Gay for Due Process: Live at WorldPride

Speaker 1 is an ad by BetterHelp.

Speaker 2 Men today face immense pressure to perform, to provide, to keep it all together.

Speaker 1 So it's no wonder that 6 million men in the U.S. suffer from depression every year, and it's often undiagnosed.
It's okay to struggle.

Speaker 1 Real strength comes from opening up about what you're carrying and doing something about it so you can be at your best for yourself and everyone in your life.

Speaker 1 If you're a man and you're feeling the weight of the world, talk to someone. Anyone, a friend, a loved one, or a therapist.

Speaker 3 In this administration, they just go on, usually Brett Baer. That's a good therapy.

Speaker 3 some top FBI officials went on Fox and Friends this morning and kind of unburdened themselves of all the things they're sad about. Not everyone has that opportunity

Speaker 3 to get booked on cable.

Speaker 1 No, you can't just sit with Fox and Friends and talk about how your job at the FBI is so hard.

Speaker 3 And just have Brian Killman and be like, it's okay.

Speaker 1 And so in that case, you should try BetterHelp. With over 35,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally.

Speaker 1 And it works with an App Store rating of 4.9 out of 5 based on over 1.7 million client reviews. It's convenient too.

Speaker 1 You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time.
Therapy is great.

Speaker 1 It really helps, even if you don't think you need it. Trust me, when you go, you'll feel a lot better.

Speaker 1 As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp.

Speaker 1 Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/slash PSA. That's betterhelp.com/slash psa.

Speaker 2 With VimmoStash, a tag in one hand, and ordering a ride in the other, means you're stacking cash back.

Speaker 4 With Venmo Stash, get up to 5% cash back when you pick a bundle of your favorite brands. Earn more cash when you do more with Stash.
Venmo Stash Terms Inclusive Supply max $100 cash back per month.

Speaker 4 See terms at Vimmo.me slash dash terms.

Speaker 6 Hey everybody, happy Pride. Today we're switching things up a bit.

Speaker 6 On Friday night, I did a very fun live show with Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller from the Bulwark at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C. at World Pride.

Speaker 6 It was a fundraiser benefiting the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, which represents people like Andre Hernandez-Romero and so many others who have been disappeared without due process to El Salvador.

Speaker 6 It was a serious topic, but a very fun show with some important conversations and some very silly games.

Speaker 6 If you want to help, you can donate at votesaveamerica.com slash action for Andre. We'll be back with a regular episode on Tuesday, but in the meantime, here's a live show.

Speaker 2 Hope you like it.

Speaker 6 Welcome, everybody.

Speaker 2 I was never a twink.

Speaker 2 Here's the thing, love it. So thank you all for coming out.

Speaker 2 I wanted to tell you just a second about the origin story of this. I was in the shower one day.

Speaker 2 Watch out. Usually it's that.
Usually it's that. Calm down.
But in this case, I was thinking about how fucking pissed I am that we're kidnapping gay people and sending them to El Salvador.

Speaker 2 And so I got out of the shower

Speaker 2 and I texted Levitt. And I was like, Love it, we should do something for others for once.

Speaker 2 We should stop being such narcissists who care about our own content creation. We should do something for someone else.
And he was like, great idea, Tim. I was like, and let's try it.

Speaker 2 I'll try anything once.

Speaker 2 So I was was like, let's tie it to World Pride, you know, so we can have one for him, one for us on the back end. So we'll see y'all at Plower Factory later.
Sarah, you got brought in. Why?

Speaker 7 Are you here? I think because somebody needed to be the top on this stage.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 Nobody vetted.

Speaker 7 I didn't vet that joke. I didn't vet that joke.
No, sorry. I just, I just,

Speaker 7 it was important to have a bipartisan event. It was important to be diverse because this is a pro-democracy, and I mean small D democracy event.

Speaker 7 I'm the pro-democracy, they're the small D.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
She's so proud of herself.

Speaker 6 I didn't realize lesbians knew about jokes.

Speaker 7 Okay, well, that's fine. That's fine.
But these guys were like, hey, we're going to go in like pregame backstage. We're gonna do some shots, but they just took prep shots.
That's all they did.

Speaker 2 It's a pill.

Speaker 7 How am I supposed to know that?

Speaker 2 I don't need them.

Speaker 6 My shot is Ozimpic.

Speaker 2 And you're looking great. Thanks, buddy.
We are going through old pictures of you, and boy, big improvement. You're thriving right now.
Thank you, buddy.

Speaker 6 Thank you for saying that. It gets better.

Speaker 6 So,

Speaker 6 you know, look, we want to have fun, but also we're here because

Speaker 6 this is a serious moment, and we're really grateful to everybody who was willing to come out during World Prime to be here, to be part of this fundraiser, to keep attention on the importance of freeing Andri and all the others who have been disappeared to a gulag in El Salvador in our name.

Speaker 6 Earlier today,

Speaker 6 I got to witness something historic, which is, I believe, the first time, Sarah Longwell, you've been like a participant in a protest.

Speaker 7 It's the first protest I've ever been to, period.

Speaker 6 And we were joking just now backstage, do you know how much had to go fucking wrong in this society for Sarah and I to get close?

Speaker 6 Do you know how many different things we had to get wrong all along the way for us to be here at the Lincoln Theater together.

Speaker 6 This is against nature.

Speaker 6 This is when a turtle and a horse are friends at a zoo.

Speaker 6 It's not working.

Speaker 2 Who's the horse? It's not working. I'm the horse, I think.

Speaker 2 I think you have a slideshow, don't you?

Speaker 6 Oh, is it? We're up to the slideshow. Is it time? I think so.

Speaker 2 Okay, great. Unless you got more chit-chat you want to do?

Speaker 6 We all know the name of Harvey Milk.

Speaker 6 Who Pete Hegseth is trying to get his name off of a Navy vessel. There's a Navy ship named after Harvey Milk and Pete's Pete Hegseth is like,

Speaker 6 got to do some cancel culture on that ship.

Speaker 6 But Harvey Milk is not the first

Speaker 6 gay elected official in this country. He's the first gay man to be elected in this country because the, isn't that interesting? Really? I didn't know that.
Yes, because the first

Speaker 6 person to be elected, gay, openly gay person to be elected is a lesbian from Michigan named kathy kozachenko i believe

Speaker 6 and we don't know her name because lesbians just don't do pr they just it's mostly it's like woodworking and that kind of a thing they it's the gay guys that went in to pr

Speaker 7 uh which's funny that's funny because actually when we were promoting the show uh the advocate did a piece And my PR guy was the one pitching the piece, and somehow the piece came out, Tim Miller and John Lovett to co-host show.

Speaker 2 The advocate knows what sells magazines.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 that's how we put butts in the seats.

Speaker 2 No pictures of women in axes in the advocate. That's not good.

Speaker 6 The point is we owe a great deal to lesbians, I've recently found out.

Speaker 6 And as a token of our gratitude,

Speaker 6 We wanted to hope to make you feel perfectly at ease during World Pride by showing you some options for different lesbian styles you could embrace this weekend.

Speaker 7 Is it a skirt? Because I'm not wearing that.

Speaker 6 Okay, so we can rule out a couple right there.

Speaker 6 Now, we did manage to go into the archives and we found some options from your past.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 6 let's show what we've got here first.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 6 Some lumberjack chic.

Speaker 6 I would say lumberjacoline.

Speaker 6 Scarecrow with a master's degree.

Speaker 2 I do love a flannel.

Speaker 2 Still. You can't see the fingerless gloves in the photo, but they're underneath.

Speaker 6 Dwayne the lesbian Johnson is an option for one of these.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 6 do we have any more of those? Is that.

Speaker 6 Oh, here's another. We have this.

Speaker 2 That is. Oh, cute.

Speaker 2 That's my wife.

Speaker 2 I guess you are the top.

Speaker 8 We came up, we go back to that one.

Speaker 6 So, this version of Sarah, we came up with a name for it, which is Katie Langley.

Speaker 6 But look, there are many different directions that you could go, which is why it's time for a segment we're calling Kara Beiner. I hardly know her.

Speaker 6 Now,

Speaker 6 first up we do have

Speaker 6 we do have the the the lipstick lesbian represented here by Portia DeRauncy.

Speaker 2 I'm gonna get out of the way here

Speaker 6 Now the only downside here is you do run the risk of being seduced by Ellen DeGeneres

Speaker 6 and then having to go live in the Cotzwalds. I don't know what that is, but it doesn't sound

Speaker 7 I don't you are describing a lesbian fantasy right now, but I don't know what the problem is.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 6 I don't know your culture. I don't know your culture.

Speaker 6 Now, next up, as an option for you,

Speaker 6 do we have a? Let's go to the next slide.

Speaker 6 Yes, next up, we have the power lesbians. Yes.

Speaker 7 You see the Sex in the City episode.

Speaker 6 Yes, of course you do.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm in there.

Speaker 6 Yeah, obviously you're pretty much at ease in this photo.

Speaker 6 This doesn't feel like much of a stretch for you. Would you consider yourself a power lesbian?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2 A little humility, please. God.

Speaker 2 I mean, usually.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 6 What? What did Tim say?

Speaker 2 A little humility. I mean, you're not supposed to call yourself a power lesbian.
That's supposed to be a title bestowed upon you, I think, by others.

Speaker 6 That's the kind of thing someone who's not a power lesbian would say.

Speaker 6 If you're any power lesbian would describe herself as such. And if you can't, you're not, bitch.
All right.

Speaker 6 Next up, we have granola lesbians.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 They look fine gray.

Speaker 6 A Subaru Sophic, we call them.

Speaker 6 It's comfortable shoes, cargo shorts. It'd be very practical during the parade.

Speaker 6 Something to think about.

Speaker 6 You might get hit by those national park budget cuts by Trump.

Speaker 7 That has been hard on the lesbians, actually.

Speaker 2 Now. We do like to camp.
Yeah, you do like to camp.

Speaker 7 Do you actually like? You guys like camp. We like to camp.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Wow. Nobody likes to camp.
No. I refuse to believe that anyone actually likes to camp.

Speaker 7 No, my friends are camping right now without me. I had to skip it to come to this show.

Speaker 2 Wow. You're welcome.

Speaker 6 No, I don't understand camping either, but that's why the flag has different colors on it, you know?

Speaker 6 That's why we have different colors.

Speaker 2 That's why straight women are our natural allies. Hello, straight women.
You don't like to camp either, do you?

Speaker 2 You don't like to camp.

Speaker 6 Yes, I often believe that the next great political realignment is when the straight women and the gay guys join forces,

Speaker 6 and the straight guys and the lesbians join forces, and that becomes our political divide.

Speaker 7 Do we want to take a winner in that fight?

Speaker 2 We'll do whatever you say.

Speaker 6 Next up, a classic, a classic direction, we have the masks.

Speaker 2 Now, oh, there we go.

Speaker 6 Now,

Speaker 6 this is working for Tim, so that's a bad sign.

Speaker 6 Now,

Speaker 6 TikTok has declared a mask shortage, and you know, you're a former Republican, so you care a lot about a free market. That's an opportunity for you.

Speaker 6 There's a market opening for some more, a more masculine Sarah Longwell. Have you thought about shorter hair, spikes, maybe kind of more tattoos?

Speaker 7 Oh, he was saying mask with a C. I thought he was talking about like COVID masks.

Speaker 2 Get out of here, Fauci.

Speaker 6 Nobody's talking about masks.

Speaker 2 Wait.

Speaker 6 No, no, I'm talking about masculine, a masculine lesbian. Well, if this isn't your style, we can try soft butch.

Speaker 6 Respected, classy, androgynous.

Speaker 7 I think a sweater vest is up my alley, actually.

Speaker 6 Yeah, no,

Speaker 6 I think we could reach for one of those in your closet for sure.

