Indictment Excitement (with Chris Christie!)

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Music Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau. Dan has timed his vacation perfectly to this slow news week.
So I am very lucky to be joined by Meddy Hassan, host of the Meddy Hassan Show on MSNBC and Peacock. Meddy, welcome back.
Jon, thanks for having me back. I just finished taping my own show.
I'm here in the DC Bureau. Excited to be with you.
Excited to have you. We have a big show today.
In a first for us, the Republican primary comes to Pod Save America. John Lovett and Chris Christie went into a New York City podcast studio yesterday and only one of them came out.
You can hear that very lively conversation at the end of today's episode. For that, Mehdi and I are going to talk about Ron DeSantis firing a third of his campaign staff, including a speechwriter who shared some Nazi propaganda online and what today's good economic news means for Joe Biden's political prospects.
But first, Republicans are responding to Trump's multiple indictments by threatening to impeach Joe Biden based on various investigations into right wing conspiracies that have yet to uncover any actual evidence. They got a three year old document where some Ukrainian businesswoman allegedly told an FBI informant that Biden was involved in a bribery scheme, a claim that Donald Trump's Justice Department already looked into and found nothing worth investigating.

And they've got a couple IRS agents who've testified that Joe Biden's Justice Department interfered in the investigation into Hunter Biden, a claim that the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in charge of the investigation has repeatedly denied and in fact announced in court yesterday that he may bring additional charges against Biden's son.
Naturally, this led to the Speaker of the House floating an impeachment inquiry on Sean Hannity's show. Let's listen.
If you're sitting in our position today, we would know none of this if Republicans had not taken the majority. We've only followed where the information has taken us.
But Hannity, this is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed. Because this president has also used something we have not seen since Richard Nixon.
Used the weaponization of government to benefit his family and deny Congress the ability to have the oversight. And then the next day, McCarthy maybe kind of walked it back.
OK, now you all understand because you've worked here for a long time. You understand what impeachment inquiry is.
It's not impeachment. It allows Congress to investigate by giving Congress the full power to get the information made.
It's the way people should go about investigating. All right, Mehdi.
So up until now, McCarthy hasn't gone along with the kooks in his caucus who want to impeach Biden. Why do you think he seems to be changing his mind? I think he's, I mean, do we know he's changing his mind? I mean, as you said, you just played those clips.
He's playing, you know, he chooses his words as carefully as he can for a speaker who has no power. Remember, John, this is a guy who came in, what, 15th ballot? He won 15th time round.
If at first you don't succeed, try 14 more times. He got the job.
We all know he came in as the weakest speaker ever. I'm reminded, John, do you remember during Paul Ryan's speakership, someone amended the Wikipedia page for invertebrates in Paul Ryan's photo.
I just feel like stick in McCarthy. He's been way more spineless than Ryan ever was from January the 6th to Marjorie Taylor Greene, QAnon, white supremacy, and now impeachment.
Of course, Marjorie Taylor Greene, you and I know, is the real power in the House GOP caucus. He's been wanting to impeach Biden from day one.
In fact, I think she brought in articles of impeachment within the first week of his presidency. So it doesn't surprise me.
I think he'll keep doing this dance where he's for it. Maybe he's not for it.
Maybe he tries to speak out of both sides of his mouth. That's Kevin McCarthy.
But his caucus are his caucus. They're nuts.
He can't control them. This was inevitable.
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I guess we know his comments were intentional because he followed it up with a written statement and sent a fundraising text to his list saying, like, Biden impeachment inquiry, donate here, which is just wild.
Did you notice his very specific use of impeachment inquiry. It's just an inquiry to find the facts because Republicans love finding facts.
But what's interesting is when the Democrats, of course, did the two impeachments and inquiries and committees and votes for Donald Trump, I'm old enough to remember Kevin McCarthy was one of those people who said, this will divide the country. This is partisan.
We shouldn't be inflaming tensions. Democrats, he said, have been wanting to impeach Donald Trump since the day Trump became president.
It was all projection, as usual, because it's exactly what Republicans do. MTG has wanted to impeach Biden from day one.
This is, quote unquote, dividing the nation further. And of course, if you don't like impeaching Donald Trump for an actual phone call in which we have a transcript of him extorting a foreign leader, if you don't like impeaching Donald Trump for trying to get you all killed inside your government building, but you are okay with impeaching Joe Biden over this, as you say, nonsense form, unverified allegations where your star witness turns out to be an indicted, accused Chinese arms dealer, whatever.
I can't even keep track of what that guy is being accused of. It is hard to keep track of this one.
And I was listening to McCarthy's press conference yesterday and he's like, Romania gets involved and weird bribe things and audio tapes that no one has. They describe it as like the Republicans are in an investigation of whether there's enough evidence to launch an inquiry with no timeline.
So they've got an investigation into whether they should open an inquiry into possible impeachment proceedings. That's how far down the road we are because they don't have anything.
They don't have anything. But meanwhile, while they say all that officially or to Capitol Hill reporters in the hallway to sound very, very serious, they go on Fox and Newsmax and say Joe Biden's a criminal.
Joe Biden bribed people, just make completely wild, unsubstantiated claims. So it doesn't match.
But, you know, as I say, it's inevitable. What I would say, though, is while we can laugh at the Republicans and laugh at Kevin McCarthy and the White House is kind of mocking conspiracy theorists, impeaching Joe Biden will hurt Joe Biden.
I want to be consistent on this. I was one of those people who, when Democrats said, oh, if we impeach Donald Trump, it'll hurt us.
I was one of the people that said, no, it won't actually. It'll hurt the president.
And I'm vindicated. I stand vindicated.
Today, we remember Donald Trump as a twice impeached president for a reason. But impeachments do hurt presidents.
And Bill Clinton, people think, you know, conventional wisdom says Republicans got hurt impeaching Bill Clinton. Not true.
Within 18 months of, you know, Bill Clinton, you know, not being convicted in the Senate, the Republicans are on the White House, the Senate and the House. So it does, you know, let's be very serious about this for a moment.
An impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden would certainly hurt Joe Biden going into 2024. Enough people would just hear the words bribery, bribery, bribery.
And that's why they're doing this, right? They want both candidates in 2024 to be accused of corruption, to have been impeached, because that's the Republican way, right? It's not vote for my guy over your guy. Don't believe anyone, because that's how nihilism and fascism grows.
I mean, I think it's absolutely right that this is their motivation for doing it. Republicans clearly aren't happy with the political environment right now.
I think they're starting to realize a lot of these House members that they're going to end up with a broadly unpopular criminal defendant as their nominee. They see the economy improving, crime falling, border crossings going down.
What can unite them is their hatred for the other side. So, you know, the hope is to impeach Joe Biden, drag down his approval rating so it's low enough to beat him.
I also think that, you know, there are low information voters who happen to be a lot of swing voters who don't pay close attention to the news. They don't follow the news as closely as junkies like you and I.
And if they hear that Joe Biden was impeached and Donald Trump was impeached, then they might say, yeah, both candidates are corrupt. And so that's that.
I don't know how impeachment will go politically for a lot of the rest of the electorate. And, you know, like, I don't know if if Donald Trump was hurt politically by his first impeachment.
Like, I certainly hoped he would be. I don't know that his political standing changed that much.
I think maybe in the second impeachment, I guess, I guess a little bit, but I don't know. Here's where Trump's different.
Of course, John, is the reason is the reason why I don't think the first impeachment hit home is because you could impeach them for a dozen things and they chose one of the most complicated foreign-related stories to do. People like me would have impeached him for obstruction of justice over Mueller much earlier or for, you know, emoluments, stuff that people understand.
He's making money in the White House when he shouldn't. Right, that's the one they decided to go on because Democrats thought this would be the NatSec one.
This would be the really, that's why Pelosi and co decided to belatedly, after dragging their feet, impeach him. So you're right in that sense.
But I think it's very different with Biden. With Biden, they've struggled to come up with a narrative that sticks to Biden.
Remember in 2020, they tried he's old and demented. That didn't work.
They tried that he's a kind of crazy left wing communist. That didn't work.
And so they've never really been able to gin up the hate against Biden that they did against Hillary, that they did against Barack Obama, that they did against Bill Clinton. So this now they think maybe is sticking, the bribery, the big guy.
I mean, the one way it will definitely hurt them in the campaigns is, it's a very terminally online story. Most average voters don't know what the big guy means.
I've never heard of some of the references that these people make. So I don't know whether they'll help the House GOP, but I do think it will help them in a presidential race even as you say even if it's the margins and by the way before anyone says that you and i being cynical in making this accusation kevin mccarthy the man who's currently speaker is also the guy who went on live television and to the consternation of his fellow gop colleagues said we're going off to benghazi on hillary and look at her poll ratings so he's...
Yeah. And look, I think all we know is some of the Republicans, the House Republicans who are sitting in districts that Joe Biden won are uncomfortable at this moment going forward with impeachment because they don't think it will help them that much.
And we don't know what the effect will be. But if I was the White House and I think Democrats should be making the argument that like, hey, these people in the House, you gave them one House of Congress to control.
And what they have done is not focus on any of the issues you care about. All they have focused on is a fake, phony impeachment of Joe Biden for nothing.
And I don't know that swing voters who pay a little more attention to the news will like that. But at the very least, it's the argument I would make if I was in the White House.
I'd have Joe Biden out there, you know, talking about things that people care about. And the impeachment, you know, it could rally Democrats around Joe Biden.
It could turn off some swing voters. I agree that like, you know, the Republican base and some low information voters might say, oh, yeah, no, he's probably corrupt.
So I mean, look, we got to be clear here with the pod save audience, like whether whatever you think about Joe Biden, his poll ratings are not good right now. Not where they should know.
And in that scenario, an impeachment may drive up, you know, core support amongst them. As you say, it may lead to a rallying around from the Democratic base, some of whom are disappointed in Biden over certain issues.
But it would also, as you say, we don't know how it will play out a swing vote. So, yeah, we can see.
So on Tuesday's pod, I did say that we would try to stop talking so much about Ron DeSantis' embarrassment of a campaign, but he's left us no choice. On Tuesday, the governor and his staff were in a car accident where no one was injured, and that wasn't even close to the worst part of his day.
The campaign announced it was firing a third of its staff, including a speechwriter and former National Review writer named Nate Hockman, who apparently created and then tweeted the video that shows DeSantis' face on a Nazi symbol. And yesterday, DeSantis said that he'd consider putting RFK Jr.
in charge of the CDC. All right.
I guess my first question is, like, why the hell did Ron DeSantis hire a speechwriter who's into Nazi symbols? Does the question answer itself there, John? I mean, let's not forget, it's not like he came up with the Nazi symbols after working for Ron DeSantis. And that was the telltale sign.
And DeSantis was like, we had no idea. No, no, Nate Hockman had already been attacked for doing a Twitter spaces with Nick Fuentes.
Remember him, a Holocaust denier, Trump Thanksgiving dinner guest. And Hockman said that Fuentes was better for young conservatives than Ben Shapiro.
And I'm no fan of Ben Shapiro, but if you think Nick Fuentes is better for young conservatives than Ben Shapiro, then maybe that's your neo-Nazi alarm bell when you're hiring people. So he already got a pass on that.
He got hired by the DeSantis team. New York Times gave this guy a big op-ed.
He was seen as the kind of face of the new young right. The problem with the new young right is lots is coming out about what they say in private, and it's not so nice.
He creates this video, according to Axios. He then tries to pass it off.
By the way, it's not the first time that the DeSantis campaign, John, are accused of doing this, last weekend. The Times, of course, reported that the homophobic video they made, where they bragged about DeSantis basically wanted to erase trans people, that was also apparently reportedly made in-house and then farmed out to make it look like it was organic.
So everything about the DeSantis campaign is so fake and desperate for authenticity and grassroots support, which they just don't have. So, you know, it's watching the DeSantis car crash is fascinating, John.
It really is. And again, I don't want to sound like the I told you so vindicated guy, but I was one of those people six months, eight months ago saying, oh, yeah, bring DeSantis on the national spotlight.
Bring him out of his Florida safe space. Let's see how well that glass jaw survives.
And, you know, he's 35 points behind Donald Trump. I know we are on like, you know, the fourth or fifth news cycle about the DeSantis reboot.
And he just keeps stepping on rakes. I mean, the RFK Jr.
thing was wild. And then, of course, afterwards, Mike Pence hits him for suggesting that he might appoint RFK Jr.
to the CDC because RFK Jr. is pro-choice.
And so that's what Mike Pence's problem was. Of course, I'd missed the Pence.
Of course, Pence comes in with that angle. I mean, for me, the RFK thing was so interesting, John, because till now, DeSantis has been playing footsie with the anti-vaxxers, right? He's kind of anti-vax light.
He's anti-vax adjacent. I'm not anti-vaccine.
I'm just against mandates. I don't push the booster in my state.
I investigate the companies behind it, but I'm not anti-vax. But in the interview that he does, where he says, RFK Jr., CDC, FDA, he explicitly says, on the medical stuff, I'm with him.
I like all that stuff. So he basically outs himself as an anti-vaxxer in my view in that interview and his opponent should really be throwing that at him but of course that would that would be in a general in a republican primary being anti-vaxxed doesn't cost you anything actually boosts you yeah i mean it just to me the whole episode shows just like what horrible political instincts santa's has right because And he's a panderer, John.
He gets hit from the right on possibly floating someone for an appointment who is pro-choice. And then he gets hit from everyone normal for floating someone who's an anti-vax.
So he just doesn't win with anyone, which is like sort of the story of his campaign. Like the slavery stuff, right? You've got the Florida educational standards are out, right? The new African-American history standards.
Big controversy over a few lines in there, including one that suggests slaves benefited. It was of personal benefit because they picked up skills.
And DeSantis is asked about this. Now, he can run away from it and say, nothing to do with me.
Or he can say, I'm with it 100% because I think it'll help appeal you know, appeal to my some of my white nationalist base.

