Trump Targets School JUST Outside Boston

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Welcome to Pod Save America.

I'm John Favreau.

I'm John Lovitt.

I'm Tommy Vitor.

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Got all four of us here today.

We are doing a mailbag.

We're going to take some of your questions.

Hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend.

But we woke up.

It's Friday.

We're recording this.

And we woke up and, you know, Donald Trump made a bunch of news.

So we might talk a little bit about that at the top if you guys want.

It's not often I wake up and there's like multiple breaking news New York Times notifications on your phone about Donald Trump.

Really?

Like most days?

Well, this one was like a couple right in a row

because first he threatened the EU

with a head coming.

Right, yeah, which is one of his favorite punching bags with a 50% tariff because apparently the trade negotiations aren't going well with Europe.

So starting on June 1st,

he wants to recommend a straight 50% tariff.

So

it's gonna be tough to drink those French wines, Tommy.

No.

Zoutalor.

I need a better one of those.

No.

And then right after that, he said, I've long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India or anyplace else.

If that's not the case, a tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.

I mean, most of the weekend, I'm walking around with

an Apple, an iPhone in one hand, and a glass of wine in the other hand.

That's like both of my modern man.

Wow, look at this.

Yeah.

So what did you do?

What did happen?

Just scrolling and sipping.

Scrolling and sipping.

Yeah, he flawlessly wove those two words.

I was thinking about it.

I'm like, wine and wine and iPhone.

No, I do think the tariffs are happening to you.

No, I think you're right.

Also, all of our kids desperately want to work at Foxconn.

You know,

that's where this is going.

Yeah.

And then, of course, Dan and I talked a little bit on Friday's episode about the threat to Harvard and trying to revoke their ability to enroll any international students whatsoever.

Harvard sued.

There was a temporary injunction granted this morning, Friday morning.

But it's still chaos.

I don't know if you guys have read some of the stories there about these students who, students who are already there, who don't know if they're going to be able to finish school, students who are incoming students to Harvard, international students, who have already turned down other colleges and were ready to go to Harvard and now don't know if they can.

Anyway,

Trump versus the world.

What do you guys all think?

It is very cruel to those students.

Could be a good day for

somebody who got waitlisted.

Yeah.

It is like 6,800 kids.

27% of last year's class, I think, is international.

I just saw a story.

I saw a Harvard professor tweeting about how among those at risk of not being able to go to Harvard this year are IDF veterans.

So to combat anti-Semitism, we are telling Israeli combat veterans that they can't go to Harvard.

That makes total sense to me.

Is that what we're doing?

We're combating anti-Semitism by kicking these foreign students, including Israeli students, out of Harvard?

That is the ostensible purpose.

It's hard to keep it straight, but yes, that's what I mean.

And there's also a DEI element to it.

They're saying they also employ DEI policy.

So it's anti-Semitism promoting pro-Hamas sympathies on campus and DEI policies.

And yeah, and what the letter from What's Her Face

Noam said is that they were demanding from Harvard video footage, records of all the international students' potential disciplinary action.

So basically, like, have they ever participated in a protest?

That's sort of what they're looking for.

Not just illegal activity.

Protected speech, protest activity.

They're demanding any footage of protests that might involve international students.

Yeah, it's just a brand.

You know, Harvard responded, it's brazenly unconstitutional.

They're not pretending at all that this has anything to do with their international student program or any kind of illicit or illegal conduct by Harvard that would justify shutting down the program.

They are explicitly saying for this other reason that we care about, which is anti-Semitic protest on campus, we are going to use all the levers of power we have at our disposal to fuck with you.

So the judge blocked it because Harvard basically is saying this will do a ton of harm even before we're able to litigate it, but it's also just brazenly unconstitutional.

Yeah.

And then the, yeah, the markets are taking the tariff threats well.

Well, I think the markets, I think they're shrugging off the EU portion of it because, I mean, the problem with Trump making these threats now is Europe has already watched him cave like multiple times.

He caved to them, he caved to China.

Like we're, what's this like round, what, two or three of these tariff threats?

The new thing, waking up and threatening.

a foreign country or a block of them, I think I'm kind of used to by now.

Waking up and threatening one of like the crown jewels of the US tech

community or like one of the biggest U.S.

companies, period, is insane.

And the idea that Apple is going to shift manufacturing from China to the United States is nonsensical.

They're trying to shift from China to India in part because of like U.S.

government pressure that we want all these major companies to diversify supply chains and not be captive to the Chinese Communist Party.

Now, the Chinese are making it very difficult to shift those supply chains and manufacturing out of China through a bunch of restrictions that are too boring to get into.

But the idea that Apple wouldn't just like eat the 25% tariff and make our iPhones $100, $300 more expensive, as opposed to trying to completely redo the company in the United States is ludicrous.

Does Trump think that there's some like magic factory in a box button that Tim Cook is not pushing?

Like even if he were to say tomorrow, like, yes, we're going to make more, it would be years upon years before you could start making the iPhones in the United States.

Yeah.

And it's basically what happened to the Mattel guy, the CEO of Mattel, because he said the same thing.

He's like, oh, we're moving out of China.

We're going to try to move more

production and manufacturing into India.

And Trump's like, no, no, no, no, no.

You don't get to move from China to India.

You have to move here.

And if not, no more Mattel toys.

So that's what we're dealing with this Memorial Day weekend.

I was actually more alarmed by the EU tariffs because...

What's he fucking doing?

Is he actually going to go through with this?

It's like more of the same chaos.

It could have far-reaching consequences.

With Apple, it's like, all right, they're the most profitable company in the history of planet Earth.

They've made an incredible amount of money making iPhones in China and selling them at tremendous profit in the U.S.

Like, do I think this is the way the U.S.

president should behave?

No, but like, do I care that much?

Like, I really don't.

But I do think it speaks to how little Tim Cook has gotten for his obsequious bowing before Donald Trump.

Like, is it working?

Is your charm offensive in your donation?

Is it working?

It doesn't seem like it's working.

It's not working, but like, the net effect of this is that Apple, Apple sells like 75 million iPhones in the U.S.

