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Speaker 1 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favreau.
I'm Dan Pfeiffer. On today's show, Donald Trump is taking his first arrest in stride.

Speaker 1 Liberals take control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years. Tennessee Republicans try to expel Democratic legislators for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Speaker 1 And Chicago's mayor-elect Brandon Johnson tells us how he pulled off an upset in a tough race. Then, crooked zone Hallie Kiefer hits us with the most cringeworthy takes from the Trump arraignment.

Speaker 1 But first... Speaking of Hallie, she hosts an outstanding podcast that is the newest member of the crooked family.

Speaker 1 It's called Ruined, and it's a show that caters to both horror movie buffs and scaredy cats.

Speaker 1 Hallie and her squeamish friend and co-host Allison Leiby unpack a different horror movie every week, from bone-chilling slashers to spine-tingling supernatural flicks.

Speaker 1 And for those of you like Allison or me who are too scared to watch, fear not. Hallie will ruin the movie for you.

Speaker 1 Tune into Ruined every Tuesday for your weekly dose of horror available on all major podcast platforms. Do you like horror movies?

Speaker 3 I somewhere between you and a horror buff.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 1 That's a big, well, I hate them.

Speaker 1 I'm terrified because I'm terrified. But so that's a big, that's a big risk.

Speaker 3 This is a longer conversation. Every once in a while I stumble on a horror movie I'll watch because most of American cinema feels dead.

Speaker 3 And I like it, but I don't seek it out.

Speaker 1 Well, I like this podcast because Hallie is hilarious and you don't actually have to watch, so you can listen. And it's just a lot of funny takes about horror movies, which I think is fantastic.

Speaker 3 I mean, isn't people not watching and listening kind of what we're going for, just generally?

Speaker 1 That's our whole vibe. It's our whole vibe.

Speaker 1 Don't tell Elijah. All right, let's get to the news.

Speaker 1 On Tuesday night, twice impeached criminal defendant Donald Trump capped off what he's calling the best day in history with a deranged speech at Mar-a-Lago, the scene of another one of his potential crimes.

Speaker 1 The Republican presidential frontrunner rambled through his usual lies about the election he lost, the multiple investigations he's under, and his many personal grievances. Here are some highlights.

Speaker 4 And just recently, the FBI and DOJ in collusion with Twitter and Facebook in order not to say anything bad about the Hunter Biden laptop from hell, which exposes the Biden family as criminals and which, according to the pollsters, would have made a 17-point difference in the election result.

Speaker 4 Yet Joe Biden took massive amounts, more documents, even removed many boxes to Chinatown.

Speaker 4 The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information for which he should be prosecuted or at a minimum he should resign.

Speaker 4 And Alvin Bragg's wife confirmed a report that claimed her husband has Trump nailed on felonies.

Speaker 4 She has since locked down her Twitter account.

Speaker 4 We have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris and now receives money from the Biden-Harris campaign and a lot of it.

Speaker 4 She's doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call, even more perfect than the one I made with the president of Ukraine.

Speaker 3 Remember, a kid kept saying that's a perfect call.

Speaker 4 This lunatic special prosecutor named Jack Smith, I wonder what it was prior to a change.

Speaker 1 It is so funny to go through all of your crimes. past, present, future, your impeachments.
You just make sure you hit it all.

Speaker 1 He's really focused on the issues in this campaign this time around, right? He's just laser-like focus on the issues that matter to people.

Speaker 3 With every passing day, his voice gets fainter and fainter the deeper he goes down the rabbit hole.

Speaker 3 Like you would really need a PhD in far-right MAGA media to understand anything that he is talking about.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he is the most online person in the country.

Speaker 1 So we got some expert legal analysis on the unsealed indictment from our friends at Strict Scrutiny on Tuesday night.

Speaker 1 So you and I get to talk about the politics, which is, you know, all we're good at.

Speaker 3 So at least where I feel most comfortable.

Speaker 1 And I don't even know if I use the word good, but so now that we know more about the charges, the case, and the political world's reaction, do you think anything has changed?

Speaker 3 I think it'd be somewhat naive to think that the additional information we got from the charging documents is going to dramatically change the polls, which sort of seems to suggest in this snapshot moment that the anti-Trump majority in the country doesn't really like Trump.

Speaker 3 They didn't like him before. They still don't like him.

Speaker 3 Trump fans that dominate the Republican primary electorate view this as yet another reason to, they're certainly not dissuaded from their support of Trump.

Speaker 3 And it probably is even helping him in the primary in the short term. What I think we can't really know

Speaker 3 is how this will play out over the long term, because there is a little bit of like a water on rock phenomenon.

Speaker 3 If we spend the next six months, 18 months, just talking constantly about Trump's legal challenges, his various indictments, his court dates, images, the court drawings of him,

Speaker 3 him like state, like sitting at the defendant table, like what that will do both to

Speaker 3 the small sliverer of the general electorate that is persuadable and that group of Republicans that we know actually makes a, at least prior to this, made a majority of people who like Trump, but were open open to another candidate.

Speaker 3 Like what will that mean to them? And I think that's, you can't really predict that. I think it will, it's very dynamic.
It could have a real effect. Just it'll take a little bit of time, I think.

Speaker 1 Look, I think that the, that small sliver of persuadable voters is looking for a president who has sat as a criminal defendant in court. They like that.
That's what they're looking for.

Speaker 1 Like, that guy's going to fight for me. So I,

Speaker 1 there are some legal experts, including left-leaning legal experts, who I think have gone a little wobbly on the merits of the case.

Speaker 3 Oh, you have some legal analysis despite that

Speaker 1 intro there.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm just saying I've noticed it, right?

Speaker 1 And I do think that that has influenced the media coverage and also sort of emboldened Trump and his goons even more than they already would have been emboldened.

Speaker 1 On the merits, like I very much agree with Leah and Kate's analysis on the merits of the case, as well as the analysis of all the legal experts who have actually brought these kinds of cases in New York State before.

Speaker 1 But I'd also say that a lot of the experts who don't think Bragg should have brought this case admit that they're mostly worried about the political ramifications of indicting a former president for this particular crime.

Speaker 1 And like that I strongly disagree with. And we've now been doing this since the Mueller days, since before that, where like people whose expertise is in legal matters think a lot about the politics.

Speaker 1 And I just don't think,

Speaker 1 I agree with you. Like, I just don't think we know what the political ramifications are.
But like, let's say Trump gets the case thrown out or he's found not guilty.

Speaker 1 Yes, he and the entire MAGA establishment are going to scream about exoneration

Speaker 1 and this was just another. Democrat witch hunt

Speaker 1 against me and blah, blah, blah. And the press is going to say, oh, Trump is emboldened, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 But like, and just exactly what happened when the Mueller report came out and Bill Barr decided to summarize it before it actually came out. And everyone said the clouds were lifted.
Remember that?

Speaker 1 Oh, Donald Trump has strengthened.

Speaker 1 Now he's going to win re-election. And then what happened? He lost.

Speaker 1 He lost. So I just want to like, everyone should be prepared for the fact that like Donald Trump, he could be found not guilty.
They could throw the case out of court. We might get more indictments.

Speaker 1 We might not get more indictments. They might lead to guilty verdicts.
They might not. But like, it's just like you said, the guy lost the 2020 election.

Speaker 1 A second Trump term is absolutely terrifying, but Donald Trump is not political Teflon. He's just not.

Speaker 3 I mean, because he's only ever won one election and his party's lost every single election since then.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 It's just like, there's this, this fear of Donald Trump's political strength that just would not be, like, people would not be having this for any other person or any other politician.

Speaker 3 I mean, we're, there's still a

Speaker 3 national PTSD, particularly among political prognosticators about 2016, because we were so wrong about that, that you can, the natural, you, you're like almost insulating yourself from it.

Speaker 3 We should like, we don't know what's going to happen.

