A Very Online Summer (Friends of the Pod Preview)

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Hey guys, Tommy Vitor. And today, Elijah and I are excited to share some content that is usually

only accessible if you're a Friends of the Pod subscriber. Friends of the Pod is our Crooked

Media subscriber community. You get lots of great benefits like access to exclusive content, like what you're about to hear.
We get ads-free episodes of Pod Save America, much, much more. You get our Discord server, which is a really fun chat room.
Plus, by subscribing at the best friends level, you're not only enjoying premium content, but you're also helping fuel all the grassroots organizing we are doing through Vote Save America with your recurring donations. So thank you for that.
Elijah, what do we got for the people today? Today, we're going big with a best of episode pulled straight from our subscriber exclusive podcast, Terminally Online. Terminally Online is a weekly pod where Crooked hosts, staffers, producers get together to commiserate about being way too online as we make the shows here at Crooked Media.
I'd also just say in the copy that you and I are excited to share this content. I'd say John and John are excited too.
They're just on vacation and aren't here to read this. They're just so excited that they left the entire state.
But look, the show is a ton of fun. We're on it all the time.
Favre's on, love it's on. It's a rotating crew.
People like Aaron Ryan, Alyssa Master Monaco, Dan Pfeiffer, Louis Vertel. We have a blast.
It's the loosest show on the Crooked Network and a little silly, but I think you'll enjoy it. Absolutely.
At the end of every episode, we rate each other based on how online our topics are. But this week, we need your help to finally settle the great Crooked Media debate.
Who's the most online? You can weigh in by joining the Friends of the Pod Discord

and vote for who you think is the most online,

John, John, or Tommy.

My money is on you, Tommy.

That's what the copy says.

My money's on Lovett, actually.

Yeah, my money's on Lovett, too.

He is the only one who is, well, listen and you'll find out.

To join, go to crooked.com slash friends.

And here's the episode. As you all know, the children of famous political families have been causing all sorts of controversy recently.
We have talked a lot about RFK Jr.'s truly nutty views on vaccines and a host of other issues. Yes.
I'm so excited you're doing this. There is a pretty wild take from another Kennedy that went viral.
The Rolling Stone headline about this is, a Kennedy himbo's viral rant is making Nepo babies look good. Here's President Kennedy's grandson and Caroline Kennedy's son, Jack Schlossberg, talking about restaurants.
And we have to wait there to eat something that we don't get to choose, really. We only have a couple choices and you don't know what any of them are going to taste like or what's good.
And we'll go eat there and it'll be covered in sugar. And we're going to have to fucking talk to some guy about what we want to eat.
And we're gonna need a couple more minutes to look at the menu to read the menu we have to read something in order to get the food first you have to read to get your food why you don't actually need to do that and that's why I'm never ever going to a restaurant I can't make feel angry. Because it ruins your whole life.

You spend hours and hours eating at restaurants when you could spend a minute and a half

eating something that is good for you.

And then what would you do?

And then you can go fucking lie down, you can go walk around,

you could listen to music, you could get work done,

you could hang out with your friends.

No, but their friends could want to have dinner with you or lunch with you.

Not everyone likes dinner.

They don't?