What's most likely to happen is that they all cost $300 more.

So yeah, that would really suck for a huge chunk of the country.

Yeah.

Huge political impact.

They make us eat the cost.

It's a pretty big Samsung again.

You could definitely drink and wine.

No, I know.

It's just annoying.

Okay, so let's get to the questions.

These are from Discord, from our subscribers.

The first one is from CallMe TRL.

Although I think this one's probably from Elijah.

What can Dem voters do to push the party to elect younger reps to leadership positions?

Cough, AOC, Oversight Committee, cough

to move on from this seniority system they have.

That was Connolly's last words.

Oh my god.

Jesus Christ.

Oh, come on.

No.

What?

What?

Oh, I didn't realize that.

Well, I know he died of cancer.

I just, that's very specific.

But I'm sorry.

That was obviously inappropriate.

And I think we should leave it in.

All right.

Dan, Dan, what's your answer?

That's a good joke.

I'm still in shock by what just happened there.

It begins with electing more younger Democrats, right?

That's the first thing.

There are going to be primaries.

We're going to have open seats for the Senate coming up in a whole bunch of states.

We should be, if you want younger Democrats, we should elect those.

And pressure should be put on leadership to have a different system.

Like there is a value in experience for sure.

Like the longer, if you've been in Congress a while, you know how these things work.

You have developed issue expertise and that matters.

But we have to think about about other things.

Politics is also performance.

And we have to think about people who can communicate, who can speak to the large part of our core base that we're losing, which is young voters.

And so we need a system that isn't simply the old, the longer you've been in Congress, you automatically get the spot.

And so it's put pressure on Hakeem Jeffries, put pressure on Chuck Schumer.

If you think we need younger leadership in the Senate, put pressure on senators.

You can do that by calling their office.

You can do that through protests to

look for younger leadership.

And that begins with getting someone to challenge these leaders, right?

You actually need that to happen, particularly in the Senate.

You know, who's really good at finding young leaders is Matt Gates.

You know,

this used to be worse.

I think before the 70s, it was like just de facto, if you were the most senior member on the committee, you got the job.

Then in the 70s, the party granted the caucus the power to vote on these things.

In 2020, Dems put in place six-year term limits for chairs.

So we could do more of that.

There could be ranked choice voting for committee chairs.

You could reform the steering committee, which is a leadership setup committee that recommends people for these spots.

You could put more emphasis on policy expertise or whatever.

There is an open question though.

Like, does this really fucking matter?

Like, people care what AOC thinks a lot more than

name a random committee chair.

I can't, even though she was passed over.

So I don't know.

It's a fair question.

I do agree that the committee chair issue is less of an issue than the fact that a number of House Democrats have died in office.

That seems bad.

Over the last year or so.

Three have died this year.

The last eight members of Congress or senators to die while in office have all been Democrats.

Yeah.

Oof.

But, you know, ultimately, like you said, Dan,

we've got to run younger candidates.

And if you don't see younger candidates running, run yourself.

Right.

You know?

All right.

This is from Patrick W.

As someone who worked in the Senate during the first Trump term, I don't remember the moderate Dems, aside from Manchin, voting so often with Republicans for Trump nominees or for bad bills like Lake and Riley, the Genius Act, et cetera.

What is going on with senators like Gallego, Slotkin, Warner, Rosen that they feel like voting with Republicans and Trump so often in this moment?

Anyone want to take that?

So, you guys want to hear

some Republicans in the first Trump term that got big, big votes?

Jim Mattis, you want to guess?

100-0?

Unanimous?

Answer yes-anding this

way to be a team player now.

98 to 1.

No, I said one.

Who was against Jim Mattis?

I think it was was Senator Gillibrand, I believe.

There was a question at the time of whether someone who was just in uniform, you're supposed to be statutorily out for five years, I think, before you can be sec deaf.

Elaine Chow got 93 to 6 for DOT.

That's Mitch McConnell.

Mitch Connell, press in the flesh.

It is.

I think like immigration to a specific area where Democrats felt like they were offsides politically, and a lot of them are, these people are in border states, so they voted for terrible bills because they thought that's what their constituents want.

The genius act is in my view um an indefensible weird decision i mean it's about the regulation of stable coins it got 69 votes in the senate i think democrats are scared of crypto money and also uh they want to be perceived as pro-crypto among crypto fans but you know trump is literally selling access to the highest bidder as we speak or that was last night sorry but yeah i think the argument that they have made because of first the democrats or a lot of democrats i think most of them even the pro-crypto democrats in the senate were against the Genius Act.

And then they made some changes.

And so the people who are for it are saying, well, it's some regulation of stablecoin is better than no regulation at all.

And there's all these consumer protections built in.

And opponents like Elizabeth Warren are saying not enough protections built in.

And also, it's not doing anything about Trump and the Trump problem.

I believe the, but the regulations now say that no member of Congress or senior administration official can start a stablecoin while in office.

But if you already got one going.

Right, exactly.

Like, come on.

So, um, not a, not a great bill, but I would take issue with the premise only in that at the beginning of Trump's term with some of the cabinet nominees and things like Lake and Riley Act, we were in a political environment where I think a lot of Democrats were like, okay, we got to work with Trump when we can and oppose him when we must.

And I think now, with the exception of the Genius Act, I don't think many nominees are getting through the Democratic Senate.

Well, yes.

Except for some reason, Corey Booker voted for Jared Kushner.

Yeah, that's the one I want to bring up, right?

I mean, Charles Kushner is a longtime donor of Corey Booker.

Corey Booker put out a statement right before Charles Kushner's conviction, but it's an unbelievable vote.

It's just absolutely an insane thing to do.

Corey Booker put out some statement about how the reason he did it is because Charles Kushner helped pass the First Step Act when Corey Booker was doing that in the first term term, which is an absurd premise.

And I think it was, I understand that people thought at the time that we should work with Trump when we can and oppose him when we should.

That was idiocy then and it's idiocy now.

Yeah.

If there are like, I, I can, I don't know enough about the, the Genius Act and the stable coins about, and I can buy an argument that some regulation is better than none.