He can't decide. So he stands at a press conference like nothing to do with me.
It wasn't me. But they did get skills that they could parlay into later life.
First of all, who uses the word parlay in everyday life? And number two, Chris Christie pointed out, what kind of leader are you that when something happens in your state, your first response is shaggy style? It wasn't me. Well, and then it got worse yesterday because Byron Donald, who is the only Republican, black Republican member of Congress from Florida, he tweeted and criticized the state's education standards.
And it was a pretty, you know, all he said was it needs to be changed. I don't think that was right, whatever.
And DeSantis' campaign then attacks Byron Donalds and compares him to Kamala Harris. Calls him a supposed conservative.
This hardcore Freedom Caucus member. First of all, John, we've got to stop and say, Byron Donalds isn't just the only black Republican from Florida.
He's part of a Florida House delegation, almost all of whom have endorsed Donald Trump. What does that say about the governor of Florida, that the Republicans in his own state are backing Donald Trump over him? I think, who was it? Was it Stuby? Is that how you pronounce his name? Greg Stuby? The Republican House member who said that when he fell off a roof, he was in hospital and DeSantis never really called him and Trump called him and charmed him.
It was like, imagine being less compassionate and less considerate of your fellow man than Donald J. Trump.
But that's where DeSantis is in Florida. On Byron Donalds, what's interesting about that is they're attacking this black Republican who comes out against them.
They're doubling down on the slavery stuff. Jeremy Redfern, who's the deputy press secretary, one of these terminally online DeSantis trolls alongside Pouchard and Brian Griffin, anyone who spent any time on political Twitter knows these people.
They're the DeSantis people who just spend all their life fighting with people on Twitter. He spent the last 24 hours just doubling down, defending everything to do with this curriculum.
So, you know, then we wonder why is DeSantis losing? Why isn't he connected with all many people? Number one, he's got a terminally online press team who just don't understand the real world and hire people like nate hokman and number two he's just

an unlikable guy like i saw someone floating the let desantis be desantis line which i think every

political strategist does yeah that echoes the barlet line uh from the west wing and it's like

let desantis be designers no that's the last thing you want to do because the more people

see the real designers the more they don't like him the man is a anti-social uh you know charmless short-tempered thin-skinned charisma-free zone Benjamin Nixon the writer calls him the the borg of charisma he's he's got the charisma of a borg uh for the Star Trek fans amongst you why would you want to see more of the real Ron DeSantis yeah their whole thing, you know, we just got to give him a mic and a crowd and we've got to break down the barriers

between Ron DeSantis and the voters. It's like, I don't think the voters want more Ron DeSantis

close up. I think that they've seen that and they're not liking it too much.
Have you seen

anything at all that would lead you to believe Ron DeSantis can claw his way back and make this

