Chris Christie's Last Stand (Live from San Diego!)

Speaker 1 October brings it all.

Speaker 3 Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.

Speaker 5 At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all.

Speaker 6 Mixing up something spooky?

Speaker 7 Total Wine and More is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.

Speaker 9 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 More.

Speaker 12 Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.

Speaker 13 See TotalWine.com for details.

Speaker 14 Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.

Speaker 1 Drink responsibly.

Speaker 8 Be 21.

Speaker 15 What's poppin' listeners?

Speaker 16 I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week, I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time.

Speaker 16 Want to know about the fake heirs? We got them. What about a career con man? We've got them too.
Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins.

Speaker 16 Oh, you know they are represented because representation matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Beyer, Ira Madison III, Conan O'Brien, and more.

Speaker 16 Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 15 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favreau.

Speaker 17 I'm Sam Sanders.

Speaker 18 I'm John Lovett.

Speaker 19 I'm Tommy Betor.

Speaker 20 I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Speaker 15 We have an outstanding show for you tonight. The mayor of San Diego, Todd Gloria, is here.

Speaker 15 We are so happy to have Sam Sanders with us, co-host of the excellent podcast, Vibe Check.

Speaker 17 I'm so happy to be here.

Speaker 15 I love San Diego.

Speaker 15 All right, let's get to the news.

Speaker 15 So we had another Republican primary debate this week. While we're all hoping it would be the last, they just announced today there will be three more in January.

Speaker 15 And after watching Wednesday night's debate in Alabama between Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Chris Christie, it's hard to see why.

Speaker 18 The debates will continue until morale improves.

Speaker 17 I'm just mad I had to go to newsnation.com to like

Speaker 15 it was on the CW on my television.

Speaker 15 They were airing it there. That still exists.
Yeah.

Speaker 15 So despite promises from the moderators that the debate would focus on Trump, the only person who took that seriously was last place candidate Chris Christie. Let's listen.

Speaker 21 I look at my watch now.

Speaker 22 We're 17 minutes into this debate, and except for your little speech in the beginning, we've had these three acting as if the race is between the four of us.

Speaker 22 The fifth guy who doesn't have the guts to show up and stand here, he's the one who, as you just put it, is way ahead in the polls.

Speaker 22 And yet, I've got these three guys who are all seemingly to compete with, you know, Voldemort. He or shall not be named.

Speaker 15 They don't want to talk about it.

Speaker 22 The fact is that when you go and you say the truth about somebody who is a dictator, a bully, who has taken shots at everybody, whether they've given him great service or not over time, who dares to disagree with him, then I understand why the Thieves Three are timid to say anything about it.

Speaker 22 Maybe it's because they have future aspirations. Maybe those future aspirations are now or maybe they're four years from now.

Speaker 15 So, yeah, that was Pod Save America, guest Chris Christie.

Speaker 15 Dan, Christie suggested that,

Speaker 15 as you heard there, that maybe the reason his opponents aren't taking on Trump directly is because they have future aspirations, which is a take directly from the message box.

Speaker 15 Questions, did you know he was such a fan?

Speaker 15 And what do you think Christie was trying to do last night? So when Lovett was preparing to interview Chris Christie, he came to me and said, can you give me some advice?

Speaker 15 And I said, I need you to do two things. One, do not fall for him.
Do not bro out. Number two, grab his phone and subscribe him to the message box.
So one for two is not bad.

Speaker 18 I just want to say, Dan, I mean, look, if you tell someone, don't fall in love with that guy, he's a bad boy.

Speaker 15 It's going to happen.

Speaker 18 It's going to happen every goddamn time.

Speaker 15 So I want to give Chris Christie, Pot Save America, Guest, John Lovitt, role model, the benefit of the doubt.

Speaker 17 I don't.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 15 I believe he sincerely believes all those things he said about Donald Trump.

Speaker 15 But I'm sorry, though. Follow me.
Go, go, go.

Speaker 17 If Trump won and wanted to appoint Christie, he would do it. I think no.

Speaker 15 I think no.

Speaker 17 No, I think this dude has shown that he will do whatever he needs to do to stay around.

Speaker 15 Attorney General. Sam, I want to give you a warning.

Speaker 15 Do not attack Chris Christie on this stage with these people. You're talking about my friend.
Yes. I just don't trust the guy.

Speaker 15 Don't even say a bad word about Mitt Romney on the stage with these three. I'll tell you that.

Speaker 17 I just compare him to like Lindsey Graham, who, when I covered election 2016 in those early debates, talked so much shit about Donald Trump.

Speaker 17 And then Trump gets in office, and Lindsey Graham is just up that man's ass for four years.

Speaker 17 I don't trust these guys.

Speaker 15 I don't think you should trust them. Very clear.
Thank you.

Speaker 15 Chris Christie

Speaker 15 knows this might have been his last debate.

Speaker 15 They basically, the RNC basically had to rig the polling to get him on that stage because he was hours away from not making it, and they had to include a poll they would otherwise not have included, I think, because News Nation was desperate for any sort of entertainment at their one moment in the sun.

Speaker 15 And so this was the moment to do it. We loved it.
You guys loved it, as evidenced by your applause. We have more clips coming from Chris Christie.

Speaker 15 But I think we have to recognize that Chris Christie, in the mind of Republicans, is a Democrat. So let me put that in perspective.

Speaker 15 Chris Chris Christie's approval rating among Republican primary voters in the most recent Monmouth University poll is 12%.

Speaker 15 Do you know what Barack Obama's approval rating with Republicans was on the last day he was president? 14%.

Speaker 15 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 15 He is not, I'm glad he said it. It's good for the historical record book that he said it.
It has zero impact in the Republican primary.

Speaker 15 I knew that Dan was going to say this. And there was a poll out after the debate that showed they did a pre-debate poll of Republican voters who watched the debate and a post-debate poll.

Speaker 15 And the one candidate, when they asked, would you be considering this candidate, the one candidate who gained the most out of anyone in the debate was Chris Christie.

Speaker 15 And then Dan said, okay, well, what percentage? And they said he went from 21% to 29%.

Speaker 15 Huge. 8%.
That's the eight-point bump. People considering him.
In the 20s, Donald Trump's at 62.

Speaker 15 So in terms of polls, endorsements, fundraising, Nikki Haley was the candidate with the most momentum heading into the debate, which is why she was the target of so many attacks from DeSantis and Vivek.

Speaker 15 Here's some of that.

Speaker 27 Other candidates up here like Nikki Haley, she caves anytime the left comes after her, anytime the media comes after her. Nikki, you were bankrupt when you left the UN.

Speaker 27 After you left the UN, you became a military contractor.

Speaker 27 You actually started joining service on the board of Boeing, whose back you scratched for a very long time, and then gave foreign multinational speeches like Hillary Clinton is.

Speaker 27 And now you're a multi-millionaire. That math does not add up.
Nikki is corrupt. This is a woman who will send your kids to die so she can buy a bigger house.

Speaker 12 Love all the attention, fellas. Thank you for that.

Speaker 28 First of all, he's mad because those Wall Street donors used to support him and now they support me.

Speaker 15 I'm glad we stopped in the shot of Ron DeSantis doing the.

Speaker 15 That's what he always does.

Speaker 18 Ron DeSantis stands there, like right before he walked on stage. Someone whisper in his ear, you have arms, go.

Speaker 17 Whenever I think of Ron DeSantis, I think of Prince, the artist formerly known as, because they wear the same heels.

Speaker 15 They were the same heels. And I've never forgotten that.

Speaker 15 Sam, how do you think that Haley handled all the incoming in this debate? Because it's probably the most she's taken in any debate.

Speaker 15 And do you think any of the attacks from Vivek or DeSantis will stick? No.

Speaker 17 I think only the base was watching to even think about having their minds changed.

Speaker 15 And I think of all of the

Speaker 17 men clamoring to take Nikki down a notch, it just made her seem like the strongest person in the room. And now I just think of it as like Nikki and the boys.
It's Nikki and the boys.

Speaker 17 And Nikki seems at least crazy. Nikki seems the least crazy.
And so I think she won that debate. I think she's got some good money behind her now.

Speaker 17 But I also think that, like, none of them should get their hopes up.

Speaker 17 Who listens to the daily this morning?

Speaker 24 Yeah, you did.

Speaker 17 Second half, they introduced this idea of a factional candidate. Who listens to that? I listened to it.
We did. So it's this idea.

Speaker 17 You get an A. You get an A plus.

Speaker 18 They listen.

Speaker 15 They say

Speaker 15 the daily.

Speaker 15 They listen to the crooked podcast

Speaker 15 to both. Yes.

Speaker 29 Listen to both like that. That's right.

Speaker 15 The rivalry we all care about. Anywho.

Speaker 17 Long story short, this expert on the daily lays out the case that Nikki Haley is a factional candidate.

Speaker 17 She's surging right now, but she'll only be really popular with the faction of the GOP electorate. And she'll never get past.
that faction.

Speaker 17 And once you see her as that, you know that the only way she makes it is if if something really bad happens to Trump and he's out of there.

Speaker 17 Otherwise, she ends up like all the other factional candidates in recent history. Kasich, factional candidate.
McCain, factional candidate. Jesse Jackson, factional candidate.

Speaker 17 Bernie Sanders, factional candidate. And so I think what Nikki Haley has to do, knowing that,

Speaker 17 is triangulate in a way that Trump does not have to. Because she knows there's a good chance that she'll never be nominee.

Speaker 17 so she needs to appeal enough to the right groups of people to be able to land somewhere else after this but I don't know I think she's surging right now but unless Trump is like taken away in handcuffs he's the nominee right still

Speaker 15 well now I know that Dan here disagrees because he's on the Haley train and he thinks she's going do you but but like barring barring barring Trump being disallowed from running or put in the jail,

Speaker 17 what puts Nikki Haley over Trump?

Speaker 15 Absolutely nothing. Nothing.
Okay. I have been sitting here for

Speaker 15 weeks now listening to people talk about surging Nikki Haley and how she's the ultimate Trump. That is mathematical idiocy.
Yep. And it drives me insane.