But if you're voting, no one who has cast a vote for a single Trump nominee has felt good about that vote afterwards.

Yes.

How's anyone feel about their 99 fucking votes for Marco Rubio?

We had Venhollen basically saying to Rubio's face this week, like, I regret, I regret that vote.

I do like.

And then Rubio's like, that's how I know I'm doing a good job.

But which doesn't make any sense because were you mad?

He voted for you when he got the vote.

You're just

coming up with a fucking little retort.

Fucking Marco Rubio.

But it did feel like what they were trying to do is the same reason they got such a, they were getting behind people like Mattis because this idea, like, no, you need responsible people there to hold Trump.

to his feet to the fire and make sure he, you know, they're serious adults.

If he's not there, who's going to be there in his place?

But then that was what Marco Rubio's role.

That's what Besson's supposed to be doing.

Right.

But they're just not.

Charles Kushner.

What are we doing here?

Yeah, not a great guy.

All right.

This is fun.

Who are your rankings of most disappointing and surprisingly not disappointing Trump 2.0 appointees and characters?

And then this person said, Bergam's kind of wholesome.

I think we just named a surprisingly disappointing one, which is Marco Ruby.

That's the top of my list.

Right.

He's throwing people in jail for writing op-eds.

He's helping

lead deportations to El Salvador.

Like, he is, he was the most normy cabinet selection out there, and he's done more to erode democratic norms than maybe anyone else.

Look, I didn't expect good things from Christino, but if you would have told me that within weeks of Donald Trump becoming president, you would do a fascist photo op in front of prisoners at a Salvadoran mega prison to

justify illegal extrajudicial kidnappings, that would have been, I think, surprising to me.

Well, it's also very specific.

Yeah.

What a

polymark.

Wow.

Whoever predicted that was smart.

Quite a wind-up on that prediction.

It's illidescent, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would say.

See, I don't know.

Has he been a moderating force?

Kind of seems like end of times on the tariffs.

I don't think he's helped too much.

Maybe.

Yeah.

Maybe.

Try to know the difference between a pathetic, failed moderating force and someone who's going along with what a Lutnik wants people.

Tulsi Gabbard, her entire worldview was defined by Iraq, and now she's firing intelligence analysts who disagree with, or who disagree with a political judgment they made about immigration.

Dan, what about you?

Who do you got?

I probably would put Marco Rubio as my most disappointing.

I didn't have any real hopes for him.

I just thought he would be sort of a shuffled off to the side, feckless loser the whole time, as opposed to like really leading into being a giant pro-Trump asshole.

But that was surprising.

With four jobs?

Yeah.

I mean, I think

Besson, I don't know what hopes I had for him either.

He's mostly failed at what he was at.

He's worse at being Gary Cohen than Gary Cohen, which is saying a lot because of

the role that he had.

You know, I would say Doug Bergham.

Haven't really thought about him since the day he was confirmed and this question.

So that seems like he's at least not doing something terrible.

So I should feel good about that.

Oh, that's on your, yeah, okay.

Oh, that's your surprise.

That's why surprising.

Yeah.

I think that I did not expect much from her at all, but Pam Bondi to me is like...

almost as bad as I imagined Matt Gates being.

And when you, whenever, if you catch her on TV, she's just like a White House spokesperson.

Yeah.

Like she's the Attorney General.

Empty vessel.

But she's just, she's so obsequious in the cabinet meetings, and she's just like spitting out talking points.

She's just a Donald Trump staffer.

That's it.

She calls him President.

Yeah.

Not Mr., not the.

Thank you, President.

She goes the way a child would.

You know, who's getting a lot of love in surprising places these days?

Oh, no.

Cash Patel.

Roll the clip.

Oh, wow.

Oh, a surprise clip.

Surprise clip.

If it makes you feel better, I mean, Gorka is not taken seriously by anyone who knows him, I think, including his wife.

And

he's a nice person for whatever it's worth.

And I think his job literally is just to sit on the internet and like send fiery replies to people on X.

I mean, I don't think he actually has a job.

Oh, well, then I guess he's the perfect guy for the job.

I assume there's someone else working on counterterrorism.

That was.

Fuck you for making me like Tucker Carlson there.

I know.

That was Tucker talking to a guy named Sean Ryan, who's like kind of a military podcaster guy.

Oh, yeah, I always see him.

Really shitting on Zeb.

So is there some sort of Zeb, Tucker beef?

So apparently there was a backstory that was too long to include, but Gorka went after Sean Ryan over something and was a real dick about it.

They also just think he's a clown and he's like cosplaying.

Bare correct counterterrorism guy.

Sean Ryan's a former Navy SEAL turned CIA kind of contractor dude.

Any other pleasant surprises?

Surprisingly not disappointed.

Anyone else?

I know we kind of talked about Cash Patel a little bit.

I didn't want to jinx anything.

I don't either.

You know, yeah,

Dan Bongino and Cash Patel

going out there and basically saying that Epstein killed himself.

I mean, it's just sort of a strange way to like, way to go, fellas.

But there's a kind of, it was an odd moment of them kind of trying to speak the truth to the base.

Not clear why they, I mean, clearly they felt so compelled by all the pressure they're under.

It tells you something about what their day-to-day priorities are, but those guys could be worse.

It's just weird to me.

like right now, after the shoot, the terrible shooting in DC of those two staffers at the Israeli embassy, like Dan Bongino's Twitter feed is just giving out like good, credible information and very calm.

And I'm like, what it's weird to me only because Cash Patel and Dan Bongino seem less crazy than their boss.

It's not like they're taking a cue from Pam Bondi.

Like she's much,

she's much more of like just a Trump staffer than the two of them.

And I thought it would have been reverse, maybe.

It just raises the question about what the deep state has on both both of them oh there we go dance exactly dan you joke but i listened to two hours of tucker carlson talking to that guy sean ryan last night and this was a big chunk of it

where do you find the time two hours i did on 2x but i was

a four hour a four hour podcast you did at 2x or two to one two to one okay but you still did an hour of tucker carlson and sean ryan at night with two children who are quite young.

I listened to half of it this morning.

It was compelling.

It was good.