Speaker 3 Any person who wins the Republican nomination, whether it's Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, a cardboard cutout of Spiro Agnew, has a near coin flip chance of winning the presidential election in this political environment with this electoral college.

Speaker 3 That is just a fact.

Speaker 3 But there is just no way that it is possible that getting indicted doesn't hurt him a ton, but it's not going to help him. That is just not how it works.

Speaker 3 And if he wins this Republican nomination going away, it's not because he got indicted. It's because he was going to win anyway.
That's why.

Speaker 3 He was just simply too strong for the collection of Yahoos who decided to run against him. And it's not, there's not, it's not that complicated.

Speaker 3 It's just he will win in spite of, not because of, the indictment.

Speaker 1 And also, and we've said this a million times before, like whether or not he's found guilty of this crime or other crimes, it is very likely that a jury won't end his political career.

Speaker 1 It will be up to the voters. It is the voters, not the jury that we have to focus on here.

Speaker 1 So we should just let the legal process play out. And if he gets off, no one freak out.
Just saying it now.

Speaker 3 I'm sure no one will freak out.

Speaker 1 Oh, because you said it.

Speaker 1 I was thinking about it this morning, just imagining the case getting through. And then everything.

Speaker 1 We said that they shouldn't have brought this case. Alvin Bragg ruined everything in the whole election.
Now Donald Trump's going to win. I just, I cannot.

Speaker 3 If Twitter still exists then, which is an open question, the amount of people. of like legal pundit types that will just tweet, leaving this right here, it'll be their tweet from April.

Speaker 1 Why they thought Alvin Bragg shouldn't have brought the case. It's like, fuck off.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Do you think Trump won a lot of persuadable voters by using his primetime speech to remind people of all the things he's being investigated for and then attack a prosecutor, a judge, and their families?

Speaker 1 Do you think that's a good campaign message for 2024?

Speaker 3 I would, this is one of those times where if we had a always-on democratic progressive advertising effort, you would take parts of that speech and you would show it to voters.

Speaker 3 Like just like every 60 days between now and and the election, you just remind them one time, just like 15 seconds at the top of a YouTube video or something.

Speaker 3 Just everyone should see it because there is no one who is truly persuadable who saw that speech who would think that man should be president of the United States.

Speaker 1 It's like, how many, this is my question. How many non-MAGA voters want to sign up for a campaign that is basically just a kamikaze mission? to avenge Donald Trump.
That's the whole campaign now.

Speaker 1 He is, he's not, I know they like put out a bunch of policy papers early on because he's trying to like outflank DeSantis on the right and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 No one knows about any of that. That's all getting buried.

Speaker 1 Now that he's under it, this is where the indictment might hurt him because all he's going to talk about, all he seems able to talk about, is himself, his grievances, his problems. That's it.

Speaker 1 At least in 2016, he was talking about other people's grievances. Now he's just talking about his own grievances.
That's all. That's all we got left.

Speaker 1 It was like a 25-minute rambling speech about himself, his problems.

Speaker 1 Woe is me. I'm a victim.
That's all he's got. I don't know.
It doesn't

Speaker 1 feel like a strong message to me. Maybe it'll change.
Maybe I'm wrong, but

Speaker 1 it doesn't feel strong. Trump also said he wants Republicans to defund the FBI and the DOJ.

Speaker 1 And a lot of MAGA politicians and Fox pundits are openly calling for Republican prosecutors to indict the Bidens, the Clintons, Obama, basically any Democrat.

Speaker 1 What do you think about that? We talked to Kate and Leah about this Tuesday night, but it certainly seems, it seems worrisome, but again, not really a message that will resonate with a lot of folks.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I don't think a party whose main goal is either helping Donald Trump commit his crimes or trying to refight political battles dating back to the 90s is going to be particularly resonant.

Speaker 3 Like, does it seem where most of the electorate would be?

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 3 given the incentives of Republican politics, maybe I hope

Speaker 3 Kate and Leah are right that the law is very constraining here.

Speaker 3 It's pretty hard to, you know, it's like when Jim Comer, the James Comer, the Republican head of the Oversight Committee said that he had taken calls from prosecutors in Kentucky and some other red state looking for ways to indict the Clintons.

Speaker 3 or the or Biden.

Speaker 3 You have to actually find actual crimes. Like I'm not sure what that would be, but it does speak to the dangerous sort of mentality we would have if Trump were to win.

Speaker 3 Like maybe that's the way to think about it. It's not what are they going to do right now with the rural prosecutor and, you know, wherever.

Speaker 3 It's how are they going to weaponize law enforcement if they get power again? And that's a scary thing. And that's something worth talking about as we, as this election unfolds.

Speaker 1 Trump's next attorney general will make Bill Barr look like Merrick Garland.

Speaker 1 Like it's, I mean, it's ponderous.

Speaker 1 I know there's not a lot of murder, but like it is, it is going to be, I mean, you know, it's going to be what, like, like Charlie Kirk's going to be the next.

Speaker 1 It's going to be Boris Epstein. It's going to be Boris Epstein.
I mean, we are in, and I'm laughing now, but it is truly, like, talking about the guardrails being off,

Speaker 1 man. It's going to be all revenge all the time.
That's the whole purpose of a second Trump presidency. So prosecutors say they want Trump to stand trial in January of 2024.

Speaker 1 The defense, Trump's defense, say they want it in spring of 2024.

Speaker 1 The judge seemed to think, okay, well, we'll figure it out later. But how is this going to work in the middle of a campaign?

Speaker 3 Not great, I would say.

Speaker 3 I mean, January of 2024 is the run-up to the Iowa caucus, which then kicks off a near-weekly succession of primary contests that will decide the nomination probably by spring of 2024, which may be why Trump wants it then.

Speaker 1 I know, I I was trying to figure out why he wanted it in spring of 2024 because you're right. It saves him from the primary issue.

Speaker 1 But then it's like the beginning of the general election campaign when you think voters would be least amenable to Donald Trump sitting in court every day during his campaign against Joe Biden.

Speaker 3 John, when you're scheduling your criminal prosecution and Mr. President's agreement, there are a lot of awesome options, right?

Speaker 1 It's like, what's better? Fall of 24?

Speaker 1 When's a down period?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm sure if he could ask for spring of 2025, he would do that, but that's probably not a case.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he probably wants to put, I'm sure he wants to push it till November 20, late November 2024.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I honestly, and I can't believe, I honestly cannot believe we're having a conversation about the logistics of

Speaker 3 this, but logistically,

Speaker 3 Trump, if he is going to win, likely locks up the nomination in the spring because when Republican contests are winner-take-all.

Speaker 3 So you can get to an insurmountable delegate lead pretty quickly after a bunch of the big states happen, like Texas.

Speaker 3 So if it's happening in May, he is either in the nominee or he's lost. Those are probably, that's probably what has happened.
But if it's in, like, either way, we're scheduling debates.

Speaker 3 Republicans are not us. We are not hosting a Republican debate.
We should, but I don't think they would agree. Although, if we just said the crooked debate.

Speaker 1 The invitation is out there. Open invitation, everyone.
Yes.

Speaker 3 Debates. Just like being in Iowa or New Hampshire, if it's in that January time period, is going to be tremendously challenging.
It's actually challenging for Trump's opponents, too.

Speaker 3 If they have not yet gained real traction, how are they going to break through

Speaker 3 with 24-7 coverage, particularly in the MAGA media, of Trump's criminal prosecution for paying hush money to cover up an affair?

Speaker 3 You think like you can see Asa Hutchinson trying to give a speech on his like tax cut agenda.

Speaker 1 Man, I can't believe we're going to go through this. So most elected Democrats didn't say a whole lot about Trump's arrest on Tuesday beyond the very standard now.
No one is above the law.

Speaker 1 That's sort of the standard line. I don't think anyone believes that Republicans would be shy if the Democratic frontrunner for president was arrested.
What do you think?