Yeah, a lot of people, most people in the world don't spend their life eating dinner. Who's recording that? Do we know? Doesn't it sound like Caroline Kennedy? Yeah.
Oh, God. It sounds like her voice.
Cannot confirm that, but it does sound like her. You know what? A few million views for that.
What do you guys think about restaurants? Are they bad? Are menus bad? Is reading menus taxing? I think people born as Kennedys with that bone structure shouldn't be allowed to share opinions. No opinions for you.
Shut the fuck up. You haven't gotten enough negative feedback in your life.
Well, a lot of people have been forgiving that viral rant because he's so handsome. Yeah.
I'll be honest. Story of his goddamn life.
Yeah, absolutely. This is an attractive person's rant about the injustice of having to read, which I do.
If you are handsome, I do agree you shouldn't have to. Our standards of what constitutes a himbo.
I'm sorry. I need jacked, shirtless, drooling.
Drooling? Just a rich, younger man. It does not a himbo make.
I'm sorry. He doesn't deserve the title of himbo is my first response.
I'm sorry. His story is that you could, why go to a restaurant where you could eat something healthy in 90 seconds? What kind of life is that? Just eating vegetables over the sink? Shut up.
Go back to Kenny Bunkport and leave us the fuck alone. It's also, it's like, it'll be covered in sugar.
It doesn't have to be covered in sugar. You can go to any kind of restaurant.
Say you don't want the miso glaze you rich fuck i think he has some confusion about the restaurants he's been to like we only have a couple choices like have you been to the fucking cheesecake factory plenty of choices there the menu is about 100 pages and and we have to read something in order to get the food first have you been to denny's have you seen picture menus i am yeah shabu shabu pictures on the menu. Check out any of the lot of picture menus.
Does he know about Shabu Shabu? In his defense he did, when asked what else would you be doing but going to a restaurant, his first example was go lie down and that is what I would like to do so I'm like he's not wrong. He does make some points.
The variety piece on this said that there were echoes of Camelot. I'll throw this fucking diet coke across the room echoes of camelot yeah jesus christ it somehow grouped jack's thing with rfk juniors views because it was like a new generation it does seem conspiratorial yeah yeah they do it's conspiratorial and it may be a more benign conspiratorial yeah i benign.
This is how it starts, though. A little bit more.
If people don't go to restaurants, kids don't die of measles. Give him time.
40 years of that, he's going to be pumping iron trash. Oh, yeah, he's starting strong for insanity 30 years from now.
He's absolutely going to be president. Totally.
Yeah, anyway. When we're all fighting in the Thunderdome, he waves at us.
Good one. It makes you think.
It makes you think. He's just asking questions about restaurants.
Yeah, he's just asking questions. Just asking questions.
I get it. I get it.
I'm so glad you did this topic. I enjoy a restaurant.
I like eating at them. I like enjoying the company of other people who are at the restaurant.
I would say it's one of actually the great pleasures in my life. Yeah.
I don't know what else I would be doing. I don't do much else.
Exactly. Exactly.
If I cross that off my list.

I'll tell you,

you know what's a joy too?

Hey,

you want to meet for dinner

at 6 p.m.?

Oh my God.

Sign me up.

Oh,

I mean,

now I have a toddler.

I eat dinner at like 5 p.m.

I get home from this office.

I need food immediately.

I almost said best thing

about having a baby,

but not the best thing.

But one great thing

about having a baby

is you can make

a 5 p.m. reservation

and no one bats an eye at it. Yeah.
She's just... i go to bed uh and it's still light up these days the solstice oh my goodness solstice it's a solstice eat dinner at 5 30 you're in bed by 7 30 heaven i'll be absolutely honest easier to get a reservation too yeah and then it's 4 30 and they are up early on the i'm shocked i wake up on the east coast and they're already wild it's not by choice it's wild yeah i wish i could sleep later my boys are My boys are up.
My a.m. They are up early.
I'm shocked when I wake up on the East Coast and they're already up. It's wild.
It's not by choice. It's wild.
I wish I could sleep later. My boys are up.
My boys are up. My boys are early risers.
They're early up. 6 a.m.
is the noon noon. 6 a.m.
would be so sweet to sleep to. So cool to sleep to 6.
I love that. Anyway, you're a three.
Okay. Three.
Yeah, I saw that. I'm really glad you brought it, too.
I'm glad someone did it. No, I figured some people would see it, but I wanted to talk about it.
Okay. You guys are going to hate, hate mine.
So I regret to inform you that Republicans are rapping, and they're doing it a lot. There's a lot of rapping going on.
I saw this. Oh, my God.
Here's the first of three awful clips that you're going to have to sit through. It's the vague like cake.
I'm not fake. And I swim in a lake of truth.
That's me. The vague.
Yeah. That's a Republican presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, a.k.a.
DeVake. He is freestyling there on Michael Smirconish's show.
Oh, that was a freestyle? Yeah. I just realized that there are two people in this room covering their eyes with their hands.
He's the author of the books like Woke Inc., which attacks social justice movements. Not at all surprisingly, he now sells anti-woke investment products.
So for a pretty big fee, you can buy

into his ETFs and other investment products to, I guess, show how much you hate people like us.

He's also running for president and hacked the system to get all this PR. But guys, unfortunately,

this is not the first time he rapped. Vivek was a libertarian rapper as an undergrad at Harvard.

Here's another clip from the good old days.

Stop it, stop it, stop it before we lose all the subscribers.

