The GOP Culture War on the Troops

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out full episodes on YouTube. Welcome to Pod Save America.
I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
On today's show, Donald Trump sees winning the presidency as his best chance to stay out of jail. Rupert Murdoch turns on Ron DeSantis and other Republican presidential candidates are now paying voters for the chance to get on the debate stage.
Then Dan talks with pro-choice Ohio's Kelly Copeland about the effort to enshrine abortion access into Ohio's Constitution. But first, Congress is back in session after another well-deserved break, and MAGA Republicans are doing their best to make Democrats point that they're a gang of culture war-obsessed weirdos who can't govern.
The House is trying to pass a traditionally bipartisan defense bill that funds the military, but the Freedom Caucus is threatening to take it unless they can stop the military from trying to recruit more diverse service members and from offering service members access to health care if they're trans or need an abortion. Meanwhile, over in the Senate, Alabama's Tommy Tuberville has been single-handedly holding up more than 250 military promotions in order to stop the Pentagon from providing troops abortion access.
And he's also upset that the Pentagon is trying to get white nationalists out of the military, which led to a few additional questions for the senator. Here's how it all went.
We are losing in the military so fast our readiness in terms of recruitment. And why? I can tell you why.
Because the Democrats are attacking our military saying we need to get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don't believe in our agenda as Joe Biden's agenda. You mentioned the Biden administration trying to prevent white nationalists from being in the military.
Do you believe they should allow white nationalists in the military? Well, they call them that. I call them Americans.
But just to be clear, you agree that white nationalists should not be serving in the U.S. military.
Is that what you're saying? If people think that a white nationalist is a racist, I agree with that. I agree they shouldn't.
A white nationalist is someone who believes that the white race is superior to other races. Well, that's some people's opinion.
Listen, I'm totally against racism. If Democrats want to say that white nationalists are racist, I'm totally against that too.
But that's not a democratic definition. The definition of a white nationalist is someone...
Well, that's your definition. My definition is racism is racism bad the definition the definition is that the belief that the right race is superior to all other races totally out of question so do you believe that white nationalists are racist yes if that's what a race is yes thank you look i don't know how you define white nationalism you know the uh just uh it's just a bunch of people proud of being white, proud of being white racism.
That's bad. That's your definition.
That's your definition. Yeah.
That's you. Yeah.
I don't know where you got your definition from, but everyone has allowed their own definition of everything now. If you, as I don't know if you can do your own research, make your own definitions.
That's just, that's where we are. So that's who the people of Alabama chose to represent them in the Senate instead of Doug Jones.
That's the Tommy Tuberville. Yesterday, Politico called Tuberville Joe Biden's new favorite foil on the stump and wrote a piece about how the president keeps going after him over holding up these military promotions.
The president at a press conference after the NATO summit today went after him again on these military promotions, saying that it is jeopardizing our military's readiness. Why do you think Biden keeps going after poor Tommy Tuberville? Two reasons.
One, I do think Biden has a visceral reaction to a strain of particularly dumb cruelty embodied by Tommy Tuberville. It's why he reacts to Trump the way he does.
It's just there's something offensive about Tommy Tuberville, right? And then there's a more political argument here. And when I was preparing for this pod, I thought back to a time many, many years ago when Ron Klain and I were both advising a politician.
And that politician did something that was so incredibly stupid. And I had to call Ron, who had been chief of staff to the vice president in a big deal, and I had to call him and tell him what this politician that we were both advising did.
And what Ron said to me goes, well, Dan, that would be an A-plus answer to the poli-sci essay question of how do you lose an election? And I sort of think that summarizes what Tommy Tuberville is doing with the military and the abortion stuff. He is holding up the promotions of the most and largely only trusted institution in America over abortion, the issue that cost the Republicans the Senate less than a year ago.
Of course, Joe Biden should hammer him. Every Democrat should hammer him.
It is a political, a massive political misstep from Tuberville that we should absolutely exploit. It also gets to sort of Biden's core message here, right? That like, he's the adult who cares about the entire country while the Republican party has been taken over by extremists who want to, you know, take away our freedoms, cause chaos.
And, you know, here's the proof point. A MAGA senator single handedly weakening our military because he wants to ban abortions, but not white nationalists from the military.
It's like it's the perfect proof point to what Biden's the contrast that Biden is trying to draw in this election. He's obviously had success in the past going after MAGA extremists and trying to say that MAGA Republicans have taken over the party.
And it's also like he's developing a great argument this week, especially, where Biden's abroad, America's leading the world's democracies against a murderous Russian dictator. And at home, he's presiding over an economy with record low unemployment, wages are rising, inflation's falling.
It's like the best of any country in the major economy in the world right now. Things are great.
And here's a bunch of fucking jokers in Congress, Republicans, who want to jeopardize our military and our economy because they're obsessed with taking away people's freedoms, banning abortion, and standing up for white nationalists, I guess. Yeah, it's like it is just the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae of stupidity that the senator doing this is also the one who can't stop supporting and endorsing white nationalists.
It's just, it's perfect. It's absolutely perfect.
And it is directly connected to his holdup of all this shit too, because he wrote an op-ed like a couple months ago about the defense bill where it's not even like he was asked the question on that radio show. In the op-ed, he was like, he was complaining about how our military has to undergo anti-extremism training.
And he thinks that's bad, right? So he's like, part of his problem with the defense budget is not just the ban on abortions, but the anti-extremism training that people are undergoing so that we don't have white nationalists in the military. Un-fucking-real.
So I don't know what's going to happen about this. Tuberville was asked today, like, I guess Biden said, well, I'm hoping that there's Republican pressure on him from other Republicans to drop this hold.
And Tuberville basically said, no, that's not going to work. Republican pressure is not going to change my mind.
And then he was complaining that Biden hadn't reached out to him, that it's been hard to talk to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about this. And then Lloyd Austin apparently called Tuberville in Tuberville's office just now was like, no, he's not available for a call this weekend.
Like, what do you think he's doing? I mean, who the fuck knows? I don't know where, like what happens here? It's just these military promotions just don't go through. I mean, I assume there's going to be mounting pressure from Republican colleagues.
It is always hard to be the one Republican or the one senator who has to go to lunch with the other people and be the one standing in the way of something, particularly something this unpopular. So you think the having to sit alone at the lunch table will finally move this forward? No, I think maybe he'll have to sit down.
Maybe he'll have to like Ted Cruz will come talk to him or something. And that's the penalty.
McConnell sits in with Cruz, Hawley. Yeah, that would do it.
That would do it. All right.
Let's talk about Kevin McCarthy's goon squad over in the house where the passage of the annual defense bill is being held up by yet another revolt from the freedom caucus, a group so extreme that they have now kicked out Marjorie Taylor green for being too established. How about that? What a world.
What about that? They've got two issues, Freedom Caucus. One is the military has become too woke.
And the second is the military, you know, we're doing too much to stop Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Let's take the first issue.
It seems like McCarthy probably needs Democratic votes to pass this bill since some of the