Speaker 17 So she's still 30 points back.

Speaker 15 Because look, I get it. The press, they really had in their budget lines a competitive Republican primary.
They're not getting that.

Speaker 15 I think a lot of people would like to live in a country where some where Nikki Haley, for as bad as she is, could win the Republican nomination, not not Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 15 That's not the country we live in. Let's put some numbers to this, okay?

Speaker 15 In a recent NBC poll, they asked voters who their first and second choice was. Donald Trump is the first or second choice of 71% of voters.
That's a lot. That's a lot.

Speaker 15 Ron DeSantis, who we all make fun of, is a ridiculous, awkward nerd. Goober.

Speaker 20 Goober. Goober, perfect word.
54%.

Speaker 15 Nikki Haley, 28%.

Speaker 15 Consider her as first or second choice.

Speaker 15 Nikki Haley's approval rating has gone down as she has quote-unquote surged because more Republican pro-Trump voters have soured on her.

Speaker 15 Her net approval rating right now, so that your approval rating minus your disprovince is 12 points.

Speaker 15 Donald Trump's 58. Rhonda Sanders is 43.
Right?

Speaker 15 It's a fiction and creation. She is exactly, as Sam said, a factional candidate who appeals to the 38% of Republicans who say they oppose the MAGA movement.

Speaker 15 You cannot get there in a race like this because eventually, this is why all these factional candidates lose.

Speaker 15 Eventually, it becomes a two-person race, and the factional candidate can't get to 50%.

Speaker 15 So I feel better now. So thank you for allowing me to do that.
We're on the same page. I thought Sam said fashionable candidate, and I was like, yeah, she dresses pretty well.

Speaker 15 A little bit of feedback goes harder here. That's nodding along.
Like, yeah.

Speaker 17 She's dressed amongst the buns.

Speaker 23 I mean, she looks great.

Speaker 15 And we should say why she's a factional candidate because she represents a Republican Party that mostly doesn't exist anymore. It's a pre-2016 Republican Party.

Speaker 15 It's the Republican Party that was more internationalist, less isolationist, more in favor of immigration, more

Speaker 15 focused on free markets and like the debt. And she talks about this every debate.

Speaker 15 She's like very obsessed with the debt and the deficit and like just all kinds of stuff that Republicans used to care about before Donald Trump came along.

Speaker 15 And so she is, I think, now the natural place for either anti-Trump Republicans or Republicans who still believe in the party that was pre-Trump. And that's just a third of the Republican electorate.

Speaker 15 And it just hasn't budged since then. Also,

Speaker 18 I was just watching the debate, it is a testament to how terrible Ron DeSantis is, that she's being treated like, oh, wow, like charisma, you know, talent.

Speaker 18 She does fine during this debate.

Speaker 15 There was a moment that I thought was like telling.

Speaker 18 I think Chris Christie is like the best politician up there. He's just offering.
I do believe that.

Speaker 20 Sorry.

Speaker 15 Deal with it. He's my best friend.

Speaker 18 But he's just offering something they don't want.

Speaker 15 He was the best politician. He's offering something.

Speaker 15 Let us go right from here to New Hampshire. He's just a bad person.

Speaker 18 He's offering something that they don't want. Fine.
But there was a moment where

Speaker 18 he jumped in to defend Nikki Haley. And it was kind of strange, right? And like Nikki Haley just like took the compliment.

Speaker 18 But I think like a stronger person, you know, she's a better politician than Ron DeSantis, but the idea that she just stood there and let Chris Christie defend her is supposed to jump in.

Speaker 15 But what do you do?

Speaker 17 I found it quite patronizing. Yes, it was.

Speaker 15 What can you do in them besides just like shutting up?

Speaker 18 I don't need you to fucking defend me.

Speaker 18 Chris Christie, you loser that no one here likes except for the Pod Save America audience. Exactly.

Speaker 15 Also.

Speaker 20 Chris Christie, you defending me is hurting me with the voters I actually need, so please shut up.

Speaker 26 Stop helping me, you unpopular fuck. No.

Speaker 18 Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm arguing with the most annoying person any of us has ever met.

Speaker 17 But let me take a second to say, and I'm not giving any flowers to Nikki Haley, but to be the only woman on that stage when the men are going after you like that, you're in a hard bind.

Speaker 17 You're in a hard bind.

Speaker 17 So I can totally understand her not responding to Chris Christie patronizing her. I can totally understand any response she gives because they were bullying her because she's a woman.

Speaker 17 And I can say that and still not like her.

Speaker 29 But like, they were bullying her because she was a woman.

Speaker 17 And that was just, like, they're still doing that. They're still doing that.

Speaker 25 Can any of you name the three counties in eastern New Jersey that Chris Christie is from?

Speaker 15 Eastern New Jersey.

Speaker 20 What an insufferable prick.

Speaker 26 Who sits there and thinks like, oh yeah, everyone loves the annoying dickhead who gives geography pop quizzes at debates.

Speaker 18 Do you think being president is like, sir, where should we land the plane?

Speaker 15 And he's like, repeat something you memorized back in the day, like a far-flung country, Bratislava. Like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 23 How did you think this is a good attack?

Speaker 18 it's like the he has the energy of a hospital administrator eagerly denying your claim because you filled out the paperwork incorrectly

Speaker 15 that hit me hard wow so uh so haley took a lot of incoming from desantis but he took some incoming of his own from chris christie uh for being too afraid to take on trump uh let's listen to that exchange why isn't he just answering the question the question was very direct is he fit to be president or isn't he?

Speaker 27 The rest of the speech is interesting, but completely non-responsive. And if we were in a courtroom, they'd strike the answer and say, Governor DeSantis.
No, they wouldn't say that.

Speaker 27 They would say that they were not. You're a small man.

Speaker 27 No, they would. No, they wouldn't.
They would strike the answer

Speaker 27 because you're not answering him. Is he fit?

Speaker 27 You have to do it. Is he fitter or anything? No, I'm not my thing.
We don't. He's the thing.

Speaker 27 Nobody governor DeSantis left.

Speaker 27 I

Speaker 15 Yeah, we're fucked. I just want to say fucked.
Horrible. Oh, my God.
Horrible.

Speaker 17 I only heard it. Now I saw it for the first time.

Speaker 15 I'm rock hard right now.

Speaker 15 Don't egg him on.

Speaker 15 Wait. And it's like, what are you saying? When are we starting?

Speaker 15 I just think it's amazing to me that Ron DeSantis, through that diatribe, and as Christy is just laying into him, he decides to jump in on, no, no, no, the court reporter would strike it from the background.

Speaker 15 Actually, actually,

Speaker 15 anything you want about me, but I am drawing the line at that.

Speaker 30 What I said was admissible.

Speaker 30 It was admissible.

Speaker 15 Which is, that is his energy. Tommy, to the extent that this debate mattered at all, which I would posit it did not,

Speaker 15 it was about whether DeSantis or Haley probably helped themselves more since they are the ones battling it out for second place right now.

Speaker 15 Who do you think did better?

Speaker 15 Or do you think either candidate actually helped themselves in this debate?

Speaker 25 I mean, look, again, I don't have my finger on the pulse of the Republican electorate, as you can tell, right? I'm more inclined to think Chris Christie did well.

Speaker 20 Ron DeSantis, for me, everything

Speaker 25 he says is delivered in the tone of a child who thinks he bargained 30 more minutes of TV time.

Speaker 20 You know what I mean? He's like, no, I did it.

Speaker 29 You said I could watch SummerSlam.

Speaker 15 You know, it's like,

Speaker 23 dude, like, what are we talking about here?

Speaker 25 And so it's hard for me to get past that and how annoying he is.

Speaker 25 I do think he looked weak there and Christie got him and, you know, he wasn't answering and he made him look kind of ridiculous and like he was ducking the question.

Speaker 25 For Nikki Haley, I mean, it is very, very hard in debates when everyone is coming after you.

Speaker 25 I thought she was very strong in the front and then faded a little by the end because she was just getting hammered from every side.

Speaker 25 I mean, when this little dweeb holds up like Nikki equals corrupt, what do you do with that?

Speaker 26 Also, you know, her husband is in the military.

Speaker 25 He's deployed overseas. And Vivek Ramaswamy said to her,

Speaker 25 she'll send your sons overseas so she can buy a bigger house.

Speaker 26 Like to die.

Speaker 20 So she could buy a bigger house.

Speaker 25 Like the meanest things you could possibly say to someone,

Speaker 25 Vivek Ramaswamy was saying to her.

Speaker 15 So I think Vivek,

Speaker 25 you know, look, he had a moment before that first debate. I think his personality has turned off everyone who's seen him speak.
I think Haley did well, but took a lot of incoming.

Speaker 25 And it's not just about the three or four million people who watched the debate that night.

Speaker 25 It's about how those attacks get replayed on TV shows the next day, on social media, what gets picked up in ads, what messages get carried forward.

Speaker 25 And I think, like, she took some tough shots that she's going to have to answer about, you know, some of the corruption allegations that he made.

Speaker 25 DeSantis might have done better just by virtue of like getting less incoming and kind of being out of the fray for more time, but it's tough to tell.

Speaker 17 But he still has to be Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 18 Yeah, he still looks like that.

Speaker 15 Yeah, but then. You look at him and you're just like, oh, he's got to do something with those arms.

Speaker 18 But I will say, like, having, if you, like, I,

Speaker 18 that, this, whatever, you watch that debate and, like, I actually know what Ron DeSantis was doing in that debate. I know what Chris Christie was doing in that debate.

Speaker 18 I don't, I know Nikki's, Nikki Haley pushed back against a bunch of attacks, but I, but she didn't make as clean an argument for candidacy as Ron DeSantis did, as much as Ron DeSantis has to do it using Ron DeSantis' voice.

Speaker 25 Weirdly, your boy Chris Christie like took some really hawkish positions. He was like, yes, I would send special forces into Gaza to rescue hostages.

Speaker 15 Yes, I would go to war with China over Taiwan.

Speaker 25 Like, DeSantis ducked that question, and Christie's like, no, let me tell you about all the places I'm going to fucking attack.