Yes, he's covering Lose Yourself.

Someone who's tried to karaoke an Eminem song,

don't ever try it.

It's impossible. He talks faster than you.
He competed in Harvard open mic nights. I think that one was a competition to open for Busta Rhymes.
So some really early odds throwbacks here. Busta Rhymes, an incredibly talented rapper.
Really good rapper. Oh, my God.
The Harvard Crimson wrote, Vivek only emerges when Ramaswamy is outfitted entirely in black, complete with a black Kangol hat. Vivek told Politico, quote, I saw myself honestly making it big through American capitalism, and that's why Eminem's story spoke to me.
I wonder if the part of the story where rapacious capitalist in Detroit spoke to him as well, but, you know, whatever. He wants to raise the voting age to 25, which seems very hip-hop to me.
So, guys, bad news for you. Kids don't get a say.

Yo.

It gets worse.

I'm sad to say there's an entire genre of MAGA rappers.

Here's a clip from a Vice story that dug deep into this.

They spent about 45 minutes with MAGA rappers.

Finish this sentence for me.

MAGA rap is.

Oh my God.

Freedom, faith, family, guns, Trump. We've made a brand new culture.
They call us mega rappers. My fans and my people are just Trump crazy.
I am MAGA. Like, you can't get more MAGA than me.
Oh my God. Trump's a boss.
I'm a boss. Trump's got the hate.
I got the hate. Trump had the girls.
I girls I got the girls Trump's got the money I'm getting the money Oh my god Oh my god Okay So the guy with the face The hands on the face Have gotten worse The guy with the face tattoo Is named Forgiato Blow A.K.A. Kurt His name is Kurt James A.K.A.
Kurt Oh cause there already Was a Curtis Blow. Can't be Curtis Blow too and suck that much.
There's another rapper in that clip called Stony Dude Bro. There's a whole industry of these guys who just make songs very quickly.
And what they're really good at is torturing people with songs about the news cycle. I'm going to spare you the clip of Roger Stone dancing to Forgiato Blows hip-hop because that's just not nice.
But this is the rabbit hole I went down, in part thanks to another thing I've been working on. Yeah, it's a dark, dark place, and there's a lot of MAGA rap, and they make a lot of money.
What do they call the people that listen to them? Are they the earplugalos? Maggots? Maggots. Maggots.
I just, and they're all from like Tampa. They all live in clear water.
It's very much like giving that like English literature teacher who's like, you know, Shakespeare is a lot like rap music. Oh my God.
That is, it's, there's nothing more hip hop, right? Than reinforcing existing social structures. That is what rap and punk really are all about.
We want stuff to say exactly the same and actually be even more established. That's like the rich should have more money because it should be even more rigid.
Yeah, the original blues artists feared change. That was their issue.
That's what they were. Yep, yeah.
They played right on the beat every time. No improvisation.
All of those notes are written down. Clap it on one and three.
Yeah, that's what they did. A couple of those notes are written down.
Tommy, that's a five. Yeah.
That's a hard five. A hard five.
That's a hard five. Damn.
You watched a lot of MAGA rap. So much.
Over the weekend, I saw a little indie film made for a song called Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Oh.
How was it? It's great. Okay.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is great. Awesome.
The movies are back. That's what I thought.
I'm sitting there. I'm watching trailers.
I'm watching trailers for Oppenheimer. I'm watching trailers for there's Dune.
There's Dead Reckoning. There's a bunch of movies I'm looking forward to.
And I'm sitting there thinking the 2023 movies are back. And then someone says, no, actually, Dial of Destiny is people think it's bombing.
It's doing really poorly. It was really expensive to make it.
It's not doing well. What the fuck? It's great.
So then I start digging. Turns out they got cocky.
They brought it to the Cannes Film Festival and it only got a five minute standing ovation oh wow which is apparently in the great inflation era of Cannes you gotta watch some Cannes standing o's my friend five minutes is nothing five minutes is nothing who's been watching 23 minutes for some best supporting actor 23 minutes yeah it's like they're watching like the Grand Guignol oh hell yeah I don't know eyeballs and hands I'd be like okay let's wrap this up but anyway but here's what happened the people that liked it the reviewers that like it didn't rave and the reviewers that didn't like it were able to criticize it and pan it the same way because Crystal Skull was so bad. But this is why I want to talk about this because it's like people have been trained to expect bad shit from these studios for like Crystal Skull, bad.
A bunch of the DC movies, bad. Some of the latest Marvel movies have been mediocre.
And so people are not going to the theaters as much. And what I wanted to talk about is the fact that Tom Cruise has Dead Reckoning coming out in a couple weeks.
And there's two clips of what Tom Cruise is putting out there to get people ready for this movie. The man at this point wants to die, is what I think.
So just already before we started, he's in a suit. He's got goggles on.
It's very intense. This is real.
Tom Cruise rides a motorcycle off a cliff in real life

and then uses a parachute.