I'm going to step in to save you, Tommy.

At 9.30 last night, I started the conversation between J.D.

Vance and Ross Dauphitz.

That was the annoying conversation.

And I listened to that to go to sleep.

What is wrong with you?

It did not help me go to sleep because it got me extremely angry.

No fucking shit.

Like, what did you think?

Just Ross's soothing, dulcet tones was going to rock you to sleep like a lullaby?

Exposed to a guy you're trying to get in a Twitter fight with every three days?

I don't know what the last straw was for Martin Luther to kick off the Reformation, but like I, it

has to be

a Catholic conversation more irritating than that, I suppose.

Yeah, anyway,

we won't break that down.

We won't break that down.

All right, new question from Kev.

When a Democratic president gets back in office, do you think it is their responsibility to strip back some of the presidential powers that have been taken over the past two decades, or is that not possible with an ever-paralyzed and ineffective legislative branch?

I had Tommy and Dan both say they wanted to take this one.

Oh, my answer is nope.

Use the power you have to do stuff that makes people happy.

I'm not saying that President Pete should, you know, crush his enemies with DOJ, but we're not going back to normal.

Let's do some shit.

I thought that you were going to say for war powers.

What do you mean?

Like have Congress actually.

Yeah, like the fact that we're still, you know, that the presidents are still using the authorization for Afghanistan to interact to just like launch whatever.

It would be great if Congress would repeal the AUMF.

I'm absolutely for that.

But I think just in terms of the

leaning on executive action, not waiting for Congress, no, we're not going to let Republicans obstruct us to death ever again.

I have a different take on this.

Let's hear it.

I'm not.

I'm fine with continuing to have a broad-based definition of executive power because Congress is paralyzed.

I think in 2028, Democrats should run on an agenda that makes the president more accountable for their actions.

we should support making the HACH Act apply to the president.

We should have a legal solution for

where it sets out where presidents can be prosecuted to sort of hem in the immunity decision.

We should pass laws that say presidents can't have meme coins, stable coins.

There's like a whole set of things that we should hem that Trump is, Trump has found all these loopholes in the system.

He's exploited them mightily.

It is in our interest to be, we're not going to take it, ever take advantage of those things, hopefully.

So we should we should run to close all those loopholes i think it should be a big part of our agenda and i think a president

i think you should do them uh and not do the meme corn i think it's not going to be that hard look i we're in this sort of vicious circle where it's like heads we head tails they win hails we heads we lose which is um you know we abide by all these structures that slow down government restrict the president's ability to operate then republicans come in they can do whatever the fuck they want like we can't we can't prove to people that government can work effectively and like serve their interests if we're so hemmed in when we finally have power.

But at the same time, I do think the presidency is now this sort of symbol of total government failure.

And the only antidote to that is not reforms that make Congress more effective or make the agencies move more quickly, but just to accrue more power to the president.

And it's a kind of, it's a tough spot for Democrats to be in.

But I think Tommy is right.

We first and foremost need to prove to people that government can work within the bounds of the law, within the structures provided by by Congress, but that it can be dynamic and effective and fast moving.

And I think for a long time, Democrats weren't willing to kind of ruffle feathers, break through walls in a way that proved that to people.

And I think that's like the first order priority.

Yeah, I'm being a little bit glib, but I do think like, and obviously like I would love to, I would do like common sense ethics reforms, but I do think like Trump with like Doge, for example, it was ineffective and stupid, but it made him look like he was active in doing things and actually cutting spending.

And I think we have to figure out our version of something like that that makes us look like we're not just going to get obstructed.

Like,

there needs to be like a little bit of that kind of like fast-moving energy with like, you know, a moral and like ethical and ideological goal we support.

There's somewhere between the lawyers stopping everything from happening and having the judges stop everything you tried to do.

And Trump, we, we, Democrats have erred on the former and Trump has fallen into the latter.

Yeah.

I would probably pass legislation or try to pass legislation to Trump-proof the bureaucracy and independent agencies, just give a little more protection, just based on what the courts have ruled so far.

You know, the courts have sort of stood up to Trump on some of the deportation stuff, but they are not standing up to Trump on like firing, except for the Fed, I guess, firing, you know, heads of independent agencies, knowing that some of these independent agencies are going to be, you know, like Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, right?

We want to protect that beyond the next Democratic president, next time there's Republicans.

So I would try to...

push for reforms there and then maybe clean up the uh the insurrection act the alien enemies act so make sure that if we get another Republican president, those aren't on the table.

Let me get rid of that one.

You're overlooking our big win on the P-Club.

What's the P-Club?

On the PCL.

The president, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

Oh,

federal judge Trump fired two Dems on that board.

Federal judge said, no, no, no, no.

Who were the Dems, Tommy?

Were they Francis Cars?

I don't know, man.

A couple clobs, you know?

Big win on the...

Let's do it.

Should we do a rabbit response?

Travis, you want any big wins on the P-Club board?

I think Tommy just did.

Travis LeBlanc and Edward Felton.

I think that's going to go viral.

Oh, good.

Eddie.

All right, from Dan Levy.

Suppose you somehow had the opportunity to interview Trump.

How would you approach it?

Would you ask tough questions and criticize his record?

Or would you try to butter him up and trick him into saying something harmful, i.e., the quiet part out loud?

Oh.

All right.

You know what?

Honestly, we're going to have a little ceremony.

We're going to bury that phrase in the ground.

There's no more.

How is anyone hearing any quiet parts?

It's all loud all the time.

Didn't have that on my bingo card.

And bury that one with it.

Louder for the people in the back.

I would go with some simple questions.

I think the Christy Gnome, what is habeas corpus example is kind of how I would go with Trump.

Like, what does the Emoluments Clause say, sir?

And then when he inevitably flips out, I just want one journalist to be like, you're the most powerful man in the world.

Your party controls the entire government.

Do you ever get bored of bitching and whining so much?

And just see what he says.

That's good.

Yeah,

I would goad him into losing his temper, but I would also make sure that like the, you know, he couldn't leave the interview.

He could try, but the doors were all locked.

I think

you want him to storm off.

Being Secret Service.

