a really tough state.
Hey, you pick any of those? I'm not mad yet. Those are great.
I'll take any. Just you just give a thumbs up on this one? No, I'm just honestly ducking.
I hate when the Zoom does that. Oh, now he's frozen too.
Zoom has started giving you a fucking thumbs up emoji when you do a thumbs up. It doesn't make any fucking sense.
It's the one thing you don't need because the thumbs up is the thumbs up. Why does doing a thumbs up give you an emoji thumbs up? It's a double thumbs up.
It's so stop haunting us with new features like it's still the fucking pandemic it's over stop it's over we hated you then yeah we hated that yeah no zoom drinks let's do zoom drinks who are you doing zoom drinks with absolutely no one but apparently someone thought that we need a whole bunch of emoji reactions now it's it's dan is dan frozen can you hear me looks like he's hammered in this picture he's got like one eye open we can hear you fine Dan this is uh this will definitely be the thumbnail the social team will pick of me for this podcast yeah it definitely you look like it's like a Mr. Beast kind of goofy video video thumbnail anyway anyone else got some candidates I want to talk about in this fantasy scenario? You know who never gets mentioned? Tim Walls over in Minnesota.
But they've done a lot of good stuff. Jared Polis.
Jared Polis. I think it's time for a gay president.
Pritzker. Wes Moore is going to be great someday.
He just was elected governor of Maryland. But Wes Moore is someone to keep an eye on.
Although I'm still pissed at Jared Polis for backing out of Love It or Leave It last minute. So Jared Polis, you're off my short list.
One issue voter right here. All politics is personal.
Yeah, damn right it is. All right, back to a serious question for Tommy.
Sorry, guys. Tyne, another friend of the pod subscriber, asks, with right-wing populists slash far-right and outright fascist politicians on the rise in the U.S.
and many countries in Europe, but also in South America. Do you think there are connected global reasons for their rise? I think the right-wing populism story is a mixed bag.
In Poland in October, a right-wing populist lost to a coalition of pro-EU parties. So now you got this guy named Donald Tusk.
Remember him? Yeah. He's from our days.
He was a former president of the European Council, so like a certified globalist. It's a rocket ship.
Running Poland. Argentina voted for this crazy like right-wing libertarian dude.
The Netherlands voted for right-wing populists who just demagogued Muslims. I think, I don't know if they're connected necessarily.
I think they're common threads. It's like people are mad about the economy.
They hate elites. They hate the corrupt ruling class.
They want to break things or burn it down they're mad at immigration they're mad at changing demographics and usually they find a scapegoat to blame so i think those are the common elements the kind of right-wing populist playbook that you have to watch out for sounds familiar to one we've seen here i also think that because technology has connected us uh so intimately unfortunately on social media and everywhere else that like some of these movements you can see are copying each other from country to country. And so I think that connects as well as, like you said, mass migration that is caused by a whole bunch of different things is definitely challenging a lot of governments.
All right. A man and his cat asks, when I hear Democratic politicians talk, they seem quick to pivot to voter hip pocket issues.
Hip pocket. I guess that's like a kitchen table.
I think it's combining pocket book issues and hip pocket. Sure.
Whatever. Is concentrating on that message still a winning strategy in today's identity politics world? It feels like more food on the table for you and your hardworking family is a folksy and quaint approach nowadays, not meeting the moment.
So the reason you hear so many Democratic politicians talk about economic issues is because that is what the vast majority of Americans care about the most, because the vast majority of Americans, something like two thirds, do not have a college degree and do not make six figure incomes. And when you talk to these voters about politics, to the extent that they're paying attention, and many of them are not, they care about what politicians are doing to solve their biggest and most immediate concerns, which is their ability to afford the cost of living for themselves and their families.
That is not to say that these Americans don't have other concerns. Many of them desperately want access to abortion.
They want their kids to feel safe when they go to school. They want to be treated equally under the law.
But what they think about all the time every day is getting by. And that is true independent of identity, race, gender, sexual orientation, all of it.
The sentiment that talking about economic issues is folksy or quaint or soft or not the right strategy is also a common one among certain pundits, a lot of posters, people who are posting on the internet all the time. And it's people who are disproportionately, I think, highly educated, relatively well off and consume a lot of political news.
And political news is also consumed with debates around identity and culture. So I do think there is a bubble effect there.
But if you go talk to less engaged, less educated, less well-off people, who are most people, and which pollsters do and politicians do and grassroots organizers do, you will absolutely hear a different set of concerns. And that's why Democratic politicians talk about those issues all the time.
Can I give some numbers on that, Sean? Yes, please. Please do.
Because the New York Times actually asked voters to whether their vote was going to be more based on a politician's position on social issues, which includes guns, abortion, and democracy. And you could go, the way they word it, it could be because you're a conservative or liberal on those issues, or economic issues like jobs, cost of living, and taxes.
And economic issues won 57 to 29, a number that is up 12 points in four battleground states since 2022. And again, it doesn't mean that these voters don't care because you hear a lot of people being like, don't they care that it's the democracies at risk here? It's like, yeah, they probably would care if they knew about it, but they were working three jobs to try to pay the bills and didn't really have time to follow all the ins and outs of Donald Trump's latest crazy moves on whatever, like his latest speech or his latest trial or anything like that.
There's a reason that abortion, I think, is broken through in a way that some other concerns around democracy haven't. And look, you go outside, the birds are chirping.
It's not like convincing people that we're on the verge of a dictatorship is very difficult. It just is.
But what they do see is the cost of living. What they do experience is rising housing costs.
The fact that, yes, inflation is down, but costs are still higher than they were a year ago, two years ago. Like those are things people see and feel and experience every single day.
And I think our job is to have a case that makes people feel heard on those issues that respects that experience while at the same time making real for people the threat around abortion, the threat around democracy. We have to just, we have to do both.
Well, to your point, people also can viscerally see when they can't get an abortion, right because there's no abortion access in the state they read the news when they see like there's a school shooting in a nearby school right so they care about gun violence but it is it is issues that actually affect people's lives and not like esoteric debates that happen on twitter trump's gonna change schedule f right which is bad for a lot of people who lose jobs and who are civil servants.