Six times today.

Six times today.

I mean, it does make me want to see it.

What is he doing?

He's burning through motorcycles.

Fuck yeah.

The parachute opens.

Tom Cruise lives.

The movies are back.

And every, look at the director with his hands over his fucking face.

That was awesome.

The fuck?

Then the next clip.

This is only one stunt.

He's 61 years old.

61 years young. Three, two, one, action.
So look at him. Two cameras, one on each hit.
He jumps off a cliff with a parachute. He trained to learn how to do this.
That is so dangerous. It's insane.
Take after take.

Looks quite beautiful.

Behind the scenes, we were all in absolute terror.

Landing, Tom had to be flying towards the camera. So what's he doing?

Love it.

Walk us through what he's doing right now.

He is flying with a parachute through the air and flying into a pickup truck to capture a perfect shot of him landing.

It is truly a one of a kind. That is terrifying.
Here's why. Imagine what the insurance policy was.
Tom Cruise, during the pandemic, there was this viral clip that went out of him on the set when they were shooting during the pandemic, basically screaming that someone had violated COVID protocol. And it got a bit, I would say, braggadocious because he said, you know, we are what stands between the end of movies and movies.
Which is what he clearly believes. And you know what? God fucking bless him.
This guy knows what it takes to get people into the theaters. He would die for us.
Tom Cruise would die for a box office opening. He will die for us.
He's going to save the movies. You're going to get all the Scientology people after you.
I'll tell you something. Barbie's going to save the movies.
And I'll say it. I'll say it once.
I'll say it again. Ifology makes you that awesome Sign me the fuck up Oh no Please don't Your shower's coming for you It's already hard enough Please don't This is gonna be a great arc for you, John What is it? Zink and some mediocre therapy? Yeah, you can't be gay anymore Yeah, I guess You just get it started I guess you have to choose between parachutes or kissing a boy Yeah, I'm sorry That sounds fun But also your legs would sh.
You think you're doing that? Yeah, I think I am doing that. We're going to see your body plummet the second you step off a cliff.
All I'm saying is Tom Cruise would die for us. Yeah.
I can't. And like that's, that's the movies are back.
Thank you. The movies are back, baby.
I don't know. I don't know if that makes me online or not.
I don't care. I don't know.
That's a good question. Is he going clear or going queer, folks.
Find out. Oh, okay.
Terminally online. Bum, bum, bum, bum.
That's good. That's like a fun thing.
Like over the summer, like are you going to join Scientology or are you going to keep being gay? And at the end you decide. Yeah.
Like for August. I can go either way.
Yeah. Yeah.
Drop some Easter eggs. Yeah, mix it up.
Those clips were awesome. So good.
Every once in a while there's a movie that comes out where like the stunts and behind the scenes are like cooler than the actual movie, like Mad Max Fury Road. Like I could just watch those behind the scenes as many times as the movie.
I guess you won because you're one. Yeah, one going into the real world to watch a movie.
That's cool. Hell yeah.
OK, I'll take it. I don't care.
All right. You're fine.
Not online. And movies are back.
I don't know if I would read this, but of course, it was Bill de Blasio and his wife, Charlene, Charlene McCrae's article in The New York Times announcing that they are going to be dating outside the marriage. They're not getting divorced, but they are separating, but they will continue to live together.
And it is incredible. Incredible.
And what I would say, I'll just read some articles, for example, as a queer person um oh there it is uh well you gotta put a dollar whenever you say as a queer person we gotta put a dollar in the jar yeah and then donate it to votes in america.com slash fuck mans charlene mccray was a lesbian before she got married to bill de blasio and bill de blasio basically calls that out in the article he's like for the guy who took the chance that a woman who was an out lesbian and wrote an article called I am a lesbian de Blasio and Bill de Blasio basically calls that out in the article. He's like, for the guy who took the chance that a woman who was an out lesbian and wrote an article called I am a lesbian, de Blasio said, there was a part of me that would sometimes say, hmm, is this like a time bomb ticket? Is this something that you're going to regret later on? So I always live with this stuff.
That is a crazy thing to say to the New York Times. New York Times, baby.
I loved every minute of this. It was a baffling choice.
But also I was like, OK, obviously, it's like, oh, we both want to be dating. But then people are going to be like, oh, are you out here cheating on your spouse? Well, we'll let everyone know at once by going to the New York Times.
Three hour interview. Incredible.
And also it does feel kind of queer because they do seem like they're still friends based perhaps solely on the many beautifully shot photos of them holding hands. And I guess what I liked about it is like this is something like if you saw like a couple of you do this online, you'd be like, OK, complicated.
But hey, you do you whatever to go to the New York Times is to take an online sentiment, which I support, and be like, I'm going to put this in the paper of note. It's so insane to me.
Can you just read these three paragraphs? Yeah. So here at the very end, they will continue to share the home for the time being, Ms.
McRae said. For now, a photo of the couple in Times Square on New Year's Eve still greets visitors, which may come to include suitors.
Ms. McRae asked Riley if their phone numbers could be included in the newspaper.
No. Can I put a picture from the gym in there? Mr.
de Blasio asked. That's funny.
He added that he was, quote, not a believer in online dating. Well, you will be soon, honey.
Good luck. How did I not make it to the end of this? Wow.
And they play a song called Mango by a artist named, I think, Camus. And it's basically like, I love you so much that whatever you need to be happy,

