More Democrats Call for a Ceasefire

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

Speaker 28 I'm pardoned turkey John Lovett.

Speaker 29 I'm Tommy V Tour. That's pretty bad.
Leave it in.

Speaker 1 On today's show, President Biden celebrates his birthday with more bad polling.

Speaker 1 That's such a dickish way to say it. It's his business.
Sorry.

Speaker 1 That's how he feels about it.

Speaker 1 I know. I'm just telling the truth.
Trump tries to wrap up the primary in Iowa, and Fox News kicks off the holiday season with a war on woke Christmas.

Speaker 1 Then ProPublica's Andrea Bernstein joins to talk about Supreme Court ethics in her new podcast on right-wing judicial activist Leonard Leo. And later, we inaugurate a new Thanksgiving tradition.

Speaker 1 We're going to pardon some of our own turkeys. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. All right.

Speaker 1 But first, President Biden said Monday a deal that would release hostages held by Hamas is close.

Speaker 1 And this comes as the number of House Democrats calling for a ceasefire has grown to 37, a group that now includes three Jewish Democrats, Becca Bailand, Sarah Jacobs, and Jamie Raskin.

Speaker 1 Over in the Senate, Jeff Merkley became the second senator to call for a ceasefire, and Bernie Sanders released a a statement saying that, quote, not one penny should go to Israel until they stop the bombardment, allow displaced Gazans to return home, and pledge not to pursue a long-term blockade or reoccupation of Gaza.

Speaker 1 Other Senate Democrats, like John Asoff, who's also Jewish, and Chris Van Hollen, have also started to talk about putting conditions on the $14 billion in aid that Biden has requested for Israel.

Speaker 1 Let's listen.

Speaker 30 Mr. President, I fervently want Israel to succeed, both in defeating the threat posed by Hamas and as a historic effort to secure a safe homeland for Jews.

Speaker 30 But I do not accept that the total deprivation of millions of innocent civilians is necessary for Israel to secure its objectives or in the national interest of the United States.

Speaker 32 How Israel conducts this operation is important.

Speaker 32 And so many of us earned.

Speaker 32 Just a few weeks ago, when one of the White House national security spokesperson was asked if the United States has any red lines

Speaker 32 and the answer was no,

Speaker 32 which means anything goes. And that cannot be consistent with American interests and American values.
So that's why we're asking these questions.

Speaker 33 It can't be consistent because that's not the policy for any other country. that the United States provides military aid to.

Speaker 32 That's right. Look, we have a policy of trying to make sure that our funds are used in a manner that advances our interests and our values.

Speaker 32 And if you look at what's happening right now in Gaza, the desperate humanitarian crisis, clearly that's more that could be done.

Speaker 1 So Biden wrote a Washington Post op-ed this weekend where he again rejected calls for a ceasefire at this time.

Speaker 1 And Punch Bowl reported on Monday that the administration won't accept conditions on aid for Israel. Tommy, let's start with the calls for a ceasefire.

Speaker 1 What's your take on these ceasefire statements that have been coming out from Democrats? I know you just talked to Congressman Raskin right before the show.

Speaker 29 Yeah, so just so folks know, I mean, the ceasefire deal that is reportedly being negotiated between the U.S., Israel, and Hamas would have Hamas release at least 50 women and children being held hostage in exchange for maybe like a five-day ceasefire.

Speaker 29 There's a lot of details in there about sequencing, and there's speculation that Israel would then release Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons, but that's kind of what's being reported on.

Speaker 29 You're right, though, that the calls in Congress for a ceasefire are definitely definitely growing. And it's not just the most progressive Democrats who have been more willing to criticize Israel.

Speaker 29 It's more kind of normie Democrats. And Congressman Raskin's name jumped out to me because he's progressive, he's Jewish, and he's also just an incredibly thoughtful guy.

Speaker 29 So we talked briefly this afternoon. I mean, he wanted to stress that he is in no way trying to micromanage the negotiations or the administrations.

Speaker 29 He basically said like the specifics of what they're talking about are up to Tony Blinken and the Biden team.

Speaker 29 But what he wanted to do was to speak out, to lay lay out some moral and political imperatives, and just move the conversation away from this kind of false binary that you're seeing of,

Speaker 29 you know, people declaring that you need to care for one side or the other, Palestinian or Israeli. He wanted to just focus on the common humanity.

Speaker 29 And so I personally, like, I'm not sure how you can not call for a ceasefire if your goal is getting back hostages and reducing civilian deaths.

Speaker 29 I think odds are that the way you'll get the most hostages home home is going to be through some sort of negotiated deal.

Speaker 29 The way you'll protect the most civilians in Gaza is through getting more aid in and reducing airstrikes.

Speaker 29 But, you know, Congressman Raskin's coming from a place of he has constituents that have lost family members in Gaza. He's met with the families of hostages.

Speaker 29 And so he's just focusing on the humanity of it all and valuing and protecting lives.

Speaker 1 What do you make of Biden writing that up-ed, rejecting calls for a ceasefire again?

Speaker 1 Do you think partly this is like he's in the middle of these negotiations over a potential temporary ceasefire in exchange for hostages? Do you think that like, what's the administration reasoning?

Speaker 1 What's the administration's reasoning for continuing to reject calls for a ceasefire or

Speaker 1 more public pressure on BB as this war continues?

Speaker 29 I don't know. It continues to frustrate me enormously.

Speaker 29 I mean, what Biden has said is he supports humanitarian pauses, which are sort of like brief cessations in hostilities to allow aid in or people out.

Speaker 29 But also, we know that the Biden administration is trying to help broker the broader hostage exchange deal that I mentioned at the top.

Speaker 29 So obviously they would be in support of some sort of ceasefire deal that got out dozens of hostages. So maybe they're just trying not to get ahead of the Israelis.
That has been kind of their

Speaker 29 approach to this situation from day one, just to kind of back everything Israel does in public and then sort of push and prod them in private. But I agree with you.

Speaker 29 I mean, the op-ed was a little bit muddled because it was about Ukraine and Israel.

Speaker 29 And I assumed they kind of mixed those threats together because we were going to build up to a point about the need to get Congress to pass more aid, but it didn't even really do that.

Speaker 29 So I'm a little bit confused by the messaging there.

Speaker 1 Love it, what was your reaction to seeing a number of Jewish Democrats in Congress call for either a ceasefire or conditioning aid to Israel?

Speaker 28 Well, first thing is that it does seem like when you use the term ceasefire, it gets a lot of coverage and attention, but people seem to use the term differently.

Speaker 28 Sometimes it's, I believe there should be a ceasefire, the violence should stop immediately. It's a moral abomination, which it is.

Speaker 28 Other times these are calls for a ceasefire conditioned on hostage release, conditioned on

Speaker 28 other changes on the ground. But regardless, like what I appreciate both from Bernie's statement, from Asof's statements, from all of these statements, is they do have a kind of moral clarity.

Speaker 28 And to the point Tommy made are moving away from this binary. It's like very heartening to see.

Speaker 28 You know, in many ways, I think sometimes like American politics puts America at the center of every debate, right? And like calling for a ceasefire is like a bang shot, right?

Speaker 28 Like it's US members of Congress calling on another country to heed their call or calling on Biden to do something.

Speaker 28 I do find the debate about conditioning aid to be be really interesting and important.

Speaker 28 It was something that was sort of off the table for a really long time for political reasons, but I think it's a very good thing that it's a part of the conversation.

Speaker 28 Again, you know, this is not like the idea of telling a country to which we are giving billions of dollars of aid that we expect certain things in return for giving that aid, I don't think should be seen as some like lefty concept.

Speaker 28 It was something George H.W. Bush did when he made aid conditional on not expanding settlements.
So it doesn't have to, first of all, it is something that has happened in the past.

Speaker 28 It is something that has worked in the past. And even just that one example makes clear it's not like some far-fetched lefty from the river to the sea thing.
Like it can be an important way the U.S.

Speaker 28 helps achieve its goals. And look, I don't understand the

Speaker 28 like difficult, complex result of what it would mean to condition aid, how something like that would be implemented. But I think the fact that the politics are changing is important.

Speaker 28 And I think on just a in a common sense way, providing this aid, I think should mean we are in a position to make demands of what we view not only as Israel's interests, but our interests in the region.

Speaker 1 I mean, I also think that the debate that is coming up around the request for aid to Israel is sort of like a key moment in this, because say,

Speaker 1 you know, every Democrat in Congress, or most Democrats in Congress, started calling for a ceasefire.

Speaker 1 Say they were able to pass a resolution in the Senate because they probably wouldn't be able to in the House. Say then Joe Biden woke up.
This is just imaginary.

Speaker 1 Say that Joe Biden woke up the next day and was like, I'm going to tell Bibi that it's time for a ceasefire.