Speaker 1 You think they'd say, oh, no one is above the law. Let's let the legal process play out.

Speaker 1 It's, yeah, it's funny, right? No one, no one could imagine them saying that. Are Democrats missing an opportunity here? What do you think?

Speaker 3 Yes and no, which is a really strong thing.

Speaker 1 Like, right, right. Real pundit over here.

Speaker 3 I mean, eventually, yes.

Speaker 1 I mean, right now,

Speaker 3 there is a tsunami of news coverage about this. No one is missing this story.
And the idea that we're like, why are Democrats not spitting in the ocean right now? Like, who cares?

Speaker 3 Like, it does not, what would a Dick Durbin press conference do to like knock this thing over the finish line?

Speaker 1 I don't know if I'd send Dick Durbin out there.

Speaker 1 Anyone

Speaker 3 imagine, like, what is other than Joe Biden, who we stipulated

Speaker 3 should not be talking about this. That would be, can you just imagine what the norm fetishists in the press would do if Joe Biden mentioned this?

Speaker 1 They're already writing op-eds about how Alvin Bragg shouldn't have brought the case. This just gives him another couple op-eds.

Speaker 3 And to be clear, this is not Merrick Garland. Alvin Bragg does not work for Joe Biden.

Speaker 3 There's not some norm that says he shouldn't comment on it. But if he were to, it would be an annoying distraction.

Speaker 1 But let's just say

Speaker 3 every member of the House and Senate leadership got together and did a press conference together. in the Senate press gallery and they invited everyone.
Like what difference?

Speaker 1 I'm already cringing at this. Yeah, like what?

Speaker 1 What's the step in? What's the step in repeat say?

Speaker 3 Just like what they, like, what, like, what would that do? Having said that,

Speaker 3 I, there's nothing in the polling, and I wrote about this in MessageBox last week or earlier this week or some point,

Speaker 3 at some point, that

Speaker 3 there's nothing that suggests that Democrats should be afraid of this.

Speaker 3 Like, it's not going to hurt us. And I think there is a way that when we talk about,

Speaker 3 so I would think about two ways to talk about it. One is in the run-up to 2020, like we talked a lot about how a message you could use against Trump is chaos and corruption.

Speaker 3 It's now sort of chaos, corruption, and criminality. And it's just like, that is the chaos.

Speaker 1 It's like added another C. Yeah.
Great alliteration there.

Speaker 3 It's a real speechwriter trick, if you will.

Speaker 3 And so it should be part of it. Like, do we need this? We have serious problems.
Do you really need a president who's dealing with this shit? But I think we should attack it.

Speaker 1 It's like, do you, does everyone really want to go back in time to 2016 and do another four years of this bullshit? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Which is now on steroids because now now he's a criminal defendant okay yeah great but i think attacking all the republicans for helping trump and branding him as mag extremists is the way in which democrats should be aggressive about this yeah no i agree and uh and certainly besides asa hutchinson and i guess chris christie not not many republicans who are uh yeah asa hutchinson and

Speaker 3 chris christie future bulwark podcasters

Speaker 1 hey i love the bulwark i know i i do too i do too i just think they're gonna host a a podcast.

Speaker 3 It's called We Were Wrong, debuting in 2025.

Speaker 1 Honestly, I think at this point, the Bulwark won't let them. That's probably true.
That is probably true. They will not be inviting them.

Speaker 3 Tim Miller will be chaining himself to the studio door to keep them from getting in.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, especially Chris Christie. Okay.
I also saw, maybe this is just

Speaker 1 my own beef, but I saw a lot of liberals complaining that the media is repeating the same mistakes they made in 2016 by devoting so much coverage to Trump and his crimes.

Speaker 1 And look, I certainly thought the OJS coverage of Donald Trump's arraignment was like beyond parody.

Speaker 1 You know, the like, let's get him on the highway from Mar-a-Lago to the airplane. Let's watch the airplane take off and all that.
I mean, it was ridiculous.

Speaker 1 But I kind of think the coverage is warranted. I don't know.
What do you think?

Speaker 3 I think we have to stop thinking about major media companies owned by large multinational corporations as public service entities.

Speaker 1 Yes, of course.

Speaker 3 These are businesses who need to make money and people tuned into this story. 2 million people watched CNN on the night of the indictment.
CNN hasn't scratched a million viewers in like seven months.

Speaker 1 This is,

Speaker 3 of course, they're going to do this. And

Speaker 1 this podcast gets more

Speaker 1 listens than most CNN pros.

Speaker 3 I'm sure we're not going to hear from anyone about that.

Speaker 3 Check your DMs, John.

Speaker 3 And so, of course, they're going to to cover it. People want to watch it.
That is going to happen.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 3 the way in which Democrats and some liberals are freaking out about this is a misunderstanding of how Trump weaponizes attention.

Speaker 3 In

Speaker 3 the Republican primary, there's no question that Donald Trump's monopoly of attention is to his huge advantage because those people like Trump.

Speaker 3 When you widen the aperture to the larger electorate, most of them don't like Trump. And so the more he reminds them that they don't like, of the things they don't like about him, the worse he does.

Speaker 3 And I think there's, when we go back to 2016, I think a smart political person said this to me the other day. And I think it's really an important insight into how that election went.

Speaker 3 Trump did not win the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton because he dominated attention.

Speaker 3 He lost it because the attention shifted to Hillary at the end because of Jim Comey and the revelations and the hacked emails. And because the focus was on her, not him, he won.
She lost.

Speaker 1 My biggest complaint about the media coverage in 2016 was the emails coverage, not the Donald Trump coverage.

Speaker 1 Because I think the email coverage and the coverage of Hillary is why we lost, or it contributed to why we lost way more.

Speaker 1 Every time you can look at the polls over the years and Donald Trump's approval rating, whenever he's in the news, whenever he's tweeting, whenever he's giving interviews, whenever he opens his stupid fucking mouth, his his poll numbers go down among a general electorate, not among the Republican base, but yeah, among the general electorate.

Speaker 3 You can map either Google Trends data or other data that like word clouds with Trump's approval rating.

Speaker 3 And the fluctuations are not gigantic because of polarization, but attention is not his friend in a general election.

Speaker 1 I will also say the Republican frontrunner for president is a deranged demagogue that could very easily become president again.

Speaker 1 And there is no more important story than what will happen in this country and the world if he wins again to cover. There's no more important story.

Speaker 1 Everyone's, there's a lot of people like, oh, you got to cover, and we're going to talk about Tennessee, we're going to talk about a lot of other things, but like.

Speaker 1 Everything that's happening around the country, all the bad things, it's going to be fucking amplified by a million if Donald Trump becomes president again.

Speaker 1 It is extremely important to cover what's happening.

Speaker 1 Again, is it important to cover his plane ride? No.

Speaker 1 It is not important to cover his plane ride. But when Donald Trump does something, it is worth covering because the Republican Party very well could make him the nominee.
He is the frontrunner.

Speaker 1 And therefore, like you just said earlier, he's like, you know, 30,000, 40,000 votes away from becoming president again because of how closely divided the country is.

Speaker 3 Twice as many people were in the stadium for the final four than the number of voters who decided the 2020 election.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So that's that's why you cover him.
All right. Let's talk about an even bigger legal victory from Tuesday.

Speaker 1 Judge Janet Protosewitz won a landslide victory in her race to become the next justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where there will now be a 4-3 liberal majority for the first time in 15 years.

Speaker 1 She trounced right-wing Judge Dan Kelly by 10 points in a campaign where she was unapologetic in her embrace of abortion rights, fair maps, and other progressive values. Huge.

Speaker 1 You want to talk about what happens now that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has a liberal majority?

Speaker 3 We constantly said that this was the most important election in 2023. Obviously, with due apologies to Democratic governor of Kentucky, who's up for election this year, but it matters a lot.

