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USAA! Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
I'm the alien Mussolini found, Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
On today's show, Donald Trump's primary opponents wake up to the fact that they're running against a criminal defendant who's still nearly 40 points ahead of him. Sam Alito flips off Congress in the Wall Street Journal.
A House Republican screams at some kids. Kevin McCarthy almost comes to blows with Eric Swalwell.
Aliens might exist. And later, Tommy talks with Lydia Kiesling about her new novel, Mobility, our very first book from Crooked Reads.
But first, we are still waiting for Donald Trump to get indicted over his attempted coup. Any minute now.
Maybe by the time you've heard this. I think I even said that before.
But Jack Smith has given us a few more crimes to tide us over. On Friday, he filed what's known as a superseding indictment in the classified documents case that charges Trump with two additional counts of conspiring to destroy surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago after it was subpoenaed, and one additional count of violating the Espionage Act for illegally retaining the classified war plans that he's on tape talking about with Mark Meadows' biographers.
Trump also has a new co-defendant, a Mar-a-Lago property manager named Carlos de Oliveira, who, along with Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta, was charged with trying to delete those security cameras.

Altogether, the GOP frontrunner now faces 74 felony counts,

with more on the way, which made his entrance music

at the Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines perfect. Could end up going to prison.
Could end up being president. That's it.
That's what we got. All right.
What did you guys find most notable or damning in the superseding indictment? So a couple of things. I hadn't seen, this came out when we were in New York doing, and I'd like seen some, read some news about it, but I hadn't actually seen the document.
First of all. You were a low information voter who's now become a high information voter.
Yes, absolutely. And so first of all, there's incredible, first of all, Jack, again, thank you.
Great job. Great writing.
Scab. A couple things.
One, Trump spoke to Daily Bear for 24 minutes. That is a long conversation.
Yeah, to kick off the whole thing. To kick off the whole thing.
That's 24 minutes. What were they talking about for 24 long minutes? The person that wasn't about what? Like the grass isn't where I needed to be uh the pool isn't good we gotta do a we gotta we gotta we gotta do the gutters here's what i can't figure out how do you think they got that conversation how do you think they know that was 24 minutes between trump and oliveric because he's not cooperating any cell phone record so we don't put the contents of the call we're guessing or you You don't know.
You just know the metadata of like start, stop.

We just know.

Yeah, we have that.

And then the other thing that really jumps out is the lengths to which Nauda was going to keep his involvement. I mean, obviously, idiotically, but like the shush emoji, that's hilarious.
but one thing that must clearly come from security camera footage is the fact that when uh nauta

meets with uh de ol, Nauda comes through the bushes, grabs old De Oliveira and says, come with me. And they go through the bushes to some adjacent property, talk for a minute, and then De Oliveira comes back.
So Naota didn't want people who worked at Mar-a-Lago to know he was there that day. And so, he's scurrying around, but clearly getting caught on the footage that their mandate was apparently to destroy, which is a little bit confusing.
I love that. I love coming in and out of the bushes.
That's my favorite part, too. Doing this sort of cloak-and-dagger nonsense and getting caught on the security camera footage that you were trying to delete.
It's perfect. Well, they're getting caught on the footage they're trying to delete.
There's clearly the other side of the text messages have now been given over to the special counsel. So, because we have the shush emoji.
So between the first indictment and this indictment, he was his lawyer. He had the same lawyer as all these guys.
He clearly, this indictment comes out and he's like, oh no, thank you. You have a target letter.
Yeah, and he does not. He's like, I don't want to be a part of this at all.
No, he got a target letter from the FBI saying you're a target of this investigation. That's when he clearly started talking because the FBI knew he wasn't being forthcoming about what he knew in some way.
Yes, and so then he- So then they switch lawyers. And so then he switches lawyers and then he's in this document being like, I don't know.
I don't think this is right, which I love. Yeah, I mean, what he- You're usually convinced by a target letter to, uh, when someone tells you the target, you're the target of the investigation to maybe, uh, change your mind on something that you might not have said before.
Right. And so what he must have provided to the FBI that we've learned in the superseding indictment is the detail of this conversation in the audio closet, which do you guys know what is an audio closet? Does anyone know? It's the podcast studio.
I think we're in where we are so we're all located it's where you have like some speakers set up i don't know that's where they had this conversation but like everything about this superseding indictment makes sense to me because from the very beginning the problem wasn't necessarily the original crime of taking these documents it was all the moronic ways trump tried to cover it up and here we are again like telling waltauta to go fix it and get the IT guy to delete all this footage and all this cloak and dagger nonsense. It's, you know, created this open and shut obstruction case.
Here's the thing that I also don't understand, which is this is all taking place in June, but the famous flooding is until October. Yeah.
Interesting. We still don't know about the flooding and how that's involved.
We know that it's this. I'm just desperate for it to be involved.
I know, I know. We all are.
But it does seem like it does seem like Tavares, the IT guy, also gave them the signal chat or multiple signal chats where Nauda, Trump's co-defendant valet asked an employee,

whether De La Vera would remain loyal to Trump.

And then they have Trump calling De La Vera again,

promising to get him a lawyer,

which this is a lot of that move.

This is the move.

Get everyone a lawyer.

And then suddenly when they don't have the lawyer that was paid for by the

Trump organization or the Trump super PAC,

suddenly,

uh,

they have other things to say.

Strategy changes.

Yeah.

This,

this is what happened with Cassidy Hutchinson, uh, during the January. She got a new lawyer and suddenly she was talking more.
So this seems to be a pattern. I also think so much of the focus of this last superseding indictment has been on destroying the security footage, but the charge of willfully retaining the Iran war plans seems pretty open and shut because they clearly now have the document and they have Trump on tape not only talking about the document, but talking about how he's not supposed to have it.
And now they have Trump also going out there and lying and saying, oh, it sounds like I was just showing them plans. I was showing them building plans

the whole time.

Newspapers.

What you heard on that tape

wasn't true.

It's like, well, no, no,

they have the fucking document.

Yeah, and they also have

Carlos de Oliveira

lying about knowledge

of the boxes getting sent

to Mar-a-Lago in the first place.

And the question now becomes,

does de Oliveira or Walt Nauta,

do they freak out and flip and give testimony? Because they're in even bigger trouble than they were before yeah the that was the other thing that i took away from this which is like like nauda has been around trump for a long time this guy de olivera he just works at mar-a-lago and he just got broke into this and you read the transcript of the moment where uh doj is now saying that de olivera was lying and he's asked the question do do you, were you, do you ever even, do you even know if you were even there or where that boxes were? And before the question is even done, he's like, no. Like all this stuff was being moved in.
Never saw anything, never, never saw nothing. And it just reads like somebody just completely in a situation they had never, didn't plan to be in, way out of depth.
He needed a little legal guidance before that. I do not recall would have gotten him a lot further.
And he is having this conversation, he is put in this position because he is sharing, he is, his lawyer is the same as Nato's lawyer. He is in the same boat as all these other guys.
And it's, I guess today he didn't actually make a plea because he didn't have a local lawyer. But you have to wonder if people in this person's life isn't saying like hey man you gotta save yourself Trump does not give a fuck what happens to you he's destroying your life so if he chose to cooperate or for some reason now to choose to cooperate undoubtedly it strengthens the case but I will say Jack Smith so far from what we've seen in these indictments, from what we've heard from him, seems pretty damn thorough.
Like he has he has locked up this case. So if Dale Avera decides not to cooperate, if not decides not to cooperate, they decide to stay loyal to Trump.
Like it's still like this guy's got a lot of evidence. Only that's just what we've what we've seen so far and read in the indictment.
There's a whole bunch of stuff that we probably don't even know. And the other part of this, too, is all these questions around Eileen Cannon and how much she's going to be in the tank for Trump.
Like, Jack Smith is making her life so much harder if what she wants to do is be friendly to Trump. First of all, you had this this motion where Trump is like, hey, can I look at classified documents in Mar-a-Lago? And they're like, no, you fucking idiot.
That's what this is all about in the first place. And so it's just like, you know, let like he is being, he's not putting, he's not putting this Trump judge in a position to be able to help him because this is so fucking embarrassing and damage.
He has to, he has to, his lawyers ask to discuss them in Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster. Like, you know, so maybe not necessarily see that to have the documents there, but discuss the documents in some place that's not a skiff.
And again, that is the whole point of why we're here. It's because Mar-a-Lago was never a skiff, nor was Bedminster.
You're also reminded in all this, like Trump tries to operate like a mob boss. He doesn't email, he doesn't put things in text message, he only does in-person meetings, but all the morons around him put everything in writing, they talk on the phone.
They're sloppy. They're ham handed.

