Why is JD Vance so Annoying?

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Welcome to Pod Save America.

I'm John Favreau.

I'm John Lovitt.

I'm Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vitor.

Happy Labor Day, everyone.

Thank you.

To mark the occasion, we thought we'd pre-record an episode where we take some of your questions, especially because we have now hit the 1,000th episode on this exact day of Pod Save America.

We did it.

We saved.

America saved.

Pack it up and go home.

Months of conversation about whether or not this was really the thousandth.

There's zero chance it is, but.

No, and well, also, by the way, doesn't a thousand episodes feel like somehow like too many, but also not enough?

Like, it feels like we've done more, but also

how come we've done that many?

We've got to keep podcasting until this thing.

Too many takes.

Yeah.

Just got to keep going.

You know, on a slightly serious note,

the absolute best part of doing this for the last eight and a half years has been all of you.

Not you three.

People listening to you.

Thank you, Jennifer.

You're cool too.

You gestured forward, but it was towards the people.

Yes, the people who were out there.

But like getting to hear from a lot of you, getting to meet a lot of you, knowing that a lot of you get to meet each other through the show, and especially seeing how many of you chose not to just listen to us while we whine about politics every week, but actually get involved yourselves, which is the entire reason we started doing this.

So thank you.

Yeah, and so some folks sent in some great stories that were inspiring, and we hope we could tell them, and maybe that will inspire even more of you to give it a shot, run for office, maybe get involved.

Isabel told us she started with the pot as a 13-year-old when her dad would play it in the car on the way to school.

Sorry about the.

Yeah, sorry.

She's 13 in America.

I think I've been.

I've been working on limiting my F-bumps.

Doing my best, Isabel.

Isabelle's dad.

You too, Kathu.

Trad wife over here.

Isabel.

Just churning his butter.

Scotch darn this Trump.

Political science.

Isabelle's in college.

That does make me feel old.

Becky says she'd never met another Democrat before she started volunteering as a poll worker.

Now she has a community.

Jess M went back to school as a single mom of twins to teach history and government and says she plans to run for office in 2028.

That's cool.

Bidco,

real name, we're told, ran for city council and lost, ran again and won and is still door knocking for other candidates.

And then JK, which is the most likely to be a fake name in all of these, ran for city council, came up two votes short, won a seat for the county board, and now really enjoys working with the person that beat them the first time.

No way.

That's a great story.

Look at that.

Look at that.

Look at that.

Hello.

Bringing people together.

So we appreciate everybody that has already signed up to run.

But for everybody else, we are recruiting people through Vote Save America to run for local office in North Carolina, Texas, and Arizona.

And for everybody else, we have a lot of big races coming up.

We have the redistricting in California.

We have an incredibly exciting, inspiring candidate in New York running against Mom Donnie.

We've got

there's statewide races in Pennsylvania, in Georgia.

There's a Virginia governor's races in Michigan, governor's race.

Dan's primary and Chris Coons.

Yeah.

Nice.

I'm not.

I'm sorry.

No.

I've given up my residency.

Someone did ask him one of the questions, who's going to run Dan's campaign?

So we got a couple of those.

Okay, maybe I can move back.

I'm not a details guy, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

I want to be on the message calls like Axe.

I'm going to just think big thoughts and let other people deal with it.

Do the narrative.

Who's chewing in the background?

Oh, love it.

Yeah.

Look, if there's anybody that should say, I can't, I'm sorry I'm not on the call.

I dropped a donut into my phone.

It would be me.

But I will send a lot of thoughts via email to your younger staff afterwards.

Who forgets about the call on mute when they order a breakfast sandwich?

Yeah,

I'll fill that role.

So again, if you want to sign up to run in Arizona, North Carolina, or Texas, go to votesaveamerica.com slash run or just go to votesaveamerica.com because there's a lot of ways you can help even in these upcoming elections.

All right, let's get to some questions.

There were a few questions about the midterm, so let's start there.