Speaker 6 And then I think one last one. I think we have Diesel Dyke.

Speaker 2 That's Rosa Delario. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 I like, honestly, I think you could try that.

Speaker 6 I think shave the sides of your head.

Speaker 6 I mean, honestly.

Speaker 2 This could work for you.

Speaker 7 Thank you, straight man in the audience.

Speaker 6 Get that attitude the fuck out of here.

Speaker 2 Thank you. It is Pride Month, sir.

Speaker 6 It's Pride Month. We say yes to whatever.

Speaker 6 And finally, just as one last option, we have the Elvira Goth era that you could perhaps enter.

Speaker 6 That's where we would like to see you by the end of this Pride.

Speaker 2 I feel like

Speaker 7 I've seen on my photo bits after this.

Speaker 6 So, Sarah, so that's all a way of saying,

Speaker 6 you know, we want you to try any one of these directions as probably. We hope that even though Tim and I do take up as much space as there is

Speaker 7 that you feel.

Speaker 7 I look forward to interrupting you guys a lot during this show as you talk.

Speaker 2 I don't like the sound of that.

Speaker 7 A form of historical retaliation.

Speaker 2 And I love that for us. Yeah.

Speaker 6 But now I understand, Sarah,

Speaker 6 you've collected a dossier of your own.

Speaker 7 So here's the thing.

Speaker 7 Tim and I actually go way back, like recliners back. Like, we have been friends since like 2006 when I had to go pick him up after the cops arrested him.

Speaker 7 And for some reason, his first call was to his boss

Speaker 7 because they needed a responsible adult to pick him up and drive his trust fund Cadillac home for him.

Speaker 2 I don't recall this.

Speaker 2 Did that happen? That's a real thing that happened.

Speaker 2 I remember pulling up in a cab because I also had a life.

Speaker 7 I was also out partying and I had to pull up in a cab.

Speaker 6 Let's try to keep this believable.

Speaker 7 I pull up in a cab, and this guy is sitting on the curb. It's almost Christmas.
I remember because the cop wished me a Merry Christmas as I was taking Tim away.

Speaker 7 And Tim's sitting there in the tiniest little glittery tank top you've ever seen while the cop lights are going. The red and whites are spinning.
I remember the caddy saying that.

Speaker 2 Coming out is a challenge, okay?

Speaker 2 And I went through some rocky times. I'm sure there are people in the room that can relate to that.
It's not nice to bully me about it all these years later.

Speaker 7 Well, I told you, somebody's got to bring the top energy. So, anyway, so Tim and I, Tim and I,

Speaker 7 have been friends for a very long time. And so, I have a lot of old pictures of Tim.
And so, I thought we'd just do something really quickly called the Tim Eras tour.

Speaker 2 I love that. That sounds fun.
I love this.

Speaker 7 Let's go.

Speaker 7 This is the Tim,

Speaker 7 this is the Tim Beard era.

Speaker 6 Holy shit.

Speaker 2 Look at that. Look at that.
That's hot. I want to draw your attention to the fact that I spilled my drink all over my shirt.

Speaker 2 Look, Tim, if you had kept that up a little bit longer, you could have been Speaker of the House.

Speaker 2 What else we got?

Speaker 7 Oh, yeah, I call this Tim's Free Palestine era.

Speaker 7 That's Tim's husband, actually.

Speaker 9 Look how far we go back.

Speaker 2 Twitch Tyler.

Speaker 7 That was Pride

Speaker 7 of 2008. How about that?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, okay.

Speaker 7 This is Tim's Frat Bro era. Are you chugging a 40

Speaker 7 at the RNC headquarters?

Speaker 6 Who is that in the background?

Speaker 7 Is that Sean Spicer?

Speaker 6 That is Sean fucking Spicer.

Speaker 2 Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame.

Speaker 2 Wow. And if I kept that up, I'd be a bitch.

Speaker 6 That's how quickly we could have our own dictator on our side. It's that best.
On a fucking dime. On a dime.
Sorry, Sarah. Please continue.
I'm sorry, sorry for them.

Speaker 7 Look at this Twink schoolboy era.

Speaker 2 It's hot.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 7 This was around the time I met Tim, and he had a pair of fake glasses that he wore.

Speaker 7 This was his like Superman to Clark Hent thing that he did. It was like glasses straight, glasses off, gay.

Speaker 2 They were not prescription.

Speaker 2 I did wear non-prescription spectacles. Oh my.

Speaker 2 You know. Yeah.

Speaker 2 For those listening. I was.

Speaker 6 For those listening, that is a photo of Tim Sarah and another Sarah,

Speaker 6 Palin

Speaker 6 of Alaska. You know what's so funny? You hear former Republican, but then you feel it.

Speaker 6 Then you feel it. Right here in the middle of the chest.

Speaker 2 You betcha.

Speaker 7 I call this Tim's Why We Did It era.

Speaker 7 Which you only know if you've read Tim's book, but it's a good joke if you've got Tim's book. All right, next one.
This is Tim's Please Clap era.

Speaker 6 We have Tim and Jeb Bush.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 6 Now,

Speaker 6 look at this. This is just...

Speaker 2 If only we had Jeb. You guys didn't fucking deserve Jeb, okay? I don't want to hear any of this nonsense.

Speaker 6 If only we had Jeb, people say to themselves all the time.

Speaker 6 Last one.

Speaker 2 Okay. That's not cute.
I said only cute pictures.

Speaker 7 This is, lastly, this is Tim's finally famous era. And I want you to know this is from the other day when Tim yelled at our staff because he didn't look cute enough in his YouTube photo.

Speaker 2 And honestly,

Speaker 6 you know what?

Speaker 2 You know what?

Speaker 6 You know what? That's exactly what Tim should do.

Speaker 6 That face is his goddamn moneymaker. Thank you.
All right, and we can't do anything if probably we can be honest about the fact that we want to be looking good on these fucking YouTubes.

Speaker 6 All right, Sarah?

Speaker 2 Thank you. All right.

Speaker 7 That's all my Tim, but I do have a bonus for Love It because I didn't have old pictures of him. His freshman year college roommate and I worked together, and I was like, give me something.

Speaker 7 and he said no so John must be like a scary gay like

Speaker 7 loyalty yeah loyalty so I had to do something else so one thing that John and I have in common is that we both love the show survivor okay

Speaker 7 I've watched every season of survivor and when I saw that they announced John Lovett was going to be on the show, I was so fucking pissed.

Speaker 7 I was like, now they will never have another gay middle-aged podcaster on the show, and I've missed it. I'll never get to do this.

Speaker 7 Luckily, this happened.

Speaker 6 First person voted out of Survive the 47, John. That's four.
That's enough. You need to bring me your torch.

Speaker 2 They misspelled your name?

Speaker 2 I didn't want to. I just watched the whole fucking thing.
Relive it. Relive Relive it all!

Speaker 2 Play it again!

Speaker 6 Burning frightening fast.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 6 Back to you, John.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 I have a little behind-the-scenes story from one of our podcasts.

Speaker 2 In the period between when John came home from Survivor and when they announced that he was the first person eliminated, we did a podcast together, and on the show, I was like, By the way, I know you did terrible.

Speaker 2 And he goes, How do you know? I said, you look exactly the same as when you left.

Speaker 2 And I've seen the end of Survivor and people that make it long, they get tan, they lose weight. I was like, you look the same.
And he made me cut it.

Speaker 2 He was like, Sherry Whedstone will get mad at me and CBS if we leave it in.

Speaker 7 Oh, Sherry Whedstone.

Speaker 6 There is a fragile alliance

Speaker 6 between former Republicans and current Democrats. Fragile alliance.

Speaker 2 Okay, okay.

Speaker 7 Well,

Speaker 7 this is my last thing. I did get this one picture out of your roommate,

Speaker 7 which is...

Speaker 7 So... So here's the thing.
This is, I just have to ask you, because I think I might know why you lost. Are you practicing making fire just like on concrete?

Speaker 6 I was learning how to spark the flint.

Speaker 6 I was really trying to get the fire started. I was learning.
I bought a machete on Amazon,

Speaker 6 which you shouldn't be able to do and yet.

Speaker 6 And yet, but yes, that is me trying to learn how to make fire, which if you had, if I had managed to miss more than three dinners, you might have seen.

Speaker 7 Okay, that's the end of my bet. That's the end of my photos, bit.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 can you make fire?

Speaker 6 I can make fire. I learned to make fire.
Not as good at making friends, but I can make fire. Turns out you got to make fire and you got to make friends.

Speaker 7 Which was harder for you? Getting voted off first or the fact that none of them had heard of your podcast.

Speaker 6 When we come back.

Speaker 2 Excuse me. We're staying.
You have one more little question. Oh, I'm sorry.
You're right. You're right.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Okay, well, no, we added it to the show late. So it's fine.
It makes sense. I just figured that since we had the world's messiest divorce during Pride Month,

Speaker 2 we should probably just talk about it a little bit.

Speaker 2 So, you know, my take on this might be a little different than you expect because I was thinking about it on the plane here. And I was like, you know, thinking about Donald and Elon.

Speaker 2 Gay men in the crowd, maybe there's more that unites us than divides us, it turns out. I know, it doesn't seem likely, but bear with me here.

Speaker 2 You have a relationship between two white male narcissists. It hits the skids.
The breakup explodes in a messy, ketamine-fueled cat fight.

Speaker 2 There's accusations of bad behavior at sex parties.

Speaker 2 and reckless spending of the couple's finances.

Speaker 2 It's a gale as old as time. I'm surprised this didn't burst out into the open at a 14th Street brunch.

Speaker 2 We've all seen the arc.

Speaker 2 You know, the only question I have is: which one spirals and spends the night taking strangers' loads in the dark room at the Green Lantern?

Speaker 2 My money's on Elon.

Speaker 2 Was that too much?

Speaker 6 No, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 You can keep that one as a souvenir. I can't throw.
I'm gay. We'll give it to you later.

Speaker 2 I also feel like we're kind of living a preview of the Sophie's choice facing the children of gay divorce. I don't know about you.
I feel bad for those children.

Speaker 2 Like, imagine having to choose who you want to have custody. The K-hole circuit dad or the county theater queen.

Speaker 2 Talking about hard choices by Hillary Clinton.

Speaker 2 Did you write any of that? No, I'm not involved.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 One other thing I never expected from this whole saga was that a straight man would end up becoming the poster boy for mixing meth and K.

Speaker 2 I thought that was our thing.

Speaker 7 I don't understand any of these jokes.

Speaker 2 The jokes are for the seven gay men of the age of 50 in the crowd.

Speaker 2 What's up, boys?

Speaker 2 The good news is now we get a name for getting so geeked on a K and Tina snowball that you spend all night posting onto Sniffies or X.

Speaker 2 We can call it getting doged.

Speaker 2 And let me tell you guys, if you're out there after that Troy Sivan show tomorrow, boys are going to be getting doged all over town. So watch your apps.

Speaker 6 That was beautiful, Tim. That's all we got.

Speaker 2 That was my tight five on the gay divorce.

Speaker 2 And on that note,

Speaker 6 when we come back, Tim's going to sit down with Andre Hernandez Ramiro's lawyer to talk about what brought us all here together.

Speaker 2 So we'll be right back.

Speaker 6 Pod Save America is brought to you by Incogni. If you've ever searched for your name or address on Google, it's shocking to find how many results have your personal information.

Speaker 6 And it's not by chance. Data brokers and people search sites collect your personal information, your name, address, phone number, financial info, income, and hundreds of other records.

Speaker 6 They sell and share it publicly without your consent. But Incogni is here to put an end to that.

Speaker 6 It hunts down these unethical sites and gets your info removed from the places that expose your private information. You don't have to email anyone, fill out forms, or jump through hoops.