Yeah, look, I don't think it's good.

Before we head to break, it's almost 2024, which means it's time to join the Vote Save America community for all the tools you need to take action in this presidential election cycle, from volunteer opportunities to making sure you're registered to vote.

At Vote Save America, being an engaged citizen starts right now.

Head to votesaveamerica.com to find out how you can get involved today. My name is Niccolo Mainoni, and for years I have been obsessed with one of Europe's greatest mysteries.
Who killed God's banker? The wire wire said Calvi found dead.

Suicide?

Question mark.

What truly happened to the banker who had the Vatican, the mafia,

and a secret far-right branch of the Freemasons all pounding on his door?

From Crooked Media and Campside Media, this is Shadow Kingdom, season one, God's Banker. Find it wherever you get your podcasts or get early access to the full season by joining Crooked's Friends.
Pick up a pack today. Angelsoft.
Soft and strong, simple. All right.
JSats23 on Threads asks, what are your news sources? Curious where you get your information and why. Dan? Crooked Media and only Crooked Media.
There you go. That's it.
It is actually really interesting. The world we have come to live in, like in the last year, since Twitter's been broken and other social platforms like Facebook have devalued political news.
We're like back to the place where we were like a decade ago, where if you want to go find out what's happened, you have to go to a website or sign up for a newsletter to be delivered into your inbox, right? The idea that someone is going to deliver the news to your phone just doesn't exist anymore, right? You will not, you cannot just randomly bump into political news anymore.