a real race with Trump? Because I'm cognizant of not getting caught up in the news cycle of the moment. But when I look at this, I have not seen anything that makes me think, this guy could come back.
No. And remember, in January, he was nearly neck and neck with Trump in the polls.
He came in as this big star. He was hyped up by both conservative and liberal media.
And he was a few points behind in some polls in some states. He was ahead of Trump.
And it's all crashed and burned in the six months since. And I think there's two reasons for that.
Number one is what we just discussed. The more people see him, the more they don't like him.
He's not very good. He's got bad judgments.
And number two, Donald Trump keeps getting indicted. And every time he gets indicted, his approval rating with the base goes up, not down.
And the rivals, not just DeSantis, all of them don't know what to do with the indictments. They don't know how to respond to these indictments.
And over the next six months, that's not going to change, right? Donald Trump's legal trouble is only any worse. So he'll be more of a martyr to the base.
And Ron DeSantis, we're going to see more and more of, and people are going to like less and less of him. So I don't see how it turns around.
People talk about, well, if Trump goes to prison, I don't see Trump going to prison this side of November 2024 or ever. So I just don't see how he comes back.
You know, this is not 2016. This is not, you know, Trump against 16 people, divided field.
It's actually Trump with over 50% support and a 35 point lead over second place Rom DeSantis. That's pretty huge.
Yeah. Well, on that note, I want to talk about the rest of the field.
Mitt Romney wrote an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal the other day where he called on Republican donors to pressure presidential candidates to withdraw from the primary by February 26, which is after the first four contests, if they're not in second place. That way someone can have a chance to face Trump in a one-on-one race.
What do you think about that proposal? Good idea? Plausible? Would it even matter? So I think, and Benji Sarlin writing for Semaphore today makes his point as well, that it's kind of out of date already. This is not 2016.
This is not 16 candidates where Donald Trump is a kind of outsider who's got 30, 40% of the vote. And if you take all the other 16, well, then they could beat him.
Let Ted Cruz go one-on-one against him much earlier on in the race. We've already kind of, they already kind of tried to coalesce around DeSantis.
You know, Fox did and some, you know, big Republican donors did. That hasn't worked, right? DeSantis is now polling 35 points behind, I think, in the latest 538 average.
So, you know, you put all of the rivals together, DeSantis, Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, you know, all of them together, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, I can't remember who the other also-rans are polling at zero. They don't come anywhere close to Trump's share of the vote.
So this idea that if you could just get behind one person, that can stop Trump, I fear that ship may have sailed. You know, Tim Stott is now being talked about as the next guy down to stop Trump.
He's got a lot of money. He's liked by a lot of people.
Obviously, he's black in a party that's done very badly with minorities for obvious reasons. But, you know, he's also a massive Trump supporter.
He's also a guy who completely backed Trump to the hilt for four years. Is he going to be the guy who takes down Donald Trump? I mean, I said this a while ago, and I hate to be proven wrong.
I wish I would prove wrong, but I don't see how Donald Trump's get beaten by any of these people. I don't either.
I mean, I think that the only possibility at the outset of Donald Trump getting beaten in a primary is by a candidate who was a lot like Trump. The whole DeSantis dream of being Trump without the baggage, like that was the correct goal.
DeSantis clearly has plenty of baggage of his own. Trump without the chaos.
He's causing plenty of chaos on his own. So he has not done that.
But I do think that, like that's the right sort of area. But because look, the Republican electorate, first of all, it's, you know, probably two thirds non-college educated.
And Trump is just dominating with those voters. And all these other candidates are trying to get a piece of the college educated part of the Republican electorate who is like, at least willing to look beyond Trump.
And they're all trying to divide it up. So like if Tim Scott is doing great, does great mean he goes from 8% to 13% or 14%? Like you said, Donald Trump's over 50 in a lot of these.
So that's still not close. Exactly.
If Donald Trump's in the 30s, then this starts to make sense. Like what are the coalitions? What are the people who can pull out and back someone else? We're not in that space.
And the reason is, the reality is,

that none of the other candidates know why they're running.

They just don't have a reason to run.

Mike Pence, what is his reason for running?

Because I did great in the Trump-Pence administration.

All right, then back Mike, then back Donald Trump.

Oh, wait, he almost got you killed.

Tim Scott, as I said, Tim Scott running,

I'm the guy who evangelicals love.

Well, the evangelicals love Trump more.

And you're the guy who also defended Trump for four years. Every time people said Trump's a racist, you were the guy who came out and said, no, no, he's not.
You know, he criticized him over Charlottesville, but then never, you know, never went full on. Similarly, you know, as you say, Ron DeSantis, Trump without the baggage.
I mean, nobody wants Trump without the baggage, apparently. Apparently, the Republican electorate likes the baggage.
That's why they show up. They show up for the baggage.
They show up in the rallies for Ronda Sanders. So who's left? Nikki Haley.
What is your reason for running? Nikki Haley, are you really just running for VP? So if there's no real, if they don't know why they're running and what their strategy for victory is, then surprise, surprise, Donald Trump just hoovers it up for a third time. I also think it's funny that Mitt Romney, God bless him, thinks that a bunch of MAGA voters are going to listen to like rich Republican donors or any kind of Republican establishment figure who's going to try to pressure these candidates out and then say like, no, no, this is the person now, right? Like that, if anything, will probably backfire for that candidate that you have a bunch of like rich billionaire Republican donors that Trump will call the establishment and rhinos and whatever else.

Suddenly you're telling you you have to get behind Tim Scott or Nikki Haley or whoever they decide after if DeSantis doesn't make it. And I just think it's so funny like that.
It's not going to work. You can Mitt Romney's plan can happen.

And it's still like how I don't get when people in the Republican establishment are going to realize that they just don't have any sway over their own base anymore. That's the key point, John.
And I feel like it's emperor's new clothes. We need to say this.
I think the liberal media has been complicit in this nonsense for so long. The way we push up Never Trumpers, the way we kind of love sharing clips of Chris Christie.
And I'm looking forward to the Chris Christie interview. But the man has A, no chance of winning, of course.
And B, he's lying about his party, right? This is the fundamental problem with all these Republicans. They shouldn't be in that party.
The party's gone. The base is gone.
We don't like saying this, John, because those of us who talk about politics, we want to have solutions. We want to have some vision for the future.
The reality is done. It's finished.
It's over. The GOP is gone.
I've been saying this for seven, eight years now. And if people still don't believe it, I don't know what else to say.
The man is about to get the nomination for the third time after everything he put the country through for four years, after the insurrection and Republicans found their spines for about 36 hours. And yet he's going to win again, perhaps bigger than last time in the nomination.
So this party has got, look, here's one poll number for you. There's a poll out this week, I think it's a market poll, which shows that 50% of Republicans told pollsters that they don't believe there were any classified documents in Donald Trump's home.
They don't believe it. Donald Trump says there were classified documents.
Trump's argument is not that they weren't. He says, I have a right to have them.
Trump voters, half of them think he didn't even have them. You cannot have a reasonable debate with people like this.
I'm sorry, you can't. I was looking into that same poll also says that more Republican voters think that Joe Biden and Mike Pence refused to cooperate with the federal government in handing back documents than Donald Trump.

Which is just like, they know, they have seen

the news, they just don't give a shit.

They're telling the polls, we don't care.

It's all rationalized, whatever you have to rationalize.

And bless you, Mitt Romney,

bless you, Chris Christie.

It's done.

It's over.