I will be here and I support it.

And I'm like, again, that's great.

It's just, I've never had a kind of relationship

where I'm like, we got to take it to the times

and let them know that we're fucking

outside the relationship.

But I support it.

Albert Camus made music.

Yeah, you're right.

When you're famous, you need to roll out strategy

or else people just accuse you of cheating.

Yes. But here's what I would have gone with an Instagram post.

Maybe even a carousel.

You need multiple images.

We continue to love each other, but we're separated.

Thank you. Thank you for your time.

And there's just like a lot of like lovely. Why did

they do that? I don't know. Did they give a

reason in the interview? They say that

they had a conversation. They said, quote, we want to get

freaky. End quote.
They said, we're both hungry for some strange. I'm not sure they didn't specify that.
They said, after two months ago. I thought that was real.
I thought that was real for one second. I mean, why did they go to the New York Times? Oh, yeah.
She said, I just want to have fun, she said, adding as Mr. de Blasio turned to her.
It's not that we haven't had fun. Thank you, honey, he said.
Every line. Barf, barf.
Hey, barf, barf, barf, barf. And also, like, these are obviously, like, conversations that everyone has privately in their own.
Like, hey, you know what I mean? You've been together a long time. Hey, what do you want to do? That's fine.
To take it to the times. I loved it.
I thought it was chaotic in a really fun and interesting way. During the three-hour interview, during which they cupped hands sporadically and once high-fived in agreement.
Yeah. This is making me long for the Elliot Spitzer days.
This is horrible. Also, he dyed his hair, which they mention in the art.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
This is, like, too dark. Oh, yeah.
What? I never anticipated ever doing anything with hair color instead of his now strikingly dark, close crop. Also, what did it for her, what the final straw for her seemed to be his presidential campaign which was yeah you and the rest of America.
Nobody wanted to fuck him after that. There's kids right? Yes they're both grown though.
They're both like in their 20s. That could be part of the situation too.
Yeah their son their son came to the office. But isn't it weird to say we don't plan a divorce where it's like, well, what happens when one of you meets someone

and then you want to get divorced?

Then you're going to come back

to the Times again.

Give an update.

Hey, sorry.

It turns out we are going

to get divorced.

I loved it.

That was awesome.

That's great.

We did save the best for last.

Yeah.

I mean,

and thank you so much

to the former first couple.

Did he really say

he's not going to do online dating?

Yes.

I was like,

of course you will.

What are you talking about?

Exactly.