You have to actively seek it out. It has become much harder than it has been since any time I can remember in trying to follow politics.
So where do you get your news from? Yeah, where do you get your fucking news, Dan? While you're talking the question. Wow, I'm giving it.
So Steve Bannon's war room. Steve Bannon's war room.
Anything Ben Shapiro does. So all like the big newsletters like Politico Playbook, Punchbowl, the NBC First Read newsletter, I think can be very useful.
It's a good one. Some of the New York Times newsletters are very helpful.
If you really follow polling, then the Nate Cohn, the Tilt newsletter is very good. A bunch of different substacks that I follow that help you.
They're a little more issue-specific. There's a bunch of ones around polling, some around the legal stuff around Trump.
It's a whole bunch of different places. But I will also just, in the middle of the day, I will go to the New York Times website, the Washington Post website, and even sometimes, and I hate to admit it, but Politico's website to find out what has happened happened during the day, because I can't rely on Twitter to tell me anymore.
Yeah, I think it's actually those are my big three, too. Yeah, I've noticed in just even the last six months, I was like, oh, that's right.
Like, it used to be like the osmosis of Twitter, you could feel like you were getting a good range of things. But I think I continued to feel as though that was true, even though it wasn't true for a long time.
And fully giving up on Twitter has made me go back to like, literally just going to the websites like we used to. And like, I actually think it's better.
Like, I think, I think this is certainly a better way to stay. I feel more informed like today than I did a couple months ago.
When you go to the landing page of a website, you're not, you're not trapped by an algorithm. Yeah.
You're forced to see the international section, the business section, like a bunch of things you just never would seek out or would never feed you. Yeah, it is a better way of getting news.
All right, Pete Borkowski, at PeteB93, asks, is Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign the worst slash most disappointing in relation to expectations in American history? Oh, good one. I got some nominees here, and I want to hear from you, aside from DeSantis.
I have some in my mind. Yeah, you go.
Scott Walker. Remember Scott Walker? Yep.
Former governor of Wisconsin ran in the 2016 primary was mentioned as a top tier candidate early on in that race, dropped out by flamed out in September, 2015. Fred Thompson, former Senator from Tennessee.
Also movie star Red October, anybody? Everyone was like, oh boy, Fred Thompson's going to jump in the 2008 race. This is going to be a big thing.
Great voice, too. Great voice in a lot of ads for catheters or something.
Reverse mortgages. Reverse mortgages, yeah, something like that.
Ended up not winning, not doing well at all in the early states and dropped out in early 2008.

Wes Clark.

That was mine.

That was mine.

Former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

Great title.

Best title in the biz, I think.

Yeah, Supreme Allied Commander.

That's pretty good.

He's going to shake up

the 2004 Democratic primary

by jumping in.

Wore a sweater,

fucked up a question on Iraq.

He was out.

He forgot.

That was it.

He was on his plane. A reporter started asking questions about iraq he forgot his position and then screamed his press secretary's name and called for help help mary mary help help mary help mary uh so that was it for wes clark uh jeb bush i mean jeb bush 2016 the front runner the whole time and just time.
And just... $100 million.
$100 million. Yeah.
It just didn't go anywhere. Please clap.
This is me lighting it on fire. Please clap.
What about Margot Rubio? Same year. Also got a cover of Time Magazine.
Is he the great savior of the Republican Party? He didn't flame out as hard. Look, he did not.
I mean, he didn't do as well as Ted Cruz, but he ended his campaign by losing a insult contest with Donald Trump about penis size and then cried because he was so concerned about Donald Trump having access to our nuclear arsenal and then endorsed Donald Trump like three months later. Okay, you're right.
He also still hasn't, to this day, he still refuses to say that Donald Trump can be trusted with nuclear weapons. So his position to this day means Donald Trump cannot be trusted with the nuclear codes.
I would like him to have them anyway. That is his position.
I got one more and this is going to be, this might seem strange to you youngins, but Rudy Giuliani in 2008 was the front runner most of the race in the Republican primary. He decided he had an interesting strategy of not focusing at all on the early states.
He was going to go right to Florida because that had more delegates. He skipped all the early states, did not do well on them, and then came in third in Florida and dropped out after like a whole year of leading the national polls.
That flame out makes a lot more sense now that we know him in these later years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That flame out came hard earned at the bottom of a traveler booth. But it's hard to think about this now because of who Rudy is now as he's in a trial today for defamation.
But like after 9-11, America's mayor, one of the most popular politicians in the country, know obviously Bush wins in 2004 but then they're like oh the next Republican next Republican president, that's going to be Rudy Giuliani yeah it was interesting the flame out and then it also just sort of because if you go back like other primaries were like more consistent but Rudy kind of like John McCain coming up the rear you know,, does anyone have a favorite? Who do you think is the biggest flame out? You guys have a winner from that list? Oh, man. That's a really good list.
I think it has to be Jeb Bush from your list because a lot of these other people- Yeah, I agree. The Fred Thompson, Wes Clark were just kind of like these larks that happened late in the race where people got kind of desperate we are leaving out ed muskie who was the overwhelming favorite who then maybe possibly shed a tear in new hampshire and then his campaign ended uh gary harry harry harry harry harry harry harry harry is gary harry harry it sounds ridiculous saying it out loud but rick perry was pretty highly regarded going for 2012 that's who i yes's a good one.
You know, John, we both were speaking. I don't want to gloss over the fact that you said Hillary Clinton shed a tear and then vroom.
I heard it. I heard it.
She just didn't want to see us fall backwards, John. That fucking, that was good stuff.
Obama for not getting the public option. Yeah.
Sorry, I was just channeling my inner...