Yahoo's in his caucus won't vote for the bill no matter what happens. So he's probably going to need Democratic votes, but he won't get Democratic votes if any of these anti-abortion, anti-trans, anti-diversity amendments pass.
What do you think happens here? A couple of possibilities. One is that there is a majority that rejects, of all Democrats and some number of Republicans, it includes the 19 of Biden districts, some of the national security hawks.
It just rejects these amendments and they pass what is still a bad bill. Don't get me wrong, but it is a bill without this.
or, and probably more likely what McCarthy does is he,

the amendments happen.

Some of them pass, some of them don't. But then he is able to cobble together enough votes to pass the bill, even with the amendments, by saying to the Republicans, if we want to have any sort of say in the negotiation, we have to pass a bill.
If we don't pass a bill, Biden and the Senate are going to cut a deal and they're going to jam it down our throat. And what he will do, because McCarthy likes to take all of his mistakes and then quadruple down on them, is he will tell people that he will insist that some of these things stay in the bill, and then they won't, and then he'll pay price again and have to then do this all over again a few months later.
So the thought is that the Senate, that if you pass some of these amendments, which a majority of Democrats and Republicans are not going to accept in a final bill, but if the more moderate Republicans vote for them this time around, they'll get stripped out in the Senate? Yeah. Or you will get to a conference committee, right? If there is no House bill, then the House and Senate are not going to sit down.
The House has no seat at the table in the negotiation if they can't pass a bill. And this is how McConnell essentially jammed through that very unpopular and stupid debt ceiling bill was that argument.
I can see him trying that again. What do you think happens on Ukraine funding? This is now an issue that has split the Republican Party.
MAGA types want to cut or eliminate support for Ukraine. Republican senators and the more hawkish House members do not.
What goes on here? Well, there are a bunch of amendments, many of them put forward by establishment Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene to try to block funding for Ukraine in this bill. But this is not where Ukraine funding will be decided.
It will be decided in the defense appropriations bill later this summer in September when they have to try to fund the government, which is the way this defense bill is going doesn't suggest it's going to be a particularly easy process. What McCarthy has pledged is that he would, when he did this, when he was running for speaker, is that he would not do a Ukraine-only funding

bill. You would have to do it in the normal course of business.
And I think he will probably take that as his victory. And there will be some amount of Ukraine funding in the final defense bill.
It just may not be as much as Biden and the Senate Democrats and Republicans want. The politics in this are interesting because basically a year ago, Republicans and Democratic voters had essentially the same views about Ukraine.
And in a recent Pew poll from last month, we're up to 44% of Republican voters who think we are spending too much money in Ukraine. And so there will be political pressure to not give Biden and the Hawks everything they want.
Yeah, I thought it was interesting that there's also a Ronald Reagan Foundation poll this week, and it has 70% of Republican voters want Ukraine to win, but only half support sending aid anymore.

Yeah, well, I mean, a lot of people want things, but not as many people want to pay for them.

It's also, you know, the two Republicans running for president that probably have the best chance of winning the nomination, Donald Trump and I guess Ron DeSantis. We'll get to that.
Yeah, right. Both want to cut back support for Ukraine or at least have – certainly Trump has said that and DeSantis has kind of been all over the map but at least has hinted at it.
One other House Republican snafu before we move on. for the last few months they've been telling us that they know of this secret whistleblower

who has irrefutable evidence that the Biden family is corrupt. Hunter, Joe, the whole family.
But this whistleblower they told us has gone missing. And who knows, you know, maybe he ended up on Joe Biden's kill list, right? Well, we found out this week that the whistleblower's name is Gal Luft, and the reason he went missing is because he fled Cyprus after being arrested and was just charged here in the U.S.
with arms trafficking as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government.