Speaker 6 They handle the entire process for you.

Speaker 6 Incogni also continuously monitors to see if your data makes its way onto these databases and will request repeated removals, keeping your info off them forever.

Speaker 6 So you get fewer spam calls, fewer emails, and more peace of mind. Incogni even offers a family and friends plan to extend protection to up to four additional members.

Speaker 6 Just create an account and authorize them to act on your behalf. Incogni then handles the data removal process and keeps you informed of their progress.
All of our information is all over the place.

Speaker 6 You need a service like this to help get it off the internet and scrub the internet as best they can. Right now, you can get 60% off an annual plan by going to incogni.com slash PSA and use code PSA.

Speaker 6 That's I-N-C-O-G-N-I dot com slash PSA and use the code PSA at checkout.

Speaker 10 The Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid has a bold design, a spacious interior with 232 horsepower, and a 12.3-inch panoramic display to keep the adventure going and fit with the way you live.

Speaker 10 And with SiriusXM, every drive comes alive, bringing you closer to the music, sports, talk, and podcasts you love, right in your vehicle or on the SiriusXM app.

Speaker 10 Every Sirius XM-equipped Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid includes a three-month trial subscription to SiriusXM, so the experience begins the moment you drive.

Speaker 10 Learn more at kia.com/slash fortage dash hybrid, Kia movement that inspires.

Speaker 2 You don't get the fancy intro like everybody else? Okay, introduce yourself. Tell everybody who we're talking to.

Speaker 9 Hi, everybody. I'm Lindsay Toslowski.
I'm the president and CEO of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 It's so great to see you in person, finally, after all of our Twitter DMs. It's unfortunate we had to use Elon's platform to talk, but you know, it's nice that he brought us together.

Speaker 9 I'm glad he brought us together.

Speaker 2 I'm just so appreciative of all the work that you're doing, and I'm so grateful that we were able to support your guys' work with this event tonight.

Speaker 2 I should say I got a text from Congressman Richie Torres's folks. They donated $1,000 to your group as well since he couldn't be here tonight.
So we're doing the best we can. But I thought that,

Speaker 2 why don't you start by just telling us about Andri and how you got to know him and how you got to represent him?

Speaker 9 Sure.

Speaker 9 So Andri is an asylum seeker from Venezuela. He came to the U.S.
last year.

Speaker 9 When he was in Venezuela as a gay man, he faced incredible discrimination. He also was politically persecuted.
He was physically hurt. He was followed home by police officers.

Speaker 9 So he made the incredibly difficult decision to come to the U.S. But he had a really rich life there.

Speaker 9 He's been in a theater troupe since he was seven years old. He actually worked on the Miss Venezuela pageant.
He was in pageants himself as a contestant.

Speaker 2 Now, is that common in Venezuela for Trendaragua men to be working working on the Miss Venezuela pageant?

Speaker 9 You know, I don't think that's been a cover I've seen before. Yeah.
Not common. He also worked professionally as a makeup artist.
He had this really rich life. He's close to his mom.

Speaker 9 So for him to flee and come to the United States, things were really bad. And it was really difficult for him to live authentically there.
So he came to the U.S.

Speaker 9 and he did everything that we were asking people to do. He made an appointment.
He waited in Tijuana for that appointment.

Speaker 9 He, once he got into the U.S., he was kept in an ice prison in San Diego from the moment he arrived here. He's never stepped free in the United States at all.

Speaker 9 During that time, he passed his credible fear interview, which means he was on his way to getting asylum. We started representing him in December of last year.

Speaker 9 We were in the process of waiting for a court hearing for him, and he was disappeared by the Trump administration on March 15th.

Speaker 2 And so, since you had started, you had been talking to him at that time. I mean, did you kind of expect that? Or what was the situation between kind of December and March?

Speaker 9 Yeah, so we were getting ready to move forward with his asylum case. We had a hearing on March 13th.

Speaker 9 He was really suffering in an ICE detention center, which is one of the reasons that we worry so much about what it's like for him now in a torture prison in El Salvador.

Speaker 2 Suffering, how?

Speaker 9 Suffering. He was sexually harassed.

Speaker 9 He had actually made complaints in, this is a detention center in San Diego.

Speaker 9 But he also was doing other things while he was there, including at one point he gave us a, it was sort of like a business plan, a 19-page business plan that he had created for a nonprofit that he wanted to start.

Speaker 9 And it was to help kids who were homeless and to help other gay kids. And he was planning to do that once he got out.

Speaker 9 And he wanted to know if we could show it to the judge to show that he had good intentions here in the U.S.

Speaker 2 Now, you do a lot of these cases.

Speaker 2 Bring them fucking back. Yeah.
It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 You know, the Andri case has just taken up so much of it's good. It's gotten attention, taken so much of my brain power.
But I know you represent other folks as well.

Speaker 2 Are there any other stories you want to tell us about the people that you represent that are in El Salvador?

Speaker 9 So we represent eight other men who are also at the same Secot prison in El Salvador that that Andri is. One of them is Arturo Suarez.
He's a professional singer.

Speaker 9 He actually had a baby born since he's been there, who he's never met. Another is Miguel Rojas Mendoza.
He was picked up in Louisiana while working as a horse trainer and rancher.

Speaker 9 He actually had TPS, so he had protected status here in the United States. He has two children, and his children's names were the tattoos that he had that likely landed him there.

Speaker 9 And there there are so many other stories, so many other Andres that could be part of the more than 235 men who were sent on those U.S. government planes to El Salvador.

Speaker 2 How do you not become just consumed by rage, murderous rage? That's a personal question. I'm looking for advice.

Speaker 9 You know, I think that every single day that I'm here, I feel like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. And I think all of the other

Speaker 2 And I

Speaker 9 And I thank all of the other we have a huge team that's working on Antri's case other immigrant defenders other colleagues. We have a case that is actually the JGG versus Trump case.

Speaker 9 It's happening here right now. We got a positive decision this week.
So we are keeping hope alive. I believe I know

Speaker 9 in my heart that we will get him back, and we're not going to stop fighting until we do.

Speaker 9 And so I think, you know, to answer your question about rage We're channeling our rage for good at this moment because what the hell else are we gonna do?

Speaker 2 Okay

Speaker 2 I'm just gonna play that back to myself from time to time to try to use your wisdom to help me out Okay, we had a little news today with the Kilmar Brego-Garcia case

Speaker 2 They're I guess kind of I mean, it's good, but also fuck these people

Speaker 2 is just from the legal perspective, what does that development say to you about all of these other cases?

Speaker 9 So the news that we got in Kilmar's case is that he's on his way back to the United States. What that says to me is they need to stop lying, that it's impossible.

Speaker 9 And if they can bring him back, they can bring Andri back.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And this is the thing about all these cases.

Speaker 2 The reason why they're bringing Kilmar back is because they want to make it about the details of Kilmar's life, which I don't know about one way or the other, but like that's the fucking point here, right?

Speaker 2 Like you can't kidnap 250 people, send them to a foreign gulag, and then just be like, well, whatever, we'll see what happens. Some of them are bad guys, some of them are, right?

Speaker 2 Like that is the issue here. And so how do you think about like framing that for people so we don't get bogged down in the details of individual cases?

Speaker 9 Right. In many ways, what happened, I mean, there's lots of legal things I could tell you about the Alien Enemies Act and all these things, and I won't.

Speaker 2 Thank you. You're welcome.

Speaker 9 But what I can say is that his case is fundamentally about due process. And due process is most important when the government is accusing you of a crime or alleging you are a gang member.

Speaker 9 The only thing that stands between any of us ending up in a prison in El Salvador, just like Andri, is the fact that we have due process, we have constitutional rights.

Speaker 9 When those are trampled, when you are, like Andri, whisked away without getting to speak to your lawyer, without knowing where you are going, without being given an opportunity to refute what the government is saying about you your day in court, this is what happens.

Speaker 9 And if it can happen to to him it could happen to any one of us and that's why this case is not just about andre it's not just about the 240 men it's about the future of our democracy and whether or not we're going to fight for it

Speaker 9 all right last thing what can obviously folks here care about this they showed up tonight we really appreciate all of you what else can people do well we're so grateful for this um you know Donating to organizations like Immigrant Defenders Law Center and our partner organizations is so important because because it helps us to do this work.

Speaker 9 All of our work is done for free for the clients. And so, being here is really important.

Speaker 9 But we're asking people to continue to shine a light on this case, continue to lift up his story, lift up the stories of all these men.

Speaker 9 You can go to freeandri.org and you will see toolkits so you can reach out to your elected representatives. But really, the U.S.

Speaker 9 government here, the Trump administration, they are trying to erase his existence. And so, what we need people to do is keep his story alive.
Don't let them erase him.

Speaker 9 And most importantly, talk to your family and friends, those that live in Republican districts.

Speaker 9 Make sure that they are going to town halls, that they are asking the questions about when Andri is coming back and when he's going to get his day in court. That is the best thing that people can do.

Speaker 2 I admire you so much. Thank you so much for everything you're doing.
That's Lindsay. Appreciate her.
Thank you, everybody. Yeah, stand up.

Speaker 2 All right, up next. I don't know.
Love Lovett's going to do something.

Speaker 6 Oh, wait, I get to say. You say.

Speaker 6 You stay there, Tim.

Speaker 6 It's time to bring back one of our classic,

Speaker 6 classic segments. Now, it has another name, but tonight, in honor of Pride, we're going to call it something slightly different because it's time for a segment we call Bitch Stop.

Speaker 6 And here's how it works.

Speaker 2 We roll a clip.

Speaker 6 And whenever we like, we say, bitch, stop,

Speaker 6 to talk about it. Tonight, we have Jesse Waters.

Speaker 7 Bitch, stop.

Speaker 6 Talking about, talking about what else? The human form.

Speaker 2 Let's roll the clip.

Speaker 12 Now, I was at a resort a little while back, and I saw Senator Thune at the gym.

Speaker 6 The man is jacked, and the guy is in in great shape, and he lifts hard.

Speaker 1 You look at Schumer,

Speaker 12 he's built like a woman. Now, men do not want to be led by the party of women.

Speaker 7 Bitch, stop.

Speaker 2 Hate to hand it to Jesse Waters, but I don't know. Show me the lie.

Speaker 2 My husband's a big Jon Thune fan over there. He was getting excited.
Just listening to the description.

Speaker 6 Oh,

Speaker 6 you like that kind of

Speaker 2 20 years.

Speaker 6 So I'm sorry, 20 years ago you had a crush on Jon Thun

Speaker 6 Wow that strong jaw is he a Dakota man yeah nice I have a question

Speaker 7 do men refuse to be led by women

Speaker 2 I don't know if you want the answer to that you guys as best I can tell follow drag queens around everywhere and you're telling a little something you might need to know about drag queens

Speaker 2 I walked into that one.

Speaker 2 I had a drag queen. We had a drag queen show up to, this is the second Tyler shout out of the segment, to his 40th birthday party.
He's 40 now.

Speaker 2 My father came, and the drag queen walks into the event, and my dad looks at my sister-in-law, and he's like, that's a man, right?

Speaker 2 That was Sarah as well. Not sure exactly what's happening underneath the.

Speaker 6 I also just think it's a funny thing to say, because it's like, Are people really following Jon Thune? Is Jon Thune our leader?

Speaker 2 Well, that's a good question. I mean, he is live, though, you have to say, about Jon Thune.

Speaker 6 He's very fit.

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 6 That's true. And it is also fair to say that sometimes with Chuck Schumer, the medium is the message.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 7 Yeah, you know, what I remember about Schumer is: remember when he was like, the people are aroused. I've never seen the people so aroused.
And I thought, Chuck Schumer, you might need to.

Speaker 7 It might be time, man.