Speaker 1 Netanyahu could say, no,

Speaker 1 I don't want. I'm going to do what I want to do.
But now that we're talking about sending aid to Israel, that's where we actually have some leverage. And

Speaker 1 I don't see how any Democrat

Speaker 1 could just vote for, or really any member of Congress, but I don't expect much from Republicans, could just vote to give Bibi Netanyahu, someone who does not even have majority support in his own country that has just been through this horrific terrorist attack, doesn't even have majority support there, a blank check to continue a war where he has not told us what his objectives are, where he has not like proven that he's not, that he's trying to avoid civilian casualties, where he's, as of this recording, still hasn't brought back any of the hostages.

Speaker 1 Like, it just seems bizarre to me. And again, I don't, like, Tommy, how likely is it that you think Congress can actually impose conditions?

Speaker 1 And if they did, do you think that could force Israel to change its approach?

Speaker 29 I mean, at the moment, I think it's unlikely because Republicans will probably uniformly oppose this proposal, which kills it in the House.

Speaker 29 And then even among Democrats, I'm not sure there's consensus opinion on what conditioning aid means. Like, I agree with Lovett.
I think it's a no-brainer. It's basically a diplomacy.

Speaker 29 It's like a carrot and a stick approach to get someone to do what you want to do. But Biden is asking for $14.3 billion in additional funding.
The U.S.

Speaker 29 already provides $3.8 billion in security assistance a year to Israel.

Speaker 29 It does, to me, seems incredibly reasonable to say this aid will only be provided if the IDF agrees to some basic standards to reduce civilian casualties, which the level of civilian casualties in Gaza right now is intolerable and indefensible.

Speaker 29 And I think, you know, you could also argue like these weapons must only go to uniformed members of the military, because recently there was this right-wing national security minister of Israel, this guy named Itmar Ben-Gavir.

Speaker 29 He posted a photo of himself handing out rifles to members of these like civilian militia groups.

Speaker 29 You would want to make sure that these weapons, these rifles, aren't being used in the West Bank or given to extremist settlers.

Speaker 29 But, you know, back to the broader problem, like you mentioned at the top, John, I mean, Bernie wants this to go much further. He's saying the U.S.

Speaker 29 should only give Israel more assistance if they rein in airstrikes, promise to allow displaced Gazans to return home, promise not to reoccupy Gaza, free settlement expansion.

Speaker 29 So these are conditions that go far beyond the current conflict and get to the core underlying tensions and challenges

Speaker 29 that are driving sort of the tensions here. But again, to your point, there's no guarantee that Netanyahu is going to listen, even if these bills are passed.

Speaker 29 I do think, though, the fact that Congress is having this conversation is... a major inflection point in U.S.
policy towards Israel that goes beyond frustration with this military campaign in Gaza.

Speaker 29 Because part of my frustration at times with President Biden's messaging and policy towards Israel is I feel like it gets the talking points don't evolve.

Speaker 29 We're still talking about Israel in the same way we were decades ago. But the reality is like this current government is super right-wing, ultra-nationalist, ultra-orthodox.

Speaker 29 There's a lot of extremists in this in this coalition. And Congress seems to be updating its view to reflect that reality faster than the White House is.

Speaker 28 The two things that I took away from it were one, I appreciate that like what's happening in Congress, what Bernie is saying, what Asaf is saying, what a lot of these members are saying, it has a moral clarity and it gives a place for progressives to go that's somewhere in between,

Speaker 28 I think, a more anti-Israel position and then some of the kind of strident right-wing or kind of hyper-pro-Israel positions that don't reflect the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Speaker 28 The other piece of this, and maybe this is glib, but it's very clear that like whatever is going on behind the scenes, at one point even Netanyahu referred to the fact that Biden facing his own political pressures, and there is a little bit of like good cop Zionist comp, you know,

Speaker 28 that like political pressure from Democrats, including Democrats that support Israel, like that will carry a lot of weight.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, I mean, I appreciated that Asof and others are making the argument that like,

Speaker 1 look, you can argue that a blank check to Bibi is not in the interest of a secure Israel or getting the hostages back or achieving any of the aims that like the Israeli people hope that they achieve as well, right?

Speaker 1 Like it's just not this idea, because I saw a couple of members of, I think I saw Congressman Gottheimer say like, oh, if you condition, if you condition the aid at all, that's just help, you're helping Hamas, you're helping Hamas.

Speaker 1 And it's like, well, that's crazy. Yeah.
Like, I don't think that is not true.

Speaker 29 Yeah, listen, I just, a lot of people are probably listening to this and frustrated and being like, why don't you call on Hamas to release the hostages?

Speaker 29 Why don't you call on Hamas to renounce terrorism? Like, I do all those things, right? They're a a terrorist organization. They're evil.
What happened on October 7th is indefensible.

Speaker 29 Where I'm coming from on this now, though, is I just firmly believe that if your priority is protecting civilian lives in Gaza and getting hostages back, the way you do it is through diplomacy and a negotiated agreement.

Speaker 29 And I really, really worry the volume of airstrikes. that the IDF has been conducting in the Gaza Strip is unprecedented.

Speaker 29 You're talking about like a year's worth of airstrikes on Afghanistan happening in a month in a place half the size of Manhattan.

Speaker 29 Like I worry that's going to kill the hostages as well as civilians in Gaza, which is why you want to hit pause on this, negotiate, and see if you can get people back.

Speaker 1 And it's not going to end up creating a safer Israel or a safer Gaza or a safer Middle East. You know, like, and that's something that's in everyone's interest.

Speaker 1 And all of these Jewish Democrats and a lot of these other Democrats who put out the statements over the weekend specifically said, we agree with the goal of rooting out Hamas, of getting rid of Hamas's leadership, of getting the Haas.

Speaker 1 Like, we agree with all of that. This is the way we think we can do that.
This is the better way to think we can do that.

Speaker 1 And look, we used to, I mean, again, we talked about, I know you guys have talked a lot about sort of the lessons we learned from 9-11, but like we went through all these arguments at post-9-11 and around the Iraq War, like where if you had a difference in strategy on the war and you didn't want to give a blank check, suddenly you were, you know, against the troops and for terrorism and all this bullshit.

Speaker 29 Yeah, look, in the near term, you can degrade Hamas's military capabilities. You can take out its leadership.
You can take out the tunnels. You can take out the rockets.

Speaker 29 But the long term, like you can't bomb the idea of Hamas away.

Speaker 29 You cannot bomb away like the underlying political challenges that led to the creation of Hamas that have led to this movement. Right.

Speaker 29 And that's where I think you're seeing people like Raskin and others talk about the need for the long-term negotiations to solve the underlying political challenges.

Speaker 29 And that is the only way in the long run, you will get to a peaceful Israel and Palestine living side by side.

Speaker 28 Yeah, you have, even in Raskin's statement, you're referring to just sort of the rebuilding effort that's going to have to take place in Gaza.

Speaker 28 And the one condition you didn't mention that Bernie also includes in what he would make conditional for aid is peace talks, like the broad peace talks that would have to begin.

Speaker 28 And like the idea that the U.S.

Speaker 28 would not make giving a country billions of dollars conditional on the talks that we believe and everyone believes are necessary for the lasting peace in the region, it just doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 1 I'll just make one more point on the aid package itself and the negotiations in Congress before we move on.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't know that this is going to get done because they want to package together Ukraine aid, aid for Israel, and border security funding, and potentially policy changes around the border, at least that's what Republicans are asking for, all in the same supplemental bill that they want to pass around the holidays, or at least right after the holidays.

Speaker 1 And if you separated out aid for Israel just on its own, and it was a clean $14 billion request that they debated.

Speaker 1 You could see it passing the House because Republicans control the House, and then they get some Democrats too, especially more moderate conservative Democrats.

Speaker 1 And then you're right, like you could see it pass the Senate as well because again, you have all the Republicans supporting it, and you probably get enough Democrats that support it, even if a bunch of progressive Democrats said no.

Speaker 1 So you could probably pass Israel aid on its own. But you throw in Ukraine.
Now you have a bunch of Republicans in both houses that don't want Ukraine aid.

Speaker 1 So if you lose those votes, plus you lose the votes of the Democrats who don't want to give a blank check to Israel, to Bibi Netanyahu, and then you throw in Republicans demanding border policy changes.

Speaker 1 Like, I just don't know that any of this is going to get done.

Speaker 29 Let's just be honest.

Speaker 29 A bill that's $106 billion, some for the border, most for foreign countries, foreign militaries, is wildly unpopular. Wildly unpopular.

Speaker 29 I mean, it's just like if you pulled the side of a random voter and said, what do you think about spending $100 billion this way instead of any other way?

Speaker 29 Like, they're probably not going to support this. So, yeah, I'm with you.
It's challenging.

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Speaker 2 My uncontrollable movements called TD, tard of dyskinesia, felt embarrassing.