They crawl through the bushes to have a meeting that's being taped in real time. It's just Trump's response to this to the superseding indictment has been to say that actually the tapes weren't deleted and he never told anyone to delete them.
Yeah. I think his lawyers wrote that one.
You think that was an advice of counsel? Yes. Well, that's the the thing like all the the the the evidence that trump was directly involved is in the conversations that nowda and de la vera had with all these other people right there's no actual text from trump there's no words from trump it's all took place in phone calls i mean it's all obviously clearly what happened but so his defense is going to be that uh that walt nowda and carlos de la vera and the it guy they all just made this shit up they made up the whole thing they cared about me so much they obviously i was concerned about these about what was happening but these they were trying to protect me they didn't delete any surveillance footage but they thought that maybe they should for some reason yeah that's that's his defense well that's the thing it goes even further than that which is in this document the doj sent a draft subpoena.
All this takes place after doj yeah that's why he was charged but but but that but that like you can delete your own surveillance footage if you don't get a subpoena for the footage but no but but like he gets the draft subpoena and the next day all of this is spun no time to waste no very sloppy yeah no time to waste and the feds are coming this is that broke nothing but whatever all these all these uh these damning transcripts so they have the footage of all these guys running around with boxes trying to figure out how to delete server videos which they don't know how to do and can't figure out uh and then they go and they talk to doj uh they go and talk to the grand jury and they're like i didn't see anything i didn't do anything i didn't see any boxes and i know this is can we just uh roll the quote from hogan's heroes please oh you went too far i must report this it would be worth my life if i do not report this it's only until tomorrow and he's gonna take it off again uh after he steals the tank oh from the panzer division oh he brings it here into the battle oh i see nothing i was not here i did not even get up this morning thank you that was from hogan's heroes 1965 timely topical reference you guys love hogan's heroes right i don't know i don't know a little queer coded huh he's a little gay he's a little like oh i know nothing i see nothing well naz-coded. Yeah, also that.
Yeah, no, I think I saw some of the MAGA idiots who hadn't got the memo yet on what the talking points were supposed to be were like, what? In America, you can't be deleting your own surveillance footage? It's like, no, when the FBI sends you a subpoena for something, if they try to say, hey, we're going to collect your phone, you don't go, ah, and then throw the phone away you can't do that the thing i don't think i don't can't quite understand so clearly there's some effort to delete the footage doj at some point thought they weren't getting all the footage there's some question of like did the footage come from mar-a-lago did it come from the company that was providing the surveillance technology i don't we just there's more to come so we're talking about how everyone got lawyered up thanks to trump uh washington post and the new york times uh reported over the weekend that trump's save america super pack uh save america not to be confused with we gotta figure out we can sue them for taking our name because we were first we were first on that one Anyway, Save America is hurting for cash because they have already spent $40 million on legal fees just this year for Trump and his goons. I believe they started the year with $18 million cash on hand.
And then after this first quarter, they have reported spending $40 million on legal fees. What do you think about alleged billionaire Donald Trump asking his mostly working class supporters to pay his legal bills? It's so perfect.
They also reportedly spent another $16 million in the previous two years on legal fees. So that's quite a price tag.
I mean, this is going to hurt him politically, not just because of the facts of the case, but the Save America PAC requested that a $60 million donation they made to another super PAC supporting Donald Trump be returned. They're asking for money back.
That's how dire the straits are here. So, you know, they had, I think they raised $100 million after losing the 2020 race.
Like you said, they had 18 on hand. Trump is now splitting online contributions.
90% go to his campaign, 10% go to the PAC, i.e. legal fees.
I actually, when I saw that, because it was actually, it was originally 99 cents were going to the campaign, then one cent. And the Times, you know, published that they were, that the ratio had been switched.
And I was like, oh, I wonder what it's gonna be. 90-10, that's a lot of restraint for my boy Trump.
Yeah. Expected it to be worse.
I thought the same thing, to be honest. But still, burning money.
So I think most of his fans don't give a shit that they're giving money to his legal defense fund. They'd probably happily give Donald Trump their firstborn child.
But I do think that the strongest argument against Trump has always been to a general electorate and to skeptical Republicans that he's only in this for himself. Trump does not care about you.
He cares about Donald Trump and only Donald Trump. And I think running a whole campaign where you are trying to stay out of prison, that's why, and you are raising money for your own legal defense fund and for nothing else.
I don't know. I think it's a pretty, I think it's a pretty good argument for someone to make.
Well, that's not a good Chris Christie was making. I heard Chris Christie make that one.
But the rest of them not so much but that's what yeah chris we'll get to it you see the uh the shady uh levitt's guy tim scott's doing in terms of campaign finance what what what what is tim scott uh he paid 5.3 million dollars to shadowy entities as the new york times described the newly formed limited liability companies with no online presence no record of other federal election work that were basically just created for him to pay money out from his campaign to hide how it's being spent. What do we think he's doing there? Well, I'm sure he has reasons.
He's hiding his campaign expenditure. It's just really like truly pushing the boundaries of campaign finance.
So like we said, we're still waiting for this, the DC grand jury to act here. Here's what we know.
They sat for seven hours on Friday. Sounds uncomfortable.
They reportedly heard from no witnesses. And it was the same day that Trump's team met with the Department of Justice and Jack Smith's team.
So all the legal analysts, they think that Tuesday is the next meeting of the grand jury. So they think all signs are pointing to Tuesday as the day they vote on the indictment because it's not like there was a whole bunch of extra witnesses or evidence or something like that on Friday because they would have seen witnesses going in.
And the fact that they had the meeting means it's probably getting pretty close. We also saw on Friday on Georgia, they were putting up barricades in front of the Fulton County courtroom.
And the district attorney there, Fannie Willis, said in an interview that they are ready to go. They have done the work.
And at the very latest, she has promised that indictment or their decisions would be brought before September 1st. And then I think Alvin Bragg did an interview where he said that if necessary, he would move the hush money case if Jack Smith really needs to hold his trial on the January 6th stuff before the election.
What a gentleman, Alvin Bragg. Although just because my indictment was first doesn't mean my trial to be first.
Thank you. Although he also said he's not in control of moving the dates.
The judge would be sort of like, oh, yeah, I don't know if this works. There's just so many.
How this works is no one has five trials at the same time for different issues. Nobody.
So no. So what he says is that what he what Bragg said is like it would actually be up to the judge and the judges would have to confer.
Yeah. And also in Georgia, there's an August 10th hearing where Trump's team is going to try to disqualify Willis and also toss out a bunch of the evidence she collected and remove another Fulton County judge from the case.
So I wonder if she's going to let that hearing happen first before laying out her stuff or wait until after. Did you see there was one, there was an attempt to disqualify her, another attempt to disqualify her that was just rejected by a judge today? Yeah, that judge rejected that, rejected.
Yeah, it's sort of like, well, we're going to direct this batch of ridiculous claims about why you can't be tried today. And we're going to do it.
And you're going to lose again, but not till August 10th. It's hard to keep track.
So Trump's primary opponents had more to say than usual about his latest felony charges. Ron DeSantis told a reporter that, quote, if the election becomes a referendum on what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago, we are not going to win.
His campaign also hit Trump on the Super PAC story, accusing Trump of spending people's money on his own legal fees instead of defeating Joe Biden. Nikki Haley was on CBS this weekend.
She said the party needs to move beyond Trump or else, quote, we will have a general election that's doing nothing but dealing with lawsuits. And here's former Congressman Will Hurd.
Forgot he's running for president, didn't you? He's running for the Republican nomination. He's barely hit 1% in most polls.
But he went after Trump at that same Iowa dinner over the weekend that we just heard. Let's listen.
Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison. And if we elect, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.
Listen, I know the truth. The truth is hard.
But if we elect Donald Trump, we are willingly giving joe biden four more years in the white house and america can't handle that god bless you and god bless america i mean except for the last part everything he said was true truth was poorly perceived you're that one person clapping yeah it was a it was a will hurt staffer it was the one it was the one will hurt staffer yeah maybe it was his wife it just kills me watching like what a moment you could make out of being booed there's so many jokes there's so many things you could do with that these guys just don't have the they don't have the stuff i will say this is probably more covers than will hurt has gotten on any other day combined every other day combined i should say except for the first day so i don't know that this is going to help him win the nomination but it's certainly getting covered i also don't know if it will help him i mean listen like i don't think you're going to make that argument and people are going to be like oh you know what he's right but i think over time if you make it repeatedly over and over again the doubts creep into these voters head and the electability argument is the only thing i think that's going to reach the persuadable voters here. There might not be in that room, but.
I totally agree. I like good for him for making it.
Yeah, that's a party fundraiser. That's like a hardcore Republican audience.
That's like, yeah, you're not getting, you're not getting a lot of applause there. Why do you think it took felony counts 73 and 74 and 72 through 74 for these people to finally say something aside from Will Hart? I was surprised by Ron DeSantis suddenly being like, oh, wait a minute.
Wait a minute. He's not as electable if we have a criminal defendant as the nominee.
Yeah. Both Haley and DeSantis, like the other half of what they said is so cynical and so pathetic and speaks to the hole they've dug for themselves because they both make this point of saying, look, you talk about the chart.
I mean, they both issued it was all word salad, But both of them make this argument that, like, look, do I think there's prosecutorial overreach? Do I think it's unfair? Sure. But that's the reality we're living in.
And despite the fact that Donald Trump doesn't deserve any of what is happening to him, the reality is if these chargers are what people are talking about, that's going to hurt us. So the sin is not overthrowing the government or trying to put in some fake electors or obstruction of justice or deleting footage or whatever it is.
It's the sin of putting in a position to not win in November. So they're willing to go that far.
But it's in this embarrassingly obsequious way. Yeah.
And the reason why is, you know, Tommy made the point. It is like that is that is a crowd of sort of the most hardcore Republican activists.
But almost every poll of Republican voters, including the one we're about to talk about from The New York Times, shows that like upwards of 70 percent of the Republican electorate doesn't think Donald Trump committed any crimes at all. So, you know, when you say he's running to stay out of prison, most people don't agree with that and there are Republican voters.
So let's talk about the New York Times poll from today. Weighed in with its first survey of the Republican primary in 2024.
Trump, 54 percent. DeSantis, 17 percent.
And no one else broke 3 percent. National poll.
We pay attention to the New York Times poll, A plus rated. It's basically now up there with Ann Seltzer's Des Moines Register poll as the gold standard.
It had a lot of influence on their Democratic primary in 2020, as poor Elizabeth Warren knows. What were you guys' takeaways from the polls? Any specific findings jump out at you? I got a bunch, but you guys go first.
This was fascinating. Yes.
First of all, a terrible poll for anyone not named Trump. There's no really good news anywhere in it for any other candidate.
Here's the things that I thought most interesting. One, 17% said that Trump committed serious federal crimes.
But of those 17%, 22% of those voters still prefer Trump to DeSantis. Voters who are woke focused, right? Presumably