Speaker 7 It might be time for something else.

Speaker 2 I also just.

Speaker 6 Wow.

Speaker 7 No no shade to Chuck Schumer, but and it has nothing to do with his gym. Wait, just actually real quick, what is the obsession among Republican men now to talk about like what it means to be a man?

Speaker 7 Like this is like a weird thing that's going on.

Speaker 2 You're turning to me for my expertise on that.

Speaker 6 I think you know more about it than I do.

Speaker 2 Well, I just think that, you know, when you have somebody like Donald Trump at the top, you know, somebody that's really, really fit, won several golf tournaments,

Speaker 2 is like the 18-time champion of the Bedminster Seniors Golf Tournament. And so when you have somebody with that kind of athletic prowess leading the movement, I just think it kind of trickles down.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of people.

Speaker 6 There's a connection to like, so obviously we're going to have this military parade next week.

Speaker 6 Oh, I guess you're not fans of the anniversary of the Continental Army.

Speaker 6 Not fans of what George Washington did for all of us. Shame on you.

Speaker 6 But,

Speaker 6 you know, Michael Beschloss was talking about, I'm sorry to bring up that name here, but

Speaker 2 what's the next segment?

Speaker 6 But no, but Eisenhower said he doesn't want, you know, military parades. We did one after World War I and World War II.
We've done them in the event of big victories after the Civil War.

Speaker 6 We don't just have military parades on a random day because what Eisenhower said is that's not strong. That's fucking weak.
that's what weak countries do to pretend that they're strong

Speaker 6 and

Speaker 6 and you see like Jesse Waters go on television be like well men should do this and men can't do that and they can't eat soup and they can't drink from straws and it's like why is the stronger thing to be unable to do stuff like why I don't understand I genuinely don't understand it it's like you're You can't do all these things.

Speaker 6 Being a man means you have to do much, much less. That's how you show how strong you are.
That doesn't make any sense to me. That doesn't make any sense at all.

Speaker 2 It is a little faggy to eat soup. Let's just be honest.
Is that wrong?

Speaker 7 I don't know, but

Speaker 7 when I see Donald Trump throwing himself a big, like, military parade with tanks, that's when I really think about tiny Ds.

Speaker 2 Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 7 That is a one big compensation ceremony.

Speaker 2 For sure.

Speaker 6 For sure, yeah. Like, look at that ICBM going by.

Speaker 6 So how could I, you know, you know, like, it's the corvette it's the it's the internet it's the military version of the the Corvette right in a sense let's continue the clip men want to be led by other men so Democrats need to become men and then they can persuade men but they have to lift first

Speaker 2 I'm serious there's a there's a quote by Maya Angelou Dana thank you could you ask permission from Dana before you keep going

Speaker 12 people will forget what you said people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Speaker 6 Bitch stop.

Speaker 6 How many loops in that fucking grave do we think she did?

Speaker 6 Like, is it a full, like, how many, like, it's like a car going over a cliff. She's like on bottom, you know, just fully rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling.

Speaker 7 It must be hard to be a man because it's like, you can't drink out of straws, but you must quote Maya Angelou.

Speaker 2 How much Maya do you think Jesse's read? Like, how familiar with his oeuvre do you think he is?

Speaker 6 Oh, I think he's familiar with brainyquotes.com.

Speaker 6 I think he's also, like, as Abraham Lincoln once said, live, laugh, love.

Speaker 6 According to Gandhi, you miss all the shots you don't take.

Speaker 6 Quoting Maya Angelou on the five,

Speaker 6 on the five.

Speaker 12 People don't like the way they feel around Democrats.

Speaker 6 Because Democrats don't like the way they feel.

Speaker 12 And if they lifted, they feel better, and then everybody around them would feel better.

Speaker 1 You had me in mind.

Speaker 2 Okay. Pitch, stop.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 I do think Joe Biden probably has an uncomfortable touch.

Speaker 2 I think that's a good idea. But that said,

Speaker 2 keep me as far away from Jesse Waters as possible. You know, so I think that, you know, I'm not sure that he is

Speaker 2 the best messenger, maybe.

Speaker 7 But should we test, like, let me, what he's saying is, men like to be around men who lift.

Speaker 7 Fact check, true?

Speaker 6 Yeah, during World Pride for sure.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 6 It's so,

Speaker 6 it really is like the horseshoe theory for heterosexuality. It's like, how straight are you? I'll tell you how straight I am.
I only want to see the fucking hottest guys.

Speaker 6 I'm so straight that I don't want to, I do not like talking to women. I don't think they're really people.
I want to see fucking ripped dudes. I think about them.

Speaker 6 I think about what it takes to be a ripped dude. It's on my mind.
I see Chuck Schumer. Don't want to fuck him.
Something's off.

Speaker 6 Something's off. Now, Jon Thune, Jon Thune could have his way with me.
That's called leadership. I'm a straight man.

Speaker 7 He just wants to sit there with Jon Thune and quote Maya Angelou back and forth. And that's what they call Saturday night.
Sounds good.

Speaker 6 And that's bitch stop.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 6 Now, while they might try to ban our books, they can't stop us from keeping the library open.

Speaker 6 Well, not the literal libraries, but the library of the gay little human heart remains open 24-7, and it's full of the gnarliest reads we hear at this show could muster. So joining me on stage.

Speaker 6 Oh, wait. Oh, no, no.
I'm going to go out to the audience. I know what we're doing.
I know how to run a show.

Speaker 6 So can we bring up the lights?

Speaker 2 Love it was on a red eye. All right.
We can just let them.

Speaker 2 Whoa. I don't know that we want to see this.

Speaker 2 First of all, hi, everybody.

Speaker 6 So here's how this works.

Speaker 6 I'm going to come out there, all right, and we're going to do some, we have some rose jokes, and we'd like to hear you have a chance to throw some shade, as the kids say, 10 years ago.

Speaker 6 at some of these, you know, Trump goons. If you're straight, hey, do me a favor, keep your hands in your fucking pockets.
All right, we love that you're here, but we don't need to hear you.

Speaker 6 Okay? Straights tonight, seen, not heard.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 6 I'm coming.

Speaker 7 He just leaves the stage.

Speaker 2 Oh, hello. Yeah,

Speaker 2 he's dancing around in that little skirt.

Speaker 2 Look at him.

Speaker 6 Who would like to do our first joke?

Speaker 6 I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you.
I'm coming to you.

Speaker 6 Please stay seated.

Speaker 2 I will sit.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 6 Here's the joke. Here, give us the joke.

Speaker 2 Donald Trump. Given how he uses makeup and tries to destroy anyone who shares the stage with him, Donald Trump is our first drag queen president.

Speaker 2 So that's at least one queen I wouldn't trust around kids. Nice.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 6 Who wants to go down? Coming around.

Speaker 2 I'm coming around.

Speaker 2 I'm coming around. I'm coming around.
I'm coming around.

Speaker 2 Who wanted to go over here? I saw someone. Oh, hi, hi, hi, hi.

Speaker 6 All right. Hit us with these J.D.
Vance zingers.

Speaker 13 JD Vance, talk about someone with no charisma. J.D.
Vance has never slayed in his life except for one time in Vatican City.

Speaker 6 Nice.

Speaker 2 Really good. Here.

Speaker 6 Here, let's do that second J.D. Vance one there.

Speaker 2 J.D. Vance has always wanted to be a man's man, but failing that, he'll happily be Donald Trump's bitch.
Nice. Nice.

Speaker 2 These are good. A little on the nose, love it for that one.
A little on the nose.

Speaker 6 Yeah, okay, good note. We'll fix it in post, I guess.
Who else wants to go, hi, hi?

Speaker 2 Woo! Oh, right. All right.
Here. Oh, okay.
This is perfect. Okay.

Speaker 6 It says for a lesbian, but just a woman works. Okay, I don't know.
I I just don't know your story. I don't know your story.
Okay, read both of these jokes right starting from there.

Speaker 14 Seeing RFK Jr. always makes me wonder, can someone be a double lesbian?

Speaker 6 Yeah, you got them. You zinged them.
You zinged them real good. Now wait, don't do the second one.
You're doing great. You're doing great.
We need more lesbian.

Speaker 5 What?

Speaker 6 Did you hear the power lesbian thing earlier? Confidence. Do the next bit.

Speaker 2 I'm nervous. I love you.

Speaker 6 You're nervous? That's stupid.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 Read the next one.

Speaker 6 You got it. you're doing great it's the same feeling as excitement here we go RFK Jr.

Speaker 14 is truly a man who has everything at least according to his most recent blood work see that's pretty good did great you're doing great

Speaker 6 great job from a from a the the spouse of a Kenyan alove who else wants to go okay I'll come over to you

Speaker 6 oh we have some more RFK material that's fun hi yeah hi here read this card

Speaker 15 RFK Jr. recently faced blowback after going for a swim in DC's Rock Creek.

Speaker 7 Oh, I'm sorry, I read that wrong.

Speaker 15 After swimming in DC's Rock Creek, RFK Jr.

Speaker 2 back blew out from diarrhea.

Speaker 6 What did you think of that one, Tim?

Speaker 2 The execution on the read wasn't great, so I missed the

Speaker 2 punchline.

Speaker 2 Wow. Shame, shame, shame, shame.

Speaker 6 I'm in the crowd now. It feels awesome.

Speaker 2 Wait, who else wants to go? Okay, I'll come over to you.

Speaker 6 Oh, my legs do look great. Thank you.
Hi, okay.

Speaker 6 Read this next one about RFK Jr.

Speaker 6 Say what you will about RFK Jr., but he's truly killing it.

Speaker 7 And by it, I mean the entire herd of deer he's hit with his car and stashed in his trunk for later.

Speaker 2 That was a good read.

Speaker 6 Sarah, what'd you think of that one?

Speaker 7 Well, I think it was well read.

Speaker 2 Well delivered.

Speaker 6 Oh, look at that. Look at them.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 6 Who wants to go next? Who wants to?

Speaker 6 Oh, okay hi hi hi hi hi okay hi hi uh okay oh sarah sarah and tim we have two mike johnson jokes that are in the same kind of vein okay all right and we couldn't decide so you're gonna pick your favorite okay all right joke number one

Speaker 6 oh great i have to read mike johnson well what'd you think was gonna happen when you raise your fucking hand no you're out

Speaker 2 Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm a nervous reader.

Speaker 17 English is my second language. Mike Johnson threw all of his weight behind one big, beautiful bill this month.
He also helped pass the budget reconciliation package.

Speaker 2 That one's a thinker. He did great.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 He put all his weight behind big, beautiful Bill. Bill is a guy, a man named Bill.
And it's not a great sign we have to explain the joke, but I really enjoyed it. That was a joke.

Speaker 2 I think that was kind of like my Troy Sivan joke, Earl era. It was only for me.

Speaker 6 Okay, well, let's try this one. You want to go?

Speaker 6 Okay, here we go.

Speaker 6 Mike Johnson uses an app where he and his son monitor each other's porn use, presumably to prevent him from looking at one big, beautiful guy named Bill.

Speaker 2 That's good. I forgot about that.
First one. First one was

Speaker 2 kind of a

Speaker 2 high-minded.

Speaker 2 Dan Bongino, FBI deputy director.

Speaker 5 You're right.

Speaker 2 Dan Bangino, Epstein did kill himself after listening to your shitty podcast.

Speaker 2 Got him. I like that.
Got him. I like that.
Now,

Speaker 2 I want everyone to know something.

Speaker 6 I believe that is the first time someone has edited the joke as he read it.

Speaker 6 And you know, next time it's one for me and then one for you. Okay.

Speaker 2 Oh, hi, hi, hi. Okay, hi.

Speaker 6 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 I'm so sweaty.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Oh, there's so many people over here. Love it.
Are you going to have enough energy for the club later?