Speaker 3 And here are three ways it's going to matter for the people of Wisconsin and the nation. The first is abortion.
Wisconsin is relying on a

Speaker 3 nearly two centuries old law to ban abortion in the state that is of dubious legal value and it will now you will have a pro-choice majority on the supreme court who will rule on that law second wisconsin is perhaps the most gerrymandered state in the country there's a state that the last two uh presidential elections have been decided by less than a half of a percent of a vote yet the republicans have a like 60 40 majority in the legislature and one of the groups that works on gerrymandering said that they are going to file a case the day she is sworn in to revisit those maps so you could have different state legislative maps, different congressional maps in Wisconsin in up for the election in 2024.

Speaker 3 And then Wisconsin is where much of the shenanigans trying to overturn the election happened. Efforts to, you know, fake voter fraud investigations, fake electors, alternate electors.

Speaker 3 And Dan Kelly, had he been elected, was someone who participated in the scheme to steal the election from Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 If he was on the Supreme Court, if there was a MAGA majority on the Supreme Court, the odds that

Speaker 3 someone other than the winner of Wisconsin's popular vote got the electoral votes would go way up.

Speaker 3 And so, this is just like some of the really important victories in 2022 we had in Secretary of State offices and government's offices. This, by putting

Speaker 3 this majority on this court, we are cutting off yet another way in which the 2024 election could be overturned by a bunch of MAGA insurrectionists.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and

Speaker 1 you don't have to believe us on that.

Speaker 1 The Stop the Steal organizer, Ellie Alexander, tweeted after the race was called, because she won, now our path to 270 has been severely constrained because I don't think we can win Wisconsin because we can't steal Wisconsin anymore.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's how they think.

Speaker 1 I should just note, too, because some people were asking, there was a state Senate race in Wisconsin that took place Tuesday night as well, where because of these severely gerrymandered maps, a Republican won.

Speaker 1 And although, you know, it was a severely gerrymandered district and still only won by like a point.

Speaker 1 And so that gives Republicans in the state Senate and Wisconsin a super majority. And there is some concern that with a super majority, they can impeach Justice Protosowitz.

Speaker 1 But I think

Speaker 1 there's some confusion over whether you need a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate, the General Assembly and the Senate, or a simple majority in the House of the Senate.

Speaker 1 But either way, the Republican state Senate leader said, absolutely not. We will will not be impeaching Janet Protosowitz.

Speaker 1 And if they did for some reason, Governor Tony Evers would simply just get to replace the justice. So some people were freaked out about that, just putting that to rest so everyone can sleep easy.

Speaker 1 We should also say a huge thank you to Vote Save America, the Vote Save America community.

Speaker 1 You donated $114,000 for voter turnout, and we saw the highest turnout ever in a spring Supreme Court election in Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 There were 490 of you who signed up for virtual volunteer signups and made 50,000 voter contacts. And that's including the five to six doors Lovett and I knocked on when we were in Madison.

Speaker 1 I just wanted to thank you guys for going to Wisconsin. Honestly, I had such a good time.
It was 10 degrees. It was snowing, but I will eat Wisconsin food anytime.

Speaker 1 And the people of Madison are lovely. What a great town.

Speaker 3 I knew that it must have been very cold because in all of the photos and social clips from that visit, you both had your hats on inside the whole time.

Speaker 1 It was so cold. And I didn't, I was so stupid.
I didn't bring gloves and my hands were frozen. And also thanks to the Vote Save America team, our team at Crooked, who went and who worked on this.

Speaker 1 The strict scrutiny team also did a show there. Thanks to the whole strict scrutiny team and the 900 people who came to our show on a Saturday night in the cold, including Judge Protosiewicz.

Speaker 1 So thank you to everyone.

Speaker 1 There was some anxiety before Election Day in Wisconsin that Trump's indictment would fuel turnout because of all the pissed off MAGA voters. Why don't you think that happened?

Speaker 1 And do you think Trump was a factor at all in this race? Obviously, he endorsed Dan Kelly and Dan Kelly's last 10-point defeat, double-digit defeat.

Speaker 1 He did not endorse him this time around,

Speaker 1 probably because Dan Kelly didn't want him to. But do you think he loomed over the race?

Speaker 3 Donald Trump has loomed over every single campaign since he was elected president in 2016. And the closer a candidate is on the ideological spectrum towards Trump, the more likely they are to lose.

Speaker 3 That has been borne out time and time again. And so whether he endorsed them or showed up.
does not matter.

Speaker 3 It just, it actually shows just how much of albatross Trump is to his party, that even when he doesn't show up, they still pay a price.

Speaker 3 Now, in terms of turnout, I think there is a kind of misunderstanding of the Trump base, the Trump voter, by a lot of political analysts.

Speaker 3 I think there is definitely a group that is highly political engaged, that lives inside the Fox News fever dream, who understood every word of that deranged speech Trump gave, but they vote anyways.

Speaker 3 They are the equivalent. They're the right-wing equivalent of our voters who turn out every time.

Speaker 3 Trump's political power is in this other group of people who did not previously vote, who do not turn out for Republicans, not named Trump, who are actually not highly engaged political people.

Speaker 3 Like they're not watching Tucker Carlson. They may agree with Tucker Carlson on a lot of things, but they're like adjacent to the fever swamp.
And those people are not on truth social.

Speaker 3 They're not consuming this. This is not a huge part of their life.
And it's not sufficient to motivate them to turn out.

Speaker 3 They vote for Trump in part because it's a protest vote against an establishment they don't trust, a whole host of reasons, but it's not necessarily vengeance against Alvin Bragg.

Speaker 3 And so that's why it probably didn't show up in this election.

Speaker 1 And I think those people could very well turn out when Trump is on the ballot.

Speaker 3 Yes. Yes, they did in 2020.

Speaker 1 They did in 2020, they did in 2016.

Speaker 1 And so I think Republicans are getting the worst of all worlds here because on races where Trump is not on the ballot, he is still a factor in the race, but you don't get the turnout that you get from Trump being on the ballot.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And it just, get to put this in some perspective, like here are three numbers to think about is why this, we shouldn't do too big a conclusion from this.

Speaker 3 1.8 million people voted in this election, which is a gigantic number for election like this. Stunning.
But 2.6 million people voted in the Tony Ivers race in

Speaker 3 last November. And 3.2 million.
voted in the election in the presidential election in 2020 in Wisconsin. So there is a huge swath of the state not represented here.

Speaker 3 And there are a lot of, just by pure demographic profiling, a lot of potential Trump voters in that group.

Speaker 1 Yes. Any other lessons or takeaways from this race other than the fact that we need to clone Ben Wickler and the entire Wisconsin Democratic Party for all 50 states?

Speaker 3 Two quick lessons. Once again, Democrats should not be afraid to aggressively run on abortion as an issue.

Speaker 3 Dobbs has changed everything in American politics. It's opened people's eyes to the power of this issue.

Speaker 3 I think abortion has played two big roles in one is even for people insulated from the impact of elections because of privilege or race or economic stature, they had a constitutional right taken away from them or someone in their family by this court.

Speaker 3 And that's real. Like they are like, it has engaged a group of people who may not have otherwise engaged in politics, at least in elections like this one.

Speaker 3 And second, it gave a real world consequence to electing a MAGA extremist. Like now we know the danger.

Speaker 3 And Celinda Lake had this quote in this Rebecca Traister piece that in her polling, the country is now 15% more pro-choice post-ops than it was before. And so this should be a part of every campaign.

Speaker 3 It should be big. The second lesson is, I wish we could clone Ben Wickler.

Speaker 3 He is, but I also sometimes feel like he is such a dynamic force in and of himself that just telling every party chair to be like Ben Wickler is like impossible advice.

Speaker 3 Like you can't actually do that.

Speaker 1 Probably pretty annoying to them, too. Yeah,

Speaker 3 I can imagine.