a group of people DeSantis has been trying to gather. This is the whole premise of his campaign

and how he's governed. Break for Trump, 61 to 36.
So it's a very pro-Trump poll. But this to me,

above all, was the most interesting. Above the 43% who had a very favorable opinion of Trump,

they vote for Trump 92 to 7. So if you have a strong, if you like Trump, you're with Trump.

I think that's what I'm saying. was like the most interesting.
Above the 43% who had a very favorable opinion of Trump, they vote for Trump 92 to seven. So if you have a strong, if you like Trump, you're with Trump.
Of the 25% who had a very favorable view of DeSantis, presumably the biggest DeSantis fans out there, the best he's doing, the people he's reached, they split 50-50. Of the 25% that are the most favorable DeSantis, those are still people breaking 50-50 over Trump.
And that just has to be so demoralizing. That has to be so demoralizing.
Yeah. I mean, I think the big picture takeaway is a third of the electorate is the MAGA base.
Another third is persuadable. A quarter of them do not want to vote for Trump, including some who say they will not vote for him in a general election.
So yeah, this is a terrible poll for everyone not named Donald Trump, but there's opportunity there if someone can consolidate the 37% persuadable and 25% never Trump. Now, like the MAGA base, this is my favorite stat, not one of the 319 respondents in the MAGA base section said Trump had committed serious federal climes.
2% said he did something wrong in the handling of classified documents. But in the not open to Trump primary, it is more educated, more affluent, more moderate.
So the challenge that all of these never Trump folks or not Trump folks are going to have is that's not a very Iowa electorate. And so the sequential nature of the nominating process is going to make it hard for them to get momentum early, I think.
So the other, I'm glad you brought up the three different segments of the electorate,

which is basically, it was the basis of the piece that Nate Cohn wrote a piece off this as well.

And so you've got the 37% that are the MAGA diehards.

And this is the same as what you were just saying, right?

Like the people who are very favorable towards Trump.

This is not just polling stuff. This is like, we see this in elections.
These are like the people who support him in early 2016. These are the people who are still with him after January 6th.
This is his base. Forget about that, right? And then you got the persuadables, what he calls the persuadables, which are the 37% and then the not open to Trump and the 25%.
The challenge for any other candidate, even if you don't have uh amazing political skills of ron de santis is the persuadables and the people who are not open to trump completely disagree on issues yeah and so funding for ukraine comprehensive uh and support for ukraine in general comprehensive immigration reform six-week abortion ban those groups of voters are on opposite sides of those. So if you want to try to get the persuadables who like Trump but are open to someone else and you're a more moderate candidate like a Chris Christie, you're not going to get those people.
And similarly, if you're someone like Ron DeSantis, who has taken some of those positions, it's going to be hard to get the never Trumper vote because they don't agree with you. They're not as conservative as you on in those positions.
And even even the group of people that are maybe the most amenable to an alternative college educated Republicans are still only breaking are still breaking to Trump by 12 points. Well, and in this poll and Nate and the Times does the poll matching the voter file, I looked, there were only 36% of the Republican electorate.
That's the problem. So like, even if you consolidated all the college educated Republicans, which is hard to do, like you're still, you still have an uphill battle.
I do think the electability thing is the only option. This is an actual quote from a voter in the New York Times story.
The best quote. Actual quote.
He might say mean things and make all the men cry because all the men are wearing your

wife's underpants and you can't be a man anymore.