Speaker 2 Think about that swamp ass.

Speaker 2 What happens if things get a little frisky tonight?

Speaker 6 We'll be right back.

Speaker 6 Up next, Sarah gets into it with Congressman Robert Garcia.

Speaker 2 Yes!

Speaker 1 Pod Save America is brought to you by Rocket Money. With prices going up on just about everything lately, being smart with your money isn't just a good idea, it's essential.

Speaker 1 But managing subscriptions, tracking spending, and cutting costs can feel overwhelming. Lucky for you, Rocket Money takes the guesswork out of it so you can easily make smart decisions.

Speaker 1 Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings.

Speaker 1 Rocket Money's dashboard gives you a clear view of your expenses across all of your accounts. You can easily create a personalized budget with custom categories to help keep your spending on track.

Speaker 1 You can see your monthly spending trends in each category to know exactly where your money is going. This is important because

Speaker 1 when you track your spending by category, then you can look and be like, I'm spending that much money on ordering Postmates and DoorDash.

Speaker 2 That doesn't seem right.

Speaker 1 Too much. So that's important.
You also can get alerts if bills increase in price or there's unusual spending activity. or if you're close to going over budget.
So that's nice and helpful.

Speaker 1 The new goals feature automatically saves money for you so you don't have to think about it you can help pay off bills put away money for a house or just build your savings rocket money makes it easy rocket money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you that's pretty cool they automatically scan your bills to find opportunities to save then you can ask them to negotiate for you they'll deal with customer service so you don't have to this is like putting uh putting lovet out of a job yeah he's usually the big negotiator yeah i like to negotiate rocket money's going to do it for you now oh no rocket money has over five million users and has saved a total of 500 million dollars in canceled subscriptions saving members up to 740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features.

Speaker 1 Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money.

Speaker 1 Download the Rocket Money app and enter our show name, Pod Save America, in the survey so they know we sent you. Don't wait.

Speaker 1 Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from our show.

Speaker 18 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. Business owners meet Progressive Insurance.

Speaker 18 They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business. Quote in as little as eight eight minutes at progressivecomercial.com.

Speaker 18 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company. Coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers.
Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.

Speaker 2 Please welcome Congressman Robert Garcia from California.

Speaker 2 There, you sit right here. Okay.
My drink's right here.

Speaker 7 My friend, thank you for being here.

Speaker 2 Happy to to be here.

Speaker 7 You know, I have been so impressed with you because you have been very vocal. You've been outspoken.
You've been somebody who's been standing up and saying something about Andre and what's happening.

Speaker 7 Tell me why. Yes.
Yes. Cheer.

Speaker 7 Tell me why it upset you so much. Tell me why you got vocal.

Speaker 2 Absolutely.

Speaker 5 I mean, first, thank you all for being here. Andrea is such, especially during Pride Month.
This is such an important story. for all of us to uplift and to push.

Speaker 5 This is what's happening right now should be alarming and concerning every single person in this country. And what's happening, every single person.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 5 for me, I obviously as an openly gay person, I'm also an immigrant. I came to this country as a young kid.
And so I feel very much,

Speaker 5 I can relate and I connect to his story. And what drives me absolutely crazy is that we, the United States government, gave Andre the appointment.

Speaker 5 We told him, come to the United States at a port of entry on this date and on this time

Speaker 5 for your asylum process and interview. We told him to come to the interview.
So he comes to the port of entry to do his interview. He passes that first check, essentially that first interview process.

Speaker 5 And then after that,

Speaker 5 He gets, of course, sent to the detention center and then taken to a country that he is not from in a foreign prison that we know nothing about with no proof of life. That is shameful.

Speaker 5 Donald Trump, Christy Noam, Marco Rubio should all be ashamed of themselves.

Speaker 6 They're causing massive harm, not just to Andrew, but to everybody else.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 we.

Speaker 5 This fires me up because I don't understand how we can be so cruel as a country. This is a country that was built largely on immigrant labor, and we know this to be true.
And I remember,

Speaker 5 you know, we went down to El Salvador to advocate for not just Andrew, but to ensure that people were getting their due process.

Speaker 5 And I think what's really important, what I've told folks, including some more conservative members and Republicans, I've said, look, regardless of your opinion on the immigration debate, and we all have different opinions,

Speaker 5 This is about due process.

Speaker 5 This is about the Constitution of the United States and

Speaker 5 whether we're going to defend it.

Speaker 5 And I remember looking at the ambassador, the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador in El Salvador, just directly at him.
We were this close away from each other. And I shared with him Andrew's story.

Speaker 5 And he looked right back to me and said, you know, this is the first I've heard of this. And I'm sitting here thinking,

Speaker 5 We've been promoting and talking about him, and people are talking about him across the country. And this is the first that you are hearing about his story.

Speaker 6 And he,

Speaker 2 that part, and he,

Speaker 5 you know, he that day told me that he would be, he would do an inquiry. And he actually did the first official inquiry to try to get a wellness check on him, which, of course, we never got.

Speaker 5 And so, since then to now, the work you're all doing to telling his story is so important.

Speaker 5 We cannot forget him. We must get a proof of life.
We are demanding a proof of life check.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 I'm just grateful just to be a part of advocating for him and his story.

Speaker 7 Well, thank you for doing that. And thank you for being here.

Speaker 7 You know, they are bringing, we just found out, we just found out they're going to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back and they're going to try him, which is just, that is it, right?

Speaker 7 I think the Republicans right now are sort of like, oh, we're going to show you that this is a bad guy. And I'm sort of like, I don't care if he's a bad guy because he still deserves due process.

Speaker 7 Like, that is what we're doing here, right?

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 7 Like, if he's a bad guy, prove it, and then we can all move on.

Speaker 2 But, like, that's exactly right.

Speaker 7 But here's the look, I spent a long time as a Republican, and

Speaker 7 I haven't seen it for maybe a decade now, but when I was coming up as a Republican, they talked a lot about the Constitution, about due process, about the rule of law, about all these things that mattered to them that became sort of the that were the underpinnings of democracy.

Speaker 7 How do your Republican colleagues justify sending people,

Speaker 7 disappearing them to foreign countries without due process?

Speaker 5 Well, I think, I mean, they can't. I mean, the reality is, is that

Speaker 5 they're completely focused on doing whatever Donald Trump tells them to do, following their leader.

Speaker 5 And they know, and many of them know, that the things they're advocating for are against the Constitution. I mean, the Constitution means nothing to them anymore.
And, you know, I

Speaker 5 and I really believe this. There are probably other immigrants here in this theater.
And I truly believe this that immigrants, those of us that have gone through the process of becoming U.S.

Speaker 5 citizens, we are some of the most patriotic people in this country.

Speaker 5 We love this country.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 I think, you know,

Speaker 5 I have the right to be a U.S. citizen.
I get the honor of serving in Congress because I fought for citizenship. I fought for the thing that most folks here were born with.

Speaker 5 So immigrants that go through that process believe in this country and we want to fight for it.

Speaker 5 And so, in the case of these Republicans, I mean, they most have been born into this incredible honor and privilege of being a United States citizen and forget where their parents or their grandparents came from and the struggles that they had to go through to also come to this country.

Speaker 5 And I'll say this: and you mentioned the Abrego-Garcia case.

Speaker 5 We have the Supreme Court in a nine to zero decision said that he deserved his due process. And the important thing is, is everyone deserves their day in court.

Speaker 5 I don't know what Mr. Abrigo Garcia did or didn't do, but he does have a right under the Constitution to defend himself in front of a judge and a courtroom.

Speaker 5 He has that right.

Speaker 5 And so whether...

Speaker 5 What he did or what he didn't do, that will be up to a judge and a jury.

Speaker 5 What we have to do, and every single person in this room needs to do, is to defend the Constitution of the United States, which affords, as we all know, all persons,

Speaker 5 not just U.S. citizens, it affords all persons in this country the right to due process.
And we can't forget that.

Speaker 7 The founders knew what they were doing when they said all persons. They knew.
You know, I was just, we did a rally right before this.

Speaker 7 Maybe some of you were there, but I do just want to say something that I said there. Yeah, great.
Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming.

Speaker 7 It was my first, like I said, my first rally, my first protest.

Speaker 7 But you know, when you came up as a young Republican, I swear to God, Republicans were different on immigration than they are now.

Speaker 7 I remember, I'm telling you, Reagan used to say, he had this great line about how you could go to Japan and you'd never be Japanese. And you could move to France and you'd never be a Frenchman.

Speaker 7 But any person with freedom in their heart who loved the ideals of America could come be an American. And that was a thing that we, people like, like agreed was an American value.

Speaker 5 That's right.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I'm going to quote Reagan up here.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 7 So tell me, this is something I've wondered. And a lot of people ask that this shows.
They all want to know what can I do?

Speaker 7 And one of the things they ask is they're like, I don't know. I call my congressman, but I don't know if it matters.
You're a congressman. Tell us, does it matter when people call?

Speaker 5 It does matter. And I think that

Speaker 5 we and all others, especially

Speaker 5 folks that are engaged, we track what folks that call, what they're calling about. It does matter.
What we also need, though, we need folks to call Republicans.

Speaker 5 We need folks to call those Republican members that need to be held accountable for just blindly supporting Donald Trump's policies.

Speaker 5 And we have to understand that at this moment, we have to be engaged. And I will tell you this right now.
What's happening tonight and telling Andre's story, please share his story.

Speaker 5 We have an opportunity also during Pride Month where there's more attention on our stories to uplift what's happening to him because we know it's not just about him, but he does represent that idea of due process.

Speaker 5 And by uplifting him, we are uplifting due process. We're uplifting the Constitution and trying to make our country and the world a better place.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 I have one last important question.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 7 So you were very involved

Speaker 7 in ousting a colleague of yours named George Santos, aka

Speaker 2 Kintara Ravage.

Speaker 2 Yes. Why'd you do it? What was the reason for that gay on your violence, man?

Speaker 5 I have so many George Santos stories.

Speaker 5 We'd be here all night.

Speaker 2 But I'll just start.

Speaker 5 I met him and I met George during our orientation. And, you know, First, I was struck, of course, I obviously gay Latino, and on the other side is another gay Latino.

Speaker 5 And I thought, well, maybe there's

Speaker 5 an opportunity here just to have some like bipartisan friendship. I mean, I don't know.
I knew that he was already, his ideas were already pretty extreme.

Speaker 5 And so I generally not try not to engage with people that don't believe in like human rights for LGBTQ plus people and other folks. And as

Speaker 5 we learned more and more about him, I just got really angry about it. And I thought, this is someone that is working to dismantle our rights, and yet you're from the same community.

Speaker 5 And so pretty early on, I mean I was a freshman,

Speaker 5 I, you know, I made the very first expulsion motion on the floor of the house to expel George Santos.

Speaker 5 And I submitted,

Speaker 5 and everyone, a lot of folks were like, this is a bad idea. You're a freshman, you shouldn't do this.
And I was like, fuck it. Like, we got to, you know, we got to do it.
We got to lean in.

Speaker 5 Like, we got to do it. And I remember, you know, we filed the resolution and we forced a vote.

Speaker 5 And that initial vote that we took is what then got Kevin McCarthy at the time to then take that motion, table it, send it to the ethics committee for them to do their report.

Speaker 5 The ethics committee does their report. And then months later, once that report comes out, it triggered that second

Speaker 5 expulsion vote that then.

Speaker 7 Because the report came out and everybody was like, I'm sorry, what?

Speaker 5 Exactly.

Speaker 5 And then that came, and then that came out. And then, of course, we expelled him.