Speaker 3 But there is one thing that Ben Wickler has done that I think every single state party chair should emulate, which is after 2020, Ben Wickler made it his priority to convince his donors to become recurring donors.

Speaker 3 So even if you were going to give 120 bucks a year to the Wisconsin Party, give it in $10 monthly donations. And what that means is the party has a sustainable source of revenue.

Speaker 3 They can invest and plan over the long term. And money spent early is worth way more than money spent late.

Speaker 3 And so this is how you win elections like this is that when that when the after 2022 was over, it wasn't like the campaign headquarters emptied, there was no more money coming in the door.

Speaker 3 Is Ben had a recurring set of donors who allowed him to keep organizers on the ground to keep working on this race.

Speaker 3 And Democrats have built this gigantic fundraising machine, but it's boom or bust and it's very hard to predict. A big thing in the news happens, money flows in, late money flows in.

Speaker 3 But if you're running a race or building a party, you don't know when that money's coming. So you can't, you end up spending most of it on television ads of greatly diminishing returns.

Speaker 3 So if you're a donor or an operative, a state party chair, try to get your donors to become recurring donors that you can build the sort of infrastructure Ben has built.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I do think a couple things. Organizing works.

Speaker 1 Do not give up on heavily gerrymandered states, even with Republican supermajorities. I don't know how many times we've had the conversation about Wisconsin and it's, you know,

Speaker 1 this state doesn't even look like a democracy anymore. We don't know how how to get out of this.

Speaker 1 There's Republican, you know, Ben, the volunteers, the organizers in Wisconsin, like, they didn't give up. They found a way.
The Supreme Court race was the way. In other states, it'll be different.

Speaker 1 But, like, no one should just throw up their hands at gerrymanders and say, well, we can't do anything because of a gerrymander. And so we're screwed.

Speaker 1 There's always a way. I also think that

Speaker 1 between... Trumpy extremism and abortion extremism, like the Republican Party is in some big fucking trouble.

Speaker 1 We just saw like yesterday, Governor Whitmer in Michigan signed a bill killing the like another decades, centuries-old abortion ban in that state. And you know what?

Speaker 1 Ron DeSantis is about to sign a six-week abortion ban in Florida after, you know, doing the more quote-unquote moderate 15-week abortion ban, which isn't moderate at all, before that.

Speaker 1 And why did Ron DeSantis do that? Because he's probably thinking, oh, well, I have to do, I have to go back to six weeks in order to win this Republican primary. Well, guess what?

Speaker 1 That's going to be a real fucking problem for him in a general election. And they're all like this now.

Speaker 1 And you're starting to hear in Republican circles and conservative circles that the full-out ban on abortion is really hurting them. And they're starting to realize this.

Speaker 1 I don't think they're going to be able to walk it back at this point.

Speaker 1 You know, there's Republican legislators in South Carolina proposing that women should get the death penalty if they have an abortion.

Speaker 1 So clearly the extremism is out there, but this is a real fucking problem for them, I think, in 2024. That plus the Trumpy election denial extremism as well.

Speaker 1 Those two issues, the democracy and abortion, same issues that won Democrats the 2022 midterms are still very much in play, if not more so, for 2024.

Speaker 1 And I also think, too, that, like, look, Dane County, where Madison is, incredible turnout, incredible margins, even better than Biden in 2020.

Speaker 1 And obviously, it's a spring election, so it's a different turnout model than you get in a presidential. But I heard, speaking of Tim Miller, I heard him talking about this on the bulwark too.

Speaker 1 Even if you took away all of Proto Saywitz's votes in Dane County, she still would have won.

Speaker 1 And that's mainly because the suburban counties around Milwaukee that usually go heavily Republican, it's usually how Republicans win the state, they're turning much bluer.

Speaker 1 Republicans barely won them in this race. And non-college voters elsewhere all across the state are voting less Republican or

Speaker 1 not giving Republicans the margins they were used to to in this.

Speaker 1 And part of that is, again, the abortion issue that we're seeing in these highly educated suburbs and even elsewhere that's really hurting Republicans. All right.

Speaker 1 So voters may have saved democracy in Wisconsin, but it's certainly seen better days in Tennessee.

Speaker 1 Last week, thousands of students and parents led a peaceful protest at the Nashville State House to call for action on gun violence after the horrific school shooting that left six people dead, including three nine-year-olds.

Speaker 1 Three Democratic lawmakers led the protesters in a chant on the House floor.

Speaker 1 And for that, Republicans are now holding a vote today to expel those three Democrats from the state legislature, a resolution that requires a two-thirds majority, which Republicans currently have.

Speaker 1 You know, like the word authoritarianism gets thrown around a lot these days, but like I'm not sure what else to call expelling democratically elected representatives from the legislature just for exercising their constitutional rights.

Speaker 1 Do you?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, this is, this is the future.

Speaker 3 Like these things, the way these things have been playing out for a decade in the Republican Party is some seemingly completely insane thing happens, just like an unlike a never-beforeseen, unprecedented breach of democracy.

Speaker 3 And then it just becomes normal course of business for Republicans.

Speaker 3 So this is after Roy Cooper won in 2016 and the state legislature tried to take all of his powers away before he got to be seated in office.

Speaker 3 Then they did try to do the same thing in Wisconsin Tony Ravers doing it everywhere. And so this is, we should, this is likely the first of similar efforts where they, where they can do it.

Speaker 3 It's not even that dissimilar to what Kevin McCarthy tried to do or did do to three Democrats in the House to kick them off their committees, which was the full extent of his power to do that.

Speaker 3 He couldn't expel them, but if he could, he certainly would have.

Speaker 1 And, you know, it's Republicans are calling it an insurrection. They're comparing it to January 6th.
And it's like, yeah. Oh, fuck.

Speaker 1 I know. I know.
It's so fucking gross.

Speaker 1 And like, yes, it was rowdy and they spoke out of turbo, but there's ways to like, if they wanted to, it still would have been bullshit to like discipline members, do this.

Speaker 1 Expelling Democratically elect these people, people of Tennessee sent these people to the legislature.

Speaker 1 They voted for them, and now they're getting expelled just because Republicans don't like that they put pressure on them to do something about gun violence when there was a massacre at a school not just a couple weeks earlier.

Speaker 1 It is totally, it is anti-democratic. It is anti-American.

Speaker 1 It's wild.

Speaker 3 It is wild. Free speech warriors over there in the Republican Party.

Speaker 1 Yeah, cancel culture. So people are wondering what will happen here if they, and again, they could be voting right now, voting by the time you hear this podcast.

Speaker 1 But if they expel them, there will be special elections. Those three legislators can run again for their seats and get right back into

Speaker 1 the legislature. So like this is, it is horrific.
And it is also just like,

Speaker 1 it doesn't even have an actual outcome that they want here.

Speaker 1 Like these people are just like, there's going to be Democratic legislators who just come back, if not these, and probably these three Democratic lawmakers.

Speaker 1 And I'm sure by bigger margins because they're in heavily Democratic, diverse districts. That's another thing.

Speaker 1 Two of the legislators are black, one is a woman, and they all represent heavily Democratic, diverse areas of Tennessee.

Speaker 1 And the Republicans in the legislature are now just saying they want to disenfranchise those voters because they don't like what those people said.

Speaker 1 It is pretty bullshit. And you're right.
And the concern now is there's supermajorities in other states.

Speaker 1 And, you know, the laws could be different and the rules could be different in different state legislatures. But like, are other Republican supermajorities going to start

Speaker 1 expelling Democratic legislators just because they can? Yes. That's where we are now.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Republicans everywhere just, they are just using their power just because they can to silence Democratic voices. It is wild.
All right, well, we're going to get to happier news after the break.

Speaker 1 We have Chicago's new mayor-elect, Brandon Johnson, who will talk to Dan right after this.

Speaker 5 Hey, weirdos.