Speaker 17 Can I, I'm just, like, I have a question for y'all because I trust Shel's judgment and opinions. I kept thinking, watching this debate.

Speaker 17 All right, Trump's not here because he doesn't need to talk to anyone but his base, and he can talk to them whenever he wants, and they look for his words.

Speaker 17 But all these candidates here are trying in some way to talk to multiple audiences, whether it be donors or maybe moderate swing voters or whoever. But like

Speaker 17 if these candidates on that stage last night know that they'll never be president,

Speaker 17 who were they really talking to last night and what do they really want? Knowing the endgame is not going to be the White House for them.

Speaker 15 I think that in their minds,

Speaker 15 they have convinced themselves.

Speaker 15 I think if you run for president, if you got the staff, you got the donors, you go through the whole thing, you're living your life on the road, you know, you have convinced yourself that there is a path.

Speaker 15 Maybe an unlikely path, but like things happen. Trump ends up in jail.
Trump drops dead, right? Like, this is the kind of things that... That man's living to be 100.

Speaker 17 I mean, I'm going to tell you right now,

Speaker 17 that kind of nasty doesn't die.

Speaker 15 100. So this is what they're thinking.

Speaker 15 They're thinking, okay, if he's not, if something happens to Donald Trump, then maybe I could go to this state and this state and I could get this constituency and I could do this and that and the other thing.

Speaker 15 Like, I think that they're that's in their mind. And then

Speaker 15 and then they're thinking to Dan's point that he's made, like, and if that fails, then maybe I'm set up for 2028. Right.
I think they're all talking to different audiences, right?

Speaker 15 Ron DeSantis, if Donald Trump were to go to prison tomorrow, Ron DeSantis would be the Republican nominee, and it wouldn't be close. Really? He is by far the second choice of most Trump voters.

Speaker 15 By far. It's not even close.
By far. They can't do that.
That is little Ron. And if someone can't get Ronnie, yeah,

Speaker 15 we don't like him. He's weird.
He's awkward. He's an asshole to just enough of the right people for Republicans to be their nominee.
That is how it is.

Speaker 15 Nikki Haley is positioning herself for a post-Trump Republican Party.

Speaker 15 And what is the problem for her is she started this race as a non-Trump, but she started gaining support as the candidate of the anti-Trump faction.

Speaker 15 So that has made her less popular and less viable of a leader in the Republican Party in a 2028 race.

Speaker 15 Vivek Ramaswamy is talking to Trump directly. He wants an audience of one.

Speaker 17 And it's unhinged.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I have no evidence for this, but I would not be surprised to find out that Trump's campaign is encouraging him to stay in the race, encouraging him to do what he's doing, to just be a chaos agent there and defend Trump on stage.

Speaker 15 Wow. Because in the beginning of that clip we showed, Ramaswamy is trying to get in there to defend DeSantis for not saying Trump is unfit and attack Chris Christie.

Speaker 15 And Chris Christie is looking for a spot right up here.

Speaker 18 He's either, yeah, he is looking.

Speaker 15 He can't have money. He is looking to the person who can provide a sixth chair up here.
Actually, no, seriously, he's talking to the person who offers contributor contracts at MSNBC. Yeah.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 25 CNN prime time?

Speaker 15 Pull up a chair, Chris.

Speaker 15 Christie or leave it.

Speaker 15 All right.

Speaker 15 I'm going to go ahead and leave it. I'm going to go ahead and leave it, John.

Speaker 15 So that's funny.

Speaker 18 Love is on vacation, filling in.

Speaker 20 It's Governor Chris Christie.

Speaker 15 Let's get into it.

Speaker 15 Screamish. Our first segment is Bridgegate.

Speaker 15 So the award for the biggest asshole of the night, as always, goes to Vivek Ramaswamy, who was finally stuffed into a locker by Chris Christie in what was certainly my favorite moment of the debate.

Speaker 15 Here it is.

Speaker 31 Okay, you say that how you do it.

Speaker 15 You do get to die. You do direct every debate.

Speaker 22 You go out on the stump and you say something.

Speaker 31 All of us see it on video. We confront you on the debate stage.
You say you didn't say it, and then you back away. And I want to say

Speaker 22 I'm not done yet.

Speaker 15 Now, look,

Speaker 15 now this is not a speech. This made a speech of nonsense.
Let me tell you something. This is the fourth debate.

Speaker 22 The fourth debate that you would be voted in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America.

Speaker 15 So shut up for me.

Speaker 17 Stop letting straight men run for office.

Speaker 15 Love it.

Speaker 15 You are our Chris Christie whisperer. So obviously, we would like to hear more about what you thought about his performance there.
But on Vivek,

Speaker 15 he's been trying to copy Trump.

Speaker 15 He

Speaker 15 got a little notoriety early. There's some buzz around him.
Why do you think his shtick hasn't worked as well with Republican voters as Donald Trump's? Well,

Speaker 18 he just doesn't have it. I mean,

Speaker 18 Donald Trump, you know, we don't like talking about his strengths, but he has them. And I think his great skill is that he's a bully you root for.
That is his great power. Is it what?

Speaker 17 He's a bully you root for.

Speaker 18 And no American of any political persuasion wants to elect the villain from Ghostbusters.

Speaker 18 And if you ever find yourself in a position where you sound like the villain from Ghostbusters,

Speaker 15 you're losing.

Speaker 17 It was the poster in the air for me. Yeah.

Speaker 15 Once you do that,

Speaker 15 you've got to go. It's so childish.

Speaker 17 Nothing good comes from that.

Speaker 15 Here's another way to think about it. One year ago, Vivek Ramaswamy was the guy begging to be interviewed on a midday Fox News program.

Speaker 15 Here we are in December of 2023. He has beaten the former vice president of the United States, the governors of North Dakota,

Speaker 15 Arkansas. He is currently beating the former governor of New Jersey.
And I don't think he really wants to be president. I don't think he got in to be president.
He got in to be famous.

Speaker 17 We know his name.

Speaker 15 Yeah. Or sell anti-woke investment programs.
All the things. Yeah.

Speaker 17 The really mean HOA president. He has

Speaker 15 exploited the worst elements of our political system to gain what he wants to help himself.

Speaker 15 That was his plan in the beginning, and he has succeeded at that. I think that was his plan.
I think then he flew a little too close to the sun. You got to tell everyone.

Speaker 15 Like, all day today, apparently, there's a story about this on Fox. Like, they were shitting all over him on Fox.
All the Fox hosts were mad at him. They were saying he's a clown.
Why did he do this?

Speaker 15 Blah, blah, blah. Like, I think he's in danger now of like ruining his future career that he aspired to by doing that.

Speaker 15 People get in President Rachel's races all the time, knowing they're probably going to lose. And they're in it.
They're just like, I'm going to do it. I got a case to make.

Speaker 15 I just want to be out there. And then there's always one moment.
It could be like five minutes where they believe they might actually be president. Yep.

Speaker 15 And it fucks with their head for the rest of their life. And that is the price he will pay for this.
This is correct. All right, we'll leave it there.

Speaker 15 When we come back, we'll talk to the mayor of San Diego, Todd Gloria.

Speaker 1 October brings it all.

Speaker 2 Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.

Speaker 5 At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all.

Speaker 6 Mixing up something spooky?

Speaker 7 Total Wine and Moore is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.

Speaker 9 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.

Speaker 12 Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.

Speaker 13 See TotalWine.com for details.

Speaker 14 Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.

Speaker 1 Drink responsibly.

Speaker 8 B21.

Speaker 34 Hey weirdos, I'm Elena and I'm Ash and we are the hosts of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 32 Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 35 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 32 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 35 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 32 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 15 Yay! Woo!

Speaker 36 With TikTok ads, our revenue went up $10 million year over year during back-to-school season. Penn Foster is online education.

Speaker 36 TikTok is great because the reach is incredible for finding a lot of different types of audiences on the platform. Creator content at scale allowed us to easily develop and distribute creator-led ads.

Speaker 36 Our return on ad spend for TikTok is 21% higher than the Nexbus channel.

Speaker 15 Start growing your business today. Head over to getstarted.tiktok.com/slash TikTok ads.

Speaker 15 And joining us to tell us more about his administration, Todd Gloria. Merit Gloria, welcome to Pod Save America.

Speaker 19 Hello, East County.

Speaker 15 How you guys doing?

Speaker 15 When you won your election in 2020, you became the first ever person of color and member of the LGBTQ community to be elected to that office in a city, in a part of the state that has a long history of electing Republicans.

Speaker 15 Talk to me a little.

Speaker 15 That is definitely something worth applauding.

Speaker 15 Thank you, yes. People love Todd.

Speaker 15 Talk a little bit about how you won that race and what advice you would give to other Democrats trying to break historical barriers all around the country.

Speaker 19 Yeah, well, first off, thank you to a lot of the folks in this audience who didn't just help on that particular election, but for 20 plus years built the infrastructure to make that possible.

Speaker 19 We were once Richard Nixon's lucky city.

Speaker 19 To elect the son of a maid and a gardener, the gay person of color, mayor of the city, took a tremendous amount of work.

Speaker 19 I think about the people who sat in an apartment in North Park to figure out the maps for the first time we could do citizen redistricting in the early 1990s that created a district that was reasonably possible to elect an openly gay person.

Speaker 19 I won that seat a generation later and put me on a path.

Speaker 19 And to your question, I mean, first off, to any wannabe candidate who may be watching or listening to this, I mean, you got to do the two things your mom told you not to do.

Speaker 19 Knock on strangers' doors and ask for strangers for money, right?

Speaker 19 But really and truly, I mean, for someone like like myself, it's to make sure that the vast majority of the eighth largest city in this country think that someone who may be significantly different from them actually cares about the same things as them.

Speaker 19 You know, I'm a tenant in this city, and the housing is too damn expensive, and we need to make it easier for working people to afford to live in San Diego.

Speaker 19 That you can be a person of color, but you understand that while we call out for police reform, we also need to keep people safe, and we have to have public safety that is responsive and picks up your calls when you call 911.