Now, Dan, would you believe that Republican members of Congress reacted to this news by accusing the Biden Justice Department of trying to silence their brave whistleblower, and

they still want this international fugitive to testify?

John, would you believe me if I told you that that same Republican Party is backing, as their nominee, someone who is charged with 37 felony counts under the Espionage Act? These people have not let an indictment get in the way of a good story yet. I don't think they're doing it with Gal Luft.
Also, also, this same campaign, when Trump won the presidency last time and set up a transition team, Gal Luft was, again, paid by the Chinese government as an unregistered foreign agent to go to the Trump transition team and try to get them to embrace pro-China policies and white papers. So the very thing that they think that the Bidens are doing, that they have accused the Bidens of doing, Gal Luft actually did with the Trump campaign.
And that's just one of many countries that have tried to influence the policies of the Trump administration through cash quite successfully, quite successfully. So I'm sure that'll be the end of, uh, of that.
We won't hear about it anymore. And, uh, and you know, we'll just all move on.
Speaking of criminal defendants with, uh, with lots of indictments, let's talk about Trump. On Monday, his lawyers asked judge Cannon to postpone his stealing nuclear secrets trial indefinitely.
Their argument is that conducting a trial during the campaign will, quote, create extraordinary challenges in the jury selection process and limit the defendant's ability to secure a fair and impartial adjudication. Of course, Trump wins the election.
The trial won't happen because of the Department of Justice policy that a sitting president can't be indicted. Questions.
Do you think Trump's argument has any merit here? You know, when you wrote this in the outline, I took it pretty seriously at first and I did what I do when I tried to do legal research. You went on Twitter and then listened to Strix Gruney? I went to Strix Gruney first, Twitter second.
And then I said to myself, what the fuck am I doing? Like, of course not. There's no precedent here.
When the guy is trying to delay the trial for the specific purpose to allow him to pardon himself so he does not face the charge, yeah, of course it doesn't have any merit. Like, you can argue all day long about impartial jury and fair trial.
And I think you could argue pretty persuasively that after the presidential election, it's not going to all of a sudden people are going to stop having strong opinions about Donald Trump. And you can easily find 12 people in America who don't have an opinion on him.
But this is a wholly unprecedented thing. And the overriding question is about the fact that the election will determine whether he faces justice or not.
I mean, Trump's argument here is that running for president and being president are both get-out-of-jail-free cards. So in his legal team's view, as long as you are in the White House or trying to get there, you cannot stand trial for any crimes.
So we should all just run for president and then we can commit all the crimes we want. Because if you're running or you're president, no accountability.
You are above the law. That's the argument.
He could lose and announce for the 2028 presidency on the first Wednesday in November. Yeah.
And then make the same argument. I'm sorry.
I'm running in 2028. And so I can't be doing this.
I have to get ready for the likely nominee. They put that in there.
He's going to be the likely nominee. He's the leader in the nomination.
And so, you know, you're right. He's got a lot of preparation to do for 2028.
So can't stand trial between 2025 and 2028 either. Look, someone who's known for rigorous preparation for debates, interviews, really hardworking.
I understand. So now what do we think Judge Cannon's going to do since she is a wacky Trump judge? Who's already proven to us how wacky she is by delivering some rulings that were overturned by the very conservative 11th Circuit.

I think she can give Trump what he wants in two ways. She could just grant his motion and delay the trial, or she can deny his motion and still give him what he wants.
Because even before this motion, a lot of independent legal experts thought it was very likely this trial would happen after the election because of the tremendous logistical issues around having a trial involving such highly classified information. That is a long process.
It's hard to get all the right. You get that.
There's questions around document custody and who has clearance to look at the documents and who can hear the things said about them. And so she could, you know, she is savvy, deny his motion, get a few good tweets from some lawyer types, and then still give him what he wants in the long run.
Yeah, I mean, you know, and to the question of like, what does Jack Smith do if she does grant his motion here? He does like, you know, I was reading the New York Times on this and they said um obviously judges have wide latitudes to schedule uh trials typically typically schedules are not able to be appealed but it says given the extraordinary nature of mr trump's case and the potential implications of a delay prosecutors under mr smith could in theory try to come up with the rationale to challenge a scheduling decision made by Judge Cannon

to the U.S. Court of Appeals

for the 11th Circuit,

which is interesting.

Or, or Jack Smith can just wait

and just bring his January 6th chargers

and try to go that route.

Which faces a similar challenge,

just different judge, I guess.

I think that's the point.

I think that's one of the points.

