2023 Holiday Mail Bag!

Speaker 1 It's time to save. The Firestone Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale is on.
Get 15% off all tires and $40 off a lifetime will alignment when you buy two or more eligible tires.

Speaker 1 Visit FirestoneCompleteAutocare.com for details and more deals.

Speaker 2 October brings it all. Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.
At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all. Mixing up something spooky?

Speaker 2 Total Wine and Moore is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.

Speaker 2 With the lowest prices for over 30 years, you'll always find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and Moore. Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.

Speaker 2 See TotalWine.com for details. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.
Drink responsibly, B21.

Speaker 1 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
I'm John Levitt.

Speaker 3 I'm Tom Egyptor. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Speaker 1 Welcome to our annual holiday mailbag episode. It's here, guys.

Speaker 4 I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Threads?

Speaker 5 Well, Threads of the Pod?

Speaker 1 Let a thing now? We got some threads. I just read what's on my script.

Speaker 4 I'm just saying, just not no criticism. Just also reminding people about threads.

Speaker 1 It is an Instagram

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 3 I am concerned. I think the polling is a little weird and all over the place on this, right?

Speaker 3 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 28%.

Speaker 3 I think that's sort of weird phrasing, though. I don't know what support means.

Speaker 1 Kind of got to define that.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 So, again, polling is a little all over the place. My concern is more anecdotal.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 They feel like they were let down based on their support for 2020. So

Speaker 3 there's pockets of this happening in Michigan that's been highly reported or swing states like Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 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're angry with or disappointed with.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 It's about choosing between two different outcomes that will each have tangible real-life consequences for you and millions of other people.

Speaker 1 And in a closed country that's 50-50, your vote can be decisive in those outcomes.

Speaker 3 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 to limit civilian casualties in Gaza.

Speaker 3 I want you to do more. I want you to urge the administration to do more.

Speaker 1 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 B.B.

Speaker 1 Netanyahu a blank check. That is one way to get involved for sure.

Speaker 7 Dan,

Speaker 1 Sea Otter Friend asks, this is my favorite part of the mailbag episode. I do love the names.

Speaker 3 Me too.

Speaker 1 So Sea Otter Friend asks, what should one say to swing voters who don't believe democracy is on the line?

Speaker 8 Don't tell them democracy is on the line.

Speaker 8 No, look, democracy is 100% on the line in this election. Donald Trump is being very explicit about

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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?

Speaker 8 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 see.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And if you want to make a broader argument, I would spend less time talking about the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy and more about the threat he poses to people's personal freedoms, right?

Speaker 8 Whether that is your,

Speaker 8 you know, what books you can read, what healthcare decisions you can make, whether you can access an abortion, whether, you know, what access to 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.

Speaker 1 Unless people don't want to vote in any other elections. Maybe they want this to be the last election they vote in.

Speaker 8 In which case given the tempo of emails.

Speaker 3 That could be appealing. Yeah, a lot of time back.

Speaker 4 Yeah, if you skip this way, it's like when Homer Simpson's boss said,

Speaker 4 if you don't come in Friday, don't bother coming in Monday.

Speaker 1 And he's like, cool, four-day weekend.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I do think that like, I think Republicans...

Speaker 4 like their strength, they go to people and they say,

Speaker 4 you're not wrong to care about this, right? Like give into that feeling, that bad feeling that you have. Give into that worst instinct.

Speaker 4 And I think Democrats, 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.

Speaker 4 And I do think that like people are telling us what they care about. Abortion is something they really care about.
Access to health care is something they really care about.

Speaker 4 And I don't think we need to

Speaker 4 send mail out copies of How Democracies End by those two professors.

Speaker 4 I don't think we can get people to create a new case.

Speaker 1 Democracies die. How democracies die.

Speaker 4 I'm sorry. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't know that mailing copies of the city.

Speaker 1 I can correct that, but I cannot tell you the names. Levitt Talent, Steven, something? I don't know.

Speaker 4 A couple of fucking nerds from one of those anti-Semitic institutions up north. Not sure which one.

Speaker 9 Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 Wow. Coming out hot.
It's a great book.

Speaker 1 It's a great book.

Speaker 1 Long on problems, short on solutions, but still pretty good.

Speaker 4 I like that.

Speaker 4 They came on Love or Leave it.

Speaker 1 They were good. Let's keep it loose.
Let's keep it loose. All right.

Speaker 3 Honestly, I really do appreciate you changing the tone from the top there.

Speaker 1 That's better. There we go.
Great. All right.
This one came from Chelsea Amory.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 I'm not talking about who was already in the race.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we know you're not.