Speaker 19 And importantly, that there's too many damn potholes, and we have to fill them and fix the streets. And if that can include a bike lane and some pedestrian facilities, that's fine.

Speaker 19 But long story short, there are a lot of people that spend a lot of time through citizen redistricting, through runoff elections, through the opportunities to allow for

Speaker 19 someone like me to be able to sit in this role. It's something I don't forget on any day of the week, and I appreciate this opportunity.
Thank you all for the chance to lead my hometown.

Speaker 15 You brought up affordable housing. I know it's a centerpiece of why you ran.
It's a centerpiece of what you've been trying to accomplish.

Speaker 15 Talk a little bit about what your plan is to deal with housing. It's something we hear about obviously everywhere we go in California, but frankly, across the country these days.

Speaker 19 Well, I'm glad you say that because it's not just a California thing. You know, one of the best parts of my job is I get to be involved in the U.S.

Speaker 19 Conference of Mayors, an extraordinary organization, nonpartisan. We just come together frequently to talk about issues.

Speaker 19 And it's striking to me that across this country, this is a common concern, there are homeless people all throughout this country, not just in big urban cities on the coast where the weather is good.

Speaker 19 And with regard to housing,

Speaker 19 I know this personally. I'm a tenant.

Speaker 19 I'm the mayor of the city, but I don't own a home in my city. It's not because I don't want to, but it's because the cost of entry is so ridiculous.
And you all pay me plenty.

Speaker 19 I'm not complaining about my salary, but I am complaining about the fact that we are simply not building enough housing. So, Dan, the answer to your question is we must build more homes, period.

Speaker 19 Full stop.

Speaker 19 Now,

Speaker 19 please call my office in the morning. We can work on that.

Speaker 19 So, how do you do that? Well, a number of things. Number one is you have to zone for it.

Speaker 19 And I think one of my challenges is that I have a city and a city council that's willing to zone for this stuff. I heard someone say ADUs, granny flats, casitas, whatever your favorite term is.

Speaker 19 That's a form of housing that we don't invest in.

Speaker 19 There's no taxpayer money in it, but it does represent new housing that is reasonably attainable, that doesn't exclude people who make too much for low-income housing, but can't afford the luxury stuff that we build aplenty.

Speaker 19 So, you have to zone for this. You have to permit for this.

Speaker 19 I heard the comment about permits, and I would say that one of the things I've been a part of is making sure that we are actually staffing the government correctly.

Speaker 19 Dan, when I took over as mayor three years ago, 20% of the positions in our permit department were vacant. No one was working there.

Speaker 19 So, if you were calling about your permit, you had a one-in-five chance that that no one was ever going to return your call. So guess what?

Speaker 19 You have to pay your public employees enough to actually want to do the job. It's pretty simple.

Speaker 19 So you do the permitting, you do the zoning, you do the permitting so that you actually get a permit in a reasonable amount of time. Quick story.

Speaker 19 In my state of the city address this year, I've signed an executive order saying that we would permit 100% affordable housing projects in 30 days

Speaker 19 or less. Shout out to our city employees.
They're doing it in 12 days, Dan. They're They're doing it.
It's possible.

Speaker 19 Zoning permits, and then we have to have folks step up and move forward. It does necessary require change in neighborhoods, and that's really challenging.

Speaker 19 I was with a group of folks this morning that aren't very happy about that. But the answer is that we can't just get ours and then pull up the drawbridge and say, good luck to you.

Speaker 19 We have to leave the door of opportunity open for folks who are willing to work hard. And that's where my mind is at, as Mayor.

Speaker 15 So people who advocate for more affordable housing, for building, for zoning, run into obstacles all across the place. The San Diego City Council rejected your wide-ranging housing plan recently.

Speaker 15 What happens now? Why do they reject it? What happens now? What are you going to do to try to get it through?

Speaker 19 Well, they did reject it, but watch this space because next week they're going to pass it.

Speaker 19 We've got to do this. The council knows that.
We had an honest disagreement about a couple of essentially three technical issues.

Speaker 19 The challenge with politics, particularly local government, is that we have to have open meetings. Our work is done out in the open.

Speaker 19 And when people are grumpy or have a bad day or just have an honest disagreement, that happens in front of everyone's

Speaker 19 eyes. And so we will bring that back and we'll get it done.
But ultimately, what we have is a council to a person that understands we have to build more housing.

Speaker 19 And while we can quibble about small things like inclusionary zoning offset requirements and like facilities, at the end of the day, no one on that council is unaware of the fact that we must build more homes.

Speaker 19 And I believe when we bring this before the council next week, it'll pass fun fact, we call it our housing action package 2.0 because 1.0 was passed. It has been implemented 2.0.

Speaker 19 And you better believe there will be a 3.0 and a 4.0 until we get a functional housing economy in the city where working people who want to be here can actually find a place they can afford and importantly, buy because what I'm really concerned about is too many folks maybe be able to find a way to rent, but then they can't find a place to buy.

Speaker 19 And the inability to build wealth, raise a family, find a future for themselves is one of the ways that cities like mine will not win the future.

Speaker 19 This is why I am so animated about making sure that we can build housing that people can afford.

Speaker 15 One of the narratives about California that the right-wing media likes to push is to talk about the homelessness crisis in the state.

Speaker 15 And the way it's always talked about is that no one is trying to do anything about it. I know it's something that you ran on, something you worked on.

Speaker 15 Talk about what you've been doing to alleviate homelessness in San Diego. Yeah.

Speaker 19 Well, let me say very clearly that homelessness is the most complex problem for which people crave a simple solution, and there isn't one.

Speaker 19 You might get charlatans that try and suggest that there are. We have former president running around talking about concentration camps out in the wilderness for people.
That is not going to work.

Speaker 19 These people are not criminal. They're poor, they're sick, they need help.
And they are still citizens in our government, in our community.

Speaker 19 They can't be incarcerated for simply being poor.

Speaker 19 What we're doing is exactly right. Exactly.
What we're doing as a city is an all-hands-on-deck approach.

Speaker 19 So, we talk a lot about housing because housing is what ends homelessness, but building housing is not quick, even when you expedite stuff, right? And we have people who have urgent needs today.

Speaker 19 So, in the last three years, we have grown our shelter capacity in the city of San Diego by over 70 percent.

Speaker 19 We're diversifying our portfolio to have congregate, non-congregate, senior-only, women-only, LGBTQ youth. We've stood up our first safe sleeping sites, which is sanctioned outdoor encampments.

Speaker 19 Deanna, I want to tell you, this is not something personally I'm very comfortable with. I feel like in an organized society, you live indoors.

Speaker 19 But what I know is this form of shelter options is actually really attractive to this population. And where we're often told no for some other options, folks are saying yes to this option.

Speaker 19 And the best part about that is that when they come into these safe sleeping sites, we provide the wraparound services that address the underlying causes of their homelessness and get them on their way to permanent housing that ends their homelessness.

Speaker 19 Long story short, outreach, shelter, housing, that's how you do it. And I recognize that it is fun to demonize cities.

Speaker 19 They make it about democratic cities, they make it about coastal cities, they make it about cities with great weather. But the fact of the matter is, every city is dealing with this.

Speaker 19 And while it's fun to say that no one's doing anything, I'm the chair of the California Big City Mayors Coalition, the biggest 13 cities in the state of California.

Speaker 19 All of us are working aggressively on this issue. None of us have found the perfect solution, but all of us, including my city, are getting thousands of people off the streets every single year.

Speaker 19 And that's something that's to be applauded. And shout out to every homeless shelter worker, outreach worker.

Speaker 19 Those people do incredible work and they don't get nearly enough thanks or pay because most of these people are minimum wage workers.

Speaker 19 This problem would be infinitely worse without their hard work. All of them are doing that work.
We're doing that work. They get thousands of people off the streets.

Speaker 19 But Dan, I will tell you that last year in the city of San Diego, for every 10 people we get off the streets, 13 become homeless.

Speaker 19 Our growing housing crisis in terms of affordability means that this year, that number is for every 10 I get off the streets, 16 become homeless.

Speaker 19 We've got to build more housing that is affordable for everybody, working, middle, and low-income folks.

Speaker 15 How has the local community reacted to your efforts, and in particular the safe sleeping encampments?

Speaker 19 That's a great question because it's a present concern. I got a call from the in-laws the other day because we're proposing a shelter near them.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 19 we'll see if I get invited to Christmas.

Speaker 15 We'll find out.

Speaker 19 Dan, here's what I have to tell you, and I really want to appreciate the chance to share this with your audience, particularly the San Diegans who are here.

Speaker 19 When we proposed our first safe sleeping site at the corner of 20th and B at an old city operations yard, it's in the neighborhood of Golden Hill, great neighborhood.

Speaker 19 I represented on the city council. There were extreme concerns from that community.
We opened the shelter, and I'm here to tell you that for three, four months into operation, there are no concerns.

Speaker 19 It is operating well. OLOT, our second one, it's in Balboa Park, our city's crown jewel.
You know Central Park, you know the Smithsonian. They've got nothing on Balboa Park.

Speaker 19 It is better than both of those places.

Speaker 19 When OLOT was proposed, the institutions were also very, very concerned. It's now operating.
It is doing well. The concerns are not there.

Speaker 19 And what has happened is the folks who were previously encamped in Balboa Park or in Golden Hill are not there anymore. They're inside safe.

Speaker 19 They're getting the services and they're getting on their pathway to getting forward to into permanent housing. We have to do more of that.

Speaker 19 We have to do it over and over again until there's no one that's living on our sidewalks.

Speaker 19 We are too wealthy a city, a state, and nation to have people living in filth on our sidewalks, in our parks, in the public right-of-way.

Speaker 15 One of the issues that voters all across the country are talking about, pollsters say it is, they're telling pollsters it's a top concern concern right below inflation and immigration is crime.

Speaker 15 What are you hearing from your constituents about crime and what do they want you to do about it?

Speaker 19 There are a lot of concerns. San Diego showed a 7% reduction in violent crime in the last year.

Speaker 19 I'm very proud of our police department and everyone working in the issue in the effort of both preventing crime and responding to it.