Speaker 5 Really quickly, the day of the vote um i went to the back of the house with him and i said he wanted to talk i said let's talk so we go to the back by the cloakroom and we're about to vote to expel him like like within 30 minutes and awkward yeah and obviously and i you know i helped start the whole thing and so he went in the back and he's trying to convince me still that he shouldn't get expelled And I remember just, I looked him right in the eye and I said, you know, I said, I said, George, I said, one is you deserve to be expelled.

Speaker 5 But I also hope that you can reflect and you take this time to think about who you are

Speaker 5 and that

Speaker 5 deep down, like, I want you to get better. Like, I want, there was a moment like where I felt I was just looking at somebody that was really sad.

Speaker 5 And it doesn't excuse the horrific things that he has done or voted on. And he should be held accountable for those.
And he's now going to be held accountable for the crimes he committed.

Speaker 7 And he's been indicted.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 5 there was a moment where

Speaker 5 I did feel so, us as gay people, as queer people, we sometimes have a very hard path to getting to who we really are. And so I felt a little bit for him.

Speaker 5 And I'm glad he is going to be held accountable for what he did. And I hope that on his way out, he works on himself.

Speaker 6 You have a good heart, man.

Speaker 2 Guys,

Speaker 2 let's give it up. All right.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 Happy Pride. Happy Pride.
Happy Pride.

Speaker 2 I got to tell you.

Speaker 6 Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 Congressman,

Speaker 2 I have to...

Speaker 2 I got to tell you, I thought that...

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 I couldn't let Lovett be the only one in a fucking skirt. I'll stand here for you.
I couldn't be shown up by Love. I was like, I'm not blocking.
You just stood right in front of me.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to detect you. I'm sorry if this is inappropriate.

Speaker 6 You just stood right in front of Sarah.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, is Sarah still here?

Speaker 2 I was thinking that George Santos' cloakroom story was going to go somewhere else. I got to tell you.
I thought you were building this like,

Speaker 2 you went to the cloakroom where you told him, I hope you get help.

Speaker 6 What did he say?

Speaker 5 No, I think that he was just, I mean, honestly, he was really upset and sad. And he said, thank you.
I hope I do too. Something to that effect.
And then we voted to expel him.

Speaker 6 And then he went to go sit down for an interview with Z-Way.

Speaker 2 Congressman, thank you so much. Thanks, guys.
Thank you for being here. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 1 Pot Save America is brought to you by the human rights campaign. All across America, Trump and his MAGA cronies are trying to roll back LGBTQ rights, pushing bills that promote hate.

Speaker 1 It's gross, despicable, and has no place in our country. That's why we are proud to be partnering with the human rights campaign today.

Speaker 1 For HRC, supporting LGBTQ rights isn't just a mission, it's a promise to stand up against hate. That means confronting Trump's dangerous anti-LGBTQ agenda head-on.

Speaker 1 This Pride Month, show your support for LGBTQ equality.

Speaker 6 John, I just think after you said LGBTQ four times, you should just get to to say gays and they's.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 6 I give you that permission.

Speaker 1 Really, once you get to the T and the Q, it's the G. G is hard.
GB, I don't know. There's something in all of them together.

Speaker 2 LGBT.

Speaker 6 He's a great ally.

Speaker 2 He's a great ally. LGBT.
LGBTQ can do that. That's pretty easy.

Speaker 1 Go to hrc.im slash give now to donate and propel HRC's critical work forward. Your donation to HRC helps drive progress, protect they's and gays rights.

Speaker 6 Yeah, see, it's good.

Speaker 1 And build a world where every LGBTQ person can live openly and thrive free from fear. The fight for equality has been significantly harder this year.

Speaker 1 Our fundamental freedoms and our very existence are under attack by those in power.

Speaker 1 And that's why this pride, HRC, needs your support to help fight back against the escalating threats to our rights and our progress. This work is only possible with the support of folks like you.

Speaker 1 We face incredible challenges, but we must continue to fight for the future we believe in. Together, we can do this because these colors don't run.
Nice.

Speaker 1 If you can, please give today at hrc.im slash give now. That's hrc.im slash give now.

Speaker 18 This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance. Business owners meet Progressive Insurance.

Speaker 18 They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business. Quote in as little as eight minutes at progressivecommercial.com.

Speaker 18 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company. Coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers.
Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.

Speaker 6 listen, pride, if it's about anything, it's about the superiority of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, asexual, two spirits, whatever is going on with the I.

Speaker 2 Plus.

Speaker 6 Plus, if you're in the plus still, if you're figuring, no, none of those apply to me, I'm plus.

Speaker 2 I'm plus.

Speaker 6 If you're plus,

Speaker 6 love that too for you.

Speaker 6 Which is why it's time for a game we're calling Capture the Flag.

Speaker 2 Nope. Okay.

Speaker 2 There we go. Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 Now.

Speaker 2 Oh, you guys were very generous to yourselves there.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't know. It looks about right for me.

Speaker 2 I don't know about light.

Speaker 6 That's just me after a pump.

Speaker 6 Get my pump on, get the lighting right. That's all it takes.

Speaker 6 Now, we can't just do this with gays alone because it's time to pit the gays against the straits. So, we need some some we need some support.

Speaker 6 All right, let's start by bringing out one additional member of our gay family to help us round out your team. This will be Sarah and Tim.

Speaker 6 Let's please welcome to the stage DC's own wonderful drag queen, Tara Hoots. Woo!

Speaker 2 Oh, hey,

Speaker 2 Hey, girl.

Speaker 2 What's happening?

Speaker 2 Why don't you go right here for now? All right.

Speaker 16 Just in case there's confusion, I'm a man in a dress. All right.

Speaker 6 Literally, three men.

Speaker 7 I'm the only one in pants.

Speaker 6 Well, you know, like, look, when

Speaker 6 Crooked and the Bulwark were deciding to figure out how to do this event, we're like, well, we got to figure out who to talk to. And we said, who wears the pants at the Bulwark?

Speaker 6 That should have worked better.

Speaker 6 That was pearls before swine. Sometimes it's my fault.

Speaker 6 That one's on you.

Speaker 2 Tara Hoots.

Speaker 6 Yes, darling. I love that.
Now you're from, is it from Terre Hoot, Indiana?

Speaker 16 I was born in Terre Hoot, Indiana, hence my name, Tara Hoot. Yes.

Speaker 2 Are you Hoosiers out there?

Speaker 16 We got out. We got out, darlings.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 6 Now, you are a renowned DC queen, and you were bumped off the Kennedy Center programming schedule by its new artistic director and genius, Donald Trump. No space on the sketch?

Speaker 16 So we actually, I was part of a drag show that was the Trump got really mad about the family-specific one. That was one that I was involved in.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 6 And he was angry because he thought

Speaker 6 it would be inappropriate to have somebody out there talking about drugs and all the kinds of, you know, all the horrible things that someone might say in the space of children.

Speaker 16 Now, I've been a teacher for 27 years, and I've been... Yes, thank you.

Speaker 16 And I've been a drag queen since the pandemic. And I describe my type of drag as like Mr.
Rogers in a dress, right? And like, I just want to lift people up.

Speaker 16 And if they complain about what I do, they don't know what I do.

Speaker 6 But what do you do?

Speaker 16 Basically, I started doing drag because I wanted, I thought the world was terrible. And it really hasn't changed, has it?

Speaker 16 During the pandemic, I wanted to lift people up and bring joy and love to people. So that's what I do with my drag.

Speaker 2 Well, thank you for being here. Absolutely.
Let's do this.

Speaker 6 Now, we need to do some choreography. So, I would love to have the gay team come over here.

Speaker 2 Right. So, can you hold on?

Speaker 6 Tara Hoots and Sarah and Tim in this zone over here because it's time to meet your competitors.

Speaker 2 Bring it on, straights. Now, how you doing, girl?

Speaker 6 Now, first up, you really got lucky.

Speaker 2 you really got lucky. You would have had to hang out with Rick Grinnell had they kept you at the Kennedy Center.
Big best firing ever happened to you.

Speaker 6 Thank you, Dodge Bill. Now, I want to bring out

Speaker 6 two,

Speaker 6 I believe they're called, I think it's pronounced straight. The G is silent.
It's weird, weird, actually weird that the G is silent. There's a G inside of straight.

Speaker 6 There's a G inside of every straight when you think about it.

Speaker 6 Something to think about.

Speaker 6 So please welcome from the bulwark, Sam Stein, and

Speaker 6 come on out Sam.

Speaker 2 Come on out.

Speaker 6 And Sam.

Speaker 2 Sam.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 dressed like a lesbian.

Speaker 6 And because Sam is straight, but in a journalist way, we wanted to bring out a man.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 6 please welcome Michael Fanon, who is a hero.

Speaker 2 Come on, Michael.

Speaker 2 Former Capitol Police officer. Now that is a man.

Speaker 2 Take it off.

Speaker 6 Thank you, Michael, for being here.

Speaker 2 Take it off.

Speaker 2 Let's unbutton a couple of those buttons. Look at this.

Speaker 6 Look at this.

Speaker 6 Michael, I have a question for you.

Speaker 2 They love you.

Speaker 6 Have you found it helpful to get tips on how to be a man from Jesse Waters?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 6 That's that.

Speaker 6 That's a straight man. That's a strong striano.
That's a straight man right there.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 6 Now, I do want to say that you have a little bit of advantage in this game because we were talking before the show and you have some experience. This is true.

Speaker 6 You did have to go undercover.

Speaker 6 Is this right?

Speaker 8 I did.

Speaker 8 2011, 2012. I spent

Speaker 8 two summers undercover working in some some of your fine gay clubs right here in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 2 What was your favorite?

Speaker 6 We talked about this backstage.

Speaker 8 My favorite was Apex.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the video bar.

Speaker 2 That video bar. It got real.

Speaker 6 Now, you were saying that you were working with another officer, right?

Speaker 2 I was.

Speaker 6 And now, the first time you did it, you went in and well, why don't you tell us what happened?

Speaker 2 All right, so

Speaker 6 this is good stuff.

Speaker 2 I got

Speaker 8 I got detailed to the 2nd district, the great 2nd district, here in Washington, D.C. for the summer.
They were having an influx of

Speaker 8 crystal meth in a lot of the

Speaker 8 Tina. Yeah, yeah, Tina.

Speaker 11 So

Speaker 2 I purse.

Speaker 2 Not for me.

Speaker 8 So it was me and one of my buddies who was assigned to the 6th District, which is east of the Anacostia River.

Speaker 8 And the two of us got temporarily detailed to 2D, and we were part of this investigation, and we were going into a bunch of different gay clubs. The first club we went to was Fireplace.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 2 so this is like

Speaker 8 my first experience inside of

Speaker 8 a place such as this.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 yeah, I remember we're going in there and I was like, all right,

Speaker 11 all right.

Speaker 8 I told him, I'm not going to name names, but we'll call him Bill.

Speaker 11 I was like, well, we're going to divide and conquer. I was like, we don't know each other.

Speaker 8 We're going into the place.

Speaker 8 We're both going to go in.

Speaker 8 You know, we've been pros.

Speaker 2 We've been buying crack, heroin, everything else. Like, we can do this.
And so

Speaker 8 we get into the club. I sit down at the bar and like within five

Speaker 2 shit seconds.

Speaker 11 There's like some, one guy's like holding my hand and another guy's like literally like kissing on my earlobe

Speaker 2 And I was like all right. Well,

Speaker 11 I'm just trying to buy some fucking drugs

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 So we came we came back

Speaker 7 I could just hear Michael Fanone being not that kind of crack

Speaker 11 But I was like, yeah, whatever, if this is what I got to do to you know get get the buy I've done worse things with

Speaker 2 whatever. Let's go.
Okay,

Speaker 2 anyway, so the next day we go back.

Speaker 2 The next day we go back and I think we hit Apex and we went to

Speaker 8 Nelly's and a couple other spots, but we were like, we're a fucking couple.