Speaker 1 But potential people you would like to see as an option. Okay, that's a fun hypothetical, right?

Speaker 1 So if Joe Biden wakes up tomorrow and tells us he changed his mind and he isn't running for re-election, which

Speaker 1 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 Newsome, probably J.B. Pritzker.

Speaker 1 I do think that the strongest general election candidate would be someone from outside Washington. Oh, Brent.
One in a swing state. The rock.
Younger. Ooh.
Not too lefty. Not too centrist.

Speaker 4 Hey, what if they fixed a highway pretty quick?

Speaker 1 Not a lot of baggage. Beyonce.
I land on.

Speaker 4 Nose his way around a cheesesteak.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania. Definitely out there.

Speaker 1 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. Gretchen Whitmer and Josh Shapiro are two.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 and he has won twice in a really tough state.

Speaker 4 Hey, you pick any of those those you put?

Speaker 4 I'm not mad at yet.

Speaker 1 Those are great. I'll take it.
Didn't just give a thumbs up on this. No,

Speaker 1 just honestly on the Zoom duck.

Speaker 1 Now he's frozen, too.

Speaker 4 Zoom has started giving you a fucking thumbs up on Zoom.

Speaker 1 It doesn't make any fucking sense.

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 1 It's a double thumbs up.

Speaker 4 It's so fucking stupid.

Speaker 1 Stop haunting us with new features like it's still the fucking pandemic. It's over.
Stop.

Speaker 4 It's over.

Speaker 1 We hated you that's no Zoom drinks. Let's do Zoom drinks.

Speaker 1 Who are you doing Zoom drinks with?

Speaker 1 Absolutely no one, but apparently someone thought that we need a whole bunch of emoji reactions now. It's really good.

Speaker 1 Dan is still frozen. Can you hear me? It looks like he's hammered in this picture.
He's got like one eye open.

Speaker 4 We can hear you fine, Dan.

Speaker 8 This will definitely be the thumbnail the social team will pick of me for this podcast.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it definitely.

Speaker 3 You look like it's like a Mr. Beast kind of goofy video, look, video.
thumbnail.

Speaker 1 Anyway, anyone else got some candidates they want to talk about in this fantasy scenario?

Speaker 3 Who never gets mentioned? Tim Walls over in Minnesota, but they've done a lot of good stuff.

Speaker 4 Jared Polis. Jared Polis.
I think it's time for a gay president. Pritzker.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 4 Although I'm still pissed at Jared Polis for backing out of Love It or Leave It last minute.

Speaker 1 Okay. That's all that's in.
You're all by a short list. One issue voter right here.

Speaker 1 All politics is personal.

Speaker 6 Yeah, damn right it is.

Speaker 1 All right, back to a serious question for Tommy.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 and many countries in Europe, but also in South America, do you think there are connected global reasons for their rise?

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 He's from our days. He was a former president of the European Council.
So like a certified globalist rocket ship running

Speaker 1 Poland.

Speaker 3 Argentina. Argentina voted for this crazy like right-wing libertarian dude.
The Netherlands voted for a right-wing populist who just demagogued Muslims.

Speaker 3 I think, I don't know they're connected necessarily. I think they're common threads.
It's like people who are mad about the economy. They hate elites.
They hate the corrupt ruling class.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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 the one we've seen here.

Speaker 1 I also think that because technology has connected us 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 a man and his cat asks when i hear democratic politicians talk they seem quick to pivot to uh voter hit pocket issues hip pocket i guess that's like kitchen table pocket i think it's combining pocket book issues and hip pocketing sure whatever uh 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 They want to be treated equally under the law. But what they think about all the time, every day, is getting by.

Speaker 1 And that is true independent of identity, race, gender, sexual orientation, all of it.

Speaker 1 The sentiment that talking about economic issues is folksy or quaint or soft or not the right strategy is also a common one among

Speaker 1 certain pundits, a lot of posters, people who are posting on the internet all the time.

Speaker 1 And it's people who are disproportionately, I think, highly educated, relatively well-off, and consume a lot of political news.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 who are most people, and which pollsters do, and politicians do, and grassroots organizers do, you will absolutely hear a different set of concerns.

Speaker 1 And that's why Democratic politicians talk about those issues all all the time.

Speaker 8 Can I give some numbers on that, John?

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And you could go the way they word it, it could be because you're conservative or liberal on those issues, or economic issues like jobs, cost of living, and taxes.

Speaker 8 And economic issues won 57 to 29, a number that is up 12 points in four Battleground states since 2022.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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, you know, like his latest speech or his latest trial or anything like that.