There's some news that he is

moving closer to the January 6th indictment

Thank you. similar challenge, just different judge, I guess.
I think that's the point. I think that's one of the points.
There's some news that he is moving closer to the January 6th indictments. And there's reporting that, so Fannie Willis in Georgia is basically signaled that she's going to bring charges if she brings charges the second week of August.
And the thinking is that Jack Smith wants to get in before that happens to bring the federal charges. And the lawyers at Just Security, who called both the hush money payments and the classified documents case pretty accurately, wrote another sort of prosecution memo, what the prosecution, what Jack Smith might actually write in the indictment about how Trump could get charged for January 6th today.
And it looks like, you know,

the fake elector scheme obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and potentially an

incitement. It's going to be a fun summer.
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
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by joining Crooked's Friends of the Pod at crooked.com slash friends. So even though Trump is trying to win the election before one of these multiple indictments lands him in prison, still having a better week than his closest polling opponent, Ron DeSantis.
The New York Times and Rolling Stone are reporting that the Murdoch media outlets are starting to turn on Tiny D and that Rupert Murdoch himself would now like Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin to get in the race. A lot of DeSantis donors and supporters are also freaking out about his candidacy, with some saying that they're tweeting their concerns because that's the only way Ron DeSantis' super online campaign will hear them.

You think that's what DeSantis needs?

You think he needs more advice from Twitter?

Yeah, just tweet at him.

Absolutely.

It's possible Ron DeSantis and his campaign are beyond help.

We don't know, but maybe, yeah.

I mean, it's just when you, we've been watching this now for seven months, I guess, since

basically after the midterms, as he has been either putatively running or explicitly running

for president.

And there has not been like one good moment in there the entire time.

And I'm not sure what he brings to the table, right?

Which is, if you think about it, not every politician is great at everything, but some of the, but they're all great at something. Right.
And so it's, when you're running for president, you can be like a great speaker in front of a crowd like Obama was. Right.
Or you can be incredibly compelling and charismatic and empathetic, like in a small group like Joe Biden is right. Or Bill Clinton was, or maybe you're a master at the media, like Trump was, as painful as that is to say.
But like, Ron DeSantis is bad at all of those things, like really bad at him. Like, he's not a good speaker.
He has no personality. Like, he's actually repels people by speaking with them.
That seems like a problem in a place like Iowa. And he steps on himself every time he does an interview, even with friendly outlets.
So it's like, what is he? He's like a baseball player who can't throw catcher back. Like what? I don't know what he does.
I don't be mean. I mean, candidates can get better for sure, but I just don't see a lot of signs of potential here.
I mean, he is very good at signing his name to pieces of extremely conservative legislation from the Florida legislature that is filled with the big Republican majority. So he's pretty good.
He just signs his name on this. And he's good at talking to very friendly propaganda outlets in Florida.
Yeah. I mean, basically your argument is an auto pen with less personality.
Yeah, that's it. That's my argument, but you're right.
Polls are showing that the more voters know about him, the less they like him, which is, it's never a good, usually like if you're doing poorly in the polls, your hope is okay. Well, for the people who, who do know who the candidate is who say, yeah, I can identify that candidate.
Oh, I like that candidate. Then you're like, okay, if only more people get to know our candidate, then they'll go up in the polls.
But with Ron DeSantis, it's the opposite. And so that's not a good sign.
Do you want to hear my hottest, most irresponsible take right now? Oh, yes, I do. Donald Trump is the most likely Republican nominee.
The second most likely Republican nominee is Glenn Youngkin. Oh, I thought you were going to say Vivek Ramaswamy.
No, but he's spreading up that list pretty fast. Again, again, there is, yeah, we should have a side bet on whether he will finish ahead of Ron DeSantis somewhere.
You think Glenn Youngkin will get in the race? I'm not saying he, I think either Donald Trump wins, and if he doesn't win, it would be someone like Len Young can investigate him. Someone who gets in late, who is the, can become the vehicle that Ron DeSantis was unable to be, or the vessel, I guess, for what Ron DeSantis has been unable to be, which is people who want someone, an electable version of Trump.
Yeah, I think there's just a problem with the whole vehicle vessel theory of this shit. Like you need a candidate.
You need a candidate who has personality, charisma. And like Glenn Youngkin to me is just, is like, you know, it just has the same problems as Ron DeSantis.
He was never a captivating candidate. He is a more compelling candidate than Ron DeSantis.
And I think he would wear better over a short period of time. If, if Chris Christie, I mean, it's got a little like Rick Perry, Fred Thompson vibes too, you know, that's the way these things get in the race very, very late.
Yeah. I, I, there is not a great history of people getting in the race late and doing well, um, which speaks to how likely I think Donald Trump is to be the nominee.
That is by far the overwhelming, but if you were like placing bets on odds, that's where I would put my money. Yeah.
For long odds. Okay.
So you're a Glenn Young. You're a Glenn Youngkin guy.
I'm a Doug Burgum guy. You're a Glenn Youngkin guy.
I've been thinking, and I was meant to pitch this in our internal meeting yesterday, that we should each adopt a Republican candidate. Yeah.
No, we should pick one. No, I thought that too.
I said that to someone. We should do a draft.
We didn't have to draft him. I think we can figure out amongst ourselves.
You obviously want Burgum. No one's going to fight you for it.

No, I want a team.

I think we should do a full draft and just keep selecting all of them

until we have a crew of two or three each.

Do we take Trump out of it?

Yeah.

Right, because that's not fun to have someone have Trump.

I think the Trump part is going to be hard to explain.

They have to be likely losers.

But I think we also have to start with like,

you know,

Lovett gets Tim Scott because he's already made such a stink about him.

And,

and,

and Tommy gets Nikki Haley because he seems like a fan.

Sure.

Absolutely.