Like what bar? He's an inconspicuous guy. He's like 6'8".
Yeah, I guess if you're in New York and you're single, have at it. Hey, just like, this just keeps getting better.
You're going home with Bill de Blasio and you walk into the door and there's his wife. Yeah, he still lives with.
Lovely to meet you. Wow.
I'm reading this for the first time. It began with an offhand remark.
Why aren't you lovey-dovey anymore mr you asked his wife oh my god yeah just some things are for the time some things are for therapy i love to bring mess to the times and more people should be doing it uh hallie it's a new york times article so i feel like that's not too online it's definitely the best thing anyone. Between that and the dinner take, this is the hardest I've laughed at.
That's normally online. That's a funny episode.
I mean, if I do say so, I think we can. Hey, great.
Are we doing it after the show? What are we doing? We're doing our own tomato meter. Tomato meter.
I guess we put Hallie at a two. Is this certified? Yeah, is this certified fucking fresh? Hallie's a two.
Tommy's a four. John's a five.
I'm a one. You're a five.
You're the deadest of them all. Yeah.
John Lovett interviewed presidential candidate Chris Christie. Oh, yeah.
Remember that? Yeah. I thought it was awesome.
I texted John while I was listening to it it and I said, this is great. And he said, it was stressful as fuck.
John, why was it stressful as fuck? I just want to make sure that if we're going to have Chris Christie on, it's like worthy of people's time. And it's a not just a place where he can say whatever he wants, but also be like, we're not just doing it to have a like a old school cable news style fight.
And so I just wanted to make sure that we figured out what are we actually trying to ask this person? What am I actually interested in? What is the value of actually talking to him? And I do think there are places where I really wish I'd push back and there's always going to be that. But in hindsight, we're like, oh, I should have jumped in there.
I shouldn't have let that go to get to the next thing. But all in all, I think we spent a lot of time talking about what Republicans think and why they do what they do.
And once in a while, probably good to direct that at an actual Republican in the flesh, which is why ultimately I thought it was worth doing. Did you know while recording it that you guys had a chemistry that leapt off the screen? It's very sexual.
It was flirtatious at times. Cut the tension with a knife.
Yeah. Look, just two tri-state area boys who love pizza in America, you know, and that's what it was.
Was there any suggestion of like getting together later for drinks to chat? Well, by me, and he said no. He said no.
He said, no, no, we're going to leave this here. I'm not interested in that.
He would be a funny, like I'd love to get him off the record and hear some stories. You know, he's got some hilarious stuff.
Yeah, right after I did like make some, I made some joke about the fact that he, like that he'd hit some traffic and I was like, probably could have used an extra tunnel into New York. And he's like, well, it's not just one tunnel.
You don't know the project. And then we kind of got into it for one second off, which I was appreciative.
But yeah. Would you have Mike Pence on? Would you interview Mike Pence? Would we have Mike Pence on? Yeah.
So boring. This is a future question that I have here, Hallie, is would you have any other Republicans on? And I would love to have Mike Pence on just because of how you went in on Christie for like, how'd you square that? Like, how do you square your comments now with that? And then just doing that to Pence, who is way less quick on his feet and way deeper in to the shit than Christie was.
Pence is just a talking point machine, though. I'll just be like, well, the Constitution, my family, he just won't say anything.
I think the standard has to be like, do we think there's like a possibility of like a good faith discussion of some kind? I think that's actually like one of the challenges of the Trump era is once you've agreed to go along with Trump, you've sort of given up any credibility or sense that you can have an honest conversation because you've sold your soul. So that's why I think we would never have real Trump people on.
And it's hard to figure out the Venn diagram of people who disagree enough that it's like a worthy like debate, but the people who aren't so far gone that you're talking to like just sort of sellouts who have no scruples yeah i think it's a question of what is the purpose and the effect of having the person on right like platforming gets thrown around as a word and i think sometimes we don't like define it well enough and it's like i don't know that if we had Mike Pence on, that would generate any Mike Pence supporters. Not one person.
So I am not afraid that having Mike Pence on to be Pod Save America listeners being like, you know what? I kind of like Mike Pence. You say that.
I don't know. You say that.
I should suddenly support Mike Pence for president. But I do think that said, you should have a purpose of purpose of having the person on.
Right. And I think that, love it.
You went into that interview with our purpose, which is, OK, great that Chris Christie is trying to defeat Trump now. But like, how did he do that 180? Right.
And like, shouldn't he have to answer for all the shit that he did before? And what was he thinking? And what was the decision making process? So there was like a value to that, I think. And I think if you go into one of these interviews with that in mind, and not just like, oh, I'm talking to Republican, because I'm talking to Republican, then it could be worthwhile.
I think the other thing we learned from some of our candidate interviews in 2020 was, if you use the opportunity to ask them about things they don't often get asked about, sometimes you can elicit new information and something interesting.