KDR asks, Dan, with 2026 coming, I'm nervous about getting sucked into over-optimistic interpretations of the polling, but I'm also not willing to go cold turkey.

What indicators, polling or not, should I be watching?

Okay.

KDR is actually me.

I was going to say.

It's like they're all fake questions.

I would begin with just the simple premise that we are way far away from the 2026 elections.

What the polls tell us right now is not very connected to what will actually happen.

But as we get closer, I think there are three things to watch.

One is the polling question called the generic ballot, where they just ask if you are going to vote for a Democrat or Republican.

Right now, even though it doesn't matter, Democrats have in the average about a three-point lead in the generic ballot.

When we had our huge victory in 2018, the last most credible polls from like the Wall Street Journal, ABC had the Democratic advantage at seven points.

But most people estimate that given how narrow the house is, three would be theoretically enough to overcome Republican redistricting, but it would be quite close.

But still too early to worry about that.

The second thing to track is Trump's approval.

Now, as Biden showed in 2022, the direct connection between a president's approval and midterm performance is not what it used to be because we're so polarized and so much negative partisanship.

But Trump really, the only way Republicans can do very well in these midterms is if a bunch of the people who vote only in presidential elections, who voted for Trump or first-time Trump voters, turn out in the midterms.

And I do think Trump's approval rating is somewhat connected to that measure.

And then the third thing is how people feel about the economy and inflation in particular.

So those are the sort of measures that I think will tell us the most as we get closer.

But there's no need to panic about it yet or get too excited yet.

We have a lot of time to go.

So we're not panicking about the Democratic Party's favorability being the worst it's been since at least 1990, according to Gallup.

Well,

at this almost exact point in 2013, the Republican Party approval rating was worse than Democrats right now.

Kind of like that.

Then they won the Senate and picked up Halice Gates in 2014.

I haven't asked you this yet, but let's do it right here live.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

How are you feeling about the reliability of polling right now?

Do you feel the same as you did in 24?

Do you feel different in any way?

I feel

swings.

The polls I've seen, especially over the last couple of weeks, feel swingier to me in that like the range of Trump approval has seemed quite large.

Yeah, it's been a lot of time.

So I feel better about the midterm polls because the problem with polling has been getting less engaged people to participate.

And so when you get to a likely voter filter for a midterm election, you're just going to be

more accurate if it is true that we continue to

more accurately poll

people with higher political engagement, which is why the polls were accurate in 2018, pretty accurate in 2022.

The big question will be what happens in 2028, because in 2024, the polls were right,

but I mean, not to get super polar coast nerdy here, but I know you appreciate this, but they were primarily right because polls reduced the statistical trick by waiting by the 2020 election results.

That is probably less reliable, presuming Trump is not on the ballot in 2028.

And then the question is, how do you get people?

That would solve a lot of Polster's problems if he ran again.

So big, big win for J.

Elliott Morris, I guess.

I don't know.

But

hard to know.

It may be really hard to get.

We may have a 2016-like problem in the polling in 2028 unless we can figure out some other tactics to solve that problem.

Two very similar questions about the midterms that I'm combining.

Tyler says, all of my hope for the future is riding on a Democrat midterm sweep.

What are the chances that the midterms will actually happen?

And if they do, can we trust them?

And Evil Gamer asks, what reason does Trump or Republicans have to recognize the results in 26?

Anyone like to feel that?

So

we are, like we've talked about this in the show, like there's no single moment where an election is recognized or not recognized by Trump or Republicans.

We are in some way, to some extent, protected by the fact that elections are run in this incredibly disaggregated way.

That will continue to be the case.

That doesn't mean there won't be intimidation.

That doesn't mean we won't be having to worry about everything from people claiming the votes are rigged, people trying to shut down counts, ICE agents outside of polling places.

But Trump isn't responsible for deciding who is or is not in Congress, and we shouldn't give him power

that he hasn't tried to take.

What does that look like?