Speaker 5 I felt like disconnecting.

Speaker 6 I asked my doctor about treating my TD and learned about Ingreza, a prescription medicine clinically proven for reducing TD in adults.

Speaker 9 That's always one capsule, once daily, and number one prescribed.

Speaker 10 People taking Ingreza can stay on most mental health meds.

Speaker 13 Ingreza can cause depression, suicidal thoughts, or actions in patients with Huntington's disease.

Speaker 14 Call your doctor if you become depressed, have sudden behavior or mood changes or suicidal thoughts.

Speaker 16 Don't take Ingreza if allergic.

Speaker 11 Serious side effects may include allergic reactions like sudden, potentially fatal swelling and hives, sleepiness, the most common side effect, and heart rhythm problems.

Speaker 17 Know how Ingreza affects you before operating a car or dangerous machinery.

Speaker 19 Report fever, stiff muscles, or problems thinking as these might be life-threatening.

Speaker 21 Shaking, stiffness, drooling, and trouble with moving or balance may occur.

Speaker 23 Take control by asking your doctor about Ingreza.

Speaker 24 Learn more at ingreza.com. That's -

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Speaker 1 All right, in addition to all those challenges, Joe Biden also turned to 81 on Monday, and what a birthday it was.

Speaker 1 For the first time since 2019, NBC's poll has the president trailing Donald Trump 46 to 44 percent. Only 40 percent of voters approve of Biden's job performance, 57 percent disapprove.

Speaker 1 It's the worst rating of his presidency, driven in part by a huge drop in his approval among 18 to 34 year olds, which is down from 46 percent in NBC's September poll to 31 percent now.

Speaker 1 Biden's also getting record low ratings on foreign policy, low ratings on handling Gaza. Biden's age continues to be a concern to voters, though he did try to joke about that again on his birthday.

Speaker 1 Let's listen.

Speaker 35 And by the way,

Speaker 35 my birthday today, and they can actually sign birthdays.

Speaker 35 I just want you to know it's difficult turning 60. It's difficult.

Speaker 1 He also, when he was doing the turkey pardon, said that the first one was 75 years ago, and he said, Don't worry, I wasn't there.

Speaker 1 That's funny. But then he went on to confuse Taylor Swift and Britney Spears.
So that's whatever. So you win some, you lose some.
Who hasn't done that? You win some, you lose some.

Speaker 1 Before we get to the age conversation, for the hundredth time, what did you guys think of the NPC poll in general? Love it?

Speaker 28 It was a pretty dismal poll.

Speaker 28 I will say, though, like, you know, we're pulling out the Biden age question. And I would like to just point out that more broadly, it's awful in a bunch of other ways, too.
It's worth pointing out.

Speaker 28 One number that really stuck out to me, 47% of registered voters say they prefer a Republican-controlled Congress to 45% that prefer Democrat. And I think that should, that is it.

Speaker 28 That to me, like, look, we can talk about a 40, Biden's 40% approval rating, not where you want it to be.

Speaker 28 But the fact that this right now, given what we have seen over the last year with this Congress, that right now in a poll, 47% to 45% people basically flip a coin, don't give a fuck which party controls Congress tells you, like, I think you step back and blow your eyes, and you see a pissed-off country that's not fully engaged on the substance of the issues and not keyed in to exactly what kind of threat Republican control in Washington would pose.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I almost saw that as good news, probably,

Speaker 1 because it's one of the first polls that has showed republicans leading in the generic ballot and it makes me wonder about the sample and about look we could we're not going to unskew polls here but there's a lot there's non-response bias is a thing and non-response bias is when like one side is getting horrible media coverage and then a lot of times those voters just don't don't answer questions and it doesn't mean that there's actual shift in support it's just like who you're getting answer the polls and so i'm i'm sort of wondering if something like that's going on with this poll that that number was not, that number is worse than it was before, but not by much.

Speaker 28 It's just sort of part of a slide down.

Speaker 1 Well, that's still just, that's the, I mean, you're going to get a divided country, too.

Speaker 1 Like, you're just like control of Congress, even, even if Biden didn't have his age issues, even if Gaza wasn't happening, like you would still be like, just like a 50-50 country when you get to the electorate, which is really tough.

Speaker 1 But yeah, no, it's not good. It's not good.
Tommy, any thoughts on some of the numbers?

Speaker 29 I think you guys nailed it. I mean, you know, like

Speaker 29 you turn on the TV and all you see is horrifying images out of, you know, Ukraine and now Gaza.

Speaker 29 So, of course, you know, I mean, Joe Biden, Joe Biden doesn't have like a magic fix-it switch that he could flip if he wanted that he hasn't. But I think what it reflects is people are pissed off.

Speaker 29 They feel like the country's on the wrong track and things feel very unsettled around the world. And that's just, that's the nature of the job.
It's really hard.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and just on Gaza, because they went pretty deep in this poll on Gaza. They asked about funding for Israel.
Voters approved of sending aid to Israel, 5541 in favor.

Speaker 1 They also approved of sending aid to Gaza, 5836 by even more. But 49% of Democrats oppose sending aid to Israel.

Speaker 1 They asked, is Israel justified in what they're doing right now or have they gone too far? 47% of voters say justified, 30% say too far.

Speaker 1 But when you ask Democrats, 51% of Democrats think Israel has gone too far and only 27% say that it's justified.

Speaker 1 So it really really is an issue that splits the Democratic Party, even if there's majority support in the country, which is particularly difficult for Democrats.

Speaker 1 And in terms of issue salience, they asked people: is there an issue that you feel so strongly about that you would vote for or against a candidate based on this issue?

Speaker 1 Number one is democracy, 19% chose democracy. Number two is abortion, 18%.

Speaker 1 Immigration, 14%.

Speaker 1 Don't think we're getting a lot of those.

Speaker 1 Guns, 9%.

Speaker 1 And then Gaza popped up as 5%.

Speaker 1 And just in case, you know, they did approvals of different figures and organizations. They did poll Hamas.

Speaker 1 Hamas only has 1% approval in the electorate, 81% disapproved. So I guess that's good.

Speaker 28 We like that. But they haven't, right? But that's before, you know, Hamas got the bin Laden bump.

Speaker 1 I'm sure that the bin Laden standing on TikTok was happening during this poll, so they didn't quite capture it yet.

Speaker 28 That's right. It takes a while for that kind of a message message to really resonate and see it in the numbers.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we'll be testing it in a few weeks.

Speaker 29 Hamas is beating Chris Christie in Iowa is my take on it.

Speaker 29 I do wonder on the democracy numbers, what percentage of those are Democrats who are worried about Trump destroying our democracy and Trump supporters thinking that the election was stolen.

Speaker 29 You never know. It's probably a potpourri.

Speaker 28 Well, we do know that, though, because there was polling that showed that

Speaker 28 there was some huge percentage of people concerned about democracy, but it was more Republicans than Democrats. That's right.
That's right. So, you know,

Speaker 1 not a great poll. So, and again, why are we keep going on about these polls? Because a lot of discussion after the New York Times poll.
It's one poll, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All the polls.

Speaker 1 All the polls are like this. And again, we also say polls are a snapshot in time, but trends are important.

Speaker 1 And the trends of these polls, especially the trend of the NBC poll, which back in August had Biden up on Trump by four points.

Speaker 1 I think it was 49, 45, and then it was tied in September, and now it's this. So not a great trend, but, you know, year to go.

Speaker 1 Two more headlines from the weekend that I know the Biden folks must have been psyched to see. In the Washington Post, quote, Biden campaign works to ease Democratic anxiety over re-election chances.

Speaker 1 Classic of the genre. And in Politico, quote, Biden campaign facing heat over plans to deal with age.

Speaker 1 Anything you guys think the campaign can actually do to ease those anxieties about age or anything else beyond what they're already doing, which is Biden's out there joking about his age.

Speaker 1 He's doing a lot. He's traveling a lot.
He's, you know, he's communicating a lot. Like, what else? What's going on here?

Speaker 28 One thing you could do is take one of these anonymous high-dollar donors, march them to the center of Lafayette Square, and cut their fucking heads off.

Speaker 1 Just send them a message. Send a message to the donors.

Speaker 28 It's a class warfare argument, so it's a good message, and it will let all these anonymous donors

Speaker 1 feel violent.

Speaker 28 If these Devonoz donors have such really powerful feelings that they are feeling, the anxiety, and they're not getting the answer they want from mommy and daddy at the DNC.

Speaker 28 They don't need to go run to Uncle Politico and say how mad they are at their parents. Because like

Speaker 28 Biden's age, it is his biggest liability. It could cost us the White House and perhaps America.
That's all true. That's absolutely true.

Speaker 28 But like these individual sort of paroxysms of anxiety do nothing to address or change the fundamental situation that we're in. Open to positive pitches, open to answers.