Yes.

I still don't think Mike Pence is going to say anything interesting.

But like I could imagine talking to Nikki Haley, trying to press around foreign policy in ways that like the other press corps just finds boring. So they don't.
Yeah. Yeah.
So are there Republicans you think that are out there? Like, are we softening the ground for Tim Scott with with that better? I mean, part of it is like, I think that the Lovett and Christie thing was a perfect mix of he is a Republican that we'd feel comfortable having on because he's out there trying to destroy Trump. And also he seemed desperate enough to want to be on Pod Save America.
Yeah. And also there's no conceivable way he will be president.
So they're sort of like, OK, good. Like even if somehow one person was like, I will vote for Chris Christie.
It's not going to happen. Like, look, if Tim Scott wanted to come on, I would want to sit here and grill him for 30 minutes on, like, how could you have responded to this indictment by saying that, like, there's a two-tiered system of justice and they're just after Trump and blah, blah, blah.
Like, you were in the Capitol that day? Like, what are you, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, I would love to go in on that that. He's also like I'm the kinder, gentler version of the GOP guy.
And he's also just demagoguing the hell out of gay people and trans people all day long. He's saying things that are just as vicious about men and women playing sports together.
I mean, he's just, you know. Yeah.
How is that like love thy neighbor as thyself? Right. I would love to ask those questions.
Yeah. I also think like one other sort of meta reason that it's worth considering having people like that on is all the concern around platforming.
It's like, the goal isn't to build a magnificent, delicate information cathedral that you don't touch. It's like, you have to try to get people to go inside.
And the right doesn't give a fuck about any of this. They'll talk to anybody like Joe Rogan will talk to anybody.
Ben Shapiro will talk to anybody. And they spend a lot less time worrying about who they're going to platform or not, in part because they have fewer scruples.
But that does leave a lot more room to think about like what's interesting, what makes this an exciting debate for people to listen to, what makes this contentiousness worth clicking on? And I think we would do well on our side to think a little bit more about like, how do we keep people engaged and thinking like, this is the center of the debate. This is where people have to come for good and for real.
So if you don't listen, don't fucking listen. Yeah, it's fine.
It's a podcast. Delete it.
This is from great name, Chief Iglesias Interpreter. Oh my God.
Oh boy. They want to know, I'm turning 30 soon and i've been thinking a lot about aging and what it does to a person shut the well i enjoy these days better in my early 20s i can't deny that i tire more easily get aches here and there and know it's only going to get worse as i become older with the pod save team mostly hitting their 40s I was wondering what you all do to stay youthful.
Drink a Drinochrome.

I have like a cyanide capsule in my, in the back of my tooth. And every day I'm like, I can't, if I, it's there if I need it.
It's there if I need it. Honestly.
So that's one idea. Can't top that.
Can't top that. Well, you don't exercise, you know, eat healthy.
Don't go to restaurants. I to restaurants I don't go to restaurants I'm not giving this trolling question a real response Shut up about your 30s It's going to be great I never felt better in my 30s I'd give anything to be 30 again I actually think 20s to 30s is a lot of brain changing 30 to 40 Your does begin to really fall apart.
If you think you're aching now, just wait. No, for me, it was 40.
It's kind of like a fun game though to like recalibrate once you realize like, oh no, if I do something wrong, then I wake up at two in the morning. You kind of have to have fun with it or else it will make you go insane.
You know what helps? Zbiotics. Yeah, like am I dying or did I have a snack too late? That's a real issue.
Sleep, sleep's important. Which you won't be able to do.
Which you won't be able to do. That'll wrap up the advice column.
That'll wrap up Terminally Online. What a note to leave on.
God damn it, Elijah. Sorry.
Learn how to sequence a fucking show. You'll never be able to sleep again.
You want some advice on that? Yeah. I got advice for Elijah after we're done.
Go ahead. Go ahead.
Give the advice Cause Cameron could use it. How to improve the podcast is what the people want.
All right. The red table.
Good stuff. Thanks for listening to Terminal Live.
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