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Soft and strong, simple. Before we go, I wanted to ask you about Joe Biden's prospects.
Here's a tweet from The Washington Post's Jeff Stein on Tuesday. A lot of econ things breaking Biden's way of late.
Inflation cooling. Labor market stays hot.
Recession calls downgraded. Inflation Reduction Act.
Chips Act. Investments booming.
Today's big deal on UPS to avert summer strike. And then, of course, on top of all that, yesterday we learned that consumer confidence hit its highest level in two years.
And today we learned that last quarter's economic growth beat expectations. We've had a long-running debate here about whether Biden the White House should be taking more credit for all this, or whether that would seem out of touch to people who may still be struggling with inflation, which is probably happening with a lot of working and middle class people across the country.
What do you think about that? Yeah, I'm of the view that you've got nothing to lose, right? At this point, Biden's ratings are bad. People keep saying the economy is bad.
I just did a deep dive on my show on Peacock, which is out this week, on this exact subject. The economy is doing really, really well.
All the things you mentioned from the Stein tweet, you know, 3% inflation, unemployment at its lowest level since Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, you know, growth, recession avoided, all these amazing manufacturing booming, real wages up, even income inequality. You know, the thing that we on the left have banged on them up for a while, falling.
So all these good indicators, and yet people, not just Republicans, but people across the board say, well, the economy ain't so good. It's not doing so well.
Now, part of that is partisanship. Part of that is media coverage.
Part of it is real people still struggling with things like child poverty and student debt, real issues. But Democrats need to get better at messaging.
I've said that for a long time. And if you're not going to bang your own drum, who is? Because, you know, I know that people like to say, I'm an MSNBC host.
I know people like to say, MSNBC, Fox. No, Fox is a propaganda channel.
Liberal media, quote unquote, may be liberal, quote unquote, but it doesn't act as a propaganda channel in the same way. It doesn't out there pushing the administration's case.
If anything, it's the opposite, right? There's a hack gap. There's journalists going out of their way to be, well, you know, it might be good figures, but what about this? And on my show, we went through all the times that Trump got 200,000 new jobs and got praised for it by the liberal media.
And Biden got 200,000 jobs. And it was like, well, disappointing 200,000 jobs.
The same number reported on differently. So there's a lot of issues going on here.
And I think, look, Biden cannot rely on the media. He cannot rely on anyone else but himself to go out and make the case.
And if you say, you know, might it sound out of touch? Oh, well, right. The people have already started to make up their minds.
We've just been talking about swing voters. We've been talking about people living in low information bubbles.
You've got to go out and make the case. People still think inflation is at a record high because they heard that all of 2022.
They have no idea it's at 3%. To go back to what you said at the start of this conversation, most people are not news junkies like you and I.
And people don't just pull out their calculator and go, oh, I'm better off, worse off. I will support this president, not that president.
That's not how it works, right? It's about narratives. It's about how you feel.
It's the mood in the country. Biden is the guy who has to lead on that.
There's a reason it's called the bully pulpit. And he's got the facts on his side.
It's not like he has to go out and lie about it. But the fact is, they do need to talk about this stuff.
Yeah, and I think, you know, you see them doing that, especially over the last couple of months and all these events that Biden's doing. And of course, it's difficult to break through with an event about your accomplishments, as we know, which is why he has to do it all the time.
But I do think that narrative that you talk about has to just it just has to include a couple elements, right? Which is one, you're right, the facts are on his side. And he just has to talk about all of the economic indicators that are all now heading in the in the in the right direction.
You know, we used a chart in 2012 with the Obama reelect about there's this famous jobs chart showing all the jobs that were created over the last four years. And when we showed that to focus groups, it was very effective.
I think Biden will probably be doing something like that. And then he says, you know, and for all the people who aren't feeling this, put me back in there to finish the job and I will keep fighting these Republicans to raise wages and protect people's health care and all the other things like i think it's just it's a it's a the whole finish the job uh slogan that he started in the state of the union i think is good for the re-elect because it shows you that he's not going to rest on his laurels and say everything's fine now but he's going to go fight especially because it deals with the age issues all why is this old dude running again like why doesn't he just retire right if he can make a case well i'm not retiring because i didn't finish this stuff and also even the negative stuff and look we my producers i were writing this script on the economy like we have just as usual we have to put in people are still hurting we have to put in all the qualifiers the caveats you go through the caveats child poverty up at 12 million but hold on he got it down to 9 million yeah child but the uh but the tax credit expired because of republicans and joe manchin right that's even even the negative, he can still frame it in the way that, yeah, child poverty is bad.
I'm the guy who tried to cut it. Republicans stopped me.
Student debt is bad. I'm the guy who tried to relieve it.
Republican Supreme Court stopped me. So there is still, as you say, a framing that can be done that says even with the pockets of pain, help me out.
I think one area where he hasn't said enough and he's failed to do enough is healthcare still, especially in the wake of the pandemic. Like there's been no, I know he's not a Medicare for all guy.
I get that. But like public option, stuff that he talked about in the campaign tour, we've not heard anything about that.
And people are hurting a lot after the pandemic, especially with people being thrown off Medicaid. I think you could do much more on the healthcare front.
Yeah. I mean, I think he will talk about the prescription drug benefit that he got from the Inflation Reduction Act.
I think that also locked in some of the extra premium support on ACA that he did. But you're right.
I think that's an example of on the trail, he can talk about what he's done on healthcare, on prescription drugs and premiums. And then he can say, but you put me back in for another four years and give me a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate.
And we're going to push forward and continue to, you know, whether it's public option, which he had talked about in his first campaign in 2020 or whatever else. Like he should.
It's just it's a it's a continuum. So I interviewed AOC a few weeks ago, asked her if she'll be supporting Joe Biden in the primary.
She said she would. It predictably led to a bunch of blowback from the very online left.
We also have Cornel West giving disappointed leftists a place to go. I know you've had your criticism of Joe Biden here and there.
What do you make of all this? How are you feeling about his election prospects? What do you say to disappointed folks on the left? It's's a great question i saw some of that ridiculous blowback to the aoc stuff um i'm torn because i look i could talk about all the good things he's done we talked about the economy there's a lot of bad things he's done especially on the foreign policy front don't get me started on israel palestine netanyahu don't get me started mbs um a conversation for another. I've been very critical.
And healthcare, I think he's dropped the ball on that. But let me just, on the election front, I am torn because on the one hand, I am one of those people who, like yourself, says, come on, you cannot vote third party when fascism is at the door.
We have a two-party system. A vote for a third-party candidate helps the fascists.
But I've been consistent on that. In fact, I had Noam Chomsky on my podcast years ago before 2020 saying, yeah, you've got to vote Democrat.
Even Chomsky came out, which he does every four years, to be fair to Noam. He comes out and says, you've got to vote for the Democrat Republicans are.
To the climate. Even Noam gets it from the left.
Having said that, I'm also someone who sees himself as a person on the left. I am very disappointed in many things about our economy, our health care, our foreign policy, things that the Democrats have failed on or turned a blind eye to.
So I get the disappointment as well. Now, the argument then becomes to the people who are disappointed, you can say justifiably, you can't really vote the third party candidate.
That will let Trump back in. On the other hand, if they're the kind of people who are going to let Trump back in, what are you offering them? Right? It's a two way street.
On the one hand, the left has to understand what the greater threat is. And it is fascism.
I mean, Cornel West said that in 2020. What's interesting is Cornel West, while he backed Jill Stein in 2016, in 2020, he endorsed Biden saying fascists are at the door.
So that argument is fairly straightforward. But if on the other hand, if you have a lot of liberals and centrists saying, oh, look at these lefties, they let Trump win.
Well, if the lefties are that influential that they can let Trump win, maybe you should do a little bit more for the left, I would say. Yeah.
No, look, I think, you know, the piece that criticized AOC in New York magazine was like, they accused her of appearing on an episode of Pod Save America where the hosts were saying that a vote for anyone but Joe Biden was a vote for Donald Trump. And I saw that.
I was like, well, that is true. That is a true statement.
Now, if I was going door to door and I came across people who were unsure who they were going to vote for, who maybe thought they might want to vote third party, I wouldn't bully them. I wouldn't say like, hey, if you if you don't want to vote for Joe Biden,

you're putting Donald Trump back into office and that's that. And what are you crazy? Like,

I don't think that's the best way to approach it. I think the best way to approach it is like,

hey, you're free to do whatever you want. If you really care about abortion, democracy, health care, wages, climate, you have a better chance of seeing progress on these issues with joe biden over donald trump and it is very very very difficult almost impossible to see a third party person winning in the screwed up system that we have and you can acknowledge that the system is screwed up we can talk about the doorstep for a long time i mean as you know john i just wrote a book about arguing debating persuading a lot of the social great book thank you very.
A lot of the social science out there on the importance of listening, on the importance of empathy, how you win people over. There's been a lot of social science done on, for example, winning people over on transgender rights.
Just spending time on the doorstep, hearing people's objections out can actually have a massive effect four, six, nine months down the line. All the data's out there.
I get the importance of that. And I'm not saying not to do that.
But on the other hand, I'm not an activist. I'm not knocking on doors.
I'm not a campaigner. That's not my job.
My job, I'm a journalist. I'm a commentator.
My job is to say what I think is true. My job is to share my opinion, my analysis.
My opinion analysis is that, yes, if you vote for a third party candidate, that will increase the chances of fascists coming back, of another Muslim ban, right, of more child separation. So that is what I'm going to say.
Now, if that offends people, upsets people, oh, well, you know, I'm not going to win an election, right? I'm not, sadly. So, you know, as you say, there's a difference between what you say on the doorstep, which, of course, you know, if I was on the doorstep, I would be taking a much different stance.
But what I'm saying now is that as a person sitting on Pod Save America is saying, Let us be clear. Oh, yeah.
If you're someone other than, you know if i was on the list i would be taking a much different stance but what i'm saying now is as a person sitting on pod save america saying let us be clear if you yeah someone other than uh you know other than democrat or republican it is not going to elect that person but it is going to help the right winger in this case then we can argue about 2016 about gary johnson and jill stein and who influenced more i get that there's lots of arguments to be had but now with cornell of course that's going to take votes away away from Joe Biden. If Liz Cheney were to run as a third-party candidate, maybe you would go, well, maybe that helps Biden.
But right now, if it's just Cornel West, or if it's RFK Jr., if he decides to run third party, then we know who that's going to hurt in places like Wisconsin, where Joe Biden won by 20,000 votes out of 3.2 million votes cast, like ludicrously close election. So yeah, it bothers me.
And I see, as a Muslim, I think about Donald Trump bragging about bringing back the Muslim ban, all this horrific stuff. We have such short memories in this country, John.
I know. Goldfish memories.
We've already kind of moved, you know, the Trump era. We've already kind of, Charlottesville, it's all so far away.
Oh, forget all. No, I go around, I'm gonna go around shouting about all that four years of of chaos of a guy who was the worst president in american history probably and the idea that he will be the nominee again and that people who care about the climate will care about these issues as you just said would risk letting him back in even though they have very good objections i respect the objections to biden and the Democrats on certain issues.
That to me seems mad. Sorry.
Yeah. And, you know, an AOC saying that she's going to endorse Joe Biden is not like her selling out to the neolibs like me.
It's her realizing that there is a fucking difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And do you really believe that Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy?