We're just hanging out.

He's just abiding by the rules.

Yeah, but I think that goading him into losing his temper, especially around the jet, the corruption stuff, that's what really gets him.

Like, he really flipped out at Peter Alexander.

That was great.

Well, he was, that was very, that was a really sort of interesting moment of him just being kind of like, he had just shown his little videos and he was like, he wanted questions about the videos and Peter went right to the plane.

He's like, I just, it was like a, it was like a show and tell kind of thing.

Yeah, it was a, yeah, it was a presentation.

Dan, what would you do?

I would pick one subject and stick to it.

I think one of the problems with this is these reporters go in, they feel like they have to ask him every, about everything.

Like just in the example with the Terry Moran interview, where Donald Trump is seeming like a complete lunatic lying or being completely misled about a picture.

with fake tattoos that he tweeted out of the Oval Office.

And Terry Moran's like, I hear you.

I hear you.

I hear your lies, but I got to get to Ukraine.

I got to get to Ukraine.

I hear the clock ticking.

So just pick one, one issue, right?

It could be corruption.

It could be

what's actually in the budget bill.

It could be

his illegal deportation or something.

Just pick one thing and stick to it so that you can actually drill down as opposed to trying to cover the waterfront in your allotted 17 minutes or whatever it is.

I also, one just thing I think has been affected with him too is sometimes be like, I never said that.

Or I didn't, that's not what I said.

If you just have the print out of the, you know, just have the post, he fucking hates that.

He hates being confronted by his words.

And if you just have, like, it's right here.

This is what he said.

It's right here.

Dan, is the new media section of the press room actually damaging, or is it just kind of a weird sideshow?

It's a weird sideshow.

It's serving the purpose that Trump wants, which is to grant access to his biggest fans so that they will cover him even more positively.

It's not changing the world.

It's not...

upending what journalism is or anything like that.

It's just it's access for sycophants with large media platforms and it's working in the the way it's intended.

Yeah.

It's smart.

Yeah, Democrats should do the same thing.

They absolutely

should.

Yeah.

I look forward to the next Democratic president having a new media section with a whole bunch of people except us.

Yes.

Four more years probably the way they're good.

I was like DMing Midas Touch Hats.

We could borrow their badge.

Fuck.

We do know Brian Tyler Cohen.

Hold on.

Yeah.

I'm all done fast plus one.

Please let me in.

All right, here's a tough one.

Are there any conservative commentators that you respect?

And who is your least favorite conservative commentator so far in Trump 2.0?

And then this person gives us a leading, Scott Jennings.

I suppose this means conservative commentators who are still pro-Trump.

I think you have.

Yeah.

I don't think we can be like Bill Crystal.

Oh, yeah.

Honestly, I really don't.

I don't.

That's not where I'm at.

Like, I really have a great deal of respect for the conservatives that said no I think it's it's just been it's just been interesting I think people's revealed themselves in the last decade about what what they really believed and I really genuinely admire the the conservatives that walked away but the ones that are inside defending this I just have no respect for it there's no I don't know unless I maybe there's some that are better than others but it's hard for me to judge I mean we have Fox on all day long and it's just sort of whatever the talking points of the day are whichever host is on will repeat them like in 2018 the claims that there was a white genocide in South Africa and white farmers were being exterminated was

cabined off to the Tucker Carlson hour of Fox News.

Now that Trump is talking about it, it's on every single show.

That doofus sports guy, Will Kane, like everybody's just repeating that talking point, right?

So I have the least respect for those useful idiots.

I don't respect them, but I find it interesting that Laura Loomer, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon are all willing to be critical of Trump on certain issues and at certain points.

Again, I don't like them.

I think they're bad people who do and say terrible things and are dishonest, but they speak truth to power more than like the Bozos, you know, Laura Ingram.

Yeah.

It's the um, it is interesting where there's a lot of people who are for whatever Trump is for because they didn't really have that strong of an ideology.

They really want power and money, success, whatever it is.

So they just go along with what Trump wants.

And then there are the people that really did have an ideological agenda they cared about, to whom they view Trump as useful.

And it's where that pops pops up like you know you have these house freedom caucus members a lot of them went along with this bill but but like someone like thomas massey is willing to go on the floor and say uh this is still a bad bill and you can't convince me otherwise like there is you know that speaks to a genuine belief that that person has i think it's wrong but then he voted for it no didn't massey vote no

i think massey vote oh i thought they got all no who got who's now it was two of them massey and someone else anyway sorry i think massey was trying to raise money off of oh that's right right

trump went after him dan you said that you respect scott jennings that's who's your no no i said that's their guy yeah i think you misheard me uh yeah i agree with love it there's none of them that i respect in any way shape or form it is interesting but the people i respect less are the fox news people and brett beer in particular like the fact that we're in a world where laura loomer has more journalistic integrity than brett beer is something that i would hope would keep brett beer up at night in his very very large mansion in palm beach but i suspect it doesn't it brett beer like he really has become like kind of the lead provda guy at fox news he is the house organ and it's not just that he interviews Trump.

He interviews a cabinet official every other night for some sort of gauzy one-hour thing.

And

Trump went to the UAE in Qatar, he interviewed the prime minister and gave them both kind of like softball hour-long, whatever, like specials.

Do you think that the

reason the Palm Beach houses of these Fox News anchors keep getting bigger is because they're like the Winchester widow and they need to sleep in a different bed each night to evade the ghosts that haunt them for what they've done and what what from what from which they've reaped their great rewards?

I was thinking that.

Yes.

So, this has my first thought this morning.

Yes, thinking that.

Yeah.

What's the Winchester Widow?

The Winchester Widow, she inherited the fortune from the Winchester gun company, from her husband, and she built this elaborate mansion, but never stopped constructing it because she would like to sleep in a different room because she felt she was haunted by the ghosts of the people killed by the weapons.

And so it's this maze-like structure.

Dark.

What's the origin of the story?

The Winchester Widow, but that's it.

What do you mean?

I mean, did someone write it?

Oh, I don't know.

You mean, like, where did I hear from it?

I don't know.

I don't know what fucking rattles around.