I'm going to,

I'm going to be fighting for Chris Christie,

of course,

and my,

and my boy,

Doug.

What do you think about the Murdoch story?

How much harder will it be?

And I realize it's already quite difficult for Ron DeSantis to win the primary without Fox on his side. Well, it's certainly possible to win the primary without Rupert Murdoch on your side, because Rupert Murdoch was a vehement opponent of Trump in 2016.
But what was misunderstood in that recounting of history was that Roger Ailes was obviously a very big Trump guy. And while he was there, he was optimizing the network's programming, both for ratings and Trump at the same time.
And now if Fox from top to bottom is anti DeSantis, which they have, you know, a financial rationale for being, because I don't think he's great television and Trump's remains the ratings driver. It makes it harder, right? I don't think it's as powerful as it possibly can be, but I can't, and it's like a, Ron DeSantis, in addition to needing more voters, he also needs to remain the choice of Republican elites for money and political support and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post and Fox News help with that.
And with that, that's going to make things even harder for him without it. Yeah.
And the other thing is, like, they already tried to make DeSantis happen and it didn't work. So I don't know that they're going to want to, like, go back to that well.
Like, the New York Post was even more out front and sort of, like, boosting DeSantis for a while. Fox wasn't exactly boosting, but they were giving him some friendly interviews.
And now he's not really having any of those friendly interviews. So that's tough for him.
Fox made him famous, right? I remember when you were doing The Wilderness and you talked to Sarah Longwell, and you were talking about people who might run if Biden were to not run. This was taped before he announced he was running.
And with Republicans, they would all say DeSantis because Fox had made DeSantis famous. And when you ask Democrats, they don't know anyone because there's no entity to do that.
And so Fox created Ron DeSantis. And if they walk away, it does make it harder to keep up the political Ponzi scheme that is the DeSantis campaign, I guess.
I'm interested in how DeSantis' interview with Tucker Carlson goes tomorrow on Friday. They're all going to be, minus Trump, at the Family Leadership Summit event in Iowa.
And Tucker Carlson is going to sit down and interview DeSantis, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy. And once again, Trump just said, eh, fuck off, I'm not going.
Probably the right move. The Republican presidential contenders are all doing an interview with Tucker Carlson at the same place, I believe, or at least on the same day where Governor Kim Reynolds is signing Iowa's six-week abortion ban.
It's like a Democratic ad just made. Yeah, and they're sitting down with the guy who just did an interview with Andrew Tate, who has been indicted on sex trafficking charges and rape.
So that's where the Republican... And it's also, it's like the people doing this like what is asa hutchinson doing what is what is what is nikki haley doing what are these fucking people tim scott they're they're sitting down with tucker carlson at this thing come on you know what that's called this is what our friend elissa used to call uh what people would do in meetings sometimes which is called proof of life they're just reminding you that they still work there right it's Yeah, this is very proof of life.
So some of these candidates, Republican candidates are doing whatever they can just to qualify for the August 23rd debate. They have to hit certain polling thresholds and have at least 40,000 unique donors, including 200 contributions from 20 states.
To get that done, my boy Doug, Doug Burgum, billionaire governor of North Dakota, is offering $20 gift cards to people who donate at least $1 to his campaign. Anti-woke crusader Vivek Ramaswamy, he's promising people a 10% cut of the money they bring to his campaign.
So he's like deputizing people as like, if you sign up and you donate, then you're a fundraiser. And if you get other people to donate, then you take a 10% cut.
So that's like a real Ponzi scheme. He's just like a multi-level marketing scheme that he's doing.
And Francis Suarez is selling a $1 adios Biden bumper stickers. That seems fine.
And then we just saw last night that Chris Christie,

Tim Scott and Chris Christie both announced

that they did hit the 40,000 donor threshold.

And Chris Christie did that just by, you know,

tweeting at us libs to throw him some money

so he could kick the shit out of Donald Trump

on the debate stage,

even though Donald Trump probably won't be appearing

in that first debate or maybe the second

or maybe any of them.