Speaker 4 There's a reason that abortion, I think, has broken through in a way that some other concerns around democracy haven't. And look, like you go outside, the birds are chirping.
It's not

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 1 What they do experience is

Speaker 4 like rising housing costs, the fact that, yes, inflation is down, but costs are still higher than they were a year ago, two years ago.

Speaker 4 Like those are things people see and feel and experience every single day.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 We have to just, we have to do both.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 They read the news when they see like there's a school shooting in a nearby school, right?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 4 Trump's going to change Schedule F.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Which is bad for a lot of people who lose jobs and who are civil servants.

Speaker 4 Yeah, look, I'm not very, I don't think it's good.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 At Vote Save America, being an engaged citizen starts right now. Head to votesaveamerica.com to find out how you can get involved today.

Speaker 10 Hi, I'm Chef Franklin Becker. You know the jingle.
Now discover the facts about Ozempic, a GLP-1. There's only one FDA-approved Ozempic, made by Novo Nordisk.
Learn about the real thing.

Speaker 11 Talk to your healthcare professional today. Call 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit ozempic.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about Ozempic.

Speaker 11 Semaglotide injection, 0.5 milligram, 1 milligram, and 2 milligrams.

Speaker 1 Hey, Ryan Reynolds here, wishing you a very happy half-off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service.

Speaker 1 Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price.

Speaker 12 So that means a half day.

Speaker 1 Yeah?

Speaker 9 Give it a try at mintmobile.com/slash switch.

Speaker 12 Upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only.
Speed slow under 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra.

Speaker 1 CMIMOB.com.

Speaker 13 Think you know your breaking point? If you're a woman with weak bones due to osteoporosis after menopause, sadly, you may not.

Speaker 13 Women can lose up to 20% of their bone density within five to seven years after menopause, making bones weaker and more likely to break.

Speaker 13 And after the first fracture, we're five times more likely to break another bone within a year. It could happen from a simple slip or just bending to lift a bag of groceries.

Speaker 13 Don't wait for a breaking point. Visit bonebreakingpoint.com to learn about how osteoporosis medications can reduce the risk of fractures.

Speaker 1 All right, JSATS23 on threads asks, what are your news sources curious where you get your information and why? Dan?

Speaker 1 Crooked media and only crooked media.

Speaker 9 There you go.

Speaker 8 That's it.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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?

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 6 So where do you get your news from?

Speaker 4 Yeah, where do you get your fucking news, Daniel?

Speaker 1 Oh, you're talking the question.

Speaker 1 I'm giving it.

Speaker 1 So Steve Bannon's War Room.

Speaker 8 Steve Bannon's War Room, anything Ben Shapiro does.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 all like the big newsletters like

Speaker 8 Politico Playbook, Punch Bowl, the NBC, First Read newsletter, I think can be very useful.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 A bunch of different sub-stacks that I follow that help you.

Speaker 8 You know, they're a little more like issue specific like there's a bunch of ones around polling some around like the legal stuff around trump um

Speaker 8 just 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 politicos website to find out like what has happened during the day because i can't rely on twitter to tell me anymore Yeah, I think it's actually.

Speaker 1 Those are my big three, too.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I mean, I've noticed in just even the last six months, I was like, oh, that's right.

Speaker 4 Like, it used to be that like the osmosis of Twitter, you could feel like you were getting a good range of things.

Speaker 4 But I think I continued to feel as though that was true, even though it wasn't true for a long time.

Speaker 4 And fully giving up on Twitter has made me go back to like literally just going to the websites like we used to. And I actually think it's better.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 3 When you go to the landing page of a website, you're not trapped by an algorithm. Yeah.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It is a better way of getting news.
All right.

Speaker 1 Pete Burkowski at Pete B93 asks, is Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign the worst/slash most disappointing in relation to expectations in American history?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I got some nominees here, and I want to hear from you guys who you aside from DeSantis. I have some in my mind.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you go.

Speaker 1 Scott Walker. Remember Scott Walker? Yep.
Former governor of Wisconsin, ran in the 2016 primary, was

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 4 Hunt for Red October.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh boy, Fred Thompson's going to jump in the 2008 race. This is going to be a big thing.

Speaker 3 Great voice, too.

Speaker 1 Great voice in a lot of ads for catheters or something.

Speaker 1 Or 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.

Speaker 4 That was mine. That was mine.

Speaker 1 Former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

Speaker 3 Great title. Best title in the biz, I think.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Supreme Allied Commander. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 He was going to shake up the 2004 Democratic primary by jumping in.

Speaker 4 Wore a sweater, fucked up a question on Iraq.

Speaker 1 He was out. He forgot.