Speaker 6 I'm Elena and I'm Ash, and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

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Speaker 3 Another key election this week was Chicago's mayoral runoff where Brandon Johnson won a surprise victory. Mayor Lec Johnson, welcome to the pod.

Speaker 16 Hey, thanks for having me. This is pretty exciting.

Speaker 3 Well, congratulations, sir.

Speaker 3 Do you feel a little bit like the dog that caught the car?

Speaker 16 I mean, it's certainly humbling. You know, you work very hard, you know, throughout any campaign to get to this moment.
And you don't think about it when you're going through the process.

Speaker 16 But all of the conversations that i've had over the course of this run you know led up to what obviously is a very remarkable moment for the city of chicago and particularly for the progressive movement so you know very thrilled very humbled but i also recognize that when i announced back in october you know that wasn't the entry point into this larger political movement right like this is this is part of the beneficiary of that of the movement.

Speaker 16 But yeah, I mean,

Speaker 16 it's exhilarating. Certainly it is.

Speaker 16 i think a lot of people at least a lot of pundits and prognosticators a group that's never been wrong before was surprised by your victory they expected your opponent to win or they would be much closer how did you pull it off what was key to your strategy well you know first of all i mean i think as democrats and particularly as progressive democrats you know we don't have to hide our values right in many instances And you know how this stuff works, where there's a particular poll and then you have posters who tell you what your message should be.

Speaker 16 And I'm not saying that you should not have that particular component. I'm not saying that you just run out here without having any sort of science or method to the work.

Speaker 16 But what I am saying is that we don't give voters enough credit, that these false choices that our spaces are oftentimes left with,

Speaker 16 this is certainly proof that we can have a far more robust conversation about what we know works. And we don't have to be afraid of our values, right?

Speaker 16 So I think what they got wrong is what they typically, in some instances, have attempted to get right.

Speaker 16 But as a result of that, we have narrowed our conversations and it's limited the amount of people who actually engage, right?

Speaker 16 And so because we were actually saying out loud, identifying our pain, people who would have not never,

Speaker 16 that might be hyperbole, but people who would be reluctant to engage. you know, finally heard what they've been feeling.
And they're like, yo, I could sign up for that. Right.

Speaker 16 So that type of excitement and energy is something that you can't calculate necessarily in a poll. And that is what I believe pundits may have gotten wrong.

Speaker 16 The ability to actually speak truth to truth and power to power. And that it would be enough to mobilize people to actually get out and vote and get other people to other people to vote as well.

Speaker 3 National political reporters and the press viewed this election largely through the prism of crime and what role crime would play.

Speaker 3 And I do want to ask you about that, but I want to start with an issue that I know is more near and dear to your heart, which is education. You're a former teacher.

Speaker 3 You've worked with the teachers' union. What impact did education have in this campaign? How did you talk about it? How did you use it as a way to mobilize a broad coalition to win?

Speaker 16 Well, here in Chicago, married control has been an absolute disaster. And it's something that I know has been a political battle, not just here in Chicago, but around the country.
And because there's

Speaker 16 have been a great deal of destruction around public education, where we have created you know these stratified systems where those who apply or have certain elements of i don't know proof that uh that they are human i i guess that that gives them better access uh to a fully funded well-rounded uh curriculum and but unfortunately as it has left um a trail of destruction right school closings privatization um the loss of the middle class um positions, particularly for women, especially black women.

Speaker 16 And because of that type of despair that has been sort of the prevailing form of governance, people understood that my position aligned with everyday people. My children attend the public schools.

Speaker 16 I'm a product of public education.

Speaker 16 And so, of course, my opponent, who essentially embodied the antithesis to our belief of a well-rounded education system in which Democrats can certainly get behind and understand that, you know, we should not have a system where people have to apply for something that is ostensibly free.

Speaker 16 And then people saw me as a very credible witness to the goals and desires of everyday people.

Speaker 16 And then, as a result, we were able to capture a number of people who understood that this election was certainly not just a repudiation of the failures of the past, but really an opportunity to build a better, stronger system in which no matter where you live in the city, that type of quality of education and expectation can be realized through an office where the person who was there, myself, actually believes in it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think it is a very unique situation, I think, to have someone who had actually taught in the classroom now be in City Hall.

Speaker 3 And so, maybe you could talk a little with some specifics about what it is you would change that would bring a different approach based on your experience as a teacher to education in the Chicago public schools.

Speaker 16 Well, one of the dynamics that I believe comes up a lot, and we don't really spend enough time really digging into it, is funding, right?

Speaker 1 Look,

Speaker 16 when you love

Speaker 16 someone or something, you invest in it. And we have a funding formula that I was a part of, the organizing effort to change in Springfield.

Speaker 16 And that funding formula articulated the importance of funding based on need and not per pupil. So it calls for a more equitable distribution of the resources, right?

Speaker 16 And it's not just about how many children you have in a particular room or building, but it's about what those needs are. And that funding formula has not been embraced here in the city of Chicago.

Speaker 16 I'm going to embrace that funding formula. Here's what you get: an additional $1 billion,

Speaker 16 right? And so that was something that distinguished me right away. The second thing is, I've been talking a lot about treatment over the trauma.

Speaker 16 And we don't spend enough time really digging into how impactful living in poverty,

Speaker 16 the impact that that really has on young people.

Speaker 16 We just expect people to show up every single day, regardless of their lived experiences and their living conditions, and be able to perform at a high function

Speaker 16 without taking into account that, you know, we have 20,000 students who are unhoused, you know, the amount of gun violence that happens in places where schools have been closed.

Speaker 16 And so providing mental health services, making sure that the education system is also providing support for housing and affordable housing. It's a holistic response to education.

Speaker 16 Children shouldn't be confined to a bubble sheet. That's the last component.
A well-rounded curriculum that includes the trades, but also sports and arts.

Speaker 16 These are the dynamics that are missing from our education systems across America and in Chicago.

Speaker 16 Under my administration, these are the type of investments that I'm going to make to provide an education system that is inclusive, but it is well-rounded as well.

Speaker 3 There are a lot of people who talk about education, but what they always run into is the funding issue.

Speaker 3 What is your plan to find the money you're going to need to make the education better, to offer some of those extracurricular activities like sports and arts?

Speaker 16 Well, two-thirds of corporations in the year 2022

Speaker 16 Actually, it was 70%, technically, 70%

Speaker 16 of corporations in 2022 did not pay a corporate tax. I mean, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that we are literally leaving out of our education system.

Speaker 16 And what happens is the lazy form of governance in which we tend to over-rely upon property taxes as the means to fund our school system, it's just not sustainable, right?

Speaker 16 I mean, I appreciated what President Biden articulated in his State of the Union address. He said that a teacher and a firefighter should not pay the same tax rate as a billionaire.

Speaker 16 Like these are, these are fundamental values that we have as Democrats. I'm not even sure that we should confine it to the progressive wing of our party.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 16 Saying Democrats believe that an equitable distribution of the resources should go into the neighborhoods, of course, that have been harmed the most.

Speaker 16 But we also believe that having a tax structure that challenges corporations and millionaires and billionaires to have more skin in the game, that's how you build a better, stronger, safer society by not just having an equitable distribution of the dollars, but to ensure that we are receiving those dollars in a way that are sustainable.

Speaker 16 And that, quite frankly, is just simply fair.

Speaker 3 Now, because I am someone who works at least adjacent to the national media, I'm required by professional dictate to ask you about crime in this race.

Speaker 3 And, you know, a lot of the, like as I said, a lot of the coverage was about it. Your victories being seen by some folks as a model for how Democrats can deal with crime in the 2024 election.

Speaker 3 And it's important to note you were running against a Democrat, not a Republican, but a lot of the attacks that your opponent, the sort of the anti-crime attacks your opponent did on you, looked a lot like some of the attacks Republicans do,

Speaker 3 defund the police, those sorts of things. I was very interested in

Speaker 3 by your response to those attacks and the policies you put forth.