Your inner who?

Who's in there, buddy?

My inner lefty podcast.

I think you're likable enough.

Good question.

Okay.

Tommy.

Yeah.

We have one from Ryan Whitledge on Twitter.

Tommy and Dan, they both want to hear some sports commentary.

Ugh, yes.

First for Tommy, let's have an honest chat about the future of bill belichick is he still the coach of the pats after this season new england patriots i know who it is i know it is the guy that cheats and then everyone's like it's fine 113 million people watch the super bowl and this guy treats these conversations like we're some some niche hobby we got over here tell me more about your fucking elden ring bill i love i love i love when tommy goes on this it's great all right all right yeah

you love football what a what a what a guy's guy let's hear it that's it i'm not like the other

girls let's go all right something about bill belichick what uh what do you got to say about

here's a way to bring you in i don't want to be brought in just answer the fucking question

look i'm gonna build bridges here politico you love politico they reported the patriots are

Thank you. you gotta say about it here's a way to bring you in i don't want to be brought in just answer the fucking question i'm look i'm gonna build bridges here politico you love politico they reported the patriots are so bad that republican candidates are finally allowed to campaign in new hampshire during patriots games this new cycle oh wow that's interesting it's a sad because the patriots are three and ten or worse than the jets i think bill belichick should get another year he some bad choices in the drafts.
Shouldn't have hired a defensive coordinator to be your offensive coordinator. That was probably a mistake.
It's weird that he hired his son to be a coach. Yeah, he's got a Nepo baby on staff.
As you know, I do not follow the Patriots as closely as you do, but I just saw before we started recording that Tom Curran, who a excellent sports excellent sports reporter for a local nbc affiliate in boston uh he says that the decision has been made that belichick's gonna be out for this is it for the last this is the last season well so the flip side is he's the best coach of all time he's 71 years old he's don't cry because it's over laugh because it happened yes nine yeah nine super bowl appearances six super bowls that's a lot That's me sad that's a ton of the most most ever most ever wow for an nfl coach anyway we'll see it's still still still an early report sports talk by the time people hear this podcast no no we'll know whether it's true or not yeah well that's right you'll yeah you'll all know by now and in the pursuit of fairness what are dan's thoughts on the eventual banning of the tush push and then it says in parentheses love its commentary welcome as well okay uh dan what do you think about the tush push this is part of the freedom agenda i was discussing earlier oh boy what you wish i could but what is the tush push what is the tush push otherwise known as the brotherly shove, is a play the Philadelphia Eagles do. Hey, not better.
Yeah. I'm just telling you what it is.
The Philadelphia Eagles do where the offensive line and the running backs all just push the quarterback over into the end zone to get the first down. Short yardage situations.
Oh, so it's like, okay, I see. And it's not allowed? It is allowed.
The NFL thought of banning it. No one's ever done it before successfully.
The Eagles did last season. They thought they would ban it.
They didn't.

I'm being asked this question because people assume fairly that I am an Eagles fan because I grew up near Philly and I'm a Philly fan of everything else, but that's not actually the case. I'm actually a Washington Commanders fan because that's how I was raised.
Is that why people throw batteries at you when we're in Philly?