Speaker 3 That was it. He was on his plane.
A reporter started asking him questions about Iraq. He forgot his position and then screamed his press secretary's name and called for help.

Speaker 1 Help Mary. Mary, help.
Help Mary.

Speaker 1 Help Mary.

Speaker 1 So that was it for Wes Clark.

Speaker 1 Jeb Bush.

Speaker 1 I mean, Jeb Bush. 2016, the front runner the whole time, and just $100 million.

Speaker 1 $100 million.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It just didn't go anywhere.

Speaker 3 Please clap. This is me lighting it on fire.
Please clap.

Speaker 1 What about Margot Rubio? Same year. Also got a cover of Time magazine.
Is he the great savior of the Republican Party?

Speaker 4 He didn't flame out as hard. Look, he did not.

Speaker 8 I mean, he didn't do as well as Tez Ked Cruz, but he ended his campaign by losing an 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.

Speaker 1 Okay, you're right.

Speaker 4 He also still has it to this day. He still refuses to say that Donald Trump can be trusted with nuclear weapons.
So his position to this day remains Donald Trump cannot be

Speaker 4 trusted with the nuclear codes. I would like him to have them anyway.
That is his position.

Speaker 1 I got one more. And this is going to be, this might seem strange to you young'ins, but Rudy Giuliani in 2008 was the frontrunner most of the race in the Republican primary.

Speaker 1 He decided he had an interesting strategy of not focusing at all on the early states.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 After like a whole year of leading the national polls.

Speaker 8 That flameout makes a lot more sense now that we know him in these later years.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But like after 9-11, America's mayor, one of the most popular politicians in the country, you 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.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was interesting. Didn't do the flame out.
And then it also just sort of, because if you go back, like

Speaker 4 other primaries were like more consistent, but Rudy kind of like

Speaker 4 John McCain coming up the rear, you know?

Speaker 1 Anyway. Anyway, does anyone have a favorite?

Speaker 1 Who do you think's the biggest flame out? You guys have a winner from that list?

Speaker 8 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

Speaker 8 were, you know, came in, like the Fred Thompson, Wes Clark were just kind of like these larks that happened late in the race where people got kind of desperate.

Speaker 8 We are leaving out Ed Muskie, who was the overwhelming favorite, who then

Speaker 8 maybe possibly shed a tear in New Hampshire and then his campaign ended.

Speaker 1 Gary Hart,

Speaker 1 Gary Hart was the one I was going to say.

Speaker 8 Gary Hart is Gary Hart.

Speaker 1 It sounds ridiculous saying it out loud, but Rick Perry was pretty highly regarded going into 2012. That's who I,

Speaker 6 yes. I don't want to,

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 1 I heard it. I heard it.

Speaker 4 She just didn't want to see us fall backwards, John.

Speaker 4 That was good stuff.

Speaker 3 Obama for not getting the public option. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Sorry, I was just channeling my inner.

Speaker 1 Your inner who? Who's in there, buddy? My inner lefty podcast. I think you're likable enough.

Speaker 1 Good question.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Tommy. Yeah.
We have one from Ryan Whitledge on Twitter. Tommy and Dan.
They both want you to do some, they want to hear some sports commentary.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 3 The New England Patriots.

Speaker 4 I know who it is. I know who it is.
It's the guy that cheats, and then everyone's like, eh, it's fine.

Speaker 3 113 million people watch the Super Bowl, and this guy treats these conversations like we're some niche hobby we got over here. Tell me more about your fucking Elden Ring, Bill.

Speaker 1 I love when Tommy goes on the Super Bowl. It's great.

Speaker 4 All right. All right.
Yeah, you love football.

Speaker 4 What a guys, guy. Let's hear it.

Speaker 4 I'm not like the other girls.

Speaker 1 Let's go. All right.

Speaker 4 Something about Bill Belichick. What do you got to say about him?

Speaker 3 Here's a way to bring you in.

Speaker 6 I don't want to be brought in.

Speaker 4 Just answer the fucking question.

Speaker 6 Look, I'm going to build bridges here.

Speaker 4 Politico, you love Politico.

Speaker 3 They reported the Patriots are so bad that Republican candidates are finally allowed to campaign in New Hampshire during Patriots games. This news cycle

Speaker 1 is a bad sign. It's a sad piece.

Speaker 3 Because the Patriots are 3-10. We're worse than the Jets.
I think Bill Belichick should get another year. We made some bad choices in the drafts.

Speaker 3 Shouldn't have hired a defensive coordinator to to be your offensive coordinator. That was probably a mistake.
It's weird that he hired his son to be a coach.

Speaker 6 Nepo baby?

Speaker 3 Yeah, he's got a Nepo baby on staff. Yeah.