Or don't you?

Like, is he just a normal Republican

who can be like a Democrat and you don't like him?

Or is he an existential threat?

A lot of these people on the left and the right,

some people, I want to say a lot,

because a lot of these people, online people,

as I say, a lot of the left in 2020

did back Joe Biden, right? Yeah, very responsibly. Cornel West, Noam Chomsky, you can go through the list, AOC, a lot of prominent leftists did say, oh, there's no comparison, you've got to vote for Biden.
But the reality is that existential threat to democracy is the key question. And a lot of people don't think Donald Trump is.
They think the guardrails held and it was all exaggerated. I remember people telling me in 2019, you don't know anything about America, but you're from England.
If he loses, the Secret Service just walk him out. I'm like, he ain't going to go quietly.
I wrote this in 2019. There will be riots.
He will refuse to accept the election result. What do you think is going to happen in 2024? It's going to be 2020 on steroids.
Yeah, no. And we're going to be reminded of all of this and what he did in 2020 as we learn more about the indictment that's coming down about what he did on January 6th and leading up to it.
Mehdi Hassan, thank you so much for joining Pod Save America. We appreciate you coming by and come back again soon.
Thanks for having me, John. Before we get to Love It's Chris Christie interview, two quick housekeeping notes.
Reminder that an ad-free version of Pod Save America can now be yours when you join the Friends of the Pod subscription community. Come for ad-free PSA.
Stay for the bonus content. Head to crooked.com slash friends to join today.
An even more important reminder. On Tuesday, August 8th, Reproductive Freedom and Direct Democracy are on the ballot in Ohio.
Ohioans are expected to vote on a ballot measure to codify reproductive freedom in the state constitution in November, but Republicans created another ballot measure for August that would make it way more difficult to pass a constitutional amendment to guarantee abortion access in the

state. They want to raise the level that it takes to pass that amendment from 50% to 60%.
And so

that's what the August 8th ballot measure is about. Don't let them get away with it.
Head

to votesaveamerica.com slash Ohio to find all the information you need to vote no on August 8th.

Go to it. When we come back, love it interviews, Chris Christie.
We cannot keep pretending that Donald Trump is an outlier when everyone else seems to be out there with him. But instead of feeling paralyzed, our job now is to pull what we've got and see what we can make happen.
Here at Assembly Required, we will continue to face each executive order, legislative policy, and news cycle, no matter how terrifying or absurd, by asking, what can we do to learn more about what's happening?

What can we do to solve problems, however small? And how can we find the kind of hope

that can sustain our work in difficult times? Listen to new episodes of Assembly Required

every Thursday on Amazon Music.

Joining us now, he is a former U.S. attorney,

governor of a top three state in the tri-state area.

That's very nice of you.

And it says here you're a Republican candidate for president of the United States.

That's what I've heard.

Governor Chris Christie, welcome to Pod Save America.

I'm happy to be here. And you know what the show is.
Yes, I do. What are you doing here? You asked me to come.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. So I decided to show up.
All right, cool. All right, so the latest polling out of New Hampshire shows Trump dominating.
He's also dominating in national polls, around 50%. If another candidate is going to win, that candidate will have to consolidate the anti-Trump vote and peel off some people that have stuck with Trump until now.
Who are those voters and what is your best, most persuasive case to them? Well, first off, I don't think that the numbers on Trump are accurate. I don't think he's anywhere near 50%, even with Republican primary voters just from what we've done in terms of our own research and anecdotally from traveling in places like New Hampshire and South Carolina, where I've been in the last week.
I think there are people who are in that number who would say to you, I'd consider voting for Trump, but I'd also consider voting for somebody else. And I don't know who that person is right now.
So I'll stick with Trump. So I think that number, his number, I think is much closer to 40, uh, and or below than it is 50.
Secondly, I think the only way to be, to be the man is to beat the man. So, you know, our strategy is just to go directly at him and there's plenty to go directly at him with.
And I think that campaigns still persuade.

I absolutely believe that.

I believe once people focus,

and I think the focus will start

at the first debate on August 23rd.

I think people are willing to be persuaded.

And that's what I intend to do.

And I don't understand the other people in the race

because they're all trying to kind of be like him.

And that's like trying to be new Coke when Coke is still available. Like if you like Coke and Coke is still there, you're buying Coke.
You're not buying new Coke. And look, the pitch for me is twofold.
It's first that, you know, I'm going to tell you the truth and it's like, I'm always going to like it. You're not always going to agree with it, but it would be nice for American politics to go back to having people who tell the truth.
And that's at a premium in our party, led by Trump, but with others as well. Secondly, it's that I want a presidency that goes back to doing big things.
We're so small now, I think, and focusing on things that are really small, fighting with each other about small stuff, dividing each other into smaller and smaller groups, and then pitting ourselves against each other to where you can't even go to a cocktail party anymore and have a civil conversation. You've been making this case at Trump.
It doesn't seem to have improved your numbers so far. It has produced what between 35 and 46 percent of voters have said in recent polls that they would never consider voting for you.
Does that tell you something about how difficult a job it is to persuade people to turn against Trump? Yeah, it's hard. But if it weren't hard, then there would be 50 people trying to do it.
I mean, I know this is going to be hard. But on the other hand, I know what I'm saying is true.
So the Republican frontrunner currently has four trials scheduled in a six-month span. It's a civil fraud case, the defamation sequel, the hush money trial, and now the documents case.
There may be two more. You're a former prosecutor.
Have you ever heard of someone facing between four and six trials within a few months for different legal issues? No, no. Usually, folks like this commit discrete crimes.
That winds up having one trial. This guy has been a one-man crime wave.
And look, he's earned every one of them. If you look at it, every one of these is self-inflicted.
And that's why, you know, do I think that prosecutors exercise prosecutorial judgment in discretion in some respects that are questionable? Yeah. And they always have.
But what I say to people all the time is whether you agree or disagree with the prosecutors, look at the underlying conduct because that's what he did.

Yeah. Whether you believe it was a crime or not or whether you believe it's fair to prosecute him for that or not, is the conduct something that you believe is appropriate for someone who wants to be president of the United States? Like, for instance, the prosecution of Manhattan is one that I wouldn't have brought as a prosecutor.
But do we want someone as president who is willing to pay off a porn star who he had an affair with two months before a national election to hide it from the people who he's asking for their vote for president of the United States? I think that's probably conduct that we should be frowning upon. Right.
Right? So I think that you've got to talk about this in two different ways. One, as a prosecutor, and so I don't believe in Manhattan prosecution.
I absolutely believe in the classified documents prosecution. Now we'll see what the other two turn out to be.
And I'll certainly give opinions about them when I see them if they come out. But without doubt, it's the underlying conduct, John, that's the problem.
And based on the evidence we've seen in the indictment out of Florida, do you think that Trump deserves to go to prison for what you saw in that indictment? Well, if he goes to trial and is found guilty, there is a presumption of jail. Yeah.
There is. So, you know, now what a judge will do or not, will a judge send at that time, he'd probably be 78 years old, 79 years old.
I know when I was a prosecutor, when people got to that age, you began to be very reluctant to send them to jail because it was essentially a death sentence that usually people at that age in a prison setting don't do very well. So I think there'll be a bunch of things that a judge would and should consider.
But what the public needs to know is that if he's convicted of those crimes, there is a presumption that he will be sent to jail and a judge would have to work against that presumption not to. And you got an argument with Trump during debate prep about the corruption of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Yes. If you were still a U.S.
attorney, would you believe it was worth investigating Jared's dealings with the Saudis? If I could figure out how to have jurisdiction over it in New Jersey, yes, I would. But yeah, absolutely.
I think it's worthy of looking at because I think anybody who goes into public service and appears to have used that public service to go on the grift, which is the only thing you could call this. Yeah, I think that does deserve to be looked at in the same way that I think the stuff that Hunter Biden is doing deserves to be looked at as well.
I think that we have had now two presidencies in a row where the father in the family seems to be unwilling or unable to control the conduct of their children. And if you can't do that, how the hell are you running the country? And I think that it makes people feel like this is a banana republic.
But you know, there's a, you recognize a difference, right? No one has found any evidence that Joe Biden has done anything wrong to the same extent that Donald Trump has over and over again.