Speaker 19 But when I tell that to San Diegans, I recognize a lot of them don't believe it. And it's largely, I think, because of the homelessness crisis.

Speaker 19 While being homeless is not a crime, it does convey a level of disorder that is concerning to people.

Speaker 19 And I'm here to say that we have to be very clear as progressives, as Democrats, as mayors, to say very simply that we will not lawlessness will not rule the day in our cities.

Speaker 19 If you're a criminal, that there will be consequences. I think there's a lot of concerns about whether or not there's consequences for significant crimes and even for modest ones.

Speaker 19 Organized retail theft is a problem. You want to go to Target and get a bottle of shampoo without having to call somebody to come get it for you.
That is not too much to ask in this country.

Speaker 19 And that's not where we're at today. And I think there's a lot of reasons why that's happening.
Some of it's about policy, some of it's about the way those retailers operate.

Speaker 19 But all together, we have to do more about this. And that means we have to fully fund our police department.
We have to make sure that there are consequences for illegal behavior.

Speaker 19 And yes, we have to make sure that we work on the prevention side and on the treatment side on the back end. But comprehensively, we have to own this issue.

Speaker 19 I refuse to let a party that allows weapons of war and illegal guns into our neighborhoods claim that they are anti-crime. They are not anti-crime.
We are anti-crime. We will keep Americans safe.

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 15 the mayor has very graciously agreed to play a game with us a little later in the show.

Speaker 15 It's a ridiculous game,

Speaker 15 so I apologize in advance. But

Speaker 15 please give it, he'll be back in a little bit, but first, please give it up for your mayor.

Speaker 15 When we come back, more news.

Speaker 2 October brings it all: Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.

Speaker 5 At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all.

Speaker 6 Mixing up something spooky?

Speaker 7 Total Wine and Moor is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.

Speaker 10 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 more.

Speaker 12 Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.

Speaker 13 See TotalWine.com for details.

Speaker 14 Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.

Speaker 1 Drink responsibly.

Speaker 8 Be 21.

Speaker 32 Hey, weirdos.

Speaker 34 I'm Elena, and I'm Ash, and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 32 Each week, we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 35 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 32 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 35 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 32 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 15 Yay! Woo!

Speaker 15 Think advertising on TikTok isn't for your business? Think again.

Speaker 37 With TikTok ads, we went from 250,000 downloads to over a million downloads in less than a year.

Speaker 38 I'm Eve, I'm Anom, and we're the co-founders of Alinia. Alinia Advaits is an investing app for Jan Z.
We run 50 new ads per week with three variations thanks to TikTok's Smart Plus campaigns.

Speaker 38 If you're not advertising on TikTok, you're missing out.

Speaker 15 Drive more app downloads only on TikTok. Head over to getstarted.tiktok.com/slash TikTok ads.

Speaker 15 All right, guys, let's talk about the only two candidates who actually have a chance of winning the 2024 election, at least as of right now, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Speaker 15 So the president said at a fundraiser this week that, quote, if Trump wasn't running, I'm not sure I'd be running.

Speaker 15 When asked the next day if he believed any other Democrats could beat Trump, Biden said, quote, probably 50 of them. I'm not the only one who could defeat him, but I will defeat him.

Speaker 15 Meanwhile, Donald Trump participated in a town hall hosted by Sean Hannity, who tried to give Trump a chance to deny reports that he intends to rule like a dictator if he wins.

Speaker 15 Let's see what happened.

Speaker 39 But I want to be very, very clear on this. To be clear, do you in any way

Speaker 39 have any plans whatsoever, if re-elected president, to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after after people.

Speaker 24 You mean like they're using right now?

Speaker 39 You're promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.

Speaker 24 Except for day one.

Speaker 24 Except for one. He's going crazy.
Except for day one.

Speaker 15 Meaning, I want to close the border and I want to drill.

Speaker 30 That's not...

Speaker 18 Oh, no, that's not retribution.

Speaker 15 All right, it's not retribution.

Speaker 18 Before you just,

Speaker 18 they'd never seen stools before. They'd never sat on them before.
They don't know how to sit in stools. Their legs were crazy.

Speaker 20 To be fair, stools are scary.

Speaker 19 Stools are very scary.

Speaker 15 Sam,

Speaker 15 what did you make of that answer? Was it a joke? Was it a troll? Was it a refusal to state clearly that

Speaker 15 he would suspend the Constitution?

Speaker 17 This is the thing about Donald Trump, and we should know this by now, you know, from the team that brought you the almost coup.

Speaker 15 Like,

Speaker 17 Donald Trump, Trump walks like a joke, and he talks like a joke, and he quacks like a joke. But once he's there, it's not a joke.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 17 It's a joke till it's it's not.

Speaker 15 And he said it.

Speaker 15 He said it.

Speaker 17 And I just feel like,

Speaker 17 who's fooled by this at this point? We know what he did. It was not a joke when he literally tried to kick out every trans person in the military.
Remember that?

Speaker 17 It was not a joke when he tried to block residents from seven Muslim countries. It was not a joke when he put kids in cages.

Speaker 29 It's not a joke.

Speaker 17 And so, like, just because it's funny doesn't mean it's a joke. Donald Trump is funny.
He is not a joke.

Speaker 15 Yeah. He's not.

Speaker 18 He's not.

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 15 Biden's campaign jumped all over this right away. They responded by saying, Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he'll do

Speaker 15 if he's re-elected. And tonight.
He would have bought Greenland if he could.

Speaker 17 What's that? Remember that, Greenland? He was like, I want to buy Greenland. If he could have done it, he would have.

Speaker 15 He would forgot about Greenland. Remember that? Greenland, yeah.
Well, I mean, sorry, broken conflict. Anyway,

Speaker 15 so

Speaker 15 Greenland. He's been telling us exactly what he'll do if he's re-elected, and tonight he said he'll be a dictator on day one.
Americans should believe him.

Speaker 15 Dan, what do you think about the Biden campaign's decision to hit back on this? Do the Biden folks want this fight? How would you talk about it if you were them?

Speaker 15 I think the Biden folks want to wake up every single day, and their main goal is to remind people of what Donald Trump in the White House is like.

Speaker 15 Because all the polling shows that a significant percentage of the population has forgotten that fact.

Speaker 15 And because,

Speaker 15 you know, Biden always says, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. Right now, people are comparing Joe Biden to the almighty.

Speaker 15 It's an up or down referendum on whether they are happy with the state of affairs in this country. Not a choice between a

Speaker 15 good, decent person who has done a really good job under tough circumstances and a narcissistic clown who ran this country in the ground and wants to get in office so we can take away your health care, take away your reproductive freedom, and do a whole bunch of other really terrible shit.

Speaker 15 And so I think that is the right choice.

Speaker 15 The dictator comments from Trump is a trap. Like, you and we, everyone, we've all worked for candidates.

Speaker 15 We can all sort of see the strings behind the puppet here and what happened, which is everyone knew this question was coming. I'm sure Hannity told them it was coming.

Speaker 25 Definitely told him.

Speaker 15 And so

Speaker 15 they told the Trump campaign advisor, the Trump campaign advisor said, the way to do this is to say you're going to abuse authority for really popular things like securing the border and making gas cheaper, which is what drill drill baby drill is not actually for, but that's what it means to some segment of people.

Speaker 15 And so the trap here is

Speaker 15 strength is so the way I would talk about this Valid Banking May is we have to recognize that strength is the vector upon which American politics is decided.

Speaker 15 The candidate who wins in the polling as the stronger leader almost always wins the election, Up and down the ballot.

Speaker 15 And right now, Donald Trump has an 11-point advantage over Biden on the strong leader. In 2020, Biden had a four-point advantage.

Speaker 15 And if the way we talk about this is Donald Trump's going to come in, he's going to abuse authority, he's going to do all these things, that communicates strength to some segment of voters.

Speaker 15 Not us, not the Chris Christie fans out there, but a segment of voters.

Speaker 15 And in a world in which, you know, Bill Clinton once said, when people are uncertain and they feel anxiety, they would rather choose strong and wrong than weak and right.

Speaker 15 And that is the most trenchant analysis of how Donald Trump has come to power in the United States is that right there. And so when we talk about Donald Trump, we cannot amplify strength.

Speaker 15 We have to explain that his authoritarian impulses, the fact that he's a bully, comes not from strength, but from weakness. That he is insecure.
that he is a coward, that he bows down to dictators.

Speaker 15 He takes his marching orders from CEOs. When times get tough, he hides behind his Twitter account or his social account these days and AIDS.
That's who he is.

Speaker 15 So I think that's part of what we talk about him. Two,

Speaker 15 when we talk about how Trump would abuse power, we have to make it a matter in people's lives, right?

Speaker 15 If it is just about how he's going to in the esoterically weaponize government to attack his opponents, it has to be about how it really affects people.

Speaker 15 Because, and this is the third thing we have to be very careful of, is we all say that Donald Trump is going to destroy democracy, is going to light it on fire.

Speaker 15 And that is an absolutely true statement.

Speaker 15 But for the vast majority, for a significant portion of the American populace, when we say that, we are talking about the fact that what Donald Trump is going to do is he's going to upend the political system that many of them feel is corrupt and not serving their interests.

Speaker 15 And so that's why you have to make it a matter to people, right? It can't just be about that Donald Trump's going to destroy democracy because that makes us the defenders of the status quo.

Speaker 15 It's going to have to be what him destroying democracy does affects you. And so there are a couple of ways to do that.

Speaker 15 One is to explain that Donald Trump is, he is going to abuse power to help himself and his rich friends and not you.

Speaker 15 He's going to be so obsessed with relitigating the 2020 election, he's not going to help you lower your costs, raise your wages, make your health care more affordable, make your air cleaner, your water cleaner, or any of those things.

Speaker 15 And the other way is that Donald Trump supports a extreme, unpopular agenda that could not pass Congress, right?

Speaker 15 So he's going to use every lever of power in the federal government to violate every norm to put that agenda into place, which is what he basically said in this interview. So what is he going to do?