David Green, 69, a retail manager in Somersworth, New Hampshire, said to Trump, of course he's

from New Hampshire.

You've got to be a little sissy and cry about everything.

But at the end of the day, you want results.

Donald Trump's my guy.

He proved it on a national level.

I don't think anyone has ever articulated why Donald Trump gets so much support better.

David Green.

Well, it's just like David Green from Somersworth, New Hampshire.

I didn't even know that was a town in new hampshire the media that that person is that guy's consuming absolutely it's just like newsmax of course these guys can't break through of course you of course nobody believes the charges of course they're having trouble making an argument against trump like all this guy is consuming day in and day out says that trump is the best and he's being railroaded. They did some attributes too.
Which of these attributes better describes Trump, which describes Ron DeSantis. Trump crushing DeSantis on strong leader, 69 to 22.
This is what Tommy made this point at the very beginning of this whole primary. Get things done, 67, 22, which was like DeSantis' whole thing is getting things done in Florida.
Electable, 5828 again. And then the number, the split that matched the actual top line poll result, fun.
54% think Trump is fun, 16% DeSantis. And the only thing that Trump loses on is likable slightly to DeSantis, which is sort of funny, and moral a lot.
Yeah, the likable one was confusing. It says more about Trump than I think about.
I think there's a lot of people who like Trump and want to vote for him, like him but think he's an asshole. Yeah, they mean he's an asshole.
They think he's a fun asshole. He's a fun asshole.
He's a fun asshole. That's what they're in this for.
We've talked about why this primary isn't being fought on policy, but this is the point that the poll makes. In a head-to-head matchup, Trump was ahead of DeS among republicans who accept transgender people as the gender they identify with and among those who don't among those who want to fight corporations that promise woke ideology and among those who prefer to stay out of business among those who want to send more military to ukraine among those who do not among who want to keep social security and medicare benefits among those who want to take steps to reduce the budget deficit he just he's crushing it's so broad it's not about issues well Well, no, but, well, just, yes, it's not about issues.
It's almost as if it's a cult of personality. You just assume you're better on all the things.
I mean, it's just better. The one interesting thing, because, you know, we have spent so much time making fun of Ron DeSantis for his horrible campaign, and we'll continue to right after this section.
But the favorability ratings are still, you know, 76% for Trump and 66% for DeSantis. And the way the Times writes it up, it has interviews with voters other than that fantastic quote that Tommy read, where people are like, I like him plenty.
I like Ron DeSantis. And next time he's the one, right? But he's just, Trump's accomplished stuff on a national level.
He's only done Florida. He's just not ready yet.
So these are people who actually do like Ron DeSantis, but they're just like, no, no, no, Trump's our guy. It's the same.
It's just the same trend from like since the very beginning. DeSantis makes them feel like their needs are met and Trump makes them feel like they have no needs.
And it has been the same from this entire primary. You mentioned the woke, the people who think woke is a big deal.
There was another question in the poll. Which of these two Republicans would you be more likely to support for president? A candidate who promises to fight corporations that promote woke left ideology, or a candidate who says the government should stay out of deciding what corporations can support? The latter wins? 52 to 38.
So even when you don't put Trump and DeSantis, just the idea that there is an appetite, even in the Republican Party, for someone who's going to go after corporations because they're too woke. It doesn't it's not real.
As this guy is announcing another lawsuit against Bud Light or an investigation into Bud Light because their stock went down because people like Ron DeSantis criticized Bud Light for being nice to one transgender. I think that shows how so online DeSantis is.
For sure. The DeSantis, Ben Shipp, that whole group, that doesn't actually have...
The support for Trump on the Republican Party is not about that. Yeah.
And you can also, there's a question about woke versus borders and law and order. It's still the immigration shit, the law and order shit.
That's all the reason that, you know, to the extent that it's about any policies. And if there's any connection at all between DeSantis's inability to have a human interaction with anyone on the campaign trail and this, it's that like, he's just trying to pander, but he doesn't get the people he's trying to pander well enough to make a mark.
Like, you know, he did this economic rollout and he's like, I'm going to fight, I'm going to I'm gonna take I'm gonna end Joe Biden's war on crypto he's interviewed about RFK Jr. and he's like he'd make a great head of this fucking CDC like who is that a pander for well he just stepped on a rake so hard he was like yeah I'm gonna piss off all these libs by saying I would make RFK Jr.
CDC director and Mike Pence of all people like not the most, is like immediate press release. Yeah, this guy wants to name a pro-choice individual to lead the CDC.
Like absolutely hurts himself every time he tries to do something. I pundit.
Well, I mean, speaking of DeSantis' interactions with voters, their new strategy of letting Ron be Ron already seems to be paying dividends.

Let's listen.

Yeah, it's good to meet you, too.

Oh, what is that?

An icy?

An icy?

Yeah, that's probably a lot of sugar, huh?

Have a beer, Wynn, as always.

Well, I'm here.

I don't know.

I'm just kidding.

I'm not proud.

Okay, all right.

It's good.

It's good.

All right, we'll say hi to everyone.

Yeah, the first one was Ron DeSantis trying to tell a little girl to put her icy down. It's so funny.
The fun comment is so telling. I mean, for a lot of people, we all despise Donald Trump, but he's a horrible person, he did bad things to the country.
But a lot of his voters love watching his rallies. They travel across the country to go to them.
It's like a carnival them and you can i can't imagine anything less enjoyable than watching ron de santis talk about almost literally anything or like imagine meeting a uh meeting a kid who's uh who's got an icy and being like a lot of sugar on that you're at a fair that's where you eat sugar you moron i got tunnel cake and shut up i gotta tell you ronis is growing on me if i see one more interaction with this guy having absolutely no ability to interact with anyone i'm just falling in love look at this poor foot this guy so broken the hole in his bucket he's got to fill it with with politics he can't make it work he can't appeal to normal people what a curse this guy's living i love it get him a one shirt or one jacket or vest that doesn't have his name on it you You don't have to have your name on all your clothing. Are you at camp? Are you going to lose something? What's happening? He's terrible.
Yeah. It's really.
I mean, I don't have anything else to say. We're now at the point where we've done all the Ron DeSantis analysis we can do.
We're just playing clips now. There's nothing else to do.
I love what? Let him cook. The second clip was just somewhat.
He like some woman's just she's got a beer he's got a beer she's like here you are drinking beer i'm drinking beer it really does having fun on the campaign chair like you really can feel the difference when a candidate is having fun like there were times when barack obama hated every minute of his day like the first year most of his time in New Hampshire. Look, here's the thing.
I want to see a candidate, have a go to a pie shop, have a charming interaction with some shop owner, say, I'll have an apple and a blueberry, have a huge smile on their face, get in the car, and just throw them in the garbage. That's what I'm looking for.
That's what you want in a president. You know who seems like he's mostly having a good time when he's campaigning? Joe Biden.
I will say that about him. Even your guy Chris Christie, like, you know what? He didn't agree with you on a lot of stuff, but he was like having fun, mixing it up, fighting back, talking shit, you know? He's just like, he has a charismatic, normal person.
Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, like they smile. They smile naturally.
Ron DeSantis smiles like he stepped on a Lego. It's too big.
It's too big. His laugh is his laugh is too big everything about it it's just there's a lot of other stuff there's time he has money but my god man you can't fix that though that's the thing that's talent that's that's why that's why i like him now you can't fix that i will say um echelon insights finally just did a poll uh that just came out today doing head-to-head matchups with trump and other candidates besides desantis because so they've only done, it doesn't get any better for any of the other ones.
It's like 70-20 Tim Scott, 70-20 Nikki Haley. Now, again, it's all early, but we're not talking, we're not talking like 20 points.
We're not talking 30 points. We're talking 50 points.
Was that a national poll? Yeah. I mean, the name idea is probably like so low yeah the point nate cohen made i believe

is that we're it's not early anymore it's five and a half months and no candidate that's been up by

20 at this point in these polls has lost the nomination and he's up by more than double yeah

and so does that mean this can't change no this may this is a unique primary we've never had a

candidate uh who's a former president charged with multiple felonies before let's see how that shakes

out but right now, man.