Right. Well, hold on now.
What I'm talking about are the kids. I know you're talking about the well.
So let's not switch the topic. I mean, you switch the top.
You brought it back. You want to talk.
It's better to talk about both for you. No, no, no, no.
It's not only better to talk about both for me. It is also appropriate to talk about both because what we have now are a lot of allegations that President Biden inserted himself into Hunter's business dealings when Hunter needed a little backup.
Now, we'll find out whether or not that's sustainable or not, but I would note that the president hasn't denied it and the White House hasn't denied it. Their statement now is, well, he's never been a partner in his business.
Well, that's not the allegation. The allegation is that he supported it.
But my bigger concern is that when you allow members of your family to trade on your name and benefit from it when you're in the White House, which Donald Trump clearly did, and which it appears Joe Biden did when he was vice president with Hunter's business dealings, that that makes people feel like they're not being served. And that's a problem.
And I told this to Donald Trump when I was running his transition in 2016, don't hire your family in the White House. And he said, why? And I said, because you can't hire people in the White House that you can't fire and you can't fire people that you have to have Thanksgiving with.
So don't put them in there. Worse yet, he not only put them in, but he empowered them to interact with foreign governments.
I mean, what was Jared Kushner doing in the Middle East? We had two very able secretaries of state in Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo, and they could have handled that. I believe he sent Jared there because Jared wanted to go there because all along Jared's intent was to create those relationships in order to capitalize on them with money on the back end.
So this is an historic presidential primary. I believe it is the first where you can argue that one of the candidates tried to kill two of the other candidates.
In the case of Mike Pence, it was Trump at the Capitol with the rope.

In your case, he willfully exposed you to COVID.

He did.

That was really serious.

You told Axios that when you were in the hospital,

you thought you might die.

I was definitely worried that we were a day or so away,

the doctors told me, from being intubated.

And that was definitely not something

that led to great results.

And then Trump calls you.

He did.

And he was very concerned about you. Well, kind of.
He was in Walter Reed at the same time. Yeah.
And he didn't sound very good. And he told, he asked me how I was doing.
But once he got past asking me how I was doing, he asked me if I was going to tell the press that he had given me COVID. Now, at that time, I didn't know that he was the one that had given me COVID because none of us in the room knew who patient zero was.
None of you knew that he had had a positive test and then continued exposing himself to people for days and days. Correct.
Correct. In fact, that session of debate prep, which was the Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before that Tuesday debate at the White House.
He we later found that from Mark Me' book, that that Saturday morning, he had tested positive. And then the wild thing is he came into the room, the map room in the White House, and it was me, Kellyanne Conway, Bill Stepien, his campaign manager, Hope Hicks, Stephen Miller, his speechwriter, and Jason Miller, his communications aide.
And we all had masks, and we all had to test negative before we were allowed to come into the White House. And I asked him, I said, you know, Mr.
President, do you want us to wear masks, or do you not want us to wear masks? We've all tested negative. So if you're comfortable with us not wearing masks, we're fine with not wearing them.
He said, no, don't wear them. And he knew.
He knew that he had tested positive. And while getting all of us, except for Jason Miller, in that room, all got COVID.
And, you know, you told Mark Leibovich for his book that this was the one time you laughed while you were in the hospital because when Trump is so concerned about being blamed for this rather than for your, this person that he's worked with that's helped him, you thought this guy's never gonna change. Yeah.
When you find out that he knew he had COVID, did you feel like when you heard that, you thought, wow, Trump, he's as bad a person as I thought? Or do you think, wow, Trump, he's a worse person than I imagined? The latter. You did.
You learned something about his character from that experience. Yeah, I thought that was worse.
You thought that was worse. Yeah, I think passing on a communicable disease that at that time had no treatments and no vaccine makes you worse than I thought, yeah.
Yeah. Now, the reason you're exposed, as you said, you're in debate prep.
You're in debate prep for days uh you were asked in november of 2021 so basically a year out of trump being in office whether you regretted being part of debate prep and your answer was the only part of debate prep i regret is the covet part right shouldn't you regret being there at all given that now your case is that he's unfit to serve i don't't understand how you can't regret. You were there in a political capacity helping him be reelected.
Now you say he is unfit, shouldn't be in office. Right.
Yeah, no, look, I don't try to go back and rewrite history. I felt like what they were asking me was, did you regret doing that at the time, knowing what I knew at the time? No, I don't regret it.
But would I do it again? No. So, you know, I look at the question differently.
So you're saying at the time you wanted Trump to be reelected? I did. And now you're glad he wasn't reelected.
You don't want him to be president. I don't want him to be president.
No. So that time you spent in a political capacity there to help him make his best case, because right now you're basically here to make the opposite case, right? You were there to help him figure out how to sell what he had done and to promise, figure out how to frame what he would do in the future.
Yes. And now you're doing the opposite.
Correct. Right.
Because I've come to a different conclusion based on a whole bunch of things that have happened because you can't just, you know, isolate it to that. There's a lot that's happened since election night 2020, a lot.
First, undercutting our democracy in a meaningful, important way on election night. To me, that was the line of demarcation.
That was your breaking point. That was for me.
But going forward, all of his context since then has been even worse, in my opinion. So let's talk about some of what the other candidates are saying or not saying.
This week we had a bunch of people asked about January 6th. Tim Scott doesn't hold Trump responsible for the violence at the Capitol.
Pence claims he can't know Trump's intent. DeSantis said it was a protest that, and this is a quote, ended up devolving, you know, in a way that was unfortunate.
That's tough stuff.

Is this a replay of 2016 where the only way to fight the lies

is for everybody to call bullshit together,

but nobody wants to put themselves out there?

Well, look, I don't know what people are going to conclude

as they go further into the race,

but I think you know exactly what I think,

and I think he is morally responsible for what happened on January 6th. He invited those people there.
He then gave a speech where he repeated the lie that the election was stolen. He told them to go march up to Capitol Hill and said he would march with them.
Of course, I knew he wouldn't when I was listening to it, because if there's a risk of him breaking a fingernail, he's not going to get involved. So he went back into the safety of the White House.
And then while they were doing what they were doing up there, rioting, defacing the Capitol, injuring and killing people, and trying to interfere with the certification of a valid American election, he sat in the dining room off the Oval Office, watching it on TV and not doing a thing for hours. He loved it.
And so that's, I'm really disappointed in Tim, most particularly, because I know Tim Scott well, and I think he is a really good person. I like Tim a lot, and I think he's a good man.
But I just don't understand that answer. And you're not disappointed in Mike Pence because he's a weird dude.
Well, no, I won't call Mike a weird dude. But what I would say is...
Have you ever had a normal conversation with Mike Pence? I have. I have.
I have. But maybe one time the three of us can go out.
Yeah, no, I'd love that. What a normal conversation will look like with Mike Pence.
Vigganize. Come on.
He's a weird fucking dude. I have had normal conversations with Mike Pence, but Mike

can't break himself away

from his association

with Trump for whatever reason.

He can't, even though he's running against him,

he still can't bring himself to say

the truth, which is that

he incited, directly

incited those people

to chant, hang Mike Pence. Because

in that speech on January 6th,

he said, it's all up to Mike Pence now.