We don't know, but we're not in control of all those pieces.

We have to keep an eye on it, but our job is to put ourselves in a position to win while worrying a lot about

what it looks like to run an election, even just 16 months from now.

Did you know the Constitution gives full power on who the members of the House is to the House itself?

Yeah, the issue is that if they don't seat them,

I told Speaker Johnson not to seat the Congress.

So here's how this would work.

So the big question was, are they going to Trump going to cancel the midterms?

You're naive for thinking they're going to happen.

Trump can't cancel the midterms.

That's not a thing that can happen because elections are run by states.

Where the sort of the choke points are where they could really play with the elections, other than all the things you mentioned that happened before the votes, is election certification, right?

Where you have secretaries of state in Republican states who refuse to see, to certify certain elections.

Now, the good news there is that most states have pretty prescriptive recount laws.

And so you would go, so if it's within this margin, you have to recount it.

And if it stays within that margin, then we're going to do a hand recount and all of that.

And when you get to the end of that, as we saw in 2020, the courts will almost certainly decide that the election has to be certified because you followed all the procedures.

The second point is the House seats the members who are elected.

And

in a case where the election is not certified, as happened with

Al Franken and the Norm Coleman race in 2008, you can go a long time without anyone.

You have to wait.

They cannot be seated to election certified.

But election certified, the House could theoretically prevent someone seating someone if there was, they could come up with some sort of case that like this was fraud or it was stolen or all of that now that's hard if it's already been certified although the good news here is that the Supreme Court is actually weighed in on this because the Democrats refused to seat Adam Clayton Powell

many many decades ago because they believed that he had that his election was corrupt and the Senate and the Supreme Court ruled in that case that

the House's power in the Constitution was specifically around eligibility issues.

So if you are 25 years old, citizen for seven years, resident of the district or whatever that is, then you have to be seated.

So the Supreme Court would have to undo, I think it's called Powell v.

Morgan or something like that to do that.

So it is, there are places they can do mischief, but there are guardrails around that.

Now, guardrails have done us a lot of good recently, but so.

I just think it require, like.

It requires, it's not just some, it's not just Trump from on high settings.

It would require a great deal of coordination.

And by the way, unanimity among Republicans and their very narrow majority.

You just like, you start to look at it, like, not saying it's not possible, but like

the election's not gonna be canceled.

I sure see a path of Trump, you know, beating the drum that this was illegitimate and votes were stolen.

I don't want to be a doomer, but like, it's very plausible.

I think the more the, I think you hit on the most important point, which is the great the more urgent dangers are the ones that happened before the votes were cast.

It's suppression.

I mean, Gavin Newsom brought this up when we interviewed him on Ponce America about he thinks he's going to send ICE agents to stay outside of polling places.

I would just say this, which is I worry about everything that we're talking about.

Literally everything.

Everything all the time.

But

I worry less only because what, say we knew that this is going to be the outcome, that Trump fucks with it, Republicans.

How's that going to change our behavior now and through the midterm?

It's not.

Like, I don't know what else we could do between now and the midterms to head off that possibility.

So we might as well go forward and try to win the election first and then deal with the trouble when we get to the electricity.

It's like too big to rig is the plan.

Right.

Like that, that's all I mean.

Like, I don't want to be Pollyannish and like we could look back on this and be like, yeah, they did the worst possible version.

Absolutely.

But we we can't have people so cynical that they think the results aren't going to matter and that we can't overcome even if they put people outside of polling places.

Yeah, because that does have an effect.

You're like, well, they're not going to have the election anyway, so I might as well not get involved.

Self-suppress.

Right.

Dan and I talked about this on Friday's pod, but would love to hear what Tommy and Levitt think.

Boop to you asks, should more Democrats take Newsom's lead and go on the meme offensive, Tommy?

Is that like giving a boop to a doggy, you think?

A boop to you.

Oh, yeah.

A boop on the nose.

I don't know, whatever.