That's what my 2016 election takes, but it's so. So basically, it's kind of like the football equivalent of putting a sumo wrestler in the hockey goal.
Yes, yes. They just, even though they're kind of being tackled, they're being pushed from behind and just sort of forcing through.
That's cool. How can you ban that? Can I ask, why do they want to ban the tush push? Because it's seen as an unfair advantage.
I think they should not ban it. And the reason that people are paying even more attention to it is the key.
The reason why Philadelphia can do it and no one else can is because the center for the Philadelphia Eagles is Jason Kelsey, Travis Kelsey's brother. And now a huge podcaster.
A huge podcaster. We got to take that fucker down.
And their quarterback, Jalen Hurts, is super athletic and strong and just a badass. Can like squat 600 pounds or something.
Run people over. Yeah.
So the tush push is available to everyone because it's America. But the Eagles, because these are people that know how to climb a greasy pole.

They figure, they're people from Philadelphia.

They're animals.

They're fucking monsters.

You could come up with a name for it for every city.

Yeah, you could.

And I will.

I was going to say, you keep thinking while we're doing the rest of the questions.

Tush Push.

Tush Push.

It's fun to say. Buy me dinner first, Philadelphia.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm not going Okay. Another question for Dan from Marcus Lang.
Dan, what have been some of your favorite music releases of 2023? This question is for everyone, but I think my music tastes are more aligned with Dan than the rest of the guys. Okay, Marcus.
Sorry, Marcus. Sent from Margaritaville.
I'm assuming this is a hip-hop related question because I generally listen probably to more hip-hop than you guys do. And I would say that this is the year I've been trying mightily to outpace my age and stay very current on hip-hop, but that impossible this year.
But there are two albums that came out this year that I very much like. One is by a rapper called No Name, who's a Chicago rapper and poet who sort of became famous many years ago by being on Chance the Rapper's Mixtape.
And she has an incredible album that came out this year. And then Black Thought from the Roots has a solo album this year that's excellent.
I want to be able to, i wish i could say that i was really into entre 3000's flute album but i can't i can't make myself do that not doing the flute thing all right has the young thug trial gotten you into any of his songs i have listened to i have listened to a fair amount of young thug in my life but i have not his his involvement in a rico has not made it more appealing to me dan what did you think of the latest drake album not a fan yeah i tried too and i was like it's not it's just a little like a little too slow for me yeah i feel i feel like that anyway he's missed his moment or his moment's over yeah anyone else anyone else have any music releases they'd like to delete to tout um i would say you i'm listening a lot of Ethel Cain. Our music taste is very different.

You know,

basically sort of somebody who's upset and non-binary,

like that's what Spotify is going to show me a fair amount of.

Cool.

That's,

that's a lot of it.

So yeah,

I've been listening to Ethel Cain really rising,

really rising.

Well,

next question is we're really moving into recommendations territory here.