Speaker 15 If he can't get Congress to pass a federal abortion ban, he's going to use the federal government to put a de facto federal abortion ban in place.

Speaker 15 If he can't repeal the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, he is going to use the federal government to allow people to pollute our air and water.

Speaker 15 And if he can't, even if he can't get the Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he is going to make it almost impossible to get to access affordable quality care in this country.

Speaker 15 It's going to affect you. He cares so much about himself, he's not going to help you.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 15 I do think, I mean, the challenge is talking about Donald Trump attacking democracy and talking about defending democracy. It can be a bit of an esoteric topic and you say, what does democracy mean?

Speaker 15 I think if you ask people, like, do you want to live in a dictatorship,

Speaker 15 The percentage that say yes, probably higher than we'd like, but also

Speaker 15 big, huge majority would say no. And sure enough, like,

Speaker 15 there was a report

Speaker 15 about this whole dictatorship thing where

Speaker 15 Trump's campaign apparently is like getting a little nervous about this, and they don't want him to be called a dictator.

Speaker 15 And so they like called up all their allies on Capitol Hill, and they were like, you have to push back on the whole dictator stuff.

Speaker 15 And we've been talking about the Heritage Foundation.

Speaker 15 They're doing this project 2025, where basically they're laying out all of what Trump's plans are going to be in the White House and how he's going to get rid of the civil service and all the non-political employees and just stack the whole government with Trump loyalists.

Speaker 15 And apparently, Trump's campaign manager called them and yelled at them and was like, do not report on your plans because if you tell people he's going to abuse power and do all this shit, we're not too happy about that.

Speaker 15 Like, we don't think it's going to help us in a general election. So they are worried about it, but you're right.

Speaker 15 That, like, when we talk about it, you every time you talk about it, you have to connect it to how it could affect people's lives.

Speaker 15 And I do think, like, living in a dictatorship is affecting people's lives directly, but all the other things he's gonna do are also affecting people's lives directly.

Speaker 15 And by the way, that's why I thought it was

Speaker 15 smart that he turned it to drilling and closing the border because he was like, oh, they're calling me a dictator. I'm a dictator because I just want to control immigration and

Speaker 15 I want to make sure that

Speaker 15 we're energy independent.

Speaker 15 That's what being a dictator is. Sure, I'm a dictator.

Speaker 17 But I think laying out how bad of a dictator Trump would be is not enough.

Speaker 17 And I feel like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have a number of opportunities to showcase what they're doing for actual American people. And I'm like, I want to hear it more.

Speaker 15 I want to hear it more.

Speaker 17 This week, they just forgave how many more billions of dollars of student debt? How many more billions? I forget the exact number, but a lot.

Speaker 15 Eight.

Speaker 17 There you go.

Speaker 17 Just a few weeks ago, Papa Joe was out there with striking auto workers in solidarity for higher wages.

Speaker 17 Just this week,

Speaker 17 the Biden White House is talking about seizing drug company patents to lower drug prices.

Speaker 15 Singing from the rooftops.

Speaker 17 And also abortion.

Speaker 17 I just like,

Speaker 17 it will never be enough to tell people how bad Donald Trump is because everyone already knows and they still voted for him.

Speaker 17 And I don't know what it takes for Joe Biden and his crew to really glom onto a strong affirmative message.

Speaker 15 What does it take?

Speaker 25 I mean, yeah, you're right, but also it's really hard to get it covered, especially when, you know, you have this showman on one side, you have this.

Speaker 25 Primary, fake primary happening on the other side. There's just like it's a crowded space, but you're right.
I mean, if more people knew about what he'd done, I do think they would like it.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 15 The challenge is elections are always about the future and not the past, and they're always about a choice.

Speaker 17 Except when you have your student loans forgiven. I don't know, it's the future.

Speaker 15 It's the future. Right.

Speaker 15 But if you're not, if you're someone who hasn't had your student loans forgiven, right, then and you hear that other people have, and you're like, where the hell are my student loans?

Speaker 15 Then you're going to go into the ballot box and you're going to say, all right, I have a choice between two candidates.

Speaker 15 And what the Biden campaign needs to do is say, look, we have been fighting to relieve your student loans. We We did it for some people.
You put us back in office. We're going to do more.

Speaker 15 What they're going to do is everything we've done to

Speaker 15 forgive student loans, they're going to undo it.

Speaker 15 Everything we did to make prescription drugs cost lower, they're going to undo it. They've promised that they're going to undo it.

Speaker 15 So you can vote for us, and we're going to keep fighting to help people just like you, even though we haven't done enough yet. We've had a down payment on it.
We're going to keep fighting.

Speaker 15 And if you do that, we're going to go back, and they're going to undo everything that we did. They're going to take away your health care.

Speaker 15 They're going to make sure there's a nationwide abortion ban, right? So I just like everything has to be the choice and it has to be like what's going to happen, not just what has happened. Yeah.

Speaker 15 I think.

Speaker 15 Tommy, Axios is reporting that Trump wants a cabinet and White House full of people who have demonstrated a commitment to, quote, stretch legal and governance boundaries.

Speaker 15 Great way of putting it. Cool.
And he and his team are already floating some names. Stephen Miller for Attorney General.

Speaker 15 Steve Bannon for chief of staff.

Speaker 15 Cash Patel for CIA. And apparently Melania Trump's pick for VP, Tucker Carlson.

Speaker 15 Now,

Speaker 15 Tommy, do you think Democrats can and should make an issue out of who might serve in a second Trump administration?

Speaker 15 Or is this just fodder for all of us here, and they should just stick to Trump himself?

Speaker 25 I mean, the challenge, right, is he hasn't officially named these people, so they could deny it or say, what are you talking about? You're being hysterical. But let's play it out

Speaker 15 and

Speaker 25 talk about how you might make these people the main character because Republicans are very good in making fringe characters the main character, right?

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 25 We spent years of the Obama White House watching Fox News demagogue random people we worked with

Speaker 25 in the EEOB or whatever.

Speaker 25 so steve bannon and cash patel you guys probably might not know who cash patel is he's this guy who worked for devin newness uh he was installed uh in various national security jobs he was on steve bannon's podcast recently and they were talking about how they are going to go after judges lawyers members of the media and prosecute them for i guess accurately reporting that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

Speaker 25 Like, this is literally the conversation they had, and they're bragging about it. They're boasting about it.

Speaker 25 Like, this is the message they want to put out there: this, like, vindictive, you know, we are going to punish the people you hate message. I don't think folks will like that.

Speaker 25 I think that's something that's worth talking about. I think the idea of Tucker Carlson as vice president, like, it's just like so manifestly unserious.
This is a man who got fired by Fox News.

Speaker 25 I don't think people will like that outside of like a small sliver of a MAGA base.

Speaker 25 So, I do think you can make these personnel part of a broader story about the extremism of a second Trump term and how much worse it could be. But it will take some serious education.

Speaker 25 And it will take like a media apparatus like a Fox News to really educate people about who these folks are first and then why they should care.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 15 Love it.

Speaker 15 Congrats, you get the Joe Biden question.

Speaker 15 His two comments about running got a lot of coverage. Do you think he said anything new there?

Speaker 15 And what is his best answer to that question about other Democrats beating Trump, aside from just saying that there are 50?

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 18 I found this whole thing very silly and stupid.

Speaker 18 I understand why it got pulled out and kind of turned into a story, but really he just was saying in a slightly different way what he said for literally years since before 2020, which is he was motivated to run in 2020 because he genuinely believed that Donald Trump

Speaker 18 presented such a danger and that he believed he was the right person, despite the objections of a lot of people in the media, a lot of people in the Democratic establishment, a lot of people that doubted that Joe Biden was the right figure.

Speaker 18 Joe Biden said, no,

Speaker 18 I'm going to fight for the soul of this country. I believe I'm the right person.
And he wins the nomination and he wins the presidency.

Speaker 18 And he does, if nothing else, like save the country from Donald Trump. He does that.
And a lot of people said he couldn't and he did it.

Speaker 18 We end up in this situation where he says he's going to pass the torch and we get closer and closer and he decides no he's going to run again why well because the same logic that applied in 2020 applied now he looked out and he thought given the threat that the republicans pose given the threat that donald trump poses the same logic applies and so he's being honest what he's saying is i am running because i believe donald trump is this threat and if i and if and if he wasn't in the race i might not do it because i'm a very old fucking man i'm a very old man and i'm running for president and i'm a little too old than i should be but i'm the best you've got and i'm gonna fucking win and that's what he's saying.

Speaker 15 Now,

Speaker 18 when he says other people could also defeat Donald Trump, fine. When he's saying he would stay in the race otherwise, fine.

Speaker 18 I just, ultimately, this is a news cycle in the same way that the fake Republican debate is a news cycle because we're marching towards Trump versus Biden and reporters are a little bit bored.

Speaker 17 Yeah, but I think this is practice for a general.

Speaker 17 And I think if Joe Biden walked into this general arguing logic and not Mojo, he's in trouble. And I think that that whole shtick of, well, 50 other people could do it,

Speaker 17 the first thing I respond with is, well, then why not them? You can't do that. I don't know.
I don't like it. I don't think it's good.

Speaker 17 And I think that, like, if I were advising Joe Biden, I'd say, I'm running again because I have the most experience. I'm a proven leader.
I've done all of these things and I want to do more.

Speaker 18 What do you say? That's exactly what he said.

Speaker 29 But then just say that.

Speaker 17 Don't say.

Speaker 29 Don't say there are 50 other guys.

Speaker 26 Who are the 50?

Speaker 15 Don't say are the 50 other guys? Do we name them? No, I don't think think there are 50 other guys.

Speaker 18 I think it's Josh Shapiro.

Speaker 18 You love that guy. I love that guy.
Chris Christie.

Speaker 15 A Judah can win the highway in two weeks.

Speaker 18 Sign me up.

Speaker 17 I just feel like, given the issues that already exist around the way voters think about his age and fitness for office,

Speaker 17 everything you say from now until next November should be aware of that. And saying there's 50 other guys ain't the way, buddy.
It's not the way.