Oh, man. So first question about this, have you received your gift card yet from Doug? I am not the Doug guy on this podcast.
There's one Doug head, and that is you. You don't have to be a Doug guy.
You just have to want $19. Don't you want your free $19? It's going to be so funny when he doesn't reach the threshold, even though he's trying to pay people $20 to give him $1.
I mean, he's trying to pay them $19. Yeah.
It's a $19 gift. Is that legal? Do we think that's legal? There's some open questions about whether that's a straw donor scheme where you give people money so they can give it back to you.
But then also, no one cares about Doug Burgum to really run that question to ground. So I think it's going to be fine.
We think Vivek's scheme, that's also, that's legal too? He actually got the FEC to sign off on it. Oh, wow.
Okay. And it's actually.
Wait, first of all, first of all, the FEC signs off on things. I didn't know the FEC was working.
Working is, you can, you can take ideas to them and get guidance. You get guidance on on whether it adheres to their rules.
And I mean, there are professional fundraising entities in life that take a cut through direct mail or online fundraising of what they raise. So doing the same thing for volunteer fundraisers, ostensibly usually volunteer fundraisers, seems fine.
It also seems rife with corruption, right, where you straw donor these things and then take the cut. But also, once again, at least up until he started rocketing up on the polls, no one cared enough to really dig into it with Vivek.
I mean, it does seem very funny to me that they're going through all of these possibly illegal shenanigans to get on a debate stage when Donald Trump might not show up. But I guess that's just because this is the only way for them to get attention is to be on this debate stage.
So Trump or no Trump, it's like their best shot. What do you think? Well, if you don't make the debate stage, you're done.
That's the end of your campaign. So this is just a gating issue to continue to lose to Trump later on.
So if you want to continue to pretend to run for president, like Asa Hutchinson and Will Hurd are doing, well, you have to get on that stage. And if you don't get on that stage, it's over.
Forgot about Will Hurd. Honestly, I can't believe he popped in my mind right then at that moment.
The last time I talked about him was the last time you and I talked about him. Well, someone should get him in the draft.
All right. After the break, Dan talks to pro-choice activist Kelly Copeland about the fight to keep abortion legal in Ohio.
But one quick housekeeping note before we go to break. In case you missed it, you can now listen to Pod Save America ad-free by subscribing to Friends of the Pod.
I know some of you more vocal, very online listeners enjoy the ads, and that's great. You can keep listening to the ads.
But a lot of you, a lot of you have asked us for ad-free episodes. So we are now offering Friends of the Pod subscribers exclusive access to an ad-free version of Pod Save America.
Plus, you can also, if you sign up, listen to the finale of Crooked's latest limited series, Dreamtown, the story of Atalanto, before it releases. Again, when you sign up for Friends of the Pod, you can subscribe now by heading to crooked.com slash friends.
We will be right back with Kelly Copeland. And for Pod Save America listeners who are looking for how to help in Ohio and how to help Kelly, you can go to votesaveamerica.com slash Ohio to donate and volunteer.
My name is Niccolo Mainoni, and for years I have been obsessed with one of Europe's greatest mysteries. Who killed God's banker? The wire said, Calvi found dead.
Suicide? Question mark. What truly happened to the banker who had the Vatican, the mafia, and a secret far-right branch of the Freemasons all pounding on his door.
From Crooked Media and Campside Media, this is Shadow Kingdom, season one, God's Banker. Find it wherever you get your podcasts or get early access to the full season by joining Crooked's Friends of the Pod at crooked.com slash friends.
A critical fight for abortion rights is playing out right now in Ohio. Here to talk about it is Executive Director of Pro-Choice Ohio, Kelly Copeland.
Kelly, thank you for coming on the pod. Thank you, Dan.
I appreciate the opportunity. Let's just level set here.
Let's start with what is the state of abortion access in Ohio right now? What are the laws you guys are trying to change? Right. So after the Dobbs decision, the six-week ban that had been passed in 2019 went into effect and was in effect for about 82 days until we got a temporary injunction that stopped that law from being enforced until the lawsuit against it is completed.
We've won the early rounds in the lawsuit, but we could lose at any time because our state Supreme Court has, just like the U.S. Supreme Court, been captured by conservative ideologues.
And so we knew that even though we have an implicit right to reproductive freedom, we were going to have to pass an explicit right so that these judicial activists on the Ohio Supreme Court don't have any loopholes to say that we don't have the right to bodily autonomy in Ohio because we do. So time is really of the essence.
So you guys have submitted a large number of signatures, I think almost twice what is required to get a referendum on the ballot in November. Talk to me about what is in that ballot, how it would change the in that in that referendum, what it would how it would change things for people in Ohio, and the status of your effort to get that actually on the ballot.
Yes, thank you. We it was it was it was so incredible, Dan, over 700,000 people signed this petition.
And it's actually not a referendum, it's a constitutional amendment, which is so much stronger. And we had people from all 88 counties sign.
We only have to qualify in 44 of the counties in Ohio, but we had people from literally every corner of the state, like pounding on the door saying, I want to sign, I want to sign. And when we delivered those boxes on July 5th, there were 442 boxes.
And, and, and when I saw them being unloaded from the truck and all of those people who are standing with us, my heart almost exploded because I know that those boxes are filled with love and with hope and with determination that we can do this, that we can secure bodily autonomy for ourselves and for our friends, our families, our daughters. And it was a really incredible moment for the movement in Ohio that's, frankly, been up against it.
So now the Secretary of State has 20 days to look at all those signatures and make sure that we've met the, it's almost 414,000 threshold and all the technical requirements. They have until August 4th to file a frivolous lawsuit, which I'm sure they will, to try to stop us.
And of course, we have the August 8th election, which I'm sure we'll talk about. So it's a daunting path, but it's one that people are so committed to and so many people are part of that I have no doubt will be successful.
I take it that you view the tremendous enthusiasm for science petition as a sign of the momentum and movement behind bodily autonomy in Ohio. Is that correct? That was an encouraging sign, I take it? Oh, my gosh.
It's so encouraging. And, you know, last year for 82 days, we were under the six week abortion ban and the fear that that brought to everybody, not just people who were pregnant and needed abortion care, but people who were pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant and scared that they wouldn't be able to get the treatment that they wanted.
This was something that deeply impacted the psyche of every Ohioan. And I think has really created a resolve that we'll never let that happen to us again.
Is there a timeline for when that case could resolve itself? Could that possibly happen before you vote November? Or is it going to take longer than that? It could. it can happen at any time.
And that's, I think, one of the scary things about it, is that, you know, there could be a period of time before we get a chance to vote in this constitutional amendment on November 7, where people could once again be denied access in Ohio. That said, during those 82 days, because, you know, we knew because of the Supreme Court taking the case, we knew because of the leak, what was likely to happen.
And I was just so grateful and proud for my colleagues at the abortion funds, and at the abortion clinics, and the legal teams, who created this incredible safety net to help people with the logistics and the finances and the legal advice on how to access abortion care, to get them out of state, to, you know, to help them figure out this web. But even with that, we know that not everyone was able to make it out.
And, you know, so if the worst happens before the election, I know that we'll redeploy that safety net and we'll do everything we can for everyone we can, but it won't be enough. And that's why this constitutional amendment is so critical.
Let's talk a little bit about what happens in August 1st, because nothing is as easy as it should be in American politics, particularly in states controlled republicans the republicans have put a an initiative on the ballot in august that would do what explain how explain what that is and how it relates to your efforts and with your november constitutional amendment well let me start by saying um they know that they're about to get their asses beat in november so everything that they're doing is because they're trying desperately not to get completely obliterated in November. And, you know, so we have terrible gerrymandering here, you know, we have this manufactured anti-choice majority in the legislature, you know, and I think they've let that that go to their heads.
And just like on the on the federal level and so many other places, you know, they don't want to actually engage with voters, They know that they've let that go to their heads. And just like on the federal level and so many other places, they don't want to actually engage with voters.
They know that they've lost the argument. So if you can't win the game, you change the rules.
And that's what they're trying to do. Just a few months ago, this is absurd, Dan.
A few months ago, they outlawed August special elections. And then they were like, no, but not for That is a line of us.
And so they put this special election on for August 8th, a Tuesday in the, you know, when people are on vacation, when they're getting ready to go back to school. No one is prepared to vote in August.
Early voting started this week. People are like, what? I'm voting this week? What are you talking about? And of course, they're doing that because they're trying to amend the Constitution before we can.
And they're trying to say, well, hey, you've been able to pass Ohioans, you've been able to pass constitutional amendments with 50% plus one for 100 years, but no more. because we know we can't win.
So we're going to change it to 60%, which is suspiciously close to all of the polling that shows that at least 60% of Ohioans support this constitutional amendment. So, you know, I mean, it's so transparent how scared they are.
But it's also, I mean, I'm laughing about it, but it's also extremely dangerous because they're adding all this other minutia in there that instead of qualifying in 44 counties, you have to do 88 counties and just all of this stuff. And qualifying for a constitutional amendment is an intense and very volunteer heavy, very expensive, frankly, process.
And if they pass this in August with, you know, what is there going to be like 10, 15 percent turnout? So 50 percent plus one of that tiny minority of Ohioan voters could determine whether or not anyone could get on the ballot again, because it is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to amend the Constitution, any citizen-led effort again in Ohio. And they're doing all of that to stop us from passing reproductive freedom in the Constitution of Ohio.
It's daunting, but it's also pathetic. Yeah, I mean, it's hard not to note the irony of a met changing the constitutional amendment process to 60 threshold by amending the constitution with a 50.1 or 50 plus 1 percent right threshold right it's like it's it's they really believed it they should demand they need to get 60 but let's talk about that let's talk about strategy wise right so obviously this is this very clearly in Ohio and the rest of the country, a, a,