Speaker 28 What I am sort of done reading is another donor saying they called a friend at the DNC and their concerns were dismissed.

Speaker 28 Because if you call somebody up that's working all day trying to figure out how to elect Joe Biden and you're just some rich asshole, be like, I'm worried about his age. He's like, yeah, yeah, us too.

Speaker 28 Call you later. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 I would just like to explain to people

Speaker 1 why we're in this situation, because I'm sure there's some people with anxiety who do not want my co-host to put them to death and laugh in the middle.

Speaker 28 No, no, no, no, not listeners.

Speaker 1 Listen,

Speaker 1 some of them are don't, but some of them are probably thinking, well, I'm worried too. We're all worried.
Worried all the fucking time.

Speaker 28 I haven't had a solid shit in a month and a half.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, that doesn't seem like it's related to Bible. Plus, I've been reading the news.

Speaker 1 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 28 What is our last show for Thanksgiving? Gobble, gobble, bitches.

Speaker 1 Hey, I'm going to log off. I'll see you guys later.

Speaker 1 So, you know, we've said this a bunch before, but like, I think the time, like, there's either Joe Biden steps down or Joe Biden doesn't step down. That's right.

Speaker 1 In the Joe Biden doesn't step down scenario, you're going to need a challenger. We got one now, Dean Phillips.
In this poll, you know who's beating him by eight points in the Democratic primary?

Speaker 1 Marianne Williamson. She's at 12.
Dean's at four. So that one's not working out so well.
You want Gavin Newsom to run? Go talk to Gavin Newsom. See if he's going to run.

Speaker 1 You want Gretchen Whitmer to run? Go talk to her. You want Josh Shapiro to run? Go talk to her.
No one's going to run. Go run yourself.

Speaker 1 Seriously, there's just not, there's only so many things you can do. You need a candidate to run against Joe Biden first.

Speaker 1 The Democratic Party is not preventing, there's no magical DNC that's preventing these candidates from running. They're making their own choices.

Speaker 1 If you want them to make another choice, go talk to them. Then there's Joe Biden stepping down, right? Joe Biden stepping down.
Again, like

Speaker 1 he's certainly not listening to all these newspapers.

Speaker 28 Yeah, he sees the newspapers.

Speaker 1 Some of his very favorite columnists and TV hosts have been saying this.

Speaker 1 That's not working. David Alksray went out there.

Speaker 1 Speaking of Lafayette Square,

Speaker 1 he went out. There's a news cycle about that.
And then where are we? Nothing happened. Nothing really happened.
So it's like, again, it's Joe Biden's going to make a decision.

Speaker 1 Again, a lot of the filing deadlines for primaries have passed, more about to pass in the next coming week.

Speaker 1 So again, unless Joe Biden wakes up tomorrow morning or next week or probably at the latest next month and says, I'm too worried about the polls, then he's running.

Speaker 1 And in that case, it's like, hey, all hands on deck because fucking Donald Trump could win the presidency.

Speaker 29 Poor David Axelrod's got to wake up in the morning, open his New York Times, start reading his Maureen Dowd column, and it's like, David Axelrod is not a prick.

Speaker 29 It's like, oh, well, you know, that settles that. That's not an ideal

Speaker 29 sentence to read about yourself. And he's not.
It's true.

Speaker 1 He's not a prick.

Speaker 29 He's absolutely not. But when you're not a prick, you definitely don't want to read about how you're not a prick in the newspapers.

Speaker 1 That's how you learn the news.

Speaker 28 Right. If it's a question that's being answered, something's gone wrong for you.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Max has all kinds of weaknesses.
He'll be the first to admit. I'm sure the Biden people aren't too happy with him, but he's not a prick.
One of the nicer guys,

Speaker 1 frankly. One of the nicer people, not a prick.

Speaker 1 Maybe he's wrong about Biden. Maybe all the anxiety is for nothing.
But everyone, I think it's all coming from a good place. Everyone.
Everyone's going to go to the place.

Speaker 1 It's all going from a good place. People are deeply concerned.
And it's not just because it's like Democrats who want to win.

Speaker 1 Democrats, Republicans who are scared for the country that don't like journalists that have two drinks.

Speaker 1 Journalists have two drinks. The whole country is on edge.
We do not want Donald Trump to win again. So that's where all the anxiety is coming from.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump,

Speaker 1 the leading contender for the presidency at this point, he sounded as presidential as ever at a rally in Iowa over the weekend that was short on substance and long on crazy.

Speaker 36 He was with four hookers. You think that was good that night to go up and tell my wife, it's not true, darling.

Speaker 12 I love you very much.

Speaker 36 It's not true.

Speaker 36 Actually, that one she didn't believe because she said he's a germaphobe. He's not into that, you know.

Speaker 36 He's not into golden showers, as they say they called it. He's not.

Speaker 1 He's strong.

Speaker 36 I know him very well. President Qi of China.
And he's standing there.

Speaker 36 You know,

Speaker 36 he's a fierce person. Now, the press doesn't like it when I say good things about it, but you know, what can I say? He runs 1.4 billion people with an iron hand.
Our leader is a stupid person.

Speaker 12 Our leader,

Speaker 36 our leader can't get off this stage. You see this, Stage?

Speaker 36 When he's finished with a speech, by the time whatever it is he's taken wears off.

Speaker 1 That's just a spry, sharp individual who could really write the ship and probably bring peace to the Middle East, right?

Speaker 29 Really unintentionally missed a revealing comment there when he was talking about the golden shower video when he said that one she didn't believe.

Speaker 1 What were the other ones? Wow.

Speaker 28 Tommy, good point.

Speaker 1 Clearly it was a conversation we've had a few times.

Speaker 28 Yeah, for sure. She's believed several of the allegations.

Speaker 1 Some of which judges have believed as well and juries.

Speaker 28 Yeah, that's the other,

Speaker 28 when I saw this speech, it was also like one of the criticisms, you know, jokes aside about murdering donors in public squares.

Speaker 28 The point that like, why aren't we doing more to make this about Trump and make this about Trump's age issues? And I think actually you're starting to see that. And I think that's very good.

Speaker 28 But it is just a reminder that like we do have to point out that like people are concerned about optics. You see all these stories about Joe Biden.

Speaker 28 And people go to pains, I think, to truthfully say, I have been in meetings with him. He can hold his own.
He is completely and totally mentally all there.

Speaker 28 He is a ferocious as like as an interrogator during briefings. He just seems old and he seems frail.
So he is, he is fit, but doesn't seem fit to people when they see him on television.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, you have Trump. It's a perception more.

Speaker 28 It's a perception. And And then you have Trump.
Trump, who we all know, including a lot of his biggest supporters, that he is mentally and emotionally unfit to do the job.

Speaker 1 Biggest supporters and people who worked closely with him at the highest levels of the White House over and saw him every single day.

Speaker 29 That was a Washington Post headline that came out today. Most of Trump's former aides no longer support him.

Speaker 28 And yet he is, I think, more energetic on the stump.

Speaker 1 And so, like, he's got that crazy energy.

Speaker 28 He's got, yes, he does. And by the way, he is, he, you know, we, we'd have no idea what's going on in the fucking green room before he goes out there.

Speaker 28 But when he says things like, I wonder what happens when what he's taking wears off,

Speaker 28 you know, there have been many reports over the years that Donald Trump is not afraid of, you know, a little pep, putting a little pep in his step.

Speaker 1 Whatever he's using, let's give Joe some of that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Share.

Speaker 1 I will say the post headline about the speech was vulgarities, insults, and baseless attacks, which is a completely accurate description of the rally, of Trump speech, of the speeches that introed Trump, which were also batshit crazy.

Speaker 1 But the hell thing

Speaker 1 gives me some 2016 vibes in terms of like what matters most to voters. Tommy, I think you were talking about this a little last episode, too.

Speaker 1 It's just like, I really keep wanting to separate out these are things that Trump is going to do to affect your life if he gets a second term versus, oh, could you believe he talked about the P-Tabes or the Hookers, which again, I found entertaining and crazy.

Speaker 1 But I don't think that's going to move the, I don't think it's going to move the needle.

Speaker 29 Yeah, I don't think it's going to move the needle. I also think think it's kind of why those people are all there at these rallies.

Speaker 29 Like they're, they're body and they're fun for them and they're entertaining. And like, look, the golden shower little bit there, it was weird, but it was pretty funny.

Speaker 29 And everyone laughed in the room and like no one thought less of him seemingly that was a supporter of his to begin with. So yeah, I don't know that that's

Speaker 29 that calling out his vulgarity is the path to winning.

Speaker 29 I do think like the Biden people are basically approaching the age issue in a couple of ways, which is to say, like, hey, look at us going to war zones zones all the time. Like, we're on top of it.

Speaker 29 Two, Trump is old too, and he keeps saying loopy things, like confusing who's president of the United States, saying it's Obama all the time. And then, three, like, but we have a better record.