Yeah.

Tough sledding.

And you got to be, again, I think the idea that Donald Trump is vulnerable,

politically vulnerable, even within the Republican Party, is one that I buy.

But you still have to beat.

You can't beat something with nothing.

And so far, we have a lot of nothing.

And there's a Ron DeSantis in the parking space that's going to have to move.

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Comedy Central's The Daily Show, new tonight at 11 on Comedy Central and streaming next day on Paramount+. All right, let's do a quick roundup of some other headlines.
Justice Sam Alito is once again whining in the pages of the Wall Street Journal about how his branch of government should be able to get away with whatever it wants. In an interview that ran last week, he said, I know this is a controversial view, but I'm willing to say it.
No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court, period. He was commenting on recent efforts by Senate Democrats to impose ethics reform on the court.
And of course, one of the authors of the piece that features the interview with Alito is a lawyer who has business before the court next term. Look, there is nothing in the Constitution that says a dog can't be Speaker of the House.
That is the level. That is the level that we're at.
These guys literally think they're above the law. I mean, I don't know what happens now.
So the Senate Democrats are moving this legislation. It's going to get blocked by Republicans.
There was some talk early, like maybe there'd be bipartisan ethics reform. Like that was never going to pass the House.
Now it doesn't look like it's going to pass the Senate either. John Roberts refuses to do anything.
So I guess we're just waiting for Alito or Thomas to retire. Yeah.
I mean, I think, look, that core problem with the court is that there's this big conservative majority, and that is not going to change until someone retires. I do think there's a medium term problem, which is that these guys think they're above the law and they say things like what Alito said in this interview.
The takeaway for me from all of the most recent rounds of whining from various Supreme Court justices is they really, really hate scrutiny. They hate media scrutiny.
They're offended by ProPublica's existence. And I hope that shames legacy outlets into doing a little less access journalism and a little more digging into these people because they are far too comfortable in these like big donor right wing ideological circles with leonard leo and the federalist society and it is i think changing the way they vote on stuff and it would be helpful to have some sort of ethics reform it is remarkable even how far alito who's always been one of if not the most right-wing judge has how far he's come in terms of his willingness to just sort of defy tradition and speak publicly.
In his confirmation hearing, he's very clear, you know, judges shouldn't be coming out there and, you know, basically just sort of improv-ing about issues that could come before the court. He's out there.
Not only is he saying that he thinks the Supreme Court can't be regulated by Congress, he's asked, do the other justices agree? He says, I don't know that any of my colleagues have spoken about it publicly, I don't think I should say but I think it is something we have all thought about and as our friends at strict scrutiny pointed out this is basically like kind of like Some version of an advisory opinion saying if you pass a law like this we will will overturn it Strix scrutiny did a great job on us So go check it out. No, I mean here's what here's what we can do uh go donate some money and help out uh shard brown john tester and some of these uh really close senate races and then flip the house then you know in that sense we can maybe get some ethics reform and but the senate's even more important because one of these guys retires we're going to need a democratic president and democratic senate to uh get a new justice in there or else uh're going to get more of this.
Here's a story we can do something about. Punchbowl News reported last week that Republican Congressman Derek Van Orden was giving a tour of the Capitol when he came across a group of teenage Senate pages.
These are a type of interns for people who don't know. They help out in the Capitol.
They're around 17 years old.

And they were lying on the ground in the Capitol Rotunda taking photos.

Which a lot of people do, by the way.

Which a lot of people do.

And here is what the congressman said to them.

Wake the fuck up, you little shits.

What the fuck are you all doing?

Get the fuck out of here.

You are defiling the spaces, you piece of shit.

I don't give a fuck who you are.

I'm a congressman. Van Orden was at the Stop the Steal rally on January 6th and represents a very flippable district in Wisconsin.
We should probably replace him with someone else, huh? Yeah, that'd be good. He was apparently drinking in his office before this.
And also, he's a former Navy SEAL. So this isn't some bookish nerd screaming in the faces of a 16-year-old that they're a little shit and they're defiling the Capitol.
It's a big, intimidating veteran who also yelled at a bunch of librarians back in the day because he was very mad about a pride flag in a, in a, at a library somewhere in Wisconsin. I think we need more people to yell at teens.
Do you think they're just getting too big for their britches? Yeah. You get a bunch of teens.
He does get points for novel defense of himself. He said something about how the Capitol Rotunda was once a field hospital during the Civil War.
Yeah, what was that? Get out of here. This was once a field hospital during the Civil War.
You can't take pictures. Anyway, we heard about this story.
We, of course, reached out to Ben Wickler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, and we put together a link that you can donate to Van Orden's eventual opponent because we don't have a Democratic nominee yet for that seat, but we will eventually.

So we'll tweet out again from all of our accounts if you want to give.

I just have to say, so this got like bipartisan condemnation.

It's one of those rare things. All of the Senate.
Yeah. Except, except, you see what Kevin McCarthy said? Yeah.
Kevin McCarthy said this. It wasn't, first of all, he said it wasn't the norm for that congressman, which is, as Tommy just suggested, is not true.
Think about all the times he gets drunk and doesn't yell at teens. Well, then he said this.
I guess the interns have some ritual of laying down or something like that. I think it's a misunderstanding of all sides.
This is what happens when you need literally every vote to stay speaker. I love it.
You defend everything. He is just pathetic.
Well, we have more to say about Kevin McCarthy. The Daily Beast has a story that about a month ago, while Republicans were voting to censure Adam Schiff, California Democrat Eric Swalwell yelled,

you're weak at Kevin McCarthy.

The next day, Swalwell was on his way to the bathroom

when McCarthy got in his face and said,

quote, call me a pussy again and I'll kick your ass.

To which Swalwell responded, you are a pussy.