And if Mike doesn't do the right thing, we're all

Thank you. incited those people to chant hang Mike Pence because in that speech on January 6th, he said, it's all up to Mike Pence now.
And if Mike doesn't do the right thing, we're all going to be very upset with him. Well, you don't have to question what his intent was there.
And that's why I don't understand Mike and Ron just can't figure out who Ron is. So that's why he gave that answer that you had a difficult time understanding.
Have you spent a lot of time with Ron DeSantis? I have not. He seems like he wants to be tough, but not take on Trump.
It doesn't seem to be working for him. Oh, I think we could all agree right now, including probably Ron, that it's not working for him.
I mean, when you fire a third of your staff and you're on your third reboot since May, you know, things are tough, but we'll see what happens. You never know.
Do you think that, uh, wokeness is as big a threat to America as Ron DeSantis does? Are you, are you waking up in the night worried about people being woke? I don't agree with much of it, but I think that we have much bigger issues that we should all be concerned about and discussing as much as that's being discussed. And so, you know, on many of those issues, my view is I think when it involves kids, we should let parents deal with that.
And we don't need the government in the middle of this stuff on either side of it, pushing an agenda one way or another. I think parents should be the people who are dealing with their kids on stuff like that.
I'm not a big government conservative, and it looks to me like Ron is, a big government conservative and thinks that he can substitute his judgment for the judgment of parents. And I think that's a dangerous thing for either party to get involved.
So that's actually going to ask you about this. So parents and doctors come together and decide that the best course of action for a trans teenager is to begin transition for their mental health, for their long-term prospects.
That's what the medical community says is best. That's what the teen, the doctors, the parents all say.
And you're saying the government should not be allowed to step in. I don't think it's smart for them.
I don't think it's smart for them to do it. I don't want to see people in government substituting their judgment for a parent's judgment.
I could tell you this. I speak about this as a father.
First, before an elected official. And no one knows my four children better than my wife and I know them.
And if my wife and I decide something is best for our children,

and the government wants to get in the middle of that,

and we have medical professionals who agree that that's the way we should do things,

I think it's a very dangerous place to go.

Now, I know some people argue, well, we have all kinds of laws that prevent parents from doing things.

But those are things that are intentionally abusive of children. I don't think you can put this in that category.
And quite frankly, I think parents should make these judgments. And I think government shouldn't be involved in either way.
They shouldn't be out there encouraging it, and they shouldn't be out there discouraging it. They should let parents make these calls.
We got enough problems that government doesn't fix well. You think the government, where's the government out there encouraging it and they shouldn't be out there discouraging it they should let parents make these calls we got enough problems that government doesn't fix well you think the government where's the government out there trying to encourage people to be trying to say no i'm saying that they shouldn't be on either side sure so that if if someone came forward let's say with a policy saying let's have posters in schools that say have you considered being trans today that's not right well it's just not a thing there'm not saying that there is.
Yeah, but you're- But I'm saying, no, no, wait. It's important to know, though, that both sides need to understand that if they act in a way that interferes with parents' rights, that they're wrong, no matter how righteous they may think their cause is.
Okay. And that's the point that I'm making.
Let's talk about, now you said, you know, you want to be in this race to tell the truth. You're telling the truth.
In April of 2021, you're recovered from COVID. Trump is running around Mar-a-Lago with boxes, trying to stay a step ahead of the feds.
Right. We didn't know that at the time.
We didn't, but he's in a Scooby-Doo, basically down there. You go on Sean Hannity's show.
And here's what you said. You said, overall, I give the president an A.
The fact of the matter is there were some things that happened specifically at the end of the presidency that clouded his accomplishments. He almost kills you.
He tries to overthrow the government. Of course, they didn't know at the time that he tried to intentionally kill me.
What's a B? Look, I was talking about policies. If you get the whole context of that answer, which you didn't, we were talking about the policies.
And there are many, if not most of his policies that he tried to achieve that I agree with. But I had said consistently, not only in that interview, but in all the time that I was on ABC, starting in January of 2018, when I objected to the way he conducted himself inside the presidency and said many times that I thought he was setting a bad example by doing certain things.
And you go back and look at the record, you'll see that that's there. So what we were talking about specifically, and the question was specifically about the policies, it was not about anything else.
Yeah, but you have a policy argument now too. You've said he's a failed leader, that he failed to repeal Obamacare, that he racked up the debt, he didn't build the wall.
You don't think he succeeded on policy now, do you? You think he's a successful policy president? Again, we were talking about his policies and what he tried to do, not what he accomplished or didn't accomplish. That's a different question.
And on those issues, which I'm bringing up now, like Obamacare, like the national debt, like the wall, he failed. And the point I'm making on those are that those are promises he made to the American people standing on the stage of the debates in the primary and in the general election in 2016.
He didn't deliver and now he wants to be rehired. Well, then you got to consider his performance on being able to get stuff done.
It's not good enough in politics just to talk about it.

You have to be able to accomplish it.

And he didn't.

But you think he deserves, but you don't still believe, you wouldn't say that Donald Trump as president deserves an A.

And that's not what I said in that statement either.

If you go back to the entire question, John, and be fair about it, it was about his policies, what he was advocating for. And what he was advocating for, I would give an A to.
That doesn't mean I agree with everything. And an A can be a non-perfect test.
It can be a 90. Right? Okay? That's an A.
But still, because there's some stuff he advocated for that I disagreed with. But that was the context of the question.
So let's be fair about what it was. I guess stepping back from all of this, what I've been, what, as someone from the outside, what I always think about when I see Donald Trump and when I see someone like you standing behind him is the saying, you can't con an honest man.
That the reason, the best cons work is because it convinces the person who's a victim that they're actually in on it. When you endorse in 2016, you don't just stand behind him.
You say, Donald Trump is the kind of person that keeps his word. The world will know that you can trust Donald Trump.
Do you believe that? You believe that Donald Trump is a man who keeps his word? In 2016, when I said it, I did. Because all my experience with Donald Trump from when I met him in 2001 through to 2016, when I stood on that stage, was he had never broken his word to me.
He had always treated me fairly and in a way that was, in fact, generous. So that's what I felt in 2016.
I'm from this media market. Yeah.
I grew up. Donald Trump was on the news.
Famous bullshit artist. You tell a story now, right, that he called you when you were governor and New Jersey had a bunch of debt.

Was his advice

make sure New Jersey

keeps its word?

What was his advice to you?

Go bankrupt.

Go bankrupt.

Right.

Even though it was illegal

and even though it'd be overturned.

Right.

Because you'd be able to what?

Claim you were a winner.

Right.

Was your judgment wrong

about Donald Trump as a person?

I just didn't,

I'm trying to understand

how a person can do

a full reversal.

And I'm glad you're out there

telling the truth about him now.

But I don't,

I just don't understand

how you could have come

to such a diametrically

opposed conclusion

Thank you. I'm trying to understand how a person can do a full reversal.
And I'm glad you're out there telling the truth about him now.

But I just don't understand how you could have come to such a diametrically opposed conclusion after he left office, after he lost. Then if you don't understand that, then with all due respect, you're pretty small.
because because if if people can't continue to learn, grow, and then have an opportunity to change their mind based upon what they learn and observe and hear, then we're going to be static, a static people in a static country. and so you can continue to try to go at like three different angles on this and try to get me to say something different.

But I'm not going to.

And the reason I'm not going to is because it wouldn't be true.

Do you think if given that you, the breaking point was January 6th?

No.

The breaking point was election night 2020.

Okay.

Election night 2020.

Election night 2020.

At 2.30 a.m.

I'm on the set at ABC News.

He came out into the East Room of the White House behind the seal of the president. And he said, the election has been stolen.
And I knew there was no way he could have known that at that moment. And for the, someone who is the president of the United States to say that to the American people, to knowingly undercut their confidence in our democracy purely for his own personal interest was the moment where I said, I am done.
That is a, that is a absolute violation of the trust that the American people placed in you. And you are denigrating that office that you've held and I'm done.
And, and if you go back and look at the video from right after his talk, George Stephanopoulos came directly to me because I asked him to, and I denounced what had happened. And to the point where I got a text immediately from Eric Trump saying to me, like, how can you say those things? And I'm like, because you guys are out there saying this stuff and it's untrue.
So I want to be clear. The breaking point for me was not January 6th.
January 6th added. Added.
Added to it. But to me, everything and everything he did and said from election night forward is what led to January 6th.
And not just January 6th speech. So, you know, you were in debate prep.
You thought he deserved re-election. Had he won, you'd likely still be in the fold, right? I mean, I just.
You know, again, I don't know. It depends on how he would have conducted himself because I was a regular critic of him in the 17 to 20 period when I thought he did things that were wrong.
And so I don't know what I would have been. I had already turned down four different cabinet-level positions with him during that period because I just didn't feel comfortable working for him.
All right, let's move on from Trump. I'm shocked.
Is it the show over? Because usually people only talk to me about Trump. I want to ask you a policy.
I want to ask you a policy. So did Clarence Thomas do anything wrong by accepting all those gifts from Harlan Crowe? No.
He didn't? Nope. You think that's okay? You think the trips, not disclosing them? Yeah.
I don't think there's any problem with it because Harlan Crowe didn't have any business before the court. And if he did have business before the court, then it would have been Thomas's obligation to recuse himself.
It would have been Thomas. You think he should have recused himself if Harlan Crowe had business before the court? Sure.
Okay. And even though now he...
By the way, it's not just about the gifts. It's also about a friendship.
There's obviously a friendship there for a long time. After he became Supreme Court justice, they became friends.
Right. But it doesn't matter when, I mean, you know, you become, you become friends with something.
It's not like, it's not like relationships end when you get into public office. And I met lots of people when I was governor who were friends then and, and remain friends to this day.
They were just a billionaire and a justice who vibed. Let me tell you, knowing Harlan Crowe the way I do, they would vibe.
Oh, you know Harlan Crowe? I do. I know Harlan and his wife.
She's a Jersey girl. Okay.
I know them both well. They're good people.
And you said that the Dobbs decision was correctly decided. Yes, it was.
And you believe it should be left up to the states? Yes, I do. Does that mean you would veto a national abortion ban?