Speaker 29 You know, look at what we're doing.

Speaker 29 Let's make other issues more salient. I think it's an open question about whether you can convince people who have decided that you're too old that you're actually not.

Speaker 29 I do think you can probably make other things

Speaker 29 more like higher on their priority list in terms terms of when they're voting than age. But, you know, it's going to take some, take some effort.

Speaker 28 Yeah.

Speaker 28 I think it's just like, I don't know that you can make Biden seem younger, but you can point out the ways Donald Trump seems quite old himself and then make it a referendum between, you know, good grandpa versus evil grandpa.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And again, it's not just old.
It's this, this guy is dangerous. Dangerous and an idiot.
Yeah. You know, there's both.
I mean, like, some of the stuff, it's just,

Speaker 1 it doesn't sound like he is losing a step necessarily though I think he is Donald Trump but like he in 2016 he was saying shit that made people be like this guy can't lead the country what he crazy by the way his some osteopath put out a statement saying that Donald Trump is as spry and fit as ever and he's losing weight because of diet and exercise

Speaker 1 excuse me

Speaker 28 from one from one oh from one Ozempic bro to another okay diet and exercise

Speaker 28 good luck just throwing out all kinds of that's my that's just a just an unfounded.

Speaker 1 See what happens when you're not here in studio, Tommy?

Speaker 29 This is like a defamation potluck today.

Speaker 1 This is great.

Speaker 1 Trump also got some good and bad legal news. A state court judge in Colorado ruled that Trump did incite an insurrection on January 6th.
You might be wondering, well, then what's the good news?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 the judge rejected the argument that the 14th Amendment prohibits Trump from appearing on the ballot because he incited said insurrection.

Speaker 1 She basically ruled that she wasn't sure the framers meant the provision applies to former presidents. Love it.
You talked to law professor Larry Tribe about this,

Speaker 1 I don't know how long ago. some point on this show.
Did you see this coming? What was that?

Speaker 28 Yeah, look, here's the thing. Just two top legal minds going back and forth, me and Lawrence Tribe.

Speaker 28 But look, my take on this was like, look,

Speaker 28 the people at Crew, which is the organization doing this, like, they're incredibly smart, progressive, caring people trying to figure out how you face a fascist menace, which I like completely respect.

Speaker 28 But like, my non-lawyer view, just looking at it from the outside, was like, we're not going to get Trump on the fine print in the Constitution. Like,

Speaker 28 the idea that like a judge is going to say,

Speaker 28 yeah, like, it turns out I can use my power to disenfranchise the millions of people who want to vote for Donald Trump in a kind of never before

Speaker 28 explored circumstance for the using of this clause of the 14th Amendment. But so, you know, this judge said no, it could still go further, but of course the place it will end is the Supreme Court.

Speaker 28 Like regardless of the legal merits, which I am obviously not expert in, to me, like it always felt like a distraction because we can't decide what judges are going to do with a case like this.

Speaker 28 We can't make them rule one way or another.

Speaker 28 And regardless of what happens in this one case, there is a rising, fascistic, dangerous, extreme right-wing movement that wants to disenfranchise millions of people and seize and control power at all costs.

Speaker 28 We have to beat that. We have to beat that.
And like, we got to, we got to, and we got to persuade people to join us in voting to defeat them.

Speaker 1 And there was a method of making sure that Trump never ran for president again and was disqualified, and that was convicting him in the Senate, which Mitch McConnell decided that he was not going to whip enough Republicans to do, even though he wanted to.

Speaker 1 So they blew that play. And now we have Trump running for president again.
And we also have him being held accountable in courtrooms across the country.

Speaker 28 He's slowly being held more accountable than any person ever has before. He's going to go from never facing a fucking consequence to maybe all the consequences at once.

Speaker 1 And again, though, because this is a democracy and voters have the ultimate decision here,

Speaker 1 if he gets convicted of those crimes, then it's up to the voters to decide, do you want someone convicted of X, Y, and Z crime to become president again?

Speaker 28 And then it goes from old grandpa versus evil grandpa to old grandpa versus imprisoned grandpa.

Speaker 1 Or at least convicted. Yeah, right.
At least convicted. Out on bail, grandpa.

Speaker 1 Awaiting sentencing, grandpa.

Speaker 28 Because he is currently out on bail, grandpa. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 Finally, finally. The war on Christmas, it's back.
It's back.

Speaker 1 At least according to our boy Jesse Waters, who dedicated an entire segment on his Fox News show last Thursday to complain about all the woke Christmas items on sale at Target. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 28 Gay Nutcracker. Complete with a rainbow hat, a trans flag, full price, $12, but right now it's on sale for $8.

Speaker 38 Target also sells Santa ornaments, but Target's Santa

Speaker 38 is in a wheelchair and is black.

Speaker 33 I think majority of people, parents especially, they can acknowledge that gay Nutcracker and black disabled Santa has gone way too far.

Speaker 1 Look, there's what the fuck?

Speaker 1 There's so much that divides us. I think we can all agree.
We can all agree that Gay Nutcrackers and Black Disabled Santa is going too far. First of all, people say.
What are you talking about?

Speaker 28 The Nutcracker. Listen, I don't care what Target's selling.
The Nutcracker's been gay from the beginning. All right? That's a gay fucking musical or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 I don't even remember what it is.

Speaker 28 Is it a musical?

Speaker 28 It's a ballet? Okay, yeah. No, but it's straight.
Come on, Jesse Waters. You know what the fuck the nutcracker is? If I don't know, you don't know.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 I'm losing it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 29 I mean, what I think is pretty remarkable and downright admirable about Fox is if you were an NFL coach and you ran the same play every year for 20 years, you would probably get fired and be unsuccessful.

Speaker 29 Fox has been running the same play every Christmas for as long as I can remember for like four

Speaker 29 8 p.m. hosts ago, right? It was back before when we were all laughing at Bill O'Reilly for mistaking a loofah for a sex toy or whatever it was that came out in his court case.

Speaker 29 And they're still doing this shit and it still works and it still gets clicks and people still believe there's a war on Christmas somehow.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was wondering that. That was my question, which is like,

Speaker 1 did they successfully open a new front in the war on Christmas with this? Do you think so?

Speaker 1 It's getting a little boring. I even feel like their heart wasn't in it.

Speaker 28 I don't think people are really going to get all riled up over a black Santa in a wheelchair. I just, I don't even know what the problem is.
It's still pro-Christmas.

Speaker 28 It's really just anti-black and anti-disabled people. Well, that was.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, it always has been. I mean, I think that was the point of the segment.

Speaker 28 Well, basically, before, if it was like, we don't have Santa, we're only doing happy holidays. Like, the war on Christmas is about how not that's still.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 29 Megan Kelly famously announced that Santa is

Speaker 1 the same play.

Speaker 29 It's the same shit.

Speaker 1 rinse repeat new idiot saying it no happy holidays no santa who inclusivity older older white man no inclusivity of any kind all the nutcrackers are straight yeah everyone's straight on every all the christmas characters are straight the nutcrackers they just they love they love hot chicks and lacrosse

Speaker 28 That's it.

Speaker 28 These Nutcrackers are so incredibly straight.

Speaker 28 These Nutcrackers, they are, they just, that's all they want.

Speaker 1 The holiday season is full of cishet white characters as far as the eye can see.

Speaker 28 The Nutcrackers watch Yellowstone, and that's it. That's it.

Speaker 28 Brown liquor only for fucking Nutcrackers. They won't even have a, they won't even have a martini because it's a little bit faggy in those tall cups.

Speaker 1 Can we get a studio gag order?

Speaker 1 What's the process on this?

Speaker 28 I can stop now.

Speaker 28 I mean, it's honestly, Tommy, you're not here. You can't tell.
It's fucking crushing in here.

Speaker 26 Listen, I can tell.

Speaker 29 Everyone, I'm at home because I have COVID and I've been subjected to 45 minutes of this.

Speaker 1 I feel better, honestly.

Speaker 1 Love it thinks it's killing in here. Everyone's got their masks on.

Speaker 28 I hear laughing. You're smiling with their eyes.

Speaker 1 Anyway, a few quick housekeeping notes before we go to break.

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Speaker 1 Seems like a lot. Podse America has only two more live shows left in the year.
You can catch us in El Cajon on December 7th and San Jose on December 13th.

Speaker 1 Get your tickets at crooked.com slash events now.

Speaker 1 And when we come back, Tommy's interview with reporter Andrea Bernstein about Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society, and all the ways they're influencing the U.S. court system.

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Speaker 29 I am so excited to welcome to the show today, Andrea Bernstein.

Speaker 29 She is a reporter for NPR and ProPublica, two of the best in the business, as well as the host of the We Don't Talk About Leonard podcast. Andrea, it's great to see you.

Speaker 33 It's great to see you and talk to you too.