Speaker 6 And we're in a monogamous.

Speaker 2 We're in a fucking monogamous relationship. Like, that's ever stopped anybody at Nellie's before.
Incredible. Incredible, incredible.

Speaker 6 So, I can't think of a better straight person to join Sam

Speaker 6 in being part of this game.

Speaker 6 Now, here's how it works:

Speaker 6 I'm going to ask the gays questions about straights, I'm going to ask the straights questions about gays, and we'll see who takes it in the end.

Speaker 6 You have filthy fucking minds.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 A lot of cards there.

Speaker 6 I also also have a card that just says loose lesbian questions.

Speaker 6 All right. First question for the gays.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 6 Now, do you go by, do I say Tara or Miss Hoots?

Speaker 2 Yes. You call Tara?

Speaker 16 Tara or Ms. Hoot, whatever.
Ms.

Speaker 2 Hoots, yes. Hoots or Hoot?

Speaker 2 Hoot. Ms.
Hoot. Like Hoots.

Speaker 16 Yes, thank you.

Speaker 6 Yes. Like Tara Hoot.
I get it. Okay.

Speaker 6 First up.

Speaker 6 Director and Madison Square Gardens staple, Spike Lee, recently said he would give up an Oscar to see what happened.

Speaker 2 The Knicks win the championship.

Speaker 6 Yeah, he got it. He got it.
He got it. There you go.

Speaker 2 Oh, Sport K. Okay.

Speaker 2 But the Pacers. You're a big Larry Bird fan? Yeah.

Speaker 16 Larry Big Larry Bird. Hick from French Lichter.

Speaker 2 The Pacers win last night. I know.
Tyrese. Last second shot.

Speaker 7 Last second shot, baby.

Speaker 16 I'm from a town that has two Mr. Basketballs from Indiana, so try me.

Speaker 2 All right, yes.

Speaker 7 Are there any questions about women's soccer?

Speaker 2 No?

Speaker 2 We're getting the straight questions.

Speaker 2 We're getting the straight questions. Straight men do not watch women's soccer, except for the Brandy Carlisle, or whatever.

Speaker 6 You're talking to

Speaker 2 Just Dane.

Speaker 6 I am an Angel City season ticket holder. Thank you very much.
All right.

Speaker 6 Because.

Speaker 2 One, zero.

Speaker 2 All right. You're up.

Speaker 6 A new Pew Research study shows that LGBTQ Americans are twice as likely to be into astrology. In astrology, your big three consists of your rising sign, your sun sign, and your what?

Speaker 2 Don't Google it. Don't Google it.

Speaker 6 You don't know. Tomato soup? No.

Speaker 2 Call it out.

Speaker 6 It's your moon sign.

Speaker 6 Now, I will just also say to all of you that believe in astrology, you're welcome that you get to live in the light that science fucking provides you.

Speaker 6 Unbelievable.

Speaker 6 Next up for the gays.

Speaker 6 What brand makes these iconic patterned bags?

Speaker 2 Oh, wait.

Speaker 6 I heard someone say, shut up.

Speaker 6 Straight culture. What is this? You don't know.
They don't know.

Speaker 2 What in the fuck is this?

Speaker 6 Wow.

Speaker 2 That is hideous.

Speaker 6 It's so interesting, right? Because Sarah is a woman.

Speaker 16 I should know.

Speaker 6 But she doesn't know because she's not a straight woman.

Speaker 2 Is that a purse?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 6 What is it?

Speaker 2 Flower purse. It's not lily purse.

Speaker 6 They don't know either. I mean, I was like a,

Speaker 6 I see a straight woman raising her hand. What is it?

Speaker 6 It's Vera Bradley.

Speaker 2 Vera Bradley. Wow.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 Tara whispers to me. She goes, is it Vera Wang? I heard Vera out there.
Someone said that. It sounds like Wang is in there.

Speaker 6 Next up, Euphoria star Hunter Schaefer is rumored to be up for the titular role of What Video Game Adaptation?

Speaker 11 That's so hard.

Speaker 6 Yeah, that's right. A video game adaptation starring Hunter Schaefer from Euphoria.
You know her. Don't you? Michael Fanon?

Speaker 2 This shit is rigged. Is this The Last of Us?

Speaker 6 No, it's not The Last of Us.

Speaker 6 Zelda! It's Zelda. It's The Legend of Zelda.
It's a legend of Zelda.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's a Zelda. Did you know that one? None of your business.
It's one zero.

Speaker 2 I do think their questions were going to be things like,

Speaker 2 what do poppers do for you during sex?

Speaker 2 You know what? It was going to be a little gayer. You know what?

Speaker 6 Next question, what do poppers do?

Speaker 6 That must have come up in your research as you got into character.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so this is that undercover

Speaker 8 manner of ingestion.

Speaker 2 inhaled. That's right.

Speaker 8 And they provide a temporary euphoria.

Speaker 6 Okay, yeah, yeah, there's.

Speaker 2 But what about during sex, though? Also, no one is during nitrates. Yeah, that's right.
Here we go. We got a pipe for that.

Speaker 6 I'm giving it to him.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 6 One, one.

Speaker 6 Great job. Back over to the gays.

Speaker 6 Country singer Morgan Wallen posted what phrase to his Instagram after appearing to storm off the Saturday Night Live stage back in the day.

Speaker 2 I got to get back to Real America. I'm in a country coverage.
God's coming drag queen saving.

Speaker 2 God saved me.

Speaker 6 A lesbian saved by a drag queen, a first time for everything.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 6 Next question for the Straits. What is this object?

Speaker 2 Oh.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 6 Is that a Carabiner? You got it, Seinstein.

Speaker 8 I was going to say that. I was going to say Carabiner, but then I was thinking, like, oh, there's got to be some weird sex fucking thing.

Speaker 2 That's an anal

Speaker 2 feed.

Speaker 6 I gotta say.

Speaker 2 Lesbians don't do sex. I didn't know that.

Speaker 7 We use it to carry our keys.

Speaker 6 To your Subaru.

Speaker 6 To the gays, what two kinds of alcohol are in a Manhattan?

Speaker 16 Whiskey and sweet vermouth.

Speaker 6 You got it.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I gotta say.

Speaker 2 The drag queens are carrying them.

Speaker 6 Drag queens carrying them. All right, another a drag theme question for our straits.
Please name one of these two drag queens incredibly popular, have an incredibly popular podcast. Don't say a word.

Speaker 2 Don't say a fucking word.

Speaker 6 Can you name one of these people? Oh my fucking God.

Speaker 6 They are famous.

Speaker 6 They are celebrities.

Speaker 2 One of them is

Speaker 2 profile pictures.

Speaker 6 Oh my god.

Speaker 2 You have no idea who they are. You have no idea.

Speaker 2 No idea. You don't know either.
I have no idea. Sarah, go over here.
Never say shame. Shave.
You're shame.

Speaker 2 Shame. Shame.

Speaker 2 Shame. Shade.
You know what? We're done with the L's.

Speaker 7 I really like Sam's shirt.

Speaker 2 I would wear Sam's shirt. What is the L's on here?

Speaker 2 I have no clue. Wow.

Speaker 5 Catcha. Yep.

Speaker 16 Trixie Mattel, baby.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 6 The game has now been revised to tops versus bottoms.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 6 All right, back over to the game. What side are we on? Last week, this Yellowstone spin-off starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirin aired its season two finale.
What is the name of the show?

Speaker 6 It has numbers.

Speaker 16 It's like like 1860.

Speaker 6 Except during Prohibition.

Speaker 16 It's numbers.

Speaker 2 Yellowstone? I think it's 1860?

Speaker 16 1862?

Speaker 7 1845! 1935!

Speaker 2 1876! Wrong!

Speaker 6 1923.

Speaker 2 Oh, we were close.

Speaker 7 I knew it was a date.

Speaker 2 All right. What is with you, people? And like horses and fucking buffalo.

Speaker 2 Who cares what's happening on the planes? All right.

Speaker 6 This one, honestly, I'm nervous.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 6 What year did the Stonewall riots happen?

Speaker 2 It was in the 60s.

Speaker 6 Okay, getting, that's okay. That's your one in ten shot from here on out.

Speaker 8 In the late 60s.

Speaker 2 I'm going to go with

Speaker 2 6.

Speaker 6 Nine. You got it, Damston.

Speaker 2 Somebody gave him the eat it. That's okay.
We'll let him have it.

Speaker 2 We'll let him have it.

Speaker 16 Judy Garland died that year.

Speaker 2 You got to. Let's close this out.
Is there a question? Nobody cares if you know the answer to the question, okay? It's a competition up here. All right.

Speaker 2 So just fucking keep it to yourself. That's right.

Speaker 16 I wanted to say that, but I can't because I'm a good Christian woman.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 6 This is going to be a question for both teams, okay?

Speaker 6 This is it. We're tied.

Speaker 7 Bisexuals are not allowed to answer.

Speaker 2 So slow burn on that one.

Speaker 6 What was the first lesbian wedding to take place on television Ellen DeGeneres no fuck that's just a lesbian

Speaker 6 that's just one lesbian

Speaker 6 that's just naming all lesbian you could think of

Speaker 2 name a lesbian

Speaker 6 I didn't say name a lesbian

Speaker 6 Michael Vanon name a lesbian

Speaker 7 Sarah Sarah I'm the only lesbian you've heard of Oh, man.

Speaker 6 Gays, you can take it if you know the answer. First lesbian wedding aired on television.
Do either of you know?

Speaker 2 I put you on the other team. What the fuck? You don't know this one? Hold on.
This is bad. Is it when O'Donnell marries someone? I don't know.
Is it in Dawson's Creek?

Speaker 6 God, no.

Speaker 6 Does anybody here know?

Speaker 6 Friends, it was the friends episode, the one with the lesbian wedding.

Speaker 6 And you know what? Honestly, because we have all all of pride, I want to thank our straits for being willing to subject themselves. Hey, everybody.
Michael Fanone,

Speaker 6 Sam Stein,

Speaker 6 two equally heterosexual men.

Speaker 6 Thank you both so much.

Speaker 2 And we're back.

Speaker 6 I've lost all my cards,

Speaker 6 but that's not important. First of all, thank you all for coming out tonight.

Speaker 6 There is nothing that brings crooked and the bulwark together quite like ranting about whatever happens to be on our minds.

Speaker 6 And so we thought we would

Speaker 6 end tonight's show in a way that was suited to our great

Speaker 6 desire for yelling.

Speaker 6 In a segment we're calling

Speaker 2 Rant Wheel. The Rant Wheel?

Speaker 6 What did we call it? I think we called it bulwark.

Speaker 2 Whatever.

Speaker 6 There's a wheel and we're going to yell about topics.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 6 Do we not have a wheel?

Speaker 2 Are we up to that? Oh, here we go. Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 Tara Hoot,

Speaker 6 this is Pride. Is there something on your mind that you'd like to vent about?

Speaker 16 Just to be mad about?

Speaker 2 Or happy about. Happy about?

Speaker 6 Is there anything you'd like to be emotional about for around 60 seconds?

Speaker 16 Listen, okay, 60 seconds. Drag me with a microphone.
That's at least four minutes too short. All right?

Speaker 16 So I do want to say

Speaker 16 I did an event on Wednesday and with the drag artist, and the audience was so excited and so enthused. And I really feel like Washington, D.C.
needs a lot of hope and joy right now.

Speaker 16 And I'm one of the, right?

Speaker 16 We need to look up. We need to find ways to be inspired, even though things are like falling apart sometimes around us.
And something I'm proud of, I'm going to say that's just proud.

Speaker 16 I'm proud of, I got out of Indiana, I'm proud of my friends who are in Indiana still, in Newcastle, Indiana, who are fighting the good fight and making the place better for people.