Some gold can stay on Instagram asks, what are you reading or watching, or in Lovett's case, playing? So I have been, I just watched Leave the World Behind, the Julia Roberts, Mahersha Ali movie, and I think it's excellent. I've really liked it.
I loved it too. I'm not playing anything yet, but over the break, I plan to play Tears of the Kingdom, The Lies of P, and Baldur's Gate, the new Baldur's Gate.
I don't know which order I'm going to play them in, but I'm very excited to finally have some time because I've just been on the road the last couple of months. And gaming is like, it is the reading of looking at a screen.
You know what I mean? In the sense that you need a lot of time. You got to get into it.
You can't just do it here and there. You got to really commit.
Okay. Did the Obamas produce Leave the World Behind? Is that a higher ground film? They did.
They did. Why? I don't know, but they certainly did.
It says higher ground on it. Yeah.
And they were both posting about it. I guess there is a logic to the kind of spirit of the film, I suppose, in the end.
Dan, what about you? I don't know whether people will hear this before they hear our New Year's resolution episode, but one of my New Year's resolution, my New Year's resolution was to improve my attention span. And one way is Michelle do that is get back to reading as much as I used to do, which cause this was not a good reading year, but one set of books that I think are excellent.
I'd recommend everyone are the, uh, the crime novels by S.A. Cosby, who writes about, uh, crime in about crime in the South, usually in the Virginia area.
He's a black guy. It's very different than your typical crime noir.
He has three. All the Sinners Bleed is the one that came out this year.
They're excellent. Oh, yeah.
Watching anything good? Any good reality shows that you're watching? I spent a lot of my 2023 catching up to Scandaval on Vanderpump Rules. It's a decision I definitely do not regret in any way, shape, or form.
It made this otherwise tough year great. That sort of reality TV stuff, I've been trying to think of what was really good that I watched this year.
I mean, obviously, we all watched Succession. That was amazing.
The Diplomat, I found very enjoyable as a Netflix show yeah it works I could see Tommy being very angry at how absurd it is the lack of realism the British ambassador also being a spy or being in charge of anything tough shit well the US ambassador to the UK is generally not running all foreign policy or prepared to be the vice president spoiler or a former CIA but I've been reading the 90s by Chuck Klosterman it's a recent book that's out it's very good I was listening to some Noah Kahn he had a great new album out this year watching though the latest season of Dave was good was that this year or last year oh good one. That was great.
It was great to watch. So I'm watching The Curse with Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone.
And the first couple episodes, I was like, what is going on here? And now I'm like six episodes in, and I love it. I think it's really good.
I'm going through. I think The Curse is excellent.
I'm going slowly in part because it's such an intense watch. And also like, I just feel like there's so much prestige content that I want to respect it enough to not binge it.
Like the fact that like a Julia Roberts movie directed by Sam Esmail, who I love just like pops up one day or like there's a David Fincher movie with Michael Fassbender in it. And I like can't get myself to hit planet.
A new Fincher movie? There needs to be better curation of like the real good stuff that's out there because it is now impossible to find. You want like a home box office.
Because they've all, yeah, because they've all decided to be like fucking Netflix now. And so if you go to the Max app, you're just like swimming through shit, you know? Yeah.
Same thing with Netflix thing with paramount plus which is now showtime's going away now it's all gonna be paramount plus this sucks this new world like someone needs to tell us like what is the what's the great new stuff that's out there now what if someone started a publication called the tv guide and you could go there to find out what was airing and really when you're back to the tv guy back to the TV guy. Yeah, I used to like my Entertainment Weekly, you know?

And then it was like, it's still calling it that,

but it's monthly.

And they're like, it's nothing now.

Now it's nothing.

I love Nathan for you, but the curse,

it feels like it's going to make me feel so awkward that I'm not going to get through it.

It gets, weirdly enough, it gets less awkward

and funnier as it goes, I think.

And it's like a real satire on a lot of things.

One book I read this year was Termination Shock,

which I really recommend by Neil Stevenson.

I love Neil Stevenson.

And it's everything I wanted Ministry of the Future to be,

you know, that's all.

I just finished Yellow Face by R.F. Kwong.

Fantastic book.

You can read it in one sitting.

It's great.

It's fun. you need a tissue fast.
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For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex. Look, we know things don't feel great right now, but we can equip ourselves for the unprecedented months ahead without letting the news overwhelm us.
Join us each week at Strict Scrutiny as we break down the cases that will decide the rules we all have to live by. We'll supplement your daily news diet with a dose of necessary legal analysis and a healthy serving of our Real Housewives takes, some pop music, and 90s throwbacks

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There's a follow-up question here from uh it's a similar question from veroska korea uh who says uh at john fabs always says he does not read any books even making it his new year resolution to read at least one book per month however when he interviews guests that have written a book which happens quite quite often. He always seems to have read them.

Has he?

Have you?

Well, Vera.

Have you?

Yes, I have.

Ah, I guess knowing.

Yes, I have.

Oh, you've read them all?

That's amazing.

Mouths covered on the couch over there.

That's so impressive.

This is especially an offline thing.

And I remember before offline.

Every word.

When my friend Tommy would interview people who've written books.