Speaker 29 So I want to talk about your podcast in one second, but this interview is perfectly timed because the Supreme Court just rolled out a bunch of new ethics guidelines for themselves.

Speaker 29 Folks might remember that judges like Clarence Thomas have been taking all kinds of lavishly paid vacations by rich donors, and it created a bit of a kerfuffle.

Speaker 29 The court is now saying essentially we're going to watchdog ourselves. We'll keep an eye on ourselves.
What do you think of these new rules, and do you think they're enforceable?

Speaker 33 So, probably

Speaker 33 not.

Speaker 33 The rules have been pretty widely panned by the legal community for a couple of reasons.

Speaker 33 I've heard the criticism that they say, unlike the federal judge rules, which say a federal judge shall not, they say a justice should not, which is sort of more conditional, that they expressly carve out some permissions for things like fundraising, which I think was understood prior to this set of rules that that justices should not do.

Speaker 33 However, all that said, I feel like it's a good thing that there are some rules out there. But that said, having a code, I think, means that two things.

Speaker 33 First of all, I think it means that the Supreme Court lives in the real world. There wouldn't be a code if there wasn't all of this outcry and all of this journalism.
So that's a good thing.

Speaker 33 I think that the sort of the accountability to the extent there is some has to come from public opinion and public pressure from the journalistic light that's shed on it.

Speaker 33 So it feels like the beginning of a conversation.

Speaker 33 Like, no, this probably doesn't mean that you can impeach a justice or do any of the things that people might think a code should provide the basis for.

Speaker 33 But I do think it creates an opportunity for a real discussion about what justices should and shouldn't do. And it's pretty detailed.

Speaker 33 I mean, I think that there's a lot of things in there about, you know, you shouldn't do, your wife shouldn't do, your spouse shouldn't do,

Speaker 33 that

Speaker 33 is really useful to have on paper.

Speaker 29 Don't storm the Capitol, nor shall your spice.

Speaker 29 Nor shall your spouse.

Speaker 33 That's the thing, right? I mean, it's sort of like, I mean, I've covered so much, you know, Trump legal stuff forever.

Speaker 33 And I feel like, you know, a long time ago, like 2017, 2018, people were asking, okay, is there a crime that he's committed?

Speaker 33 Now, Trump is charged with 91 felonies, but that hasn't solved the problem of Trump.

Speaker 33 And I think that shows you, you what it means to rely too much on a written code versus on trying to sort of enforce norms and change the way people think.

Speaker 29 Yeah. Well, let's talk about fundraising and big donors and institutions, because your podcast, We Don't Talk About Leonard, investigates a guy named Leonard Leo.
He's a big Republican muckety muck.

Speaker 29 He's a

Speaker 29 donor. He has

Speaker 29 been running the Federalist Society for many years. He's part of a bunch of legal advocacy groups.
And frankly, look, I've been in politics a while.

Speaker 29 He was on my radar screen, but he was sort of one of a handful of people of his ilk that I was aware of and, you know, I knew they had influence.

Speaker 29 But then late last year, there were these jaw-dropping reports about a massive, massive donation to a new organization that Leonard Leo had created. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Speaker 33 Well, there was the donation to this organization called the Marble Freedom Trust, which Leonard Leo exclusively controls, for $1.6 billion

Speaker 1 at the time.

Speaker 33 With a B, right, billion with a B, the largest political dark money contribution at the time in U.S. history.

Speaker 33 And

Speaker 33 here was Leonard Leo with somebody that people barely knew.

Speaker 33 I mean, one of the things about doing this podcast is I would say, okay, we're doing a podcast about Leonard Leo, and people would be like, who?

Speaker 33 And then I would say, oh, yeah, he was the guy who made the list for Trump of potential Supreme Court nominees. And people would say, oh yeah, that guy.
But that guy had $1.6 billion.

Speaker 33 And that was sort of the starting point of our research. Who is he? What has he done? And what does he want to do with all of this money?

Speaker 29 Can you tell listeners who maybe haven't heard of him, what has he accomplished at the federal level? Let's start with the Supreme Court.

Speaker 33 Clarence Thomas and Leonard Leo became friendly when Clarence Thomas was serving as a judge in the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 33 Leonard Leo, just out of law school, went to work on Clarence Thomas's confirmation. And his job was doing research.

Speaker 33 And for those of us who remember that, or those of us who've studied the history of that,

Speaker 33 Clarence Thomas's, one of the big parts of his efforts was doing negative research on Professor Anita Hill when she came forward with her allegations of sexual harassment.

Speaker 33 So that was the beginning for Leonard Leo. Fast forward to the Bush administration, George W.
Bush, he becomes the outside advisor for confirmations.

Speaker 33 He basically steers through the nominations of Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, which was contentious at the time.

Speaker 33 By that time, he had three members of the U.S. Supreme Court that he had helped to get there.

Speaker 33 But when Trump came along, Leonard Leo did a pretty bold thing, which is he offered Trump a list of justices that he thought were vetted by the conservative legal community.

Speaker 33 And Trump said, I will only pick from those lists. And Leonard Leo and Trump both made good on that promise.

Speaker 33 All of Trump's nominees, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, were suggested by Leonard Leo and were vetted for not just being, it wasn't just important to Leonard Leo to have conservative justices.

Speaker 33 It was important for him to have hardline conservatives who would vote in a certain way. And

Speaker 33 the sort of main thing that we looked at in our podcast was, was

Speaker 33 with all of that, appointing six justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, that wasn't just what Leonard Leo did.
He built an entire machine to get the right

Speaker 33 opinions and cases up to the Supreme Court so that they could decide in a way that

Speaker 33 he favored and that his donors favored.

Speaker 29 Some right-wing ideologues might be content owning six Supreme Court justices. Not our boy, Lenny.
He has done a lot of work at the state level. Can you talk a bit about that? And in particular, I was

Speaker 29 kind of jaw-dropping discussion of the Missouri plan in the podcast.

Speaker 33 So, you know, just 20 years ago, Leonard Leo said, I'm going to start working on state Supreme Courts. And he went right from Justice Alito and getting him on the U.S.

Speaker 33 Supreme Court to making a real run at state Supreme Courts. And he came out and he said, 90% of cases are decided in state Supreme Courts.

Speaker 33 They went for Missouri because Missouri has a nonpartisan selection system

Speaker 33 whereby

Speaker 33 a panel of lawyers and

Speaker 33 justices and

Speaker 33 gubernatorial appointees select

Speaker 33 the possible candidates for the next Supreme Court justice. And the conservatives didn't like this because they felt that it produced candidates that were two centrists or two left.

Speaker 33 So they decided to try to destroy the Missouri plan. And they got deeply involved in trying to derail the nomination of a justice, Patricia Breckinridge, who just resigned last month.

Speaker 33 And they, and Leonard Leo went right to the chief of staff of the governor and said, if you select this judge, the fury of the conservative movement, the likes of which you have never seen,

Speaker 33 will come down on you and the governor. And this was being involved on a really granular level, on a state level.
But that was just one part of it.

Speaker 33 We saw after that, Leo fundraising for justices all over the country in states like Wisconsin, North Carolina, dark money groups that he sponsored, really pouring money into these elections.

Speaker 33 And I know that you and your listeners have talked a lot about the Wisconsin judicial race that just took place back in April.

Speaker 33 And the sort of outcome of that where there was all this discussion about, you know, maybe impeaching the

Speaker 33 judge, Judge Janet, Janet Perzey was who won.

Speaker 33 But that is the system that Leonard Leo and his allies have produced, because they were the ones that started pouring money into state Supreme Courts a decade and a half ago with the desire to make a system that was more partisan and more conservative.

Speaker 33 And in some states, like North Carolina, they really succeeded. In Wisconsin, this time around, they didn't.
But

Speaker 33 they broke the system. That's what justices of both political persuasions have told us.

Speaker 33 That you have a system where the future of the republic depends on the outcome of a single Supreme Court race in Wisconsin that costs, you know, I've heard estimates up to $80 million,

Speaker 33 $50 million officially. That is the place that we have been brought by the work that Leo and

Speaker 33 the people that he's sort of harnessed and worked with have

Speaker 33 brought to us.

Speaker 29 Yeah, they built like a baseball farm system that just didn't exist, it seems.

Speaker 29 So, I mean, these donors to the Federalist Society, to Leonard Leo, I'm guessing they're not doing this out of the goodness of their own hearts.

Speaker 29 You looked at whether judges put forward by Leo or the Federalist Society may have had, been able to provide a financial benefit through their rulings to some of these donors. Can you talk about that?

Speaker 33 So it's obviously impossible to say with certainty, but one of the things that we know, sort of Leonard Leo, from all of our reporting and, you know, back to high school, was fiercely anti-abortion and was a real moral conservative, but understood pretty early on that the moral conservatives and the economic conservatives had to work together.