Speaker 16 I'm proud of my husband, Mr. Hoot, who's in the wings, who is a government worker for 37 years.
He was forced out of the federal government by this, by this. And I'm like, I'm so mad at the people.

Speaker 16 If you are those people that have been treated so poorly, know that I see you. I love you.

Speaker 6 Thank you, our government workers, for doing so much for everybody.

Speaker 6 I think that,

Speaker 16 I'm a little overclamped. All right, I got a little, but that just makes me so mad.

Speaker 16 I think it's evil, it's angry, and I want to make sure that we're trying to lift people up and look for the kindness when there seems to be such a lack of it from who's running our country right now.

Speaker 6 It's a beautiful idea. It's a beautiful idea, beautiful sentiment.
Let's spin it again.

Speaker 6 Oh, it has landed on Sarah.

Speaker 2 It has landed on Sarah.

Speaker 6 We have an order.

Speaker 6 It has landed on Sarah.

Speaker 2 She's getting butched.

Speaker 5 You guys run a tight show.

Speaker 2 I'll tell you what, man.

Speaker 2 All right. All right, I've got a rant.

Speaker 2 Bullword collab.

Speaker 7 I actually had hoped you were going next because following that with mine feels funny.

Speaker 7 But I'm going to give you my rant, Unvarnished, which is, do we need to really, like need a whole month for pride?

Speaker 7 Like, the way we do pride,

Speaker 7 like, our need for a whole month is so extra and so on brand, and it's ridiculous what my Uber leaves a little rainbow trail as it goes, and like you walk into Target and you're like, oh my god, did a rainbow throw up in here?

Speaker 7 Like, it just feels like, look, you want to do Black History Month whole month?

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 The people are getting restless.

Speaker 7 Oh, wait. I'm sorry.
Did you just say I should stop?

Speaker 2 They don't like to be able to get a target.

Speaker 6 They're mad at target. They're mad at target.

Speaker 2 All right, we got it.

Speaker 7 Whatever, whatever. The point is,

Speaker 7 the point is, I just think, like, a week is enough, and we don't need a whole month, and like

Speaker 7 it's enough.

Speaker 2 Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame.

Speaker 7 I needed one of those tonight, and I decided it would be on my rant.

Speaker 6 The second somebody tells you something you don't want to hear, you turn on them.

Speaker 6 Unbelievable.

Speaker 2 Unbelievable.

Speaker 6 Let's spin it again.

Speaker 6 Oh, it's landed on me.

Speaker 6 You know, here's what I wanted to say. Maybe it was a little more earnest, I suppose.
But, you know, we started by saying how many things had to go wrong for us all to be on this stage together.

Speaker 6 There was this,

Speaker 6 when they sent up one of the satellites many years ago, they realized that they had made the mirrors wrong. The mirror.

Speaker 6 Before Elon Musk, not his fault.

Speaker 6 That

Speaker 6 they'd actually bent, they'd done the mirrors, instead of, they were spherical instead of hyperbolic, or hyperbolic instead of spherical. I don't remember.
Which one is it?

Speaker 6 It was spherical instead of hyperbolic. And what that meant is, even though it was imperceptible when it was on Earth, the heat from

Speaker 6 that light

Speaker 6 was so intense that

Speaker 6 it would shatter the mirror. It didn't work.
It didn't work as a telescope.

Speaker 6 And one thing that I feel like I have learned over the last decade as we faced all these different pressures and challenges from what happens when a country,

Speaker 6 a segment of a country, loses its faith in democracy and freedom is is you see who bends and who breaks under pressure.

Speaker 6 And it is a gift to find out who has the stuff and who is strong enough and who really cares and who actually believes the things that they said for a long time.

Speaker 6 And I feel really honored that I get to work with Sarah and work with Tim. People that, you know.

Speaker 6 You know, we Democrats, we Democrats, we talk a big game. We talk a big game, but we didn't really face a choice.
We don't like Donald Trump because he's the fucking worst human being on planet Earth.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 we oppose him because we oppose everything that he stands for, every policy he stands for.

Speaker 6 But there are a lot of people who faced a political choice and failed in that choice, but not Tim and not Sarah and not the people at the Bulwark.

Speaker 6 And as we think about building a small D democratic movement, I feel really proud of the people that I've gotten to meet and know

Speaker 6 because it's revealed

Speaker 6 who was made strong enough and who was going to break. And the people that have broken, they're fucking broken.
And we know now. And now we get to figure out who we get to build something new with.

Speaker 6 So I feel really proud about that during this prime.

Speaker 6 Let's spin it one more time.

Speaker 6 I think it's going to be me.

Speaker 2 I think it's going to be me.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness.
Look, I just kissed it on the board. Good work.
All right.

Speaker 6 Look. Yeah, we talked about it.
We thought, well, how should we end it? Two Tim Rants, one John Rant, the drag queen, we're done.

Speaker 2 Yeah, out.

Speaker 6 All right, Tim, you've landed on your.

Speaker 2 I have a rant, but just really quick, that was really sweet what Lil said, and I was trying to feel emotions about it, and then I'm in this little tennis skirt.

Speaker 2 And I was like, Can you compliment me again when I feel less uncomfortable?

Speaker 2 That would be great. Maybe another year.

Speaker 2 I also have a comment on Sarah's rant. It's the difference between the L's and the G's.

Speaker 2 We're going to Madrid Pride. Is anybody going to be in Madrid Pride? We're doing a little vacation there.
That's July 4th. So the G's are adding a week to Pride.

Speaker 2 She's trying to constrict us. We're trying to expand into July.

Speaker 2 I'm about to be sad for a little bit, so I'm sorry that I have to end you on something sad. But the reason why we're doing this is because of Andre.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I think there are two reasons why this has affected me so much.

Speaker 2 One is because, kind of what Lovett was saying, I came out of this tradition of being pro-life and being pro-freedom and thinking that that was

Speaker 2 what

Speaker 2 was animating my political work. And Jeb used to say something about how we wanted to make sure everybody had a chance to live a life of purpose and meaning.

Speaker 2 And I believed that and thought it wasn't BS.

Speaker 2 And so the idea that we are doing that, that Republicans, that Donald Trump, that our country is taking away somebody's life, their purpose, and their meaning,

Speaker 2 really pisses me off. And so that's one reason.

Speaker 2 And the other reason is just because,

Speaker 2 I guess, just because both me and Andrea are gay, I guess, I can just imagine it. And I just want, I'm sorry to do this, but I just want everybody to imagine this with me for a second.

Speaker 2 He flees Venezuela. He flees communism.
He takes a horrible journey across Central America, through Mexico, goes through unimaginable shit, has to deal with cartels,

Speaker 2 has to find food and shelter, just to get to America because

Speaker 2 he thinks here he can live a life of purpose and meaning. He thinks he can be free.
And he gets to the border and he does what he's supposed to do.

Speaker 2 He signs up for the stupid CBP1 app and explains why he had to flee a communist country. And then we let him in.
And he sits in a cell. And he's sexually harassed in the cell.

Speaker 2 And he is abused and attacked. And he is hoping that it's worth it because at the end, there's this thing, there's this like freedom in this country that he can get.

Speaker 2 And instead of that, one day he's in the cell and people come in there and they shackle him. And they shackle his legs and his hands and they take him with other Venezuelans to a plane.

Speaker 2 And he's thinking, this is horrible, but at least I'm going home to Venezuela, right?

Speaker 2 At least I get to see my mother and my best friend and instead of sending him to Venezuela we send him to a fucking hell in El Salvador and he gets off the plane and they beat him up and they shave his head and he screams out for his freedom and he says I'm gay I'm not a gangbanger I like I want just you have the wrong person and there's nothing you can do and they put him in a fucking hole And he's living a nightmare that like you can't imagine.

Speaker 2 Like it is just an unimaginable nightmare. And the reason that he's living it is our country, is that we did it to him.
Like the US did it to him.

Speaker 2 And so it's up to us to get him the fuck out of this nightmare.

Speaker 2 And so,

Speaker 2 sorry. And so that, I can't look at Levin right now because I'm going to cry.
And so that's why we're doing this. And I really appreciate that y'all came.

Speaker 2 I appreciate especially the gays that came because you could, you know, I don't know, have been at the music festival or something, more fun.

Speaker 2 And so the lesbians were going to do something way less fun. So I appreciate you for coming too, but also kind of your welcome.

Speaker 6 Yeah, look, here's the thing. The gays chose this instead of a concert.
The lesbians, they would have been asleep by now.

Speaker 2 And so Sarah usually ends our bulwark shows with something a little bit more uplifting. And so I want to give her the last word.

Speaker 7 First of all, thanks everybody so much for coming. This has been super fun.

Speaker 7 And you guys were a great, awesome audience. But here's the thing that we do close out most of the bulwark shows with.
And I really want to thank Crooked, though, for us doing this together.

Speaker 7 This was so fun to do together and to bring our audiences together.

Speaker 7 But you know, the thing about authoritarians is what they want from us.

Speaker 2 That's not a joke.

Speaker 7 Authoritarians are bad.

Speaker 7 The thing about authoritarians is they want you to be tired. Not like I did poppers all night and now I'm tired the next morning and I need brunch.
They want you to feel

Speaker 7 like deeply exhausted. That's why they try to flood the zone with shit.
It's why they try to do so many corrupt things that you don't know where to grab onto, right? It's why they come back.

Speaker 7 They didn't lose. Donald Trump didn't lose the election.
He just hadn't won yet. It's why they come back and they try to keep you so tired that you won't fight back.

Speaker 7 So confused, so unable to understand what is truth and what is fiction. And that's what they're doing to people, confusing them and making them tired.

Speaker 7 And so the one thing that we have to do, and it relates to the Andre thing, is don't get tired ever. Like we have to stay

Speaker 7 filled with energy to do this.

Speaker 7 Because the biggest thing they want from us is to be tired. So never get tired, never stop.
And let's get Andre home.

Speaker 2 Thank you all so much for coming.

Speaker 6 That's our show. Thank you so much to Tara Hoot.

Speaker 2 Thank you, Tara.

Speaker 6 Thank you to Michael Benone and Sam Son. Thank you to Congressman Garcia.
Thank you to Andre's lawyer and everybody at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Thank you all for supporting this.

Speaker 6 Have a great night. We'll see you at Pride.
Bye, everybody.

Speaker 1 If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community at crooked.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed.

Speaker 1 Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content, and more.

Speaker 1 And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a crooked media production.

Speaker 1 Our producers are David Toledo, Saul Rubin, and Emma Illich-Frank. Our associate producer is Farah Safari.
Reed Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer.

Speaker 1 The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglund and Charlotte Landis.

Speaker 1 Madeleine Herringer is our head of news and programming.

Speaker 1 Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.

Speaker 1 Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcote, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelavid, Kenny Moffat, and David Toles.

Speaker 1 Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

Speaker 19 October brings it all. Halloween parties, tailgates, crisp fall nights.
At Total Wine and Moore, you'll find just what you need for them all. Mixing up something spooky?

Speaker 19 Total Wine and Moore is your cocktail central for all your Halloween concoctions.

Speaker 19 With the lowest prices for over 30 years, you'll always find what you love and love what you find only at Total Wine and Moore. Curbside pickup and delivery available in most areas.

Speaker 19 See TotalWine.com for details. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina.
Drink responsibly. Be 21.

Speaker 2 With Venmo Stash, a tiger in one hand, and ordering a ride in the other, means you're stacking cash back.

Speaker 4 With Venmo Stash, get up to 5% cash back when you pick a bundle of your favorite brands. Earn more cash when you do more with Stash.
Venmo Stash Terms include supply. Max $100 cash back per month.

Speaker 4 See terms at Vimmo.me slash stash terms.