I read a book or I saw TikTok.

So I'm not sure.

Yeah, that's the content people come here for.

I'm Googling it for you.

Maybe it's just because I listened to the interview last night.

I thought Ross David did a good job.

uh with jd vance did he the yeah the daily part he didn't push back at all did they just the problem

it's like first of all,

it's a good lesson.

Doing the interview about the interview you just did.

Lame.

Yeah.

We've thought a couple times about like, should we talk about the interview?

After listening to five minutes of the daily doing that, I was like, absolutely not.

Why am I listening to this?

I should listen to the actual interview between Ross and J.D.

Vance.

And Ross is famously against masturbation, too.

So

it goes on to get away from it.

Did you not talk about the interview, John?

Can't agree with him on everything, you know?

You're going to jerk yourself off on the daily.

But he did, you know, he pushed J.D.

Vance on immigration and some other, like, oh, so you're a Catholic Christian and you believe this.

And J.D.

Vance was fucking smug and awful.

I just as ever.

I do want to, I want to mod, I want to modulate my joke earlier, which was really just about J.D.

Vance being irritating.

I actually want to listen to the conversation.

I think there's a lot of like knee-jerk Ross Douthett hate in the world that I'm not a participant in.

No, I think I like him.

Yeah.

And I don't even know if he's like a bit.

Like, he's a conservative that's interesting because I don't think he's anti-Trump, but I don't don't think he's pro-Trump either.

No, I don't put him in.

I think he's yeah, no, I think he's an interesting.

I actually don't put him in that category.

But Scott Jennings is definitely my least favorite.

Or maybe tied with Bachao Ungar Sargon.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, she's tough one.

Because she's sort of a new character.

Well, they're all coming off that Abby Phillips evening panel.

And she's like, poor Abby.

She stopped booking them.

She's doing a good job trying to deal with it.

What's your take on Blue Sky?

Can it be good or will it discourse itself to death?

This seems so far up your alley, John.

Let us know.

Oh, boy.

Are you on there?

I check in once a week, once a couple times a week, just like a bunch of people.

It's like a wellness check, like what's going on?

It's like a P.O.

Yeah, otherwise his ankle starts beefing.

He's got to blow into the tube and make sure, and otherwise he gets in trouble.

Well, here's the thing, guys.

Some of the people that we

like and follow a lot on Twitter are now like mostly posting on Blue Sky.

Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, like they're mostly there.

And so I want to see what's going on.

And And then every time I go in my mentions, there's a lot of people being like, you guys got to come over to Blue Sky.

Tell John and Tommy to come over and Dan and what's going on.

So I go over and like, I'm always trying it out.

I went yesterday and people are very mad, love it, that you and I are hosting a Jake Tepper Alex

book event.

Little do they know that Jake might actually come on the pod.

But

like, so I sort of tweeted something or posted or skeeted, skeeted something about it.

And then my mentions really flooded with just, someone told me to throw myself down a mine shaft.

And then it's like Twitter energy.

But it is Twitter.

Yeah, totally Twitter energy.

And then they're like, oh, fuck, go back to the Nazi site.

You know, so there's a lot of that.

And then there's a lot of nice people that are like, here's what you need to do.

And then someone told me that there is a way to filter out all the mentions from people that you don't follow on there, which you can do on Twitter.

And it improved my Twitter experience.

You read it from your phone.

They didn't have it at first in Blue Sky, but now I did that.

And I think, man, I don't know, maybe I'll give give it another whirl.

I am, Sarah Longwell was talking.

I was listening to Sarah and Tim and JBL talking on the bulwark, and she was saying how she's been trying to avoid consuming, trying to like not consume as much opinion and more straight facts so that she can know that she's forming her own opinions.

And I've just been, I've been feeling just like, I don't know, just the relentlessness of Trump, the kind of onslaught of it.

Like I've been feeling my inability to focus getting worse in the last couple of weeks.

And so I took Twitter off my phone again because I am trying to just like, let me me just read the stories and show up.

And you know what?

If I'm like, you know, it's like, I just, I don't want to like run my opinions through the machine as much as I've been doing.

So I like took it off my phone for a while.

See how that goes.

Okay.

And Tommy, you're not skeeting at any time.

Never signed up for it.

Everything I hear about it makes me feel like that was the right decision.

Can I defend Blue Sky for a sec?

Yeah.

I just like, I would love an alternative to Twitter, but I just don't want to deal with like lib on leftist violence all day long.

And it sounds like that's what it is.

Here, here's where Blue Sky, I think, can be most useful: is all of our Twitter feeds, everyone we've followed over the 10 or so years we've been on Twitter is such a disaster now that you can kind of start fresh in Blue Sky.

I don't post there very often, but I do look at it and I basically just only follow reporters.

And it is actually a much better way when something happens to just go to your following tab on Blue Sky, which is just all reporters that I followed in the last couple of years here.

And you just get people telling you what's happening in the news.

It is, that is the closest thing to the Twitter 2011, 2012 experience of it as a in-real-time news site.

Just as a general rule, whether it is Twitter, Blue Sky, don't read your mentions, John.

It's like

I see your mentions sometimes because I see your tweets.

And

I'll tell you, you're not getting a better experience on X.

I'll tell you that right now.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

That's why, oddly enough, my experience on X has been better for the last several months than Blue Sky.

Because you have your blinders on.

I hid the mentions on X.

You need your Blue Sky blinders too.

For sure.

For sure.

But I also, to that point about the news and Sarah's point, I made a list on Twitter that's called Just News, and it's just following reporters.

Because I have the same thing.

It's like sometimes you just want the latest news and you don't want people's opinion.

Do you have a do you have a feed on your whatever they call Tweet Tech Now site that's just like people you want to fight with?

It's like Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Mark Newton.

No, I don't have that.

Then please don't give me that idea.

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All right, another question.

I can't figure out how to use AI in my day-to-day.

I don't want to fall behind, but I just can't find a good use for it.

Do you guys use it?

Any tips on how it's useful or how I can get started?

It's just a much better Google search.

Google's terrible now.

It's been ruined.