I don't think, no, I don't think every Democrat should do a Trump impression, which is what Gavin Newsom is doing.

I think there's a more important thing that Gavin Newsom is doing that is less covered, which is a broader strategic focus on independent media and progressive media.

And I think what Gavin is doing is he's doing tons of interviews with independent media.

He's been on Potsdam America a bunch.

He's talking to Brian Tyler Cohen.

He's talking to a bunch of YouTubers and TikTokers.

And

that's what Trump did.

that was really smart.

He talked to the so-called Manosphere podcast.

He talked to conservative podcasts.

He talked to the the comedy audiences all the time.

And he built a relationship with those audiences.

And he also helped those shows build their own presence and subscriber base.

That is really smart.

And so I think the Trump Impression stuff is like getting him a lot of attention.

Like, I don't know, what do you guys think?

In six months, is Gavin Newson doing a Trump impression?

I kind of, I'm a little bit skeptical.

I think like it's its utility is getting attention.

And when that utility goes away, you probably slow down or stop doing it.

But that'd be my guess.

The strategic focus of building up independent and progressive media is really smart and long-term and enduring, and something every single Democrat needs to do.

So, there's a podcast called The Diary of a CEO, he does a lot of these really long-form interviews, it's incredibly popular on YouTube.

And he did this interview with a pioneer in AI.

I was interested in, I clicked on it, and then I looked two months ago.

Gavin Newsom sat down for a two-hour interview with this guy.

I didn't know that, it wasn't something that came across my feed, but that reached a huge audience of people that's apolitical.

And, like, whether the memes continue or not, like, he's thinking about how to be the Democrat sucking up all the attention.

Like, that to me is the plan.

It seems like it's working.

Yeah.

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At the University of Arizona, we believe that everyone is born with wonder.

That thing that says, I will not accept this world that is.

While it drives us to create what could be,

that world can't wait to see what you'll do.

Where will your wonder take you?

And what will it make you?

The University of Arizona.

Wonder makes you.

Start your journey at wonder.arizona.edu.

Texas Hold'em.

Do any of you have a coherent theory of why J.D.

Vance is so singularly annoying?

The more I watch of him, the less I'm able to put my finger on it.

I don't know if it's a coherent theory.

I mean, I got a couple of reasons.

Like, one, he's got no sense of humor.

Like, none, literally.

Jokes are like Markov.

Well, remember in 2012 when like Mitt Romney was such a stiff that it was like a political problem for him, and his team tried to put out like all this background.

What's like, he's a prankster, he's a scamp, he's a scallywag.

Remember Remember that shit?

And it was just like scallywag, Mitt.

It was such obviously bullshit because then Mitt Romney would do interviews and he'd be like, I love humor.

And so just no one talks like that.

And the same is with J.D.

Vance.

Like, J.D.

Vance is a very angry, constantly aggrieved, whiny dude.

It doesn't matter if it's like a podcast interview or a speech to all of Europe.

He's just angry and aggrieved.

And then, second, like, the guy is a shapeshifter politically.

in terms of his own identity.

He's had several different names.

He's changed his religion recently.

He's evolved his political worldview entirely.

So, like, I don't know.

I think that phoniness and authenticity is what reads.

Do you think he's legitimately aggrieved or performatively aggrieved?

I think he's legitimately an angry little prick.

I've come to believe that as well.

I've thought about this a lot.

This question, I wanted to pick it because I'm like, yes, I feel the same way.

Like, I'm so enraged with him all the time, but I don't know why.

Like, he has a rationale that everything they do is justified because the left hates America and is ungrateful to him and his ancestors who are the rightful heirs to this country.

And he's fucking smug.

Who was he demanding offer gratitude yesterday?

We were watching an interview.

Yeah, he was demanding, oh, well, he's done it to Mamdani.

He's done it to

obviously Zamski.

There is someone else that I.

You and I were watching.

We were all watching J.D.

Vance at our office and getting like mad about something.

I think it was Mamdani.