Speaker 33 So he began working with donors like Paul Singer, the hedge fund magnate, like Harlan Crowe, the real estate magnate, like Robin Arkley, who is a very shorthanded California mortgage magnate.

Speaker 33 And these are the people that he set up with these trips with the justices.

Speaker 33 So for example, when Sam Alito went on a fishing trip in Alaska, he went on a fishing trip with Paul Singer and with Robin Arkley, and it was Leonard Leo that brought all these people together.

Speaker 33 They didn't all know each other before this fishing trip.

Speaker 33 So here's Leonard Leo, and he sets up these trips, and it's tremendous access for these donors who then give to these sort of moral conservative causes that Leonard Leo cares about.

Speaker 33 And it's this machine.

Speaker 33 Samuel Alito has said there's no influence. Clarence Thomas has said there is no influence.

Speaker 33 But there is a system where these very wealthy people through Leonard Leo can do something like, you know, have a dinner or sit around a campfire or have a drink with a Supreme Court justice.

Speaker 33 And it sort of circles back to the ethics code that we were talking about. They have an access that most people don't.

Speaker 33 So you take the money of the economic conservatives and you harness it to the fervor of the moral conservatives. And, you know, that is how, from their perspective, they get what they want.

Speaker 33 And they've been so effective. Yeah.

Speaker 29 Well, and also for some of these big donors, be it a Paul Singer, be it a Harlan Crowe, I mean, look, if you can do things to elect a bunch of Republicans, odds are down the road, they'll try to pass a big tax cut that will benefit you.

Speaker 29 But it also does seem like some of these donors had issues before the court.

Speaker 29 Like, for example, Paul Singer, I think, was trying to make a ton of money off of Argentina, off their sovereign debt, right?

Speaker 29 And that case reached the Supreme Court as he was building a relationship with some of these justices. Am I summarizing that correctly?

Speaker 33 Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, he went on this fishing trip with Justice Samuel Alito, and they became friendly, as manifested by, you know, public speeches.

Speaker 33 I mean, there's this one dinner that we have

Speaker 33 at the Manhattan Institute, where Paul Singer has been on the board for many, many years, as a conservative think tank.

Speaker 33 And he's introducing Justice Alito, and you can just sort of see the warmth and the friendship. He had, not him personally,

Speaker 33 but his company had a stake in a case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court about Argentinian debt.

Speaker 33 And, you know, Alito's response has been, well, I didn't know it was Paul Singer, even though it was widely reported at the time. But, you know,

Speaker 33 that is what you have. I mean, it was a 7-2 decision.
It wasn't like it was the deciding vote.

Speaker 33 But I think, you know, all of us who've sort of worked and covered and paid attention to politics for years understand the way it works, which is it's not nobody's, you know, going around saying, I'll give you this if you give me that.

Speaker 33 But by the closeness, you can, you know, convey a set of views that other people do not have that access.

Speaker 29 Yeah. And listen, you know, all politics is about personal relationships.
We're all human beings. If someone's mean to you, you won't like them.
If they're nice to you, you will.

Speaker 29 I think all of these justices, for example, we all saw this firsthand at Brett Kavanaugh's hearing when he had a meltdown and talked about punishing his enemies, right?

Speaker 29 Like these guys end up feeling like everyone is against them. There's this vast, you know, sort of left-wing group of monsters like us who are trying to attack them.

Speaker 29 And then there's people like, you know, Paul Singer or Harlan Crowe or Leonard Leo who've got their backs, right?

Speaker 29 And I think that's an incredibly meaningful feeling when you're making a ruling down the road.

Speaker 33 Yeah. And I mean, I think.
One of the things that's so interesting is, you know, from the beginning of Leonard Leo's career, you know, when he was very young, he felt aggrieved.

Speaker 33 He felt like, you know, the left is winning and we conservatives need to stand up for ourselves. And early on with the Federalist Society, there might have been some truth to that.

Speaker 33 What was so fascinating to me is that there's a speech that Leo gave just a year ago in Washington at the Catholic Information Center where he talks about barbarians at the gates.

Speaker 33 And even though by then he has his $1.6 billion that he entirely controls, he has six members of the U.S. Supreme Court that he personally has been involved with.

Speaker 33 And he has won something that was a huge goal of his, which was to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. But even with all of that, he expresses aggrievement.

Speaker 33 And that is, you know, what, one of the reasons why we went to this podcast, because he is somebody that clearly doesn't think his work is done. And it is very much ongoing.

Speaker 29 Yeah, there's a real apocalyptic tone to it all. So listen, listening to your series, Talking to You Now, it makes me think about an old Hillary Clinton line about a vast right-wing conspiracy.

Speaker 29 You know, these donors, the judges, the

Speaker 29 Federalist Society, they're all kind of bound together here.

Speaker 29 And then, but the opening scene to your series is at a party that really drove that home and made me think maybe there really is a conspiracy.

Speaker 29 Can you tell us a little bit about that party, where it was, who was there? Yeah.

Speaker 33 So Leonard Leo, you know, spent a lot of his life around, professional life around Washington, D.C., living in McLean, Virginia. But during the pandemic, he moved to Bar Harbor, Maine.

Speaker 33 And quite a few of his neighbors in Bar Harbor started paying attention to Leonard Leo.

Speaker 33 In June of 2022, the night before the Dobbs decision, they noticed a U.S. Coast Guard boat.
outside of Leonard Leo's house, protecting a party, a party with a big white tent and, you know, lights.

Speaker 33 And we thought, huh, that's interesting. What were they celebrating?

Speaker 33 So we did a lot of reporting. We scoured the internet.
We filed freedom of information requests. We went to the U.S.
Marshal Service, to the Coast Guard. What was that?

Speaker 33 And basically, what we found out at the end of the day was this was a party for some two dozen federal and state judges, very conservative judges, many of whom

Speaker 33 owed their careers or could owe career advancement to Leonard Leo.

Speaker 33 And they were having this lavish party with

Speaker 33 champagne and deconstructed seafood chowder and a tasting of American rare whiskeys.

Speaker 33 And they had come to Bar Harbor for a consortium that had been put on by George Mason University. But there was this party, this private party at Leonard Leo's house, where there were U.S.

Speaker 33 Marshals wearing earpieces,

Speaker 33 Coast Guard. And to us, all of this was just showed the sort of power that Leo had drawn.

Speaker 33 And not only was he the host of this party, but he was there with three judges who were just one level down from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Speaker 33 But everybody at the party, according to people who described it to us, wanted to talk to Leonard Leo because they understood that he was the power person.

Speaker 33 And this is something that is widely understood among members of the judiciary. I mean, one of the things that surprised me was so many current and former state justices spoke to me,

Speaker 33 some, you know, of both parties. And there were many Republicans who said, you know, we were told,

Speaker 33 talk to Leonard Leo. If you want to advance your career, go to federalist society events.
So this is something that judges and justices have come to understand.

Speaker 29 Again, remind me what news broke the day after this party.

Speaker 33 So the next morning, 10 a.m., it's official. The right to an abortion is overturned.
This is a lifelong goal of Leonard Leo's.

Speaker 33 His high school best friend told us that he had been working on this in high school and getting into raucous arguments with his classmates.

Speaker 33 So this group of conservative judges and justices has a party at Leonard Leo's house, and the next day, the right to abortion is withdrawn.

Speaker 29 On the eve of one of the most monumental Supreme Court decisions in decades, Leonard Leo has a party with a bunch of his most conservative judge buddies.

Speaker 33 Yeah, interesting. You can hear all about it.
It is, as you say, the opening to the podcast. And it's a symbol to us of the machine that Leo has built.

Speaker 29 And honestly, you guys do such a great job of setting the scene. We learn about the sommelier, the wines that are being served.

Speaker 29 It's some damn good reporting.

Speaker 33 We got the dinner, the menu pursuant to a freedom of information request.

Speaker 1 That's so great.

Speaker 29 I love investigative reporters. They'll just fucking go and go and go until you got it all.
Okay, last question for you. I bet there's some people listening

Speaker 29 feeling very sad and very depressed, knowing that there's this nazive ecosystem and structure on the right to put forward all these judges.

Speaker 29 And they're wondering if there's anything equivalent on the left.

Speaker 33 Well, one of the things that we look at at the end of the podcast is the pushback. The race in Wisconsin that we were talking about, you know, certainly was a big, big, big mobilization.

Speaker 33 But, you know, I mean,

Speaker 33 when I talked to, you know, and there are some, there are two former Republican appointees on state Supreme Courts that are, you know, in the podcast that you can hear.

Speaker 33 And when I talk to them about it, I mean, they're concerned because, I mean, you know, they don't want to sugarcoat it.