And I don't know whether it's Perplexity or Chat GPT or whatever.

Pick your poison.

Claude, Llama.

It's hard to keep one.

It's really hard to keep them all straight.

Yeah.

Porcupine, like whatever the fuck these things are.

Like they're all just better.

Hedgehog.

Hedgehog, Hogwild.

yeah it's a different site

you can draw funny pictures i tried to make an only dance logo i'll see if i can pull it up here um it wasn't that good so the visual part is not there yet

only dance i like it

i'll show you i do it google i use it as google as a better google yeah i i'm i'm like

really kind of viewing it as more like of a novelty that I'm experimenting with and throwing things in there to see what comes out.

I don't use it as a Google that often.

What I, I, I find it useful to me in moments where I'm stuck.

Like if you're just stuck, like trying to figure something out, it'll like break out of it.

Like,

wow, that is it.

That is a why is that Dan?

That's like Dan crossed with Scott Jennings.

It's really strange.

It's AI.

Yeah, no, we, we, yeah.

No, no, we, we got that it was AI for sure.

That's the conversation we're having.

But the, uh, well, that's why it doesn't look like it.

Yeah, it doesn't look like him yet, but it'll, it will.

And so, like, there was a, a couple of days ago, I was like trying to write a description of something, and it was a tough thing to hit the tone right.

And I was just like struggling.

And so I just said, like, hey, help me, help me come up with a sentence or two to help describe this.

And it's for an upcoming series we're going to do.

And I didn't use basically any of it, but it gave me like one sentence that was like smarter than what I had come up with myself, to be honest.

And I was like, oh, that works.

Let me take that.

And then I can write something to it

to figure it out.

I think it's like a...

It's a block obliterator.

You know, it'll just like throw, it's relentless.

So you can just get a bunch of ideas and maybe you grab one and then you can keep working, keep writing, think of something.

But other than that, I haven't yet really cracked why it's, I mean, I, I don't know, maybe it's helping people move faster.

But I use it all day, every day.

Really?

I use it at

for Google.

I don't, I never Google anything anymore.

I will ask it

like very specific questions to find answers to.

I use it.

I will use it to synthesize data.

Like I will upload.

a large poll and ask it for a set of findings to answer certain questions or test a premise.

I will use it.

I never use it for writing per se, but I will use it the same way you do, Love, which is like, I am stuck.

I'm trying to write something.

And it's like, you've used the same descriptive word like three times and you're trying to, like, what's another way to say this?

I use that.

I will,

I will upload a full message box and I will ask for 10 title suggestions.

And almost never do I end up using the ones they actually have, but it always helps me like figure, figure it out.

Yeah, I use it for, I use it for a lot of research

and really synthesize large data sets into easily understandable things.

And you can use it to make, I'm not very good at this, but to use it to make charts and graphics.

The part that I find troubling about it still is like

you, let's say you ask it a question about the news.

And most of the time it's giving you a useful synthesis of various articles.

And that's great.

But it's trained on certain data sets.

And one of them is that Joe Biden was, a lot of what it was trained on was a time when Joe Biden was president.

And so you'll ask it a a question and you'll be like, wait a second, this answer still thinks Joe Biden is president.

And so like, oh, wow, it's really, if you were working with someone day to day.

It was Mike Donnelly.

And it was Mike Donnelly.

It was, yeah, oh, I'm sorry.

I'm using

Mike Donnellin 4.7.

But

if you were working with somebody and they were really, really smart, but every once in a while thought it was 1997, you'd be like, oh, I can't trust you.

Yeah.

You know, so that's what makes me nervous about it.

I make it double checkouts we say all the time.

Yeah.

Like, are you sure this is correct?

Yeah.

It's so obnoxious.

And you're like, it's going to hate me.

Hey, I'm about to say this on a podcast.

Are you sure?

I saw something that really kind of like was, I tried it and it was, it was interesting.

Again, this is just like just coming up with questions to ask to kind of learn about it.

But it said, you don't just ask it a question.

You say, assemble a group of experts to help me answer this question.

Assemble a marketing person, a political person, a strategist, an expert on YouTube.

Have them meet and discuss this question and decide on an answer together and then show me what they did.

And like they have a meeting and then you reply and you say, do you give them a lunch break?

You reply and you say, all right, this is a great first draft, but remember, this whole team gets fired if it's not perfect.

And they're like, all right, back to the drawing board, everybody.

Here we go.

We got to really pull off a great meeting.

Wow, you're really, you're into it.

I'm learning.

I also use it for recipes all the time.

Like, I want to make this because it's very, like what it allows you to do is like, well, I don't have this.

And then I'll give you a new version with the thing smart.

That's good.

I've read You can do so.

I've never done it.

You can take a picture of your fridge, upload the chat GPT, and it'll offer things based on what's in your fridge, what you can cook.

I've never done it, but I've read that that's something you can do.

Cool.

Creepy, though.

All right, next question.

Tommy and John, any comments on the Celtics' demise?

Dan, any comments on the 76ers?

Whatever is going on with them?

I only caught, let's see, the first game where we blew a 20-point lead, and then I zoomed in right before Jason Tatum got hurt.

That was it.

That's all I had for the Celtics.

Yeah, so our best player is out for at least a year.

I mean, it's an Achilles, so like,

you wouldn't bring him back at this point.

Our two best players both got Super Max contracts.

We're about, Dan, do you understand the NBA salary cap?

I don't.

There's something called the second apron.

It is.

We're apparently above that, and there's a bunch of restrictions.

Yes.

But you have to unravel the team.

You have to get below the second apron because if you're on the second apron two years in a row, in addition to having a giant half-billion dollar tax payment, you also have real restrictions about what players you can sign, how you can use your various cap slots.

And so they have to get below it, which means they have to trade some of the members on the team, most likely Drew Holiday or Christophe Sworzingis.

Who's at the, yeah, he's at the, he also had a weird health thing.

So we're fucked.

We're at the end of this little run.

I don't think DraftKings or FanDill, whoever like me, make this bet right now, but I would put $100 down right now that the Celtics will win the 2026 NBA draft lottery.

Oh, because you think it's rigged.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay.