That cadence is documented in the Daily Beast. To which McCarthy responded by walking away.
Said nothing. This story is sourced to two house members who declined to give their names.
Do you guys think one of them was Eric Swalwell? Yeah. I love it.
I love the whole thing. I like that also we're just sort of like, just sort of like, there's just that part of us.
It's like, ha ha, Kevin McCarthy didn't physically fight Eric Swalwell. Therefore, he sucks.
Well, it is funny, though. Like he goes, you're weak.
And then he comes up to me. He's like, don't call me a pussy.
So weird. I also like that.
This didn't just happen on an average Thursday when they're voting on like renaming a post office. This was right before the prime minister of India addressed a joint session of Congress.
So these guys almost threw down before like the eyes of the world were on the U.S. Congress.
My only take on this is I think more members of Congress should just fight. Well, we didn't even work it out.
Have we talked about the Marjorie, the ongoing Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, will they, won't they fight each other? There's's been like multiple accounts i think many of them from the daily beast of those two on the floor almost getting into blows as well or they're in the bathroom they're on the floor look here's the thing everyone needs to come everybody should go on get get them on vacation get them get them out of that place the slower the slow erosion of like every civic virtue in virtue in this society has been just really frustrating and hard to experience. But if it does result in physical confrontations between the Speaker of the House and a Democrat or between Lauren Boebert and Martin Taylor Greene, I don't know.
Okay. See, I'm not with you there.
I think this isn't an erosion. I think this is a throwback to the old school ways of doing stuff in Congress when we used to cane each other and do other things.
Also, like, Swallow's a pretty big guy. I think he played soccer in Maryland.
So, I don't know. I like our odds here.
Yeah, I do too. I think we should bring back the canings.
I want to see Kevin McCarthy's hold me back guy. He's like a Chip Roy.
It's toxic masculinity all over the place. Absolutely.
That's what this is. We're coded in toxic masculinity.
I told the story about the Eric Swalwell thing in New York, and this progressive audience, they were like, he called him a pussy and he didn't fight. They freaked out.
They loved it so much. We're all just a bunch of apes running around wearing suits.
The other Republican leader on the Hill has had a tough week. Mitch McConnell was in the middle of giving a statement at a press conference when he froze up and apparently lost the ability to speak.
It's a pretty scary thing to watch. McConnell was hospitalized back in March for a bad fall that kept him out of the Senate for six weeks and reportedly has had another fall since then.
Of course, President Biden called him immediately after the press conference to see how he was doing. And here's what Donald Trump said to Breitbart about the episode.
That was a sad thing to see. He had a bad fall, I guess, and probably an after effect of that.
But it was also sad that he gave trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars to the Democrats to waste on the Green New Deal, destroying our oceans and destroying our great beautiful vistas and planes all over our country with windmills that are very expensive energy. So that's a very sad thing also.
At the same time, I hope he's well. Honestly, for him, not bad.
Mostly okay. She's like, got into windmills? How did we get that? He hates the windmills.
He does hate the windmills. He really hates the windmills.
You get from like, what do you think of Mitch McConnell's episode to windmills? Mitch McConnell didn't give the Democrats any money for that. He didn't support the IRA.
It wasn't the Green New Deal. I think he was referencing the IRA.
Mitch McConnell tried to stop that. He didn't.
It was a bunch of reconciliation thing. It's very confusing.
Yeah, I think it was John Oliver who several years ago did a piece where they had some other third party, just a random person, do a reading, not dramatic or otherwise, just a reading of a section of a Trump speech. And it is just incoherent gibberish, top to bottom.
And I think this is a great example. In that Breitbart interview, he also, Trump was bragging about his endorsements.
And this I enjoyed. He said, Ron DeSantis is one.
Take a look at Ron DeSantis. He had no choice until I endorsed him.
He wouldn't be, he could be right now at a law firm or working at a pizza place so that was his take i do not think he has the personality to be in a customer service position no no he cannot he cannot interface with the customer maybe he could be in the back of the kitchen flip the pies no he can't he does not he does not have that delivering those pizzas he's trying to he's basically trying to deliver pizzas now without the pizzas he's knocking on doors it's not going going well. It's not going well.
No one wants it. No one wants your pizza, sir.
Maybe he should bring some pizzas. I need to start.
All right. Finally, in case you missed it, Air Force Major David Grush made some explosive claims at a congressional hearing last week about UFOs, or if you're real smart, UAPs.
That's what they're called these days. I don't know.
What's wrong with you? Unidentified flying objects was good. It wasn't broken.
Why are we fixing it? UAP is Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. All right.
I know. That's if you're, yeah, you think you're great.
Here's a clip of his exchange with Congresswoman Nancy Mace. You stated that the government is in possession of potentially non-human spacecraft.
Based on your experience and extensive conversations with experts, do you believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials? Something I can't discuss in public setting. Okay, I can't ask when you think this occurred.
If you believe we have crashed craft, stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft? As I've stated publicly already in my News Nation interview, biologics came with some of these recoveries. Were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics? Non-human, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program.
And was this documentary evidence, this video, photos, eyewitness? Like, how would that be determined? The specific documentation I would have to talk to you in a skiff about. Gotcha.
Non-human biologics. What do you guys think?

Oh, that I want this to be good and true.

He's, the kookiness,

the kookiness of this guy

who's also claimed that Mussolini

found an alien craft

and through the Pope

contacted the US government

to be part of the original cover-up.

There's no evidence. He doesn't have any evidence to provide uh apparently he did go to the u.s he was cleared to say these things in other words that they're not secrets so he's not divulging any government secrets um i i just i think this is a lot of people having fun in a hearing and nobody being the adult who's going to say no one's willing to say this isn't it yeah I think even the people chairing the hearing were like welcome to the most popular subcommittee hearing in history they're just in on the fun and the press coverage also way to name drop the News Nation there sorry pal I said in apparently miss.
Don't want you to repeat yourself there. I guess you were too busy having premarital sex, Nancy Mace, to watch my phenomenal News Nation interview.
We might have to offer some context there in a second. Oh, yeah.
No. Sorry.
So she said at a prayer breakfast that she couldn't fuck because she had to go to the prayer breakfast. And then she got into trouble for that.
And then she said she was and the republicans like we don't like when women joke about sex we like what tim scott does nothing nothing he's a ken doll down there and that's what we want anyway aliens aliens too much i mean no i think it's just enough i'm open to aliens existing i believe these two navy pilots are at the hearing said they keep seeing weird stuff that accelerate in ways they can't explain like they have no reason lie. But this guy, he also said that the program is above congressional oversight and paid for by misappropriation of funds.
Again, that would create some sort of paper trail that I feel like someone could find. He says he knows that people have been harmed or injured by efforts to cover up what happened, maybe even killed.
Those people would have families. Like I think the government is really bad at keeping secrets and holding together conspiracies that's why they don't often happen there's there's one guy who was pretty high up in the government who is famously bad at keeping secrets or handling classified information and if there was something out there we would have heard it from him or Barack Obama it is Barack Obama or Donald Trump would have told someone else or he would have leaked it somewhere.
The other thing is this guy, this guy basically admits he has no firsthand knowledge of these purported programs. He hasn't seen any craft or he hasn't he hasn't seen any alien dead pilots.
He said he's repeating what other people have told him. So it's hearsay.
And, you know, he has approached along with others, the New York Times, the Post, the Politico were all offered the story. None of them wanted to run it because they ran it down and they didn't find it is credible enough to run.
Yeah. And there's been, I think, questions, too, in the years since the Times ran that story about the provenance of that Times story.
That was like the first big story. And I think they feel burned.
Yeah. Yeah dean bickay was like oh cool uh but uh yeah like i i agree like like yes there have been kind of unexplainable videos that actual pilots and actual members of the military have seen they can't explain them the leap then to there's a government bunker with um alien ships i also believe is plausible.
said, we've likely been aware of non-human activity since the 1930s. So again, it's just a very long time to keep a secret through various administrations, lots of people that would have knowledge of this, unless it was so secret that whatever they were working on or studying was kept away from all presidents and political hires or anybody that would touch this stuff i just i

find it a little hard to believe i'm just waiting for an rfk junior policy speech about this he seems like he'd be writing on this that's a good rfk junior elon musk i think the all-in guys there's like a nexus of people that i could totally see jumping off yeah yeah there's also there's also just such a

like

human Hiding it with Bitcoin. Yeah, yeah.
Hiding it with Bitcoin. There's also just such a human-centric view of all of this.
There's such a, what's the word? Chauvinism about being a person that the assumption is that, oh, there must be a craft with a pilot. What? Oh, because that's how we do it.
And the fact that's just, and the fact that all of the, like, if you look at the map of reports of UFOs, they're very heavily concentrated in the English speaking world because thinking that there are UFOs is a very big phenomenon in English speaking countries. Yeah, and we also recently learned that the Chinese have been flying gigantic spy balloons over our country at 60,000 feet.
Like there's lots of weird stuff going on up there. There's lots of weather balloons.
There's lots of unexplained phenomenon. There's lots of weird new weather patterns.
Like who knows? So Tommy, can you tell us? I wish I did. Your wife asked me every time she drinks.
Is that what she asked you? And I was going to say, and unfortunately times when she doesn't drink. I'm like, listen, I wish I knew about the moon landing, but no one would have told me for obvious reasons.
Anyway, no aliens. Well, hold on a second.
As far as we know. As far as we know.
As far as we know. As far as we know.
Hold on a second. It's a big universe out there.
At least this hearing has not proved. This hearing did not prove that there are any of them.
Proves that this guy wants to make some cash money. And I support that because it's America and George Santos is in Congress and you get yours.