But Ian the fucking smugness, too.

Like when he, because the fight that I got in with him over Kill Marbrego Garcia was he was like, you know, I commented on the fact that like they made a mistake and whatever else.

And he was like, obviously you haven't read the court document on this.

And blah, blah, blah.

Like he's like a big, and then it's like, when you read the court document, which his tweet complaining about it is now evidence in the case because the court document said the opposite of what, so he wasn't just wrong.

He was like, oh, you obviously haven't read it yet, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, you didn't read it, you fucking moron, but he's so confidently smug that it's real.

And the thing, the difference with Trump is like, trump's tone is almost like i know i'm full of shit but at least i'm gonna have some fun with it and you're it's back to your original point like there is no humor there's no having fun with anything there is just like just dire smug grievance yeah there's something i i feel like i agree with that like i i always see him and i feel like there's two parts to it one is

He is, he is a shapeshifter.

He's been performing different people his whole life.

And you just feel in everything he does the space between whatever he was, which is now nothing, nothing, and what he is now.

You see that when he's in the donut shop.

You see that, like that, there's just quiet.

Like when, when he's not putting on a show, it's so quiet and so stuck and awkward and strange.

And like, I think there's like rage in him about all of that.

Like you can feel it from him.

But the other part of it is like, he made it.

He made it.

He made it out of Ohio.

He made it to the heights of liberal elite culture.

Then he switched sides and made it to the very top of right-wing culture.

And he's still fucking furious.

It's not working.

Like it doesn't, he's not happy.

He seems angry all the time like he's not getting the meaning from it he hoped and like who could be responsible for that it's not him it's not trump he's doing everything he's supposed to do it's us it's the liberals it's the left text from my colonial incoming he made it out of ohio

out of

and my wife

he made it out of a tough part of ohio you know he he had like a rough go of it i mean i i didn't watch the movie but the trailer which went close looked rough like she was in that mumu it seemed like it was tough i don't know what actually happened in his childhood i think a lot of that's really I don't know.

I will, all this to say, though, I still think he is a very dangerous,

not just dangerous for what he can do governing-wise, but in 2028, I do not underestimate him as

a very strong candidate, even though he does not have the charisma clearly that Donald Trump has or a lot of other politicians.

He is an incredibly dangerous universe.

He is someone who's like very interesting to think of in comparison to Barack Obama because on paper, like there's the similar background of they, like J.D.

Vance is vice president of CS now because of his, the way he told his own story, right?

Similar to how Barack Obama did, right, both in Dreams of My Father and The Speech.

And they both come from like what are really, really hard backgrounds, right?

Obama, son of a single mother, father leaves on food on food stamps.

Like J.D.

Vance's story is told in a movie trailer.

But the difference between the two of them is like what Barack Obama took from his experience was like, how do I help all the people who came up like I did?

And J.D.

Vance is, how do I screw over all the people who came behind me?

Like he just burns the bridge behind him.

And it is like, it's very malicious.

Like, it's like shame of where he came from, as opposed to understanding his true story and like what, how that should inform his values.

Ben Rhodes and I have been talking about this a lot because it does feel like when we were talking about that Claremont speech and we talked about it on offline too, that he is the almost mirror image of Obama with the story because they both have these stories, but they both went like very different ways.

And they don't worship an awesome God in the blue state.

Yeah,

that's the problem.

Yeah, right.

And fuck Little League.

All right.

This is from Over Under.

Tommy, what do you think is the top foreign policy issue that we should be paying more attention to, talking more about?

I mean, I think it's an obvious one, but it's climate change?

Climate change, sure.

I think China, it's weird because Trump ran on being tough on China.

It was like the centerpiece of his populist pitch.

And now it's just absent from the conversation.

And it's sort of weird to me.

And then...

I think as president, he's been soft on China.

He recently agreed to let Nvidia sell these pretty high-powered AI chips to the Chinese.

Very weird.

He's been soft on Taiwan.

The tariffs have been all over the place.