a,

a, man, they need to get 60%. But let's talk about that.
Let's talk about strategy-wise, right? So obviously this is very clearly in Ohio and the rest of the country, a pro-choice, pro-abortion access majority, right? An anti-Dobbs, anti-six-week ban majority. Now, whether that's 60% or 58%, we don't know.
How are you, what is your organizing and messaging strategy around turning this seemingly quasi on its face banal, you know, change in process into, in and of itself, a referendum on abortion access in Ohio? Well, you know, what's interesting about actually our opponents on this, they keep trying to pretend it's not about abortion. Of course.
But they're not their private fundraisers. Like our attorney general, Frank LaRose, he's like, oh yeah, it's all about abortion.
So privately they're saying that, but publicly they're like, oh no, it's to protect our constitution. And you've seen this before.
If you can't win an argument, what do you do? You change the conversation. And that's what they're doing.
So I think we're just staying really focused on the conversation. What's really going on here? The first election, August 8th, they want to take away your voice, your voice and your government again.
And that direct access to the ballot is one of the only things Ohioans really have right now because we're still under these terrible gerrymandered districts. And the only way we're going to solve that, of course, is to change our Constitution again.
So they don't want that. So, you know, yeah, this is about abortion primarily, but this is for them.
This would this would really cement their ability to rule the state of Ohio and not represent us, that they'll cement that kind of tyranny of the minority. And so I think we need to let people know that, that, you know, these politicians, they don't want you to have a voice in the government.
And they don't want you to have a voice in your own personal reproductive health care decisions. They just, you know, and it's fascinating to me, because I always say they're for small government, which is nonsense.
You know, they want to be involved in everything. They want to control everything.
They, you know, they're just full of it. I mean, and you know that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Not exactly the Freedom Party, if you know. Yeah.
So we have a lot of listeners in Ohio and around the country. How can they help you both in August and then in November when your Constitution Amendment is approved?

There's so many things.

I would say the first thing is visit our website, Ohioansforreproductivefreedom.org.