All right.

Before we get to the interview,

two quick housekeeping notes.

On Tuesday, August 8th,

abortion rights are on the ballot in Ohio.

There will be a ballot measure

in that state this November

to pass a constitutional amendment

guaranteeing abortion access.

But since the Republicans

who control the state legislature

do not want that to happen,

they created another ballot measure

for August 8th

that would raise the threshold

for passing constitutional amendments

from a simple majority

See you next time. of the state legislature do not want that to happen, they created another ballot measure for August 8th that would raise the threshold for passing constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60%.
So if you want to help stop that measure from passing in a few weeks, we have volunteer opportunities to help get out the vote all week. Head to votesaveamerica.com slash Ohio to learn more.
Last but not least, Lydia Kiesling's Mobility, the first novel from Crooked Reads,

is finally out.

You can get your copy at crooked.com slash mobility

or wherever books are sold.

Here's some advanced praise,

a beautifully written

and stunningly smart novel,

a cautionary tale for our times.

Tommy, you had a great conversation

with Lydia at an event here in LA

on Thursday that we're about

to hear a portion of.

What should people know

about Lydia in this book? First of all, I love Lydia. We did this event last week,

Dynasty Typewriter, The House that John Lovett Built. Is it my time slot?

Bunch of folks came out. We talked about the book, about writing in general.
It's fiction.

It's a novel. It's a really fun novel that follows the main character, Bunny, from her time as a

teenager, as a foreign service brat in Azerbaijan, to her adulthood working in the energy industry. And, you know, it's a human story, but it's also about sort of the lies we tell ourselves when we know we're not doing something that is right.
The sprawling nature of the energy business. And I don't know, just really great.
She's incredibly smart and I think you'll all love it.

Where do they come down on windmills?

I think the pro windmills.

Just want to make sure.

But I'll double check with Lydia.

Anyway,

you are all after the break

about to hear

a portion of the conversation

between Tommy and Lydia.

Everyone go buy mobility.

Crooked.com slash mobility

or wherever books are sold.

Check it out now.

When we come back,

Lydia Kiesling. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Mario's Bistro.
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Thank you so much, Tommy. and thank you to zando and crooked media um who have worked so so hard on this um and yeah i'm just so happy to be here and thanks to all of you for coming out and to uh dynasty typewriter the book is deeply researched bunny's deeply researched at this point um both the industry, but also the scenes feel so real.
And you were telling me that you did some pseudo detective work to kind of make those scenes come to life. Can you tell us a bit about that process? Yes.
So a lot of the book was written, I wrote part of the book before COVID started. And then it kind of ground to a halt when the pandemic began.
And then I went back to it, but obviously, you know, there was no like going anywhere during those time periods for research. And also, you know, when you're writing a novel, you have no idea whether anyone will ever like pay you money for it usually.
So I couldn't really justify like an expenditure, you know, of going to like travel. So I sort of said I had to try and sell it.
And then I would go and kind of see some things in person. And the timing worked such that right after I sold it, I got, I subscribed to like all these horrible email lists from the oil and gas industry.
And I saw that there was going to be a luncheon to honor women in energy in Houston, you know, the next month. So, and you could buy a ticket as a member of the press.
So I went to that. And I feel, I feel kind of bad because I was sitting at a table with like one of the honorees and, and I was like, I was, they, they put the honorees like at all the tables and I was the press and they're like, so what, what do you write for? And like, I've written for, you know, some big outlets.
So I was like, you know, the New York Times, I didn't misrepresent myself that I just didn't, I didn't say more. But, you know, so like some impressions may have been left.
And I, and I just kind of listened and it was really fascinating because first of all, like apparently some like sexist thing had happened like the night before with among like the organizers. And so like the people at the table were talking about this and I was like, wow, even the fucking women in energy, like awards luncheon are still subjected to this.
And yeah, there was like a keynote by someone who had been in the FBI and there was just a lot like it was and it was sponsored by like Deloitte and Schlumberger and like all the big oil and gas companies.

And yeah, that was like my first subterfuge.

Oh, I also told the Petroleum Club of Houston that I was interested in holding my wedding there.

How'd that go?

I was like, I'm only in town for this one day, like to see my dream wedding venue. And I mean, it was, it was kind of like, once I got up there, I was like, I could have just asked to see it just because I wanted to, but it was way more fun to be like, my reception is going to be amazing in the Aramco room with the view of the city.
I mean, it is, you know, it's got amazing views. So yeah, there's a little subterfuge, some light.
And then I just drove through a lot of kind of refinery infrastructure. I wasn't going to really try and sneak into the works.
Offshore rig, yeah. Yeah.
I just go out in a canoe. No, it didn't extend that far.
That's so funny. You said it was your wedding.
They like, they're like having to do a cake tasting in the back. I'm just going to take you guys down for being honest.
The other parts of the book that felt so real to me were when Bunny's in Baku, she's living at the embassy. You nailed the like kind of shitty intergovernmental relationships between the State Department people and the CIA staffers who all kind of don't like each other but have to coexist.
And then I learned you grew up in a foreign service family. So this is something you sort of witnessed yourself over the years? Yeah, I did grow up in the foreign service.
We were not posted to Baku, but we had a number of overseas postings. And yeah, I had a, I mean, I mean, a lot of writing this book, I think is, was the process of sort of like unlearning the, the attitudes.
I would call it sort of like American supremacy that you just imbibe when that's how you grow up. It doesn't, I think anyone who's sort of living overseas in some sort of government capacity like that, you know, whether it's military or foreign service, like that's, that's sort of how you think of things.
So I was like, writing the book was like sort of a nostalgia for that time, but also kind of like working out of my system to be like, that's, I, you know, I, I no longer like feel that America is like a beacon in the world as I, you know, might once. You're not projecting American power by virtue of your posting in Greece or whatever.
Yeah, no, I get that. So your father, you were telling me your father quit, resigned from the state department in protests in advance of the Iraq war.
Was that hard for you guys? I mean, I was in college when it happened it happened so my my life was hard for other reasons um i was just yeah i mean that was just a strange time um for for everyone involved i mean i think yeah i mean he's like yeah i think that's so courageous that's all i have to say i mean it i Look, we were talking about this backstage. I was 23 at the time.
The drumbeat for war in Washington where I was living was so intense. People who objected were silenced so quickly and so harshly.
The gears of government were expected to ramp up and all just be in support of this thing. To be one of those lonely voices that stood up that stood up at the time when there was the maximum pressure and be like, I'm not going to go along with this.
It's incredibly brave. And I imagine quite difficult, but like, I don't know people, the, the bummer about these brave stans is I don't think that people get the credit they deserve in hindsight when they were right.
Like look at Sinead O'Connor were just now being like, Oh yeah, she had a point about the Pope. Well, yeah.
I mean, I think there's a lot of people now who are like, well, of course the Iraq war was a disaster. And it's like the same people who were like, this seems like a great idea.
I mean, there's been, I mean, for that whole era of, you know, American politics and sort of media coverage, there's no accountability for, I mean, the war on terror is just, which is, you know, ongoing. yeah, I mean, we were talking about this, like that's one of the sort of sub themes in the book.
I read a lot about the war on terror years and not all of it made its way into the book, but I was sort of thinking of it similarly to working in oil and gas above a certain level. Um's just, there's certain kind of like mistakes and like crimes that are so big that they are, they're never acknowledged because acknowledging them would mean like accountability.
And that's, people are very eager to avoid that. Especially if you look at oil and gas companies, they're all like, we're now green tech companies.
Nothing's wrong. We're fine.
We're the energy transition. We're beyond petroleum.
It's literally the name. So did you go into the book intending to use fiction and novel and these characters in the story as a vehicle to educate people about the energy industry, or did that just kind of happen along the way? That definitely happened on the way.
I, I, I was interested in writing about that kind of upbringing and that sort of like, cause I think I obviously can't speak for like other people who have lived overseas or, you know, in, in kind of unfamiliar places when they're kids and teenagers. But in my case, you know, there was definitely you, you're, you're, you grow up being told like, Oh, this is such a, this is such an enriching experience that you're having.
And you, you know, you have so much like insight now because of this experience, but then you realize it's like, no, you're just being an American in like another location. It doesn't, you know, there's still like a huge amount of insularity to that experience.
And so I was wanted to kind of play with that and think about it. And also I'm just interested in teenage girls and I wanted to talk about a teenage girl who was familiar to me.
But as I was, you know, for a while, I, it's like, you know, Bunny was there, but I had no kind of justification for her other than that. I was just kind of like clowning this teenage girl for no reason.
and sort of that kind of like foreign service,