And he reads. He's always like, oh, I'm reading the whole book.
Don't drag me into a lie. And I was like, how are you reading this whole book? And he does.
But when you do, like for Pod Save America, maybe you can get away with it because it's like a 15, 20-minute interview. On offline, it's like I'm talking to them for 45 minutes.
Of course I have to read the book. So I read all the offline guest books.
You never kind of, I'm a few pages ahead. You never do like a chapter? TikTok, TikTok.
Doppelganger by Naomi Klein just read. Comedy book, Jesse David Fox was great.
Democracy Awakening, Heather Cox Richardson. I was just naming books.
Stolen Focus, Johan Harry Kane. Yeah, we know you know about books.
Moby Dick. You can listen to the episodes.
You can listen to the episodes. Anyway, I do that.
Love it. Here's a question for you from Twitter user BaltinerDist.
Question for John Lovett. My primary care physician with no prompting suggested I, too, go on experimental pancreas medicine.
Now that your pancreas is well treated, would you recommend it to others? So, listen, if I've said one thing on this show, I think you all know I'm not a doctor.

It's true.

All I will tell you is, look, why did I decide to go on Manjaro?

Because I felt bad about how often I was failing to eat well and in a way where I didn't feel guilty all the time.

So I decided to try this thing because they give you a coupon, you know, like a drug dealer outside of school.

They give you a deal on the first one.

I didn't know that.

You didn't know drug dealers give you a deal on the first one?

I'm sorry. the time so i decided to try this thing because they give you a coupon you know like a drug dealer outside of school they give you a deal on the first one and i didn't know that you didn't know drug dealers give you a deal on the first coupon for the pancreas yeah there's coupons one free pancreas buy one get one free promo code there's coupons out there yes and i like so like look i my yo-yoed for a long time and i've lost 20 30 pounds before but i've never done it without having to like fight tooth and nail for every inch.
Like it came really easily. And the thing that's amazing about it is, uh, it's not obviously I've lost weight.
Great. But the, the way it stops, like the food noise in your brain and the way it has changed, like my relationship to food, like the first time after I took Manjaro and I went out for sushi and I had like one sushi roll with my friend and I felt really full.
I realized I felt guilty and I was like, wait, you feel guilty every time you're full. You don't need to do that because, you know, being worried that you're eating too much or not taking care of yourself or that you're not achieving your goals, whatever, doesn't need to be connected to the feeling of being full anymore.
And once those things separated, that changed my whole fucking life. I'm driving slower out there.
I am, I'm like, there's like extra discipline for other things, maybe for both of you. Yeah, I was gonna say, where- You see it.
If you thought- Where have you seen that discipline? Are you driving slower? You're not going to the rest of the food? No, because I think because like my mind is not- What are you saying? I'm spending less energy on the discipline of not eating and worrying about exercise and diet and so on the whole i'm a less impulsive and less sort of undisciplined and procrastinating person yeah maybe subtly definitely you you could say listen i'm not looking you i don't need you to see it all right i need dan to see it two of us two of us did write a book with you yeah over the last several months and you know what is it done?

you know what world

we'd be living in?

remember when I would like

work and get it to you

over those weekends?

remember what it would be like

before that?

there's no fucking book

if I'm not on this medicine

anyway

do whatever your doctor says

don't take advice

don't take advice from me

I'm an insecure

and in vain

Hollywood person

I love the way

you phased the rollout

of this whole thing now

yeah

because you would sort of

allude to it

I'm an insecure and in vain Hollywood person I love the way you phased the rollout

of this whole thing

yeah

because you would

sort of allude to it

early on

in like the middle

of like the fourth ad

in a Pod Save America

that's right

you just like drop it in

I soft launched it

I soft launched it

it went well

you travel it

anyway yeah

all I'll say is

you can pry it

from my cold

dead fucking hands

I don't care

how many diabetics

can't access it

I'm getting it first

oh my god

I don't

stop

Thank you. you can pry it from my cold dead fucking hands i don't care how many diabetics can't access it i'm getting it first oh my god get behind me get in line behind me diabetics i need my tummy medicine all right we do have another we do have another question about your relationship with food oh good a colfin too on instagram asks love it are you an applesauce sour cream or a combo person for your latkes combo combo combo i like both a little bit of both a little bit little little bit of the sour cream a little bit of sweet it's great also although sometimes what i'll do is take a latke put some sour cream on top put some smoked salmon on that bad boy throw some locks on top you got yourself a sandwich okay okay we've um There's like a little latke song that we sing to lizette that has like certain hand motions but you like peel them roll it pad it yeah she gets super into it i like the i like the jewish energy yeah i like that i like that we got another one put her in the book.