Yeah.

Like Dallas.

Maybe it's, maybe it's rigged by God.

That's possible.

It's not.

But every time that something like this happens, this is how the Spurs got Tim Duncan.

It's how the Mouse got Cooper Flag.

It's how miraculously

six weeks after Anthony Davis left New Orleans, they got Zion Williamson.

So this would be my, this is a bet I'd be willing to make.

It's interesting because it would make sense to me that the same God rigging a draft for the Celtics would be the one that made Donald Trump president.

That's true.

That's a good point.

It's a solid talk.

Tough to be fair.

Sorry, Boston.

From

Catsy and Katz?

Anyway.

Cats and cats.

Cats and cats, Katsi and Katz.

Is there anyone in the cricket office who beats Fabs for screen time?

Is there a dark horse we're unaware of?

Probably.

I got some.

It's Elijah, right?

It's Elijah.

It's Austin.

I believe it is.

Two of the other hosts of this podcast.

The only one who gets off here is Lovett.

That's right.

Thank you.

I got off here in all kinds of places.

i'm guessing dan because i am um on text chains with dan so often that i know he must be looking at screens and tommy is just

just as bad as me

just described about his tucker carlson interview at in the evening it was deep research it was deep research yeah yeah yes yeah but

do you want to defend yourself dan are you i i'm i'm online way too much there's no question about that the difference is you're just now become such a poster that's like we always know when you're online you're always posting

Always be posting.

Always be posting.

This is from Love It Always Cracks Me Up.

Which, what a surprise that Love It chose this question.

I like the question.

I like the question.

What are your favorite RPGs of all time?

Thank you, Love It Cracks Me Up.

All right.

Here's my list.

This is the only notes I took for this whole

soul record.

You hung back for the rest.

Yeah.

Bloodborne.

Bloodborne.

I did.

Demon Souls, Dark Souls 3, Elden Ring.

Those are all part of the kind of from software universe.

I love Skyrim.

I love Fallout, some of those games.

Dishonored is not technically an RPG.

I think it's RPG adjacent, but I really like the world building.

Deus Ex Human Revolution was a great game.

Diablo 3, Diablo 4 are on the list, but I do think those games are basically a kind of drug and are dangerous.

They're dangerous.

They grab you.

They don't let you go.

They're kind of, they hook you

with the serotonin loop.

Not an RPG, but Subnautica is a great game that's about building up your abilities.

It has some RPG vibes, even though it's obviously not an RPG.

And then I am very excited to play Baldur's Gate 3 and Disco Elysium.

I used to like RPGs when I was a Nintendo kid.

And then I liked your Final Fantasies, your Chrono Triggers.

Old school.

Yeah, that was the first time.

Then I stopped in college.

I played Skyrim and Fallout in an earlier period of my life.

That's great, Dan.

I like those games.

I really got into Skyrim.

Last Last question.

Based on the internet debate of could 100 men kill a gorilla without weapons, Crooked has about 100 employees.

Could the Crooked staff kill a gorilla?

Yeah.

Not in a million years.

Here's the thing.

North.

Here's the thing.

Look,

I love our...

Here's the thing.

Crooked.

What I'm about to say is going to just, you're going to have to bear with what I'm going to say.

This is the one you didn't prepare for.

But we're

I love I love how many different parts of the pride flag are represented at this company.

Oh my gosh.

But I do think it puts us at a disadvantage against the gorilla.

I'm sorry.

You know, that, you know, I just think that like we got to put a lot of our he hymns at the front and some of our

and a lot of our, just we've got to get those he hymns up ahead.

Sorry, we're sending in the he hims and the and the she-hers and the they thems, we're going to hang back.

You know what?

I wouldn't put too much stock in the he-hims

as one of them.

I don't want the guy with.

My actual view on the defeating of the gorilla is it's actually not about whether the gorilla loses.

The gorilla will lose.

It's about whether you are one of the first five to ten humans to go into that fight.

A couple people are going down and they're going down hard.

A gorilla can lift like 2,000 pounds.

Gorillas are strong, but 100 of us, we're going to beat the gorilla, but we're just going to take some pretty heavy losses early on.

That's the problem.

That's what's going to happen.

I'm sorry to say.

Arms are going to be ripped off, faces torn apart.

It's going to be an ugly battle, but we're going to tire that gorilla out.

All right.

We're going to be able to coordinate using what?

Language.

If I had 100 Aaron Donalds and the first 50 were ready to die, maybe.

I think you would need 100 Aaron Donalds to beat one gorilla.

I think you have to send waves of 10 to gang up on it.

Why wouldn't you send all 100 at a time?

Because you can't, there's not that much surface area.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I think you definitely need at least 10 to move in at once, but I just think then the gorilla is going down.

It's luck of the drawing.

Who are we sending first to the gorilla?

What?

Who are we sending first?

Yeah.

Carol's good.

I think Ben Hefco could fuck up that girl.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, he does have an impression.

Is he here?

Who's not here?

We'll send them.

I got a follow-up from Love It Actually.

No, sorry, this is from the Lovedest Show on Earth.

What if it was 100 gorilla-sized ducks?

100 gorilla-sized ducks.

Well, the thing is, 100 gorilla-sized.

Oh, my God.

That's worth ducks.

That's a big

lot of them, too.

Yeah,

we're fucked in that thing.

I think you could beat the ducks.

I don't think you could beat 100 duck-sized gorillas, though.

100 ducks?

It's like Ant-Man, sort of.

I think so.

Is it one person versus 100 gorilla ducks?

Or is that the whole, is it each staff get a duck-sized gorilla?

I don't know.

That's actually the Christmas present.

That's the holiday present this year.

I'll tell you, either way, we're going to hear about it from the union.

It's going to be a tough one.

It's not in the job description.

That would be a tough ask.

The CBA specifies that they are not supposed to go first.

There's no animal combat.

Yeah, senior staff don't.

No one from senior staff was in the first wave going at the gorilla.

No senior producers going in first.

All right.

Thank you for your questions, everyone.

Big thanks to all of our Friends of the Pod subscribers for sending in questions.

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Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin.

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

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