Speaker 15 The Times did a longer story on this, and they interviewed Ron Klain, Biden's last chief of staff, and they asked him and he was like,

Speaker 15 yeah, maybe there are other Democrats in the country that could do it, but Joe Biden's the only person who has beaten Donald Trump. And so I think he can

Speaker 15 be again. I'm like, yeah, that's the answer.
That's the right thing. Say that.
There are 50 other guys.

Speaker 15 Joe Biden.

Speaker 18 Yes, I think that, look, there's a certain mode Joe Biden has when he's walking out of a room while people are shouting and the door's about to close.

Speaker 18 And that's when he tries stuff.

Speaker 29 That's when he gets loose.

Speaker 18 That's when he does his material. That's when he tests out his road stuff.
And like sometimes it plays and sometimes it doesn't. And as the door closes, he'll say something like, ah, God, love him.

Speaker 15 Door. Also the last question.

Speaker 18 Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Speaker 25 Always the last question that gets you.

Speaker 15 The whole thing is so stupid. So stupid.
It's so fucking dumb. Because as I would point out, this was the exact thing that Joe Biden said in 2019 when he decided to run.

Speaker 15 And I definitely think he could have answered the cleanup of the question better by simply saying, yes, other people could beat him, but I think that gives us the best chance. Full stop.
Yeah.

Speaker 15 That's it. But it doesn't matter.
Joe Biden is going to be the nominee.

Speaker 15 And all of these questions are entirely theoretical and unanswerable because either Joe Biden wins and he has proven that he is the only that he's the one who gave us the best chance to beat Trump or he loses and we'll never know if someone else could have done better.

Speaker 15 That is the thing. Like that is just

Speaker 15 Dean Phillips eraser.

Speaker 20 Another friend of the pod.

Speaker 15 I don't know that he likes you guys. No, I know.
But it was one way

Speaker 15 to get a show with Chris Christie. Yeah.

Speaker 20 But the, I do think that

Speaker 18 there are certain theoretical questions that seem to kind of

Speaker 18 excite political journalism right now. And I do think it's like the theoretical questions around Biden and what would happen if he wasn't running are more interesting than the fact that

Speaker 18 Trump and his associates are basically saying they're going to prosecute journalists. And I do think at a certain point, I wish that theoretical possibility would be as exciting.

Speaker 23 And maybe it will be.

Speaker 15 The amount of news that came came out of that comment from Joe Biden is a massive indictment of just how bored the press corps is right now. Yeah.
It is. And also, what we're going to face for a year.

Speaker 15 Plus.

Speaker 15 Plus. Yeah.

Speaker 15 But to Lovitt's point, there are real things happening that are more consequence for the future than Joe Biden's decision-making process on a decision he has already made in a race in which the primary deadlines have passed for most of the states.

Speaker 15 So it's like, what are we doing?

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 17 I just feel like, though, and I know I'm being a dead horse, every bit of bad tape is an attack ad.

Speaker 17 Every bit of bad tape. Just like, stop doing that, Joe.

Speaker 15 Well, he can't.

Speaker 20 He's been doing it for 50 fucking years.

Speaker 17 I know. I know.
But you know what? I still hold out hope.

Speaker 18 He's 81 years old, and he's doing his best.

Speaker 15 Well, and I think to like Lovett's point about trying things out, I really do think that all of these comments are about sort of him,

Speaker 15 he's facing all of this, like, why are you doing this again? You're You're very old, blah, blah, blah. Like, he does have a rationale, like you can tell, is that

Speaker 15 the man genuinely believes, he is genuinely scared of a second Trump term.

Speaker 15 He thinks that democracy is at stake. I do not doubt that at all.
And I'm sure he has weighed in his mind, yes, maybe I'm not the one to do it, but also, is there someone else who can do it?

Speaker 15 I've already beaten Donald Trump. And I feel so strongly about this.

Speaker 15 And I feel so strongly about protecting the country and saving democracy that even knowing all the risks, I feel like I should do this.

Speaker 18 And by the way, that is exactly what he was saying when he made the point that they took out of context and is what he will be saying for the rest of this race.

Speaker 18 And at some point,

Speaker 18 and at some point, look, do I wish Joe Biden were younger? I wish it every morning.

Speaker 18 But at some point,

Speaker 18 but at some point, look, do I want Joe Biden to be a little better on message? Sure. Another thing I wish for every morning, about as likely as him getting younger.

Speaker 18 But some of this isn't Joe Biden's problem. It's our problem.

Speaker 18 And I do think that once we get to the point, if we, assuming we are heading towards this, when it is Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, the time for questions about should Joe Biden have run?

Speaker 18 Is he the right person? All that stuff.

Speaker 18 Our job must be to do everything we can to make that fall away and make it a focus on the actual threat Donald Trump poses and the actual choice, as John pointed out. That's our job.

Speaker 30 That is exactly right.

Speaker 15 Look, Joe Biden is making a very big bet that he can overcome the very serious and legitimate, I think, concerns about his age with a large swath of the electorate. He absolutely can.

Speaker 15 But we also have to recognize that there is no person walking this planet that we were to, if Joe Biden were to say, I'm not running, there's no primary.

Speaker 15 We just lay hands on that person and we say, this person is a Democratic nominee.

Speaker 15 Okay, I didn't, that was out on my bingo card.

Speaker 18 Dean Phillips' wife is here. Right.

Speaker 15 But no matter who we pick,

Speaker 15 has a very

Speaker 15 real possibility of losing to Donald Trump. We live in a polarized country with an electoral college that skews Republican.

Speaker 15 And so it doesn't matter if it's Joe Biden, Josh Shapiro, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, there's a chance in that race Donald Trump could win. And so there is no...

Speaker 15 There's no option that means no anxiety for 2024. It means no work for 2024.
And so that is the reality in which we live.

Speaker 17 All I'm saying is, and I'm going to leave it here, I promise. All I'm saying is, next time Joe gets asked a question like that, maybe Joe just says,

Speaker 17 I'm the only one who's ever beaten Donald Trump, and I'm the only one who can do it again.

Speaker 15 How about that?

Speaker 15 How about that?

Speaker 15 Well,

Speaker 15 he's a frequent listener. I'm sure he's going to hear this.
So we're good.

Speaker 20 When we come back, they print it out for him.

Speaker 15 Wow.

Speaker 15 And we push your interview requests back another week.

Speaker 15 When we come back, it's time for a game.

Speaker 15 And we're back.

Speaker 23 Now, we wanted to play

Speaker 18 a game with all of you in this holiday season. But before we do, it is the first night of Hanukkah.

Speaker 18 Producer Kira is going to come on out.

Speaker 15 Kira!

Speaker 18 We have a menorah, a Hanukkiah.

Speaker 15 All right, here we go. First name of Hanukkah.

Speaker 18 Take us away. All right.

Speaker 6 And please join in if you know the words.

Speaker 15 Bahadlikner,

Speaker 15 Selvanuka.

Speaker 18 My mom is getting scope.

Speaker 18 As our ancestors did all those years ago, we pressed the button

Speaker 18 on the target menorah

Speaker 15 and light the first candle.

Speaker 20 We did it.

Speaker 19 Here, everybody.

Speaker 15 All right.

Speaker 25 All right, everybody.

Speaker 18 The holiday season is upon us, and with it brings the perfect synergy of gay and straight culture.

Speaker 18 Cutting down a tree with an axe, and then decorating it with twinkling lights. Braving the ice and snow to sing three-part harmonies outside an old folks' home.

Speaker 18 The fact that French Santa is called Papua Noel.

Speaker 15 I don't get that one.

Speaker 18 So we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to bring back a beloved Pon Save America game, gays versus straight, this time for a very gays versus straight holiday edition.

Speaker 18 First up, we have our straits. You know them.
You love them.

Speaker 15 John, Tommy, and Dan.

Speaker 18 My sweet boys are going to go over here.

Speaker 18 Sam, you might go over there, please. Sam will be joined by the mayor.

Speaker 15 Please come over here. Gays for the win.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 15 we would love.

Speaker 19 Where's Punt going to go?

Speaker 18 And we would love if somebody... Can we bring the lights up for a second?

Speaker 18 And we would love if somebody from the audience whose sexual orientation is anything other than crate and barrel registry

Speaker 18 that's that's anything less straight than that does count.

Speaker 18 Olivia is out there.

Speaker 18 There's someone right up here, Olivia, right there.

Speaker 29 And you better be gay, gay.

Speaker 15 Come on up. Come on up.

Speaker 15 For real, gay.

Speaker 15 Nice.

Speaker 15 I like the bells.

Speaker 15 Hi. Hi.

Speaker 18 We got a check. We got a check.
Hi, what's your name?

Speaker 41 Bisexual.

Speaker 30 No, no, sure.

Speaker 18 What a beautiful name.

Speaker 15 Is that Eastern European? You have to prove it? You have to prove it. You can't say your name.
Wait, you can use a woman.

Speaker 18 No, you can give any. No, I'm saying, you can just, what's your name?

Speaker 12 Oh, my name is Haley.

Speaker 15 Haley, great.

Speaker 15 Haley, we have a test for you.

Speaker 17 To prove your queerness.

Speaker 17 Are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. Name two Troy Savan songs.

Speaker 15 Oh, rush and.

Speaker 15 Beep.

Speaker 41 Yeah, that's true. That beep was hard.

Speaker 42 What did I listen to in middle school?

Speaker 15 What did you listen to in middle school?

Speaker 17 That's bisexual enough. We're good.
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 15 All right.

Speaker 18 We're going to count it.

Speaker 15 Here's how the game works.

Speaker 41 Bay is only like 50% gay, right? So did I get 50% of that answer?

Speaker 17 I can't jump into that one.

Speaker 15 That's for y'all.

Speaker 18 The gay team will answer the straightest Christmas questions we can muster, and the straight team will naturally queen out with some gay questions.

Speaker 15 All right.

Speaker 23 Are you ready?

Speaker 26 The dog is gay.

Speaker 15 Come on over. Come on, sweetie.
We got you.

Speaker 32 She's done.

Speaker 15 Woo!

Speaker 15 All right.