Speaker 1 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 is

Speaker 1 excellent sports reporter for a local NBC affiliate in Boston,

Speaker 1 he says that the decision has been made that Belichick's going to be out. For this is it for the last, this is the last season.

Speaker 3 Well, so the flip side is he's the best coach of all time. He's 71 years old.

Speaker 4 Don't cry because it's over. Laugh because it happened.

Speaker 1 Yes, I mean,

Speaker 1 nine Super Bowl appearances, six Super Bowls.

Speaker 4 It's a lot. It makes me sad.
That's a ton of them.

Speaker 1 It's the most ever. Most ever.
Wow. For an NFL coach.

Speaker 1 Anyway, we'll see.

Speaker 1 It's still an early report.

Speaker 3 Sports talk.

Speaker 1 By the time people hear this podcast,

Speaker 8 we'll know whether it's true or not.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, that's right. 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?

Speaker 1 And then it says in parentheses, love its commentary. Welcome as well.
Okay.

Speaker 4 Dan, what do you think about the tush push?

Speaker 8 This is part of the freedom agenda I was discussing earlier.

Speaker 1 Oh, boy.

Speaker 4 You wish I could. But what is the tush push? Yeah, what is the tush push?

Speaker 8 The tush push, otherwise known as the brotherly shove, is a play the Philadelphia Eagles do.

Speaker 8 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 or

Speaker 8 to get the first down.

Speaker 3 And the Philly. Short yarded situations.

Speaker 4 Oh, so it's like, okay, I see. And it's not allowed?

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 I'm actually a Washington Commanders fan because that's how I was raised.

Speaker 4 Is that why people throw batteries at you when we're in Philly?

Speaker 8 That's what my 2016 election takes, but it's

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 basically,

Speaker 4 it's kind of like

Speaker 4 the football equivalent of putting a sumo wrestler in the hockey goal.

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 1 Yeah, can I ask?

Speaker 1 Why do they want to ban the touch punch?

Speaker 8 Because it's seen as an unfair advantage. I think they should not ban it.

Speaker 8 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 kelcey travis kelcey's brother and now a huge podcast and they have podcast star

Speaker 3 a huge podcaster we got to take that down and their quarterback jalen hurts is super athletic and strong and just a badass can squat 600 pounds or something run people over yeah so every so the tush push is available to everyone because it's america but the eagles the eagles because they're because um these are people that know how to climb a greasy pole yes like

Speaker 4 They're people from Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 They're murdering animals. They're fucking

Speaker 1 monsters. You could come up with a name for it for every city.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 You could.

Speaker 4 And I will.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, you keep thinking while we're doing the rest of the questions.

Speaker 5 Tosh push. Tosh push.

Speaker 3 It's fun to say.

Speaker 4 Buy me dinner first, Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Another question for Dan from Marcus Lang. Dan, what have been some of your favorite music releases of 2023?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 4 Sent from Margaritaville.

Speaker 8 I'm assuming this is a hip-hop-related question because I generally listen probably to more hip-hop than you guys do.

Speaker 8 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 became impossible this year.

Speaker 8 But there are two albums that came came out this year that I very much like.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And then Black Thought from the Roots has a solo album this year that's excellent.

Speaker 8 I want to be able to, I wish I could say that I was really into Andre 3000's flute album, but I can't make myself do that.

Speaker 3 Not doing the flute thing. All right.
Has the Young Thug trial gotten you into any of his songs?

Speaker 8 I have listened to a fair amount of Young Thug in my life, but I have not.

Speaker 8 His involvement in Arico has not made it more appealing to me.

Speaker 1 Dan, what did you think of the latest Drake album? Not a fan. Yeah, I tried to, and I was like, it's not, it's just a little, it's a little too slow for me.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I feel like that he's missed his moment or his moment's over.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Anyone else? Anyone else have any music releases they'd like to they'd like to tout?

Speaker 4 I listen to you I'm listening to a lot of ethocane. Our music tastes very different.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 1 Cool.

Speaker 4 That's a lot of it. So, yeah, I've been listening to Ethel Cane really rising, really rising.

Speaker 1 Well, next question is, we're really moving into recommendations territory here.

Speaker 1 Some Gold Can Stay on Instagram asks, what are you reading or watching, or in Lovett's case, playing?

Speaker 4 So I have been, I just watched Leave the World Behind, the Julia Roberts Mahershah Ali movie, and it's, I think it's excellent. I've really liked it.

Speaker 1 I really loved it too.