Speaker 33 They say the way that people look at the judiciary, beginning with these state Supreme Courts, is as super legislators, is as people to ratify the decisions of legislatures and in states like Wisconsin and North Carolina, where the electorate, as you know, is roughly 50-50, but their state legislatures have these huge Republican majorities because of gerrymandering that Republican courts have backed up.

Speaker 33 So, you know, what has happened is there's this huge arms race and the system is broken. And there is no easy fix.

Speaker 33 The fix isn't simply just pouring more money into it because what ends up happening is that people don't trust judges. And the idea of the judiciary as an independent branch is slowly crumbling.

Speaker 33 Now, I mean, there's a lot of reasons for that. And, you know, the former president is a very big one.

Speaker 33 But it is not an encouraging trend to see the judiciaries and the state judiciaries being controlled in this way.

Speaker 29 Aaron Powell, Jr.: Well, listen, I do think one part of the solution, frankly, is for a long time

Speaker 29 coverage of the courts, especially the Supreme Court, was a little bit too chummy, a little bit too credulous, and needed to be a bit more adversarial. And so I want to say thank you to you.

Speaker 29 Thank you to the team at ProPublica for doing unbelievable,

Speaker 29 long-term, brutally difficult investigative work to get some answers for all of us. And the podcast is: We Don't Talk About Leonard.
I cannot recommend it enough.

Speaker 29 If you want to understand how money in Washington works, if you want to understand how the right wing has packed the courts full of judges, it's just incredibly well done.

Speaker 29 So, Andrea Bernstein, thank you so much for joining the show.

Speaker 33 Thank you. It's really great to talk to you.

Speaker 1 Love it, do you have something planned for us, turkeys?

Speaker 28 Earlier today, President Biden issued pardons to two turkeys, Liberty and Belle, though he did refer to one as Kamala, several times.

Speaker 28 In honor of this annual tradition, we'll be pardoning turkeys of our own. We each will draw a political turkey and make a case for why they should be pardoned.

Speaker 28 Pardon legally, pardoned socially, pardoned by God, whatever you want. Could someone please bring me Brian's Babadook hat? which contains the names of said turkeys.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Pharaoh. Thank you.
Okay.

Speaker 28 All right. Since Tommy is remote, I will draw for you.

Speaker 28 John, why don't you kick us off? Great.

Speaker 1 All right. Mike Johnson.

Speaker 28 Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker 1 Oof.

Speaker 1 I just have to pardon him.

Speaker 28 You just have to, yeah, express some reason why he should, he deserves pardon. Just pardon him.

Speaker 1 He deserves pardon because

Speaker 1 he has been very good all year, as his Covenant Eyes app has told his son. Yeah,

Speaker 1 he hasn't been looking at any porn all year because he's been, his son's been his accountability partner and he's been good, so he gets a party.

Speaker 1 Not a jerk, you're saying

Speaker 1 not a jerk, not a jerk.

Speaker 28 Yeah, there's no jerks around.

Speaker 28 Unless he's got a burner phone like a mobster, which I wouldn't be surprised by, given that he also has no bank accounts.

Speaker 1 Stroke of genius, Tommy. That joke.
Nice. That was good.

Speaker 29 We had the president on this show recently.

Speaker 1 All right. Tommy, the last time.

Speaker 28 Tommy, I'm drawing for you.

Speaker 29 Thank you.

Speaker 28 Lauren Betelgeuse Groper Bobert.

Speaker 1 Oh, you know what?

Speaker 29 She's just a human being going through a divorce, doing the best she can. She absolutely deserves a pardon.
The media comes down too hard on

Speaker 29 women in politics in particular, and she deserves a reprieve.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 28 Actually, coming down too hard is what got her into this mess in the first place.

Speaker 1 Hashtag I'm with her over here. Yeah, look at this guy.

Speaker 28 Break that highest, hardest glass ceiling, huh?

Speaker 29 If you look at all the terrible things members of Congress have done, that is just like the lowest one on my list.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, totally, totally agree. Very entertaining.
Yeah, no,

Speaker 1 except the, do you know who I am?

Speaker 29 That's the worst part.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, groping, fine.

Speaker 28 No heroes ever said you know who I am. Yeah.
All right. I'm choosing.
I'm choosing.

Speaker 28 Jim Jordan. Yuck.
Oof.

Speaker 28 Here's what I'll say about Jim Jordan.

Speaker 28 Jim Jordan is so unable to not be an asshole that a bunch of people wanted Jim Jordan kind of in a disguise who wasn't as loud and had good manners to be speaker of the house.

Speaker 28 And it literally created Mike Johnson from scratch. Like Jim Jordan being so shitty as a person, being so unabashedly gross that he can't hide it.
I respect that. I respect that way of being.

Speaker 1 Oh, you know, that went a few different, that went a few different directions.

Speaker 28 Well, I know how to defend Jim Jordan. Yeah.
He sucks in every way.

Speaker 28 All right, John, you're going again.

Speaker 33 Oh, boy.

Speaker 1 Chris Christie. Oh,

Speaker 1 come on.

Speaker 1 Hey, he gets a pardon because, you know what? He turned over a new leaf this year and decided to go after Donald Trump. Once.

Speaker 1 And he made it through an interview with John Lovett.

Speaker 1 Doesn't matter when you got woke.

Speaker 28 Pardon.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Took him a while to wake up.

Speaker 28 All right, let's do Tommy next.

Speaker 28 Open AI head Sam Altman.

Speaker 29 Who does he deserve a pardon? I read a New Yorker profile of him from about five years ago where he talked about being

Speaker 28 fucking Tommy in the stacks.

Speaker 28 He's looking at microfiche.

Speaker 29 Five years ago?

Speaker 29 He talked about in this profile being a doomsday prepper because of his fear of AI. And then he went on to start an AI nonprofit, which he converted into an AI for-profit, which he got pushed out of.

Speaker 29 Then he went to Microsoft. So I guess I'm just sort of making the point that he's the biggest hypocrite in the history of the world.
And, you know, like sometimes the superlatives

Speaker 29 get a break from us. You know, he's the number one hypocrite in my book.
So he gets a top guy.

Speaker 1 Okay. You got it.

Speaker 1 Some of these answers are a little bit like from all of us, he cares too much.

Speaker 29 Yeah. Cares too much about AI.

Speaker 28 All right, here we go. I'm going.

Speaker 28 The QAnon shaman who is now running as a libertarian in Arizona,

Speaker 28 here's what I'll say. Look, you can fight from the outside for as long as you want, but if you want to kill Mike Pence, sometimes change has to come from within.

Speaker 1 My gosh. You got to pass a fucking law.
You can't just do that.

Speaker 28 You can't do that as just a protester. You got to actually get in there and get into the nuts and bolts of changing laws because you can't, you know, he's working inside the system now.

Speaker 28 I think that's a good. What?

Speaker 1 I was going to say, I got the best

Speaker 1 case for his pardon is.

Speaker 1 He served his time. Recidivism?

Speaker 1 now he now he wants rehabilitation absolutely i'm sure i'm sure his platform is going to be very progressive why don't we just wait and see yeah why don't we wait why don't we wait and see all right how many of these we're going to do that'll be the last one you finish us up you finish it sam bankman freed okay great

Speaker 1 why does he get a pardon

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 i don't know 100 years seems like a long time

Speaker 1 yeah yeah it's a hundred years yeah that's too long that seems like i mean i think that's it could be up we haven't had sentencing yet, but.

Speaker 29 I got an easy one for you. He gave a lot of money to the Democratic Party.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 What are we, Bob Menendez now? Yeah. So he gets a pardon.

Speaker 1 Gold bars. That's how it works.

Speaker 1 We didn't know.

Speaker 28 It was, you know, we didn't know.

Speaker 1 I'll see what we'll see.

Speaker 28 More for the road.

Speaker 28 Will and or Jada Smith.

Speaker 28 Oh, well, you know what? I hope I pardon them. I hope they find whatever happiness they're looking for.
And I hope they find it offline.

Speaker 28 yes you know I want them to be happy and I want whatever psychosexual drama is unfolding inside of that house to stay inside keep it inside it seems important you seem like you genuinely love and hate each other and I get that and so like keep that just keep that in there keep that in there you know keep it all in there all right well we need a break

Speaker 1 So we will, everyone, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Speaker 28 Have a great Thanksgiving, baby.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Andrea Bernstein, for joining this pod. You couldn't have known what the rest of it would sound like, so that's tough for you.

Speaker 1 And we'll see you after Thanksgiving.

Speaker 28 Hey, hey, thanks to you both.

Speaker 1 Thanks to you.

Speaker 1 I'm thankful for all of you. All of you in the studio.
All of you. Everyone working on the studio.
On the Zoom.

Speaker 28 Every one of you, listeners.

Speaker 1 All right. Feel better, Tommy.

Speaker 28 Thanks, guys.

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

Speaker 1 Reed Cherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
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Speaker 1 Madeleine Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroote is our head of production.
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