Speaker 18 Oh, my God. I'm going to start with the gays.

Speaker 17 It's that easy.

Speaker 18 Time for the first question for the gays. This season, a Christmas song hit number one on the Billboard 100 65 years after its release in 1965.

Speaker 18 The longest journey for a song to become a number one hit. What is the song?

Speaker 15 Haley? Rocking around on the Christmas tree. You got it.
Yes.

Speaker 15 Barbara.

Speaker 15 Brendale.

Speaker 18 All right, boys.

Speaker 18 My beige stallions. Sorry.

Speaker 20 I regretted it.

Speaker 18 I just got to try stuff. Brendale is rocking around the Christmas tree dethroned.
What extremely gay Christmas song from the top of the Billboard holiday chart this year?

Speaker 15 Oh. Mariah Caroline for Christmas.

Speaker 23 You got it.

Speaker 18 You got it.

Speaker 18 All right, gays.

Speaker 17 And bisexual. Mayor gays.

Speaker 15 Noted bisexual.

Speaker 15 I see you.

Speaker 15 Listen.

Speaker 18 Gays and they're. That's just, it's, that's the, I like, I like that one.

Speaker 15 Uh,

Speaker 18 this year, Shudder released a gay slasher film in which the wait.

Speaker 18 This year, boys, this year, Shudder released a gay slasher film in which the protagonist meets an evil angel in a play on a a classic Christmas movie set in Bedford Falls, New York.

Speaker 15 What is this queer ass parody called?

Speaker 15 I'm sorry.

Speaker 18 There's a parody gay film.

Speaker 15 All right.

Speaker 23 I'll give you an old film.

Speaker 15 All right.

Speaker 15 Play on It's a Wonderful Life.

Speaker 18 You're so close to play on It's a Wonderful Life.

Speaker 15 It's a wonderful life. Wonderful wife.
So, oh,

Speaker 15 try a rhyme.

Speaker 15 Oh, it's a knife. Yes, Tommy, you got it.

Speaker 15 Thank you, Tommy. Good job.
We got a lot of help there. We got a lot of help from Love It.

Speaker 18 It's a wonderful knife. S traits do.
It's a wonderful knife.

Speaker 15 Never heard of it.

Speaker 29 Straight culture.

Speaker 15 All right.

Speaker 18 Gays and byes and days. Thank you.

Speaker 17 And the dog.

Speaker 15 And the dog.

Speaker 18 What goat-like anthropomorphic beasts from European folklore reportedly assists St. Nicholas each December by beating naughty children with a birch rod?

Speaker 29 The mayor's. Oh.

Speaker 17 You know this.

Speaker 18 Haley, Haley, you know this.

Speaker 12 Is it,

Speaker 42 what's the one in the line, the witch in the wardrobe?

Speaker 15 No, Crumpus. Osland.

Speaker 15 Wait, say

Speaker 15 Crumpus? Crumpus. Crumpus.
Yes. You got it.

Speaker 15 What is my crump?

Speaker 18 In the 2020 lesbian Christmas movie, Happiest Season, Kristen Stewart's planned proposal for Mackenzie Davis

Speaker 18 is thrown for a loop by what beloved bisexual actress?

Speaker 18 That's right.

Speaker 15 I'll give you a hint.

Speaker 18 She was on Parks and Wreck. They get a a lot of hints.

Speaker 18 Yeah, they do get a lot of hints. They're straight, and this is America.

Speaker 15 Wow.

Speaker 15 Wow.

Speaker 17 I think it's only fair for the next question. Y'all are allowed to just tell us the answer.

Speaker 18 Parks and Wreck.

Speaker 18 Deadpan.

Speaker 18 Not an Esplanade, but a...

Speaker 15 Aubrey Plaza. Correct.
There we go. I didn't know Aubrey Plaza.
Famous Delaware and Aubrey Plaza.

Speaker 17 If you know it, whisper loud.

Speaker 18 There is nothing gayer to my gay team than making a cake that looks like something else. What is a bouche noel and what does it look like? I may have said it wrong.
Shut up.

Speaker 20 Jewish.

Speaker 17 Bouche Noel? Bouche Noel?

Speaker 18 Bouche Noel?

Speaker 15 Bouche Noel. Shut up.

Speaker 15 A log. It looks like a log.

Speaker 15 It looks like a log.

Speaker 15 Yay!

Speaker 15 Mog and memory. Log.
There we go. Yeah.
Thank you. That was very great British patriot.

Speaker 18 Cher went number one with a single off her brand new Christmas album titled simply Christmas, meaning she has gone number one with at least one Billboard chart in seven decades.

Speaker 18 Number one in seven fucking decades. That's cool.

Speaker 15 Cher's cool.

Speaker 18 What is the name of this most recent song? I'm going to read you a few options.

Speaker 15 Okay. Perfect.

Speaker 18 A, DJ play a Christmas song. B, I like Christmas.
C, drop top sleigh ride with Taiga.

Speaker 18 Or D, Christmas.

Speaker 15 D

Speaker 17 D. I know which one it is.
D.

Speaker 15 It's Christmas.

Speaker 15 What do you got?

Speaker 15 Yeah. D.
D. No.
No.

Speaker 15 A. It is A.
DJ Play Christmas song.

Speaker 15 It's a horrible song, and I'm allowed to go with my gut. Your instincts are gay.
Yeah, man.

Speaker 18 In the 2000 Jim Carrey film, The Grinch, Who Stole Christmas, I said that wrong.

Speaker 15 Listen. Wow.
Oh, my God. Listen a little bit.
Crushing this. Crushing this game.

Speaker 15 Here we go. Here we go.

Speaker 18 It's great to be in Phoenix. All right.

Speaker 18 The Grinch experiences a connection with Who Woman.

Speaker 18 That's actually correct. That one just sounds weird.
Martha Mae Juvier. She is played by what incredible character actress?

Speaker 18 This is not a game where you shout out things you know.

Speaker 15 Yes, it is.

Speaker 17 What is it?

Speaker 15 It's Christine Boransky. It is Christine Boransky.

Speaker 29 That was a straight question?

Speaker 18 I don't know what happened to the straight question.

Speaker 15 It's Christine Boransky.

Speaker 15 They're all

Speaker 15 gay questions.

Speaker 18 They're all gay questions now.

Speaker 15 The future liberals want. Yeah, this is

Speaker 15 the future liberals want.

Speaker 18 Which Christmas song features the lyric, Don We Now Our Gay Apparel?

Speaker 15 We wish you you love.

Speaker 15 Oh, take the halls. Oh, wow, wow.

Speaker 23 War on Christmas right there.

Speaker 15 Jesus Christ. Nothing more straight than confident but wrong.

Speaker 15 Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Speaker 18 Reminds me, for whatever reason, of confident or wrong reminds me of strength plus experience equals change.

Speaker 15 Remember that?

Speaker 18 Hillary Clinton slogan from back in the day?

Speaker 15 Deep cut.

Speaker 23 So good.

Speaker 18 Strength plus experience equals change. Change divided by strength plus experience equals one.

Speaker 18 Strength minus change equals negative experience.

Speaker 26 Which people wouldn't know.

Speaker 18 All right, final question. Whoever gets it right wins the whole fucking thing.

Speaker 15 We're already winning.

Speaker 18 What does it feel like, Haley?

Speaker 15 But what about us?

Speaker 15 We thought we were winning.

Speaker 41 This is the mayor of San Diego.

Speaker 18 We're winning.

Speaker 15 Bam. Gay point.
Bam. Good point.
Okay.

Speaker 17 Also, we're gay, so we have to win.

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 23 And bisexual.

Speaker 15 Thank you. And I voted for him.

Speaker 15 Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 18 I love it. Let's go.
In 2021, Netflix released a gay Christmas rom-com in which a man played by Michael Urey asked his best friend

Speaker 18 played by, I don't even know who this is. Doesn't matter.
To pretend to be his boyfriend at his nosy family's Christmas party with adorable results. What is the name of that rom-com? That's right.

Speaker 20 But

Speaker 23 I'll give you a hint.

Speaker 18 The title is a play on words referencing a Christmas song.

Speaker 15 That's what they said. That's what they said.

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 29 And just like that,

Speaker 29 weird habits.

Speaker 15 That's so weird.

Speaker 18 Let's get it up for the mayor of San Diego.

Speaker 15 We won. He won.

Speaker 18 You won. Neil fine.
Fine. The gays win.
The gays. The traits get nothing.

Speaker 18 That's our game.

Speaker 15 And that's our show. Thanks to the mayor of San Diego.

Speaker 24 That's to Sam Sanders. Thank you, Haley.

Speaker 29 Thank you for coming.

Speaker 15 Thanks to Pundit.

Speaker 29 Thanks to our bisexuals.

Speaker 29 I love you, Mina.

Speaker 15 Hot 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 15 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 Kyle Seglund and Charlotte Landis.

Speaker 15 Madeleine Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroote is our head of production.
Andy Taft is our executive assistant.

Speaker 15 Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Toles, Kirill Pelaviev, and Molly Lobel.

Speaker 15 Subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube to catch full episodes and extra video content. Find us at youtube.com slash at PodSaveAmerica.

Speaker 15 Finally, you can join our Friends of the Pod subscription community for ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and a great discussion on Discord.

Speaker 15 Plus, it's a great way to get involved with Vote Save America. Sign up at crooket.com slash friends.

Speaker 1 October brings it all.

Speaker 2 Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.

Speaker 4 At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all.

Speaker 6 Mixing up something spooky?

Speaker 7 Total Wine and Moore is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.

Speaker 9 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 more.

Speaker 12 Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.

Speaker 13 See TotalWine.com for details.

Speaker 14 Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.

Speaker 1 Drink responsibly, be 21.

Speaker 15 What's poppin' listeners?

Speaker 16 I'm Lacey Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week, I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time.

Speaker 16 Want to know about the fake heirs? We got them. What about a career con man? We've got them too.
Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins.

Speaker 16 Oh, you know they are represented because representation matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Beyer, Ira Madison III, Conan O'Brien, and more.

Speaker 16 Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.