like embassy lifestyle. But then as I was reading, because my family had been posted to Yerevan Armenia in 1997.
And so I was, you know, I didn't want to write necessarily like directly about that, but I wanted to stay kind of in the zone. And I was, I read a book called The Oil in the glory by the former wall street journal journalist, Steve Levine.
And that was, it's an amazing book. And it's about basically like the, the rush for Caspian oil reserves after the collapse of the Soviet union and like specifically Chevron and BP kind of like duking it out.
And so when I read that, I was like, oh my God, I want to write about this. And I went kind of too far in that direction for a while, just like writing all these like random weird oil men.
And then I realized I needed to like take it back to my teenage girl and figure out a way to kind of weave it in. And then it sort of went from there.
Then I suddenly had like a justification for Bunny as a, you a, um, you know, main character of a story. So you have this sort of spectrum of interesting views of characters in the book.
Like there's literal like oil and gas executives. There's kind of like sort of the parody of sort of the, the super liberal critique of the industry.
And there's Bunny who's sort of this naive person who brings us through all the years of the story. Why did you decide to have her at the center of everything? So actually when I, when my first book came out after, in the like year or two after I had a couple of occasions when I was driving to LA for some sort of book thing and driving there and back from San Francisco when we lived there.
And I started listening to the audio book of the novel oil by Upton Sinclair. They later made, that's what There Will Be Blood is based on, although they have like almost nothing in common.
I think he used like the first 30 pages and then just like threw away the rest of the book. I option it.
That's kind of expensive. I mean, you know, I'm sure he had it.
They're both, you know, it was like a generative work of art that created another work of art, but they have no bearing on each other.

And but so the main character of oil, the novel, is named Bunny. He's a boy and he starts out as like a young, like a tween or a teenager.
And he's like a little oil scion and he follows his father around and watches as he like buys up oil leases. And then he meets like a noble socialist who kind of teaches him about, you know, workers and the oil fields.
And it just sort of follows him for like hundreds of pages. And so then I realized like he's kind of, I think useful idiot actually has like a literal meaning that I might not be like correctly using, but he's kind of a blank slate.
Like he just is our guide through, cause Upton Sinclair had like big messages that he was trying to get through and he really wanted to educate the reader about all of these different systems. So I think that helped me a lot because I, I was like, well, what if funny, but a teenage girl and, you know, in the kind of, in the neoliberal era and, you know, with a teenage girl's like painful insecurity and powers of observation, which the bunny of Sinclair's novel, like didn't have to quite the same extent.
And so I had, it was a balancing act to kind of keep her like in that state of naivete so that we could learn with her and from her, um, which sometimes I think kind of strains credulity that she could be so actually, no, it doesn't. Cause I meet people all the time who are like, exactly like her, but, um, and, and myself have been, have been like her, but yes, she, I needed her to, um, I needed her to be a vehicle in that way.
she's very fun to follow. I mean, the challenge that we've had, like talking about climate change, it can be really hard, right? Because it's such a big problem.
It's hard to feel hopeful about it. It's hard to feel some sort of agency or help people feel like they still have some agency when things are getting kind of dire.
How did you wrestle with those challenges in the book? And yet the desire to educate people about this thing happening around us that we still have some time to impact, but is not going great. Well, I think I, I really like gave up on the, I don't think fiction is like, I don't, although I just said all that

about Optin Sinclair, like educating people through his novel, I don't ultimately think that

I think of fiction more as like a, as a documentation project rather than necessarily

like a didactic or like educational one. I mean, I think, you know, people's talk a lot about like

fiction as a vehicle for empathy and like, yes, that in some cases like is true, but I don't think

that empathy necessarily like spurs action usually just more as like cathartic. And so I wasn't really like, there were some moments where I'm kind of like, people need to know, you know, like that these oil companies are, they're all connected, man.
But I, I really like pretty early was like, this isn't going to be a novel that's like, because I mean, it's functionally erasing the many people who aren't like Bunny. I mean, there are a lot of people who, you know, gestures with some of the characters who are thinking differently than Bunny and actively like resisting the state of affairs.
But what I felt like I could bring to the page was my knowledge of like, you know, elite white spaces

and sort of white millennial woman, um, head in the sand vibes. And, you know, that it felt like that was something that I could like document, um, in a meaningful way.
And that's not necessarily like educational. Um, I mean, mean, because I don't, you know, I struggled with like, I don't want to, you know, write a novel that's like, it's doomed, but you know, the way oil and gas companies are behaving and the way we are allowing them to behave, like it is, I mean, for people who have already died, like that the future is like foreclosed upon them already, you know? So I think it's appropriate to be like, to acknowledge that and, and say sometimes things like don't have to be hopeful.
I, my, the way I kind of justified it to myself sometimes, because I was like, well, this, there's some like bleak, there's some really like sort of bleak currents in the book is that, you know, you can do like doom on the sheets of paper, but like action in the streets and you don't, you can put, you can put that on your tote bag. I love that.
No, that should absolutely, we'll go to brunch and talk about that. Um, what are you reading? Anything you like? So I just read a wonderful novel, um, called enter ghost by Isabella Hamad.
And it's about doing a performance of Hamlet in the, in Palestine and in the West bank. And it's a beautiful novel.
She also wrote a novel called the Parisian, which is a wonderful novel. I also want, I think these people are in the audience, but my book comes out on August 1st and so does Eden Lepucky.
Her novel is called Time's Mouth and it's amazing. And, yay.
And Carrie Howley wrote a book who is a genius, wrote a book called Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs about the security state and reality winner that came out a few months ago. And that is a really like haunting work of narrative nonfiction.
And then about, you know, I did like, I read so many books for this book and some books that really kind of made me think a lot. And I, you know, I'm not like many people have read them already, but This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein is a wonderful book.
And a book called Revolutionary Power by Shalonda Baker, who I think now holds a position in the Department of Energy, was really instructive for thinking about how the energy transition might just end up allowing the same people to kind of profit if we don't fundamentally change and sort of dismantle the systems that we have. Those were really useful books for me.
Thank you all for coming out. Really appreciate it.
Thank you. Please buy a book, buy two, buy one for a friend's.
And thanks again. All right.
Thanks everyone. We will talk to you later this week.
Have a good one. Buy mobility.
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