Speaker 3 Can you talk a little bit about how you dealt with these sort of very aggressive crime attacks on your record in a city where crime is an issue? It is up in a lot of areas. So how did you do that?

Speaker 16 Well, first of all, let me just acknowledge that public safety was top of mind for every single voter in the city of Chicago, essentially. And I share my story a lot.

Speaker 16 Look, I'm raising my family on the west side of Chicago. It's beautiful.

Speaker 16 The particular neighborhood that we live in, it's the Austin neighborhood.

Speaker 16 I believe it's one of the highest concentration of black voters or black residents, not just in the city of Chicago, but around the country.

Speaker 16 And as beautiful as it is, it has been disinvested in historically over time. And as a result of that disinvestment, there's a real hyper concentration of poverty and isolation.

Speaker 16 And so, as a result, of course, violence is quite pervasive in the neighborhood. And I've experienced this on a very personal note where gunshots break out right outside our front door.

Speaker 16 And that level of hopelessness, of course, has spread throughout the entire city of Chicago.

Speaker 16 What was important in this moment, and I think to your point

Speaker 16 about the Republican attacks, that we don't, we should not use the attacks from the Republican Party to attack ourselves internally, right? That's to me, that's irresponsible, right?

Speaker 16 Because there was a Republican Party that said that President Biden was going to defund the police. The Republican Party said that Governor J.B.
Pritzker was going to defund the police.

Speaker 16 I believe the Republican Party said that you know, leader Nancy Pelosi would defund the police, right? So we know from whence these attacks come from.

Speaker 16 So that type of internal wrestling should not be permitted within our group.

Speaker 16 But to a larger extent, though, what it demonstrated, though, that we don't have to confine the conversation of public safety around these false choices, that the only way in which you can have a safe community is if you're tough, I put that in quotations on crime.

Speaker 16 that this is really about ours a smart public safety plan.

Speaker 16 So we talked about what works so i made a commitment to doing what works one doubling the amount of young people that we hire there's a direct correlation between youth employment and this needs to be year-round youth employment and violence reduction thing two investing in mental health services right there's a direct correlation between providing the mental health support that not just

Speaker 16 residents of the city of Chicago. I'm talking about all residents of the city of Chicago.
That includes law enforcement that wrestle with trauma as well.

Speaker 16 Making sure that we are providing housing and affordable housing. Now, of course, you know, promoting and training 200 more detectives to solve crime, that was a part of our plan.

Speaker 16 Implementing with all expediency the consent decree, that's a part of the plan. Making sure that we are spending resources.

Speaker 16 to actually enforce laws that are on the books like red flag laws for individuals who are accessing guns

Speaker 16 that that have guns, that should not have guns. Like all of that was part of the plan, but it's comprehensive.
It's not one particular component.

Speaker 16 It's a strategic presentation that gets at the root causes of violence in the city of Chicago or anywhere else in the world, but also deals with the immediacy of being able to solve the crime that does take place.

Speaker 16 The last thing that I'll say is I appreciate. the Los Angeles Times.
They wrote a story a few weeks ago where the LAPD was essentially calling for what I'm calling for here in the city of Chicago.

Speaker 16 It's an ordinance that's called treatment, not trauma. And what it would do is it would provide mental health first responders to respond to essentially what 40% of the 911 calls consist of,

Speaker 16 which is mental health crises. And so by doing that, that frees up law enforcement to focus in on the more severe crime.
Because here's the last thing.

Speaker 16 We know that 60% of the violence that happens in the city of Chicago, it takes place in 6% of the city. We already know where it's going to take place, right?

Speaker 16 And so having first responders, mental health crisis workers, more EMTs to show up, it provides the smart investment that I believe the city of Chicago has been longing for.

Speaker 16 And so it's an incredible testament that when you tell the truth, when you speak to the values of the people of Chicago or anywhere else in the country, give voters a little bit more credit.

Speaker 16 They know how to make a vote and cast a vote for the dynamics that exist, but more importantly, cast a vote for their values because they know those values will prevail.

Speaker 3 I think that is perfect advice for everyone running for office on every issue, not just crime. So Mayor Elect, I just want to congratulate you on your victory.

Speaker 3 Thank you for joining us here on Positive America. Good luck to you, and we hope to have you back soon.

Speaker 16 Thank you. It was my pleasure.

Speaker 5 Hey, weirdos.

Speaker 6 I'm Elena and I'm Ash and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 9 Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 6 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 9 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 6 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 12 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 1 Yay! Woo! Aye!

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Speaker 1 Okay, we're back. And before we go, Crooked Zone Hallie Kiefer has joined us, the host of the newest Crooked podcast, Ruined.
Hooray! We just did a plug at the top.

Speaker 1 You want to give a plug on your own here? Ruined, the podcast for people who love horror movies and for people who are too afraid to watch them. And I get it.
That's me. I'm one of those.

Speaker 1 We live in a horrified world.

Speaker 1 I could watch a disembowelment all day long. You know what I mean? I have a smile on my face.
Some people, they can't. And I respect both kinds of people.

Speaker 1 So I co-hosted with my co-host Ellison Leiby, who is a scaredy cat as you are.

Speaker 1 And yeah, give it a listen if you have any interest in horror, but cannot watch it, or if you love it and you want to hear us, talk about your favorite horror movies. Amazing.

Speaker 1 Everyone, please go check it out. Well, so I just want to say congratulations, gentlemen.
You guys did it. Okay.
You know what I mean? Time to wrap this up. Positive America got Trump arrested.

Speaker 1 You guys did it. It was you.
And I hope you all treated yourself to an extra glass of athletic lunch this morning.

Speaker 1 Maybe an extra hard-boiled egg is a treat. I know how you guys like to party.
Donald Trump is hypothetically going to see some repercussions for some of his horrible actions months from now.

Speaker 1 Praying to God that actually happens. And what better to celebrate his demise? I'm sorry he made his downfall because even a silver bullet couldn't stop that guy, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 What better way for us to celebrate it than with a game? A game we're calling, well, well, well, looks like everyone's a lawyer now.

Speaker 1 Now, I guess that was my take from being on Twitter. It's like, oh, everyone's a legal expert all of a sudden.
Hug news to me.

Speaker 1 The only, the way this game works is: you tell me who wrote the tweets that I'm going to, I'm going to give you a tweet.

Speaker 1 Oh, you tell me who wrote it about Trump's arrayment and tell me specifically, was it a legal expert or was it just some fucking guy?

Speaker 1 And you will receive a bonus point if you can correctly guess the profession of who tweeted. Wow.
Okay.

Speaker 1 so are you ready I'm so ready I'm very excited here's the first tweet now that the charges are public everyone can see how weak the case against President Trump really is who tweeted this a legal expert of some sort or just some fucking guy

Speaker 1 that feels like just some fucking guy and what do you think this fucking guy's profession may be I have a strategy for this game

Speaker 1 laid on us epidemiologist I'm gonna answer that for every single one

Speaker 1 okay great dad I appreciate that so this is the answer is Donald Trump Jr. And I guess my question to you is, what's his job?

Speaker 1 What does that guy do day to day? Reply guy. He's a podcast host.

Speaker 1 Oh, uh-oh. Dan hurts.
I retract my statements.

Speaker 1 The greatest job in the world. Something that makes you an expert in literally everything.

Speaker 1 I know. Well, that's what they tell us.

Speaker 1 Next week, former President Trump's indictment is a disgrace, and I don't think the left understands what they're getting themselves into.

Speaker 1 This, of all things to do, on a charge that no other other prosecutor would even consider bringing, really lights a fire under this country. Who said this? A legal expert or just some fucking guy?

Speaker 1 What do you think, Dan?

Speaker 3 Just some fucking guy.

Speaker 1 You are correct? That is Jesse Waters?

Speaker 1 We know his job. And yes, bringing down democracy as we know it, I guess.