You know, one of the most obvious things, even if you've only got five dollars, you know, make a contribution to the campaign.

We've already seen over five million dollars in like stigmatizing and false ads that we have to combat. And so, you know, even $5 goes a long way.
But you can also sign up to volunteer, to host a house party, to, you know, get information that you can share on social media, ways that you can talk about why this is important to you and your family. And even if you're not in Ohio, I swear to you, Dan, I feel like everyone has an Ohio connection.
Somebody's from here, you know, your in-laws live in Youngstown, like something. Ohio is one of those places where I feel like everyone has a connection.
So, you know, if you're not in Ohio, but you have friends and family in Ohio, like let them know you have their back. Let them know how to get involved.
Talk to them about the August election. Make sure they know about it.
Make sure that they know to vote no in August, on August 8th, and yes in November, on November 7th. I mean, I think there's just so many ways that people can help.
And, you know,

one of the reasons that I was thrilled to be able to talk to you is to put out that call because

we can win this, but we can't win it alone. It's going to really take all of us.

Well, I can promise you we'll be beating the drum on this podcast. Kelly, good luck in August,

good luck in November. And we'll talk to you again soon.

I dig that about you, Dan. Thank you.
Thank you, Kelly. This is wonderful.
Yeah, no problem. Okay, before we go, I was going to save this item for Terminally Online, which we'll be recording later.
And I still might talk about it there. But there was a story sent around late last night that we have to cover on Pod Save America.
And this is a story that I believe is Pulitzer worthy. And it came from from all of all places.
The New York Post. Here's the lead.
Page Six regrets to report that a press stender to boost Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign

descended into a foul bout of screaming and polemic farting Tuesday night. The piece goes on to describe this Upper West Side press dinner where a guest asked Kennedy, who is, you know, environmental activist turned anti-vaccine activist, and they asked him about climate change.
And now I will just read from the piece,

which again is perfect.

Quote,

it seems that the mere inquiry

was enough to set off

apparently drunk gossip columnist

turned flack Doug Deschert,

the host of the event,

who became enraged

and screamed at the top of his lungs,

the climate hoax.

Meanwhile,

octogenarian art critic

Anthony Hayden guessed, who appeared to have been sleeping happily for most of the dinner, was roused by the abrupt rumpus. He suddenly opened his eyes and denounced his longtime pal, Deschert, calling him a, quote, miserable blob.
Shut up, implored Hayden Guest. And here's where it gets really good.
Here, it seems, Deschert sensed the need for a new rhetorical tack and let rip a loud, prolonged fart while yelling as if to underscore his point, I'm farting. What do you think, Dan? What a great move.
You're pissed pissed at someone you're having a fight about climate change and you just fart and then you everyone in case anyone is confused about what just happened or what they heard you say i'm farting someone's writing this down in their august debate strategy notebook right now i texted this to you guys last night after i saw it in crooked slack because i didn't think think, who would really click on a page? Not only is the New York Post, it's the page six gossip column in the New York Post. Right.
Which again, is known for its credibility always. Yes.
And after I sent it to you, I read it, I sent it to you and I thought to myself, I'm definitely the victim of a hoax here. Because there's no way this is real.
But here we are. Maybe it's a deep fake.
If it is, AI is one. Or maybe the writer just completely made up the story, in which case, I think that's fine.
And I don't ever want to be told that the story isn't true. I want to live the rest of my life believing that the story happened.
The piece continues. This room, which included a handful of journalists, as well as Kennedy's campaign manager, former representative Dennis Kucinich, of course the cooch was there, was stunned.
Seemingly unsure about whether Deshert was farting at Hayden Guest personally or at the very notion of global warming. When asked to comment about his outburst the next day, Deshert told us, quote, I apologize for using my flatulence as a medium

of public commentary in your presence.

He also asked us to refer to him

either as a gallivanting

boulevardier or a

beer-fueled sex rocket.

I mean, a beer-fueled...

This guy is great.

I want to have this guy on the pod.

He sounds like an offline guest to me, personally, but...

Yeah, beer-fueled sex rocket.

Parting up a storm.

That was the part, when I read that, I was like, this can't possibly be real.

But as far as I'm concerned, it's real.

I mean, I guess successful press dinner for RFK Jr., huh?

He got in the press.

Got on this podcast.

The piece says, finally, the candidate maintained a steady composure in the face of the press. Got on this podcast.
The piece says,

finally, the candidate maintained a steady composure

in the face of the crisis.

In case you were wondering

what RFK Jr.'s reaction was to all this,

he just sat, probably wondered how he got there.

Do you think it's at all tied to the fact

that he hired Dennis Kucinich

to be his campaign manager?

You think he's proud?

You think he's proud of this campaign? You think the Kennedy family's proud? Cam a lot. Yeah.
Wow. So that's it.
It's just a lot of farting. I don't know what else to say about it.
Just read the piece before it gets taken down. Read the piece.
Yes. Read the whole, I mean, I couldn't couldn't stop myself i read most of it i read all the good parts just so you all know all right well that's all we have for today thanks to kelly copeland for joining us everyone have a fantastic weekend and we'll be back next week bye everyone pods of america is a crooked media production the executive producer is michael martinez our producers are andy gardner bernsteinstein 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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