Speaker 4 I'm not playing anything yet, but over the break, I plan to play Tears of the Kingdom, The Lies of P,

Speaker 4 and Baldur's Gate, the new Baldur's Gate.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And like, gaming is like, it is the reading of looking at a screen.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 8 Did the Obamas produce Leave the World Behind? Is that a higher ground film?

Speaker 4 They did. They did.

Speaker 4 Why, I don't know, but they certainly did. It says higher ground on it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And they were both posted about it.

Speaker 4 I guess it is sort of, I guess there is a, I guess there is a logic to the kind of spirit of the film, I suppose, in the end.

Speaker 1 Dan, what about you?

Speaker 8 I don't know whether people 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.

Speaker 8 And one of ways in which I'll do that is get back to reading as much as I used to do, which, because this was not a good reading year. But one

Speaker 8 set set of books that I think are excellent, I would recommend everyone, are the

Speaker 8 crime novels by S.A. Cosby, who writes about crime in the South, usually in the Virginia area.
He's a black guy. It's very different than your typical crime noir.

Speaker 8 He has three, All the Sinners Bleed is the one that came out this year. They're excellent.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Watch anything good?

Speaker 1 You're always our...

Speaker 1 Any good reality shows that you're watching?

Speaker 8 I spent a lot of my 2023 catching up to Scandival on Vanderpump Rules, a decision I definitely do not regret in any way, shape, or form. It was very made this year, this otherwise tough year.
Great.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 The Diplomat, I found very enjoyable as a Netflix show.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 It worked.

Speaker 1 I threw a couple of them.

Speaker 8 I could see just Tommy being very angry at how absurd it is.

Speaker 3 The lack of realism.

Speaker 1 The lack of realism in

Speaker 8 the British ambassador also being a spy.

Speaker 3 Or, yeah, yeah, or being in charge of anything.

Speaker 1 Tough hit.

Speaker 3 Well, the U.S. ambassador of the U.K.
is generally not running all foreign policy or prepared to be the vice president.

Speaker 1 Spoiler. Or a former CIA.

Speaker 3 But I've been reading The 90s by Chuck Klosterman. It's a recent book that's out.
It's very good.

Speaker 3 I was listening to some Noah Khan. Hit a great new album out this year.
What else?

Speaker 3 Watching, though,

Speaker 3 the latest season of Dave was good.

Speaker 1 Was that this year or last year?

Speaker 6 Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker 1 That was great.

Speaker 5 That was great to watch.

Speaker 1 So I'm watching The Curse with Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone.

Speaker 1 And first couple episodes, I was like, what is going on here? And now I'm like, like six episodes in and I love it. I think it's really good.

Speaker 4 I'm going through, I think The Curse is excellent. I'm going slowly in part because it's such an intense watch.

Speaker 4 And also, like, I just, I just feel like there's so much prestige content that I like want to respect it enough to not binge it.

Speaker 4 Like the fact that like a Julia Roberts movie directed by Sam Esmail, who I love, just like pops up one day.

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 1 There needs to be better curation of like the real good stuff that's out there because it is now impossible to find.

Speaker 3 You want like a home box office.

Speaker 1 Because they've all, yeah, because they've all decided to be like fucking Netflix now. And so you, if you go to the Max app, you're just like swimming through shit, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Same thing with Netflix, same thing with Paramount Plus, which is now showtime's going away. Now it's all going to be Paramount Plus.
This sucks, this new world.

Speaker 1 Like someone needs to tell us, like, what is the, what's the great new stuff that's out there now?

Speaker 8 What if someone started a publication called the TV Guide and you could go there to find out what was airing and whatever?

Speaker 1 When you're back to the TV guide.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 3 And 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.

Speaker 1 It gets,

Speaker 1 weirdly enough, it gets less awkward and funnier as it goes, I think. And it's like it's like a real satire on just a lot of things.
Oh, one

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 1 I just finished Yellowface by R.F. Kwong.
Fantastic book.

Speaker 1 You can read it in one sitting. It's great.
It's fun.

Speaker 13 Think you know your breaking point? If you're a woman with weak bones due to osteoporosis after menopause, sadly, you may not.

Speaker 13 Women can lose up to 20% of their bone density within five to seven years after menopause, making bones weaker and more likely to break.

Speaker 13 And after the first fracture, we're five times more likely to break another bone within a year. It could happen from a simple slip or just bending to lift a bag of groceries.

Speaker 13 Don't wait for a breaking point. Visit bonebreakingpoint.com to learn about how osteoporosis medications can reduce the risk of fractures.

Speaker 7 Pandora makes it easy for you to find your favorite music. Discover new artists and genres by selecting any song or album and will make you a personalized station for free.

Speaker 1 Download on the Apple App Store or Google Play and enjoy the soundtrack to your life.