Speaker 1 The second most popular Fox host, third most popular

Speaker 1 after Tucker and Greg Gutfield. Real number two, if you asked me.

Speaker 1 Next one.

Speaker 1 Donald Trump is Tupac, Donald Trump's Biggie Smalls. Was this person who said this a legal expert, or were they just a fucking guy?

Speaker 1 I feel like you're throwing us a curveball here, and it might be a legal expert.

Speaker 3 Dan? Sure, legal expert.

Speaker 1 Yes, unfortunately, that is Trump's lawyer, Alina Hava.

Speaker 1 Who?

Speaker 1 Again,

Speaker 1 the clarified

Speaker 1 not Joe Tapioca?

Speaker 1 No, unfortunately, it is not Joe. I I will say there is some clarity.
Apparently, one of his lawyers.

Speaker 3 This is the former OAN host, I think, Anchor.

Speaker 1 Is that right? I would say, based entirely on looking at her for one second, that's exactly what it is.

Speaker 1 That is, she does not have a human job anymore.

Speaker 1 Trump is being prosecuted, charged, because he paid hush money to a mistress. Something it's inconceivable he would have been charged over if he was never a candidate for office.
Who said this?

Speaker 1 A legal expert? Just some fucking guy. I know who it is.

Speaker 3 Just some fucking guy named Jonathan Chate.

Speaker 1 Yep, you are correct. Wow.
And again, his job, he writes. That's right.
He does write, and he has paid for it. Not a legal expert.
And then finally, at least for this MIDI game, he looks sad.

Speaker 1 I don't like the prison system, so I don't like this process. Doesn't mean that accountability is not owed, but this is a granddad having a very bad day.
No, is this person a legal expert?

Speaker 1 Or is it just some fucking guy?

Speaker 1 This is definitely just some fucking guy and i want to say it is van jones it is van jones i will say who do you think is the worst the granddad who's had the worst very bad day in history if you were to think of the history of the world i'd say there's a lot of granddads who had a lot of bad days yeah yeah see it's most of history are made by granddads who have a very bad day usually at the end of it you know what i mean

Speaker 1 i think that's just how it works you know um

Speaker 1 and then finally so so that was our first mini game and now we're doing a second one oh

Speaker 1 bonus game bonus round and only because we couldn't figure out how to incorporate them into one game.

Speaker 1 We didn't want to leave the week without giving a shout out to the OGs, the Resistance Libs.

Speaker 1 You guys have been holding out hope since, oh, November 8th, 2016, and your drumf dreams have finally come true.

Speaker 1 So feel free to take a victory lap, put on your pussy hat, and celebrate with your fellow wine moms or dads.

Speaker 1 And then it's back to fighting the influx of anti-trans, anti-queer, anti-abortion rights, anti-black, pro-grud profanity. The right is committed to jamming down our collective throats.

Speaker 1 But that's not. That's for tomorrow.
Today is for celebrating. Go have some brunch first.
Get out of here.

Speaker 1 Gentlemen, I'm going to read you some mouth-watering resistance lib tweets from this week. Just taking, again, celebrating.
And you're going to rank them at a four-tier scale.

Speaker 1 Okay, level one, notorious RBG.

Speaker 1 Level two, Cheeto-in-Chief.

Speaker 1 Number three, Doubledoors Arby. And that was a deep cut from Olivia.
Thank you, Olivia. And then, of course, level four, Occupy Democrats.
Okay, sitting right on top. Yes.
Okay.

Speaker 1 And then let's kick us off. We have, here's verse one.
Spare some thoughts and prayers for the sad Trumpers out there, for my field of fucks has gone bare. And a rain has me bursting with joy.

Speaker 1 So there. And that's sort of like that little koi face where it's like looking to the side.

Speaker 1 One to four, how is that hitting you?

Speaker 1 What's the second one again? Cheeto in chief.

Speaker 1 Cheeto in chief. Yeah, I agree.
Okay, great. That feels right.
Now, this one is from Stormy Daniels, so I think that does affect the score.

Speaker 1 Okay, because she, she boots on the ground, as it were, or not on the ground. I don't know.
I can't remember the details.

Speaker 1 Just let it go. Just let it go.

Speaker 1 I'm saying her boots were on the ground. His boots were, and then she had a Forbes magazine in her hand.
Her tweet was, I'm fully aware of the insanity of being a porn star, but it's also poetic.

Speaker 1 This pussy grabbed back.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 That's pretty.

Speaker 1 That's hard to judge because it's her.

Speaker 1 But I feel like the third one is...

Speaker 1 I thought it was Dumbledore's Army. Dumbledore's Army.
I feel like at the Dumbledore's Army,

Speaker 1 she got the pussy grab. I give her a one.

Speaker 3 I give her a one. She has full.
This is her moment. He's been a gigantic asshole to her.
She's been the subject of a lot of things.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're saying, oh, I'm just like proud. I was more proud of her.
That's why I'm giving her a three. That's true.
I guess I didn't get the rating in my life.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this is a totally subjective scale that we were making it up as we go along. But so you're both right.
Actually, it's like watching a mob boss finally go down.

Speaker 1 And this is, of course, is from Occupy Democrats themselves. I should have said that.
So that's an obvious four.

Speaker 1 That's not the whole tweet. Yeah, you forgot to.

Speaker 1 Was there some part of that tweet where they said, RT, if you like to watch the mob boss go down? Here's the thing, not that one. That was actually, that was just the full tweet.
Believe me,

Speaker 1 I was as shocked as you are. Honestly, I'm giving them a one-in-one on that.

Speaker 1 They don't even get their own rating on that.

Speaker 1 They got to come a little bit harder with that.

Speaker 1 This one is the tweet, Spanky Dumbass Coming to a Prison Near Suit. And that, of course, is Brooklyn Dad Defiant.

Speaker 1 That's a PhD.

Speaker 1 That is Occupy Dead. That gets an Occupy Democrats for sure.
And then finally, the last one, breaking. Donald Trump did not get his mugshot taken during his arrangement today.

Speaker 1 So his scam artist fundraising medians have created a fake one stamped not guilty on it and are now selling it on t-shirts for $47. Retreat if you wouldn't even wear that shirt.

Speaker 1 That's a full. That's a part.
That's Occupy Democrats. Occupied Democrats.

Speaker 1 Good job, Occupy Democrats. Fair day.
That is so good. Enjoy your week, Occupy Democrats.
That's it, you guys. Thank you for having me on.
Thank you for coming on, Hallie. That was a fantastic game.

Speaker 1 Couple games.

Speaker 1 I want to play the Resistant Tweet one every week. I mean, I think people, I think that, honestly, we need another surge.
It's going to keep us going until, again, December.

Speaker 1 It was more fun than our last take Appreciators, which thanks to my two other co-hosts got a little contentious. I don't know if you guys heard.
Okay, listen.

Speaker 1 It was a little contentious on the rating system. This was just fun-loving.
Great. Yeah.
I was like, well, the rating system doesn't mean anything. There's more room for playing.

Speaker 3 This was a perfect apparatus to end this week, I think.

Speaker 1 Thank you to Hallie Kiefer. Everyone, go listen to Ruined.
Check it out. It's going to be a fantastic podcast.
And thank you to the next mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, for joining.

Speaker 1 Everyone, have a fantastic weekend, and we will talk to you next week.

Speaker 3 Bye, everyone.

Speaker 1 Pod Save America is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
Our senior producer is Andy Gardner-Bernstein. Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez.

Speaker 1 It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Siglund and Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show.

Speaker 1 Thanks to Hallie Kefer, Ari Schwartz, Sandy Girard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montouth.

Speaker 1 Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com/slash podsaveamerica.

Speaker 6 Hey, weirdos, I'm Elena, and I'm Ash, and we are the host of Morbid Podcast.

Speaker 9 Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 6 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 9 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 6 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

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