Future college president.

All right.

Last question is from Kyle Manchester.

Yep.

Yeah, it is.

On Instagram, who asks, best holiday food, Thanksgiving or Christmas?

All right, everyone.

Dan, you wanted to answer this question. So what do you think you think well I am in charge of cooking Christmas dinner this year and so I googled options and here's the trick of this question literally anything can be Christmas dinner you want to do a roast you want to do a ham you want to do lasagna meatballs lamb you can do anything so I love Thanksgiving it is one of favorite meals of the year.
So much so that we have it Friendsgiving, Thanksgiving, a lot of turkey and stuffing in November. But how can you go against a holiday where you can have anything you want? Get yourself a spiral cut ham.
You know, I want to talk about ham. It's a big hock of ham.
It's pre-cooked for you. And then someone dumps sugar all over the outside.
That's what we do growing up for Christmas, and I loved it. That was their Christmas day, was the spiral ham.
I didn't try, as a Jewish American, I remember the first time, ham to me existed as a lunch meat, like an Oscar Mayer thing that would be a sandwich. And I remember seeing- Like deli cut ham.
Deli cut ham. And I remember seeing in film and like cartoons that there was such a thing as like a baked honey ham.

But I didn't try it. I remember it was at a Hillary Clinton holiday party.
So I was a full-blown adult. I'd literally never had it.
For the first time, I had honey baked ham, a spiral cut ham, I believe. And I was like, I cannot.
I tasted it. I could not believe that you goisha maniacs are calling this incredibly salty, sweet thing.

And I. I cannot, I tasted it.
I could not believe that you goisha maniacs are calling this incredibly salty, sweet thing an entree. An entree.
The idea of taking more than- You think it was like an appetizer or a dessert? No, I knew that you were describing it as an entree. I just assumed it would, I just couldn't believe how much salty, sweet that this thing was bringing to the table.
Like you have a couple of bites. I feel like you got to take take a nap it's a big uh big easter day food too you're gonna have some ham on easter i was the saltiness yeah it's wild it's very salty but you don't do any other that's not like it's not like you take a bite of turkey and you're like you got to drink a glass of water no it's just a special entree it's just a little too dry right but but the honey baked ham the spiral cut ham so good wild i will say though despite the fact that you can have anything you want that's partly why i think i like thanksgiving better is because with thanksgiving you know what you're getting and you can look forward to the meal because you're forced to suffer and eat turkey well like a haiku it provides a creative bound for christmas it's depending on where you go and what they decide to cook so you don't know what you're getting so you could get something great or you could get something shitty if you go to your random on's house and they decide to make something terrible you gotta get better hands you you go to you go to benihana and you have a great fucking time benihana you can go to benihana on christmas that's the beauty of it you can go and that's a great night that's a great night do you look around the room you know what if Emily hasn't had the baby yet maybe we will go to Benihana there's um I'd like to see the college president say that there there's a great TikTok come to Benihana on Christmas say there you won't because it's filled with juice there's a great TikTok I saw recently of a dude at a Benihana dinner and he brought a bunch of tort tortillas, and he threw them onto the fryer.
And I was like, that is fucking genius. He brought his own tortillas.
Benihana in a tortilla must be so good. Well, I hope everyone enjoys their Benihana Christmas.
Thank you, John. Or Hanukkah.
Or just going to Benihana just for fun. Benihana.
Bring your tortillas. I'm going with Elise Stefanik.
Benihana. Nice.
I had to say it twice. That's great.
Happy holidays, everyone. And we'll talk to you in the new year.
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