Speaker 14 Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odo, the only business software you'll ever need.

Speaker 14 It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. From CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more.

Speaker 14 And the best part, Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.
So why not you? Try Odo for free at odoo.com.

Speaker 14 That's odoo.com.

Speaker 1 There's a follow-up question here from a similar question from Veroska Korea,

Speaker 1 who says,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 However, when he interviews guests that have written a book, which happens quite often, he always seems to have read them.

Speaker 1 Has he? Have you?

Speaker 1 Well, Vera, have you? Yes, I have.

Speaker 1 Yes, I have.

Speaker 4 Oh, he's read them all. That's amazing.

Speaker 3 Cupboard on the couch of resistance. This is especially impressive.

Speaker 1 This is especially an offline thing.

Speaker 1 And I remember before offline

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 How are you reading this whole book? And he does. But when you do, like, for Podzave of America, maybe you can get away with it because it's like a 15-20-minute interview.

Speaker 1 On offline, on offline, it's like I'm talking to them for 45 minutes. Of course, I have to read the book.
So I haven't, I read all the offline guest books.

Speaker 4 You never kind of thumb a few pages ahead?

Speaker 5 You never do like a chapter. TikTok, TikTok.

Speaker 1 Doppelganger from

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we know you know about books.

Speaker 6 Moby Dick.

Speaker 1 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 Baltiner Dist.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 So I listen.

Speaker 4 If I've said one thing on this show, I think you all know I'm not a doctor.

Speaker 1 It's true.

Speaker 4 All I will tell you is I 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 You didn't know drug deals give you a deal on the first one?

Speaker 1 There's a coupon for the pancreas. Yeah, there's a coupon.
One free pancreas. Buy one, get one free.

Speaker 1 Promo code. There's

Speaker 4 out there.

Speaker 4 And I like the, so like, look, 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.

Speaker 4 Like it came really easily. And the thing that's amazing about it is

Speaker 4 it's not, obviously I've lost weight. Great.

Speaker 4 But 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.

Speaker 4 And I was like, wait, you feel guilty every time you're full.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And once those things separated, that changed my whole fucking life. I'm driving slower out there.

Speaker 1 I am.

Speaker 4 I'm like, there's like extra discipline for other things, maybe for both of you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was going to say, where have you been? You see it. If you see that.

Speaker 1 where have you seen that discipline? Are you driving slower? You're not going to the right.

Speaker 4 No, because I think because my mind is not,

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Maybe subtly.

Speaker 1 You could say.

Speaker 1 Listen, I'm not looking.

Speaker 4 I don't need you to see it. All right, I need Dan to see it.

Speaker 1 Two of us did write a book with you over the whole summer. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And you know what? Is it done?

Speaker 1 You know what world we'd be living in?

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Anyway, do whatever your doctor says.

Speaker 1 Don't take advice from me.

Speaker 4 I'm an insecure and in vain Hollywood person.

Speaker 3 I love the way you phased the rollout of this whole thing now because you would sort of allude to it or something.

Speaker 1 In like the middle of like the fourth ad in a Padze of America. You just like drop it in.
I soft launch it

Speaker 4 it went well you traveled anyway yeah I all I'll say is you can pry it from my cold dead fucking hands

Speaker 4 I know I don't care how many diabetics can't access it I'm getting it first oh my god

Speaker 4 get behind me get in line behind me diabetics I need my tummy medicine

Speaker 1 holiday all right we do have another we do have another question about your relationship with food oh good a colfin 2 on Instagram asks, Love It, are you an applesauce, sour cream, or a combo person for your latkas?

Speaker 4 Combo, combo, combo. I like both.
A little bit of both.

Speaker 4 A little bit of the sour cream, a little bit of sweet. It's great.
Also, although sometimes what I'll do is take a latka, put some sour cream on top, put some smoked salmon on that bad boy.

Speaker 4 Throw some laks on top. Get yourself a sandwich.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 There's like a little latka song that we sing to Lizette. that has like certain hand motions about you like peel them, roll it, pat it.
she gets super into it

Speaker 4 i like the jewish energy yeah i like that i like that we got another one

Speaker 1 put her in the book

Speaker 1 future college president

Speaker 8 all right uh last question is from kyle man chesthair 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 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 my 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?

Speaker 3 Get yourself a spiral cut ham.

Speaker 4 You know, I want to talk about ham. It's a big haka ham.

Speaker 3 It's pre-cooked for you, and then someone dumps sugar all over the outside.

Speaker 1 That's what we do growing up for Christmas. And I love it.

Speaker 1 That was their Christmas day. It was the spiral ham.