I don't think we'll ever get one.

And what I've said is that until there's a consensus among the states, the federal government should stay away from the issue.

The states are the ones who have the right to make this decision.

And a lot of things are going to happen over the course of the next year and a half or so

that are going to surprise people

and already surprise people.

The referendum in Kansas, I think,

surprised a lot of people who see Kansas as a red state

and thought that they would vote for a ban.

And in fact, they rejected it.

And you have great variety around the country

and how states are dealing with it.

Oklahoma has banned it in every instance

except for life of the mother. In my state of New Jersey, you can have an abortion up to the ninth month.
So I think what it shows is there's a lot of diversity of opinion on this issue around the country. We should allow that diversity to play out across the 50 states.
And then and only then should the federal government look and see, is there a national consensus that, you know, the most of the country could agree with? And if there was one on whether it was 15 weeks, 20 weeks, 12 weeks, whatever it would be, if there became a consensus, then that's something I think the federal government could consider doing then and only then. And by the way, if you didn't have a consensus, you're never going to get 60 votes in the Senate for it anyway.
Was John McCain right when he voted against the repeal of Obamacare? No, I think he was wrong. But I know there wasn't a replacement.
No, I think he was wrong. And that's not why he did it.
He did it to screw Donald Trump. I know John McCain.
I knew him really well. And John McCain was a war hero and an extraordinary public servant.
But he also had one of the best tempers and longest memories I've ever seen in a politician. And that's saying something.
And I absolutely believe that John McCain looked at that vote, knew that Donald Trump had promised this. And John McCain had, in fact, opposed Obamacare.
I think John McCain voted no because he's like, good. Trump's been beating me up, saying I'm not a war hero, calling me names, insulting me, insulting my supporters.
Guess what? Thumbs down. And if you think that that doesn't enter into politics at times, that personal dynamic, then you haven't watched it closely enough.
So I think he was wrong on the substance, but I understand exactly why he did it.

So that's a case where you think that what his motivations are not what he said they were. Oh, I absolutely believe that they were not.
No, no. Because they're opposite of what he had been saying all through his public career.
So he made a different decision. I'm not criticizing him for it.
So just, you know that he didn't really mean what he said

because what he was saying was opposite of what he'd said. So he made a different decision.
I'm not criticizing him for it. So just, you know,

that he didn't really mean what he said because what he was saying

was opposite of what he'd said

his whole political career.

On that topic.

And I believe that he was motivated

by something else.

So that's fine.

It doesn't make his decision wrong.

But isn't that exactly the argument

I'm making to you about your conduct?

No, it's not.

It's exactly the same thing. It's definitely not.
No, it's not, John. Good try, but it's not.
It's not. It's not because we're talking about one discrete issue, Obamacare.
And what I'm saying is that I believe he voted the way he did. I don't know because I didn't ask him.
But you have a gut feeling about it. But I believe knowing John McCain that that's why he did what he did.
And I'm not even saying that what John did was right in doing that. But I know why.
I believe I know why he did it. But you understand that the reason I feel the same way about you is because actually out of respect for you.
Because I think, because I know, but that's real. It is.
It's out of respect for you. Because before you- You think I I'm smarter than that is what you're saying.
Smarter than what? Than to have believed what I said in 2016. Yeah.
No, no, no. I think you're smarter than, I think you're smarter than, yes, I think that you knew better and are smarter and don't believe the bullshit that you were saying about Donald Trump for years.
I think that you're better than that. I think you know better.
I think there's a devil and an angel on your shoulder. Well, there's a devil and angel on everybody's shoulder.
However, you know what? You're wrong about this one. But thanks for the compliment.
I appreciate it. I believed it at the time and I have turned out to change my view based on his conduct and everything I've seen in the years since then.
And that's the way I feel about it.

Now, I appreciate your compliment

because people listening to Pod Save America,

hearing you actually give me a compliment

is going to be a great moment for me.

But nonetheless-

This shrewd U.S. attorney

who dealt with every level of sleaze and schmuck in the world,

I think knew better.

And I'm wrong about that.

You didn't know better.

You are-

Not that I didn't know better. I didn't feel that way at the time and that's not what I believed at the time.
I don't think anybody would ever call me naive. The year is 2015.
You're in New Hampshire. You walk out of a pizzeria.
The question is, who has better pizza? New Jersey or New Hampshirepshire oh it's not even close i would say

new jersey at the time you said you didn't know because you hadn't tried it well of course you

know why i didn't try pizza in new hampshire because i knew it wouldn't be good because it

got to be dog shit well i don't know about dog shit but i knew it wouldn't be good i mean these

people are not making good pizza i don't know about that sometimes you get some you know converts

who make a good pizza but i think likely more I think likely, more likely than not, I would like New Jersey pizza board in New Hampshire. Why do you think New York and New Jersey don't recognize the existence of Connecticut pizza? We don't even acknowledge it.
We should because there's some really good Connecticut pizza like, you know, what's his name? There's Pepe's. Pepe's.
Yeah, yeah. I've been to that.
It's good. Have you been to Pete and Alda's in Neptune? No, I have not.
In Neptune? In Neptune. I'll try it.
If you eat the extra, extra large, they'll get a free t-shirt. I don't think I need to eat the extra, extra large, buddy.
I didn't either. I'm trying to get a little thinner.
Are you? Always. Always? I've been trying for 20 years.
You know, the celebrities are all on Ozempic and Manjaro and Wegovi. What do you think? Yeah, I understand.
Look, I've tried almost every diet and method known to man. I haven't tried that one yet, but that might be next on the list.
Okay. All right.
Governor Chris Christie. John, what a pleasure.
What a delight. It is.
Yeah. Are your people going to kill you for having me on? I don't think so.
I think going to be fine no look uh uh i want to make sure look i'm i want to make sure we're not a cheap date here because being against trump is not enough well look that's for your judgment like i didn't come in here thinking that i was going to turn you into a christy voter okay but but what i think is there are people who listen to your show who need to hear this stuff from a republican so i'm not in here thinking like you know i'm gonna walk out and there's gonna be you know 5 000 new campaign contributors who came off a pod save america now if they did oh yeah i'd be very happy about that well you're on the debate stage you're fine well you know it's a it's a it's an evolving thing yeah you got to continue to add to those donors you go to chris christie.com and you could do that oh god. Fucking bleep it.
Do not bleep that. Bleep it.
Do not bleep that or I will start to curse like crazy here. Let's not do that.
You won't know. It'll be after you're gone.
By the way, I will know. Uh-huh.
I will know after you've done it and it will make you a dishonorable person, John. Well, that I can't have.
You can't be a dishonorable person. Uh-huh.
Because you know what you just did was wrong, don't you?

See, I would know it was wrong.

Did you know it was wrong?

I would know it was wrong.

Did you know it was wrong?

Did I know?

If I had bleeped your name.

To bleep it, would you know that would be wrong?

Absolutely.

Okay, well, good. But I still might do it.

Then I know you won't do it.

Oh, then you know I won't do it.

I know you.

Well, you say you're an honorable man, so I'm going to hold you to your word.

I try to be.

Good.

I guess we're done.

Thanks for doing this.

Thank you, John. I appreciate it.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks to Mehdi Hassan and Chris Christie for joining Pod Save America today.
Everyone have a great weekend and we will talk to you next week. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producers are Andy Gardner-Bernstein and Olivia Martinez.
It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis.
Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman, Ben Hefko, and David Tolles.

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