Speaker 4 I didn't try, I like, as a Jewish American.

Speaker 4 I remember the first time I, ham to me, existed as like a lunch meat, like an Oscar Meyer thing.

Speaker 6 That would be a sandwich.

Speaker 4 And I remember seeing

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 I remember it was, I, it was at, um, it was a Hillary Clinton holiday party. So I was a full-blown adult.
I'd literally never had it.

Speaker 4 And for the first time, I had honey-baked ham, a spiral cut ham, I believe. And I was like, I cannot.

Speaker 4 I tasted it. I could not believe that you goesha maniacs are calling this incredibly salty, sweet thing an entree.
An entree. The idea of taking it.

Speaker 1 Do you think it was like an appetizer or a dessert?

Speaker 4 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 bites.

Speaker 4 I feel like you got to take a nap.

Speaker 1 It's a big, big Easter day food, too. You're going to have some ham on Easter.

Speaker 4 The saltiness.

Speaker 4 It's wild.

Speaker 1 It's very salty.

Speaker 4 But you don't do any other.

Speaker 4 It's not like you take a bite of turkey and you're like, you got to drink a glass of water.

Speaker 1 No, it's not like it's just special entree.

Speaker 4 Sometimes it's just a little too dry. Right, but the honey-baked ham, the spiral-cut ham.

Speaker 3 So good.

Speaker 1 Wild.

Speaker 1 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 know you're forced to suffer to eat turkey.

Speaker 4 Well, like a haiku, it provides a creative balance.

Speaker 1 But for Christmas, it's depending on where you go and what they decide to cook. So you don't know what you're getting.

Speaker 1 So you could get something great, or you could get something shitty if you go to your random aunt's house and they decide to make something terrible. Oh, you got to get better answers.
Christmas,

Speaker 4 you go to Benehana and you have a great fucking time.

Speaker 6 Benihana.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you can go to Benihana on Christmas. That's the beauty of it.
You can go, and that's a great night.

Speaker 1 That's a great night.

Speaker 6 You look around the room.

Speaker 1 You know what? If Emily hasn't had the baby yet, maybe we will go to Benihana on the channel.

Speaker 4 I'd like to see the college president say that there.

Speaker 5 There's a great TikTok.

Speaker 4 Talk to Benihana on Christmas. Say it there.
You won't. Because it's filled with juice.

Speaker 3 There's a great TikTok I saw recently of a dude at a Benihana dinner, and he brought a bunch of tortillas and he threw them onto the fryer.

Speaker 1 And I was like, that is fucking genius.

Speaker 4 He brought his own tortillas.

Speaker 3 Benny Hana in a tortilla must be so good.

Speaker 1 Well, I hope everyone enjoys their Beni Hana Christmas. Thank you for that.
Or Hanukkah. Or just going to Benni Hana just for fun.

Speaker 1 I'm going to bring your tortillas.

Speaker 4 I'm going with Elise Stefanic.

Speaker 3 Benny Hanukkah.

Speaker 3 Nice.

Speaker 1 Trying to say it twice. That's great.
Happy holidays, everyone. And we will talk to you in the new year.

Speaker 1 If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends.

Speaker 1 And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more.

Speaker 1 Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Give us your own takes.
And give us a review. Give us your takes on our takes.

Speaker 1 Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Writing support from Hallie Kiefer.

Speaker 1 Reed Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglund and Charlotte Landis.

Speaker 1 Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroote is our head of production.
Andy Taft is our executive assistant.

Speaker 1 Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Toles, Kirill Pelaviev, and Molly Lobel.

Speaker 13 Think you know your breaking point? If you're a woman with weak bones due to osteoporosis after menopause, sadly, you may not.

Speaker 13 Women can lose up to 20% of their bone density within five to seven years after menopause, making bones weaker and more likely to break.

Speaker 13 And after the first fracture, we're five times more likely to break another bone within a year. It could happen from a simple slip or just bending to lift a bag of groceries.

Speaker 13 Don't wait for a breaking point. Visit bonebreakingpoint.com to learn about how osteoporosis medications can reduce the risk of fractures.

Speaker 15 What is the secret to making great toast?

Speaker 13 Oh, you're just going to go in with the hard-hitting questions.

Speaker 15 I'm Dan Pashman from The Sporkful. We like to say it's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
We use food to learn about culture, history, and science.

Speaker 15 There was the time we looked into allegations of discrimination at bon appetite, or when I spent three years inventing a new pasta shape.

Speaker 8 It's a complex noodle that you've put together.

Speaker 15 Every episode of The Sporkful, you're going to learn something, feel something, and laugh. The Sporkful, get it wherever you get your podcasts.