And then Trump made this announcement the other day where he's said we would allow 600,000 Chinese students into the United States to study.

And it's actually inflamed the right wing.

And it's just hard to understand.

So Ben and I are going to, Rhodes and I are going to dig into this deeper on Pod Safe of the World next week.

But I do think...

like given the stakes involved, it's odd that there's not more conversation about it.

Can I ask you, what's going on in Venezuela?

Are we going to war with Venezuela?

What What is happening?

Are we attacking them?

They're sending a bunch of naval ships and assets down to the region for like counter-cartel something.

To interdict boats?

No.

Well, there has been a steady kind of effort to name drug cartels and gangs as terrorist organizations and to officially designate them and to sort of like socialize this idea of going to war with cartels with or without the approval of the countries involved where the cartels are actually working, like Mexico, for example.

And now we're setting naval assets down to the region.

Like that, it feels like they are kind of trying to merge the war on drugs and the war on terror.

And like the in what could go wrong here.

Yeah.

Do you think they have read the book or seen the movie Clear and Present Danger?

Probably not.

Or the movie Sicario De of the Soldado, which we're fit that this is the exact plot of?

I have not seen that.

Dan, I think about the movie Clear and Present Danger all the time.

It's one of movies that are part of a canon of political thrillers where the end result is someone tells the truth publicly to solve the problem.

And if you imagine now a deep stater going before Congress and saying, actually, President Trump did this in a corrupt way, the credits don't roll.

You know, the problem isn't solved.

It's so funny.

We've, thousand episodes, I feel like we've had this conversation.

We did.

In fact, and I remember because the last time I said it's also the plot of Lioness season, special operator is Lioness Season 2, and you guys said, what the hell is that?

And so I left that out.

It was actually the last time we had a mailbag, to be clear.

Oh my gosh.

Wow.

Hey, hey, it's a good enough point to hear it again.

Who is the most controversial guest that you would low-key have on the show?

You can't low-key have a guest.

You can't ironically have a guest.

But yeah, who would we want?

Yeah, no, I didn't.

I know, I know.

I'm just quoting.

I know.

I'm just thinking about it.

Isn't the question, doesn't it come down to it, would you have Trump on the show?

Yeah.

Of course.

For sure, yeah.

Yeah.

JD Vance, sure.

Yeah.

Joe Biden.

He won't come on.

Hunter.

I think Tucker Carlson would be interesting.

Yeah.

I think this gets to.

Did you ask him about his new 9-11 Truther documentary that he's no, I'm unaware of that?

But you would ask him if he was on.

Well, I'll be honest for the listeners, like I reached out to him when he was

talking about his opposition to the U.S.

bombing Iran and asked if he would come on.

He declined, but he was polite about it.

But I think he occupies an interesting space where he's clearly MAGA, has some very extreme views that I find abhorrent, but also doesn't always toe the party line in a way that is interesting and I think makes him powerful in that space.

Well, And then there's

the creeping anti-Semitism that he's more and more flagrantly putting on display.

That's part of it, too.

Yeah, I don't know.

It gets at the bigger question, which we get a lot, depending on what guests is: why are you platforming these people?

And I think one of the points I think we've tried to make to people is if someone already has a huge platform,

they are already platformed.

Right.

And so the goal here is to have a conversation where you can hold them accountable for some stuff.

You can ask hard questions.

You can engage in a conversation on, like, at least you probably tuck across in like an area.

Yeah, my goal with Tucker would have been to talk about why going to war with Iran is a bad idea and why Republicans and Democrats both agree that Donald Trump shouldn't get sucked into this conflict.

Yeah.

If someone is influential, you can't stop the influence.

So

just by not having them on different shows.

Yeah, we've tried that.

Remember Twitter?

Yeah.

Twitter and Trump.

And everyone got upset Bernie Sanders talked to Joe Rogan.

And then it's like, well, that didn't work, did it?

You guys have any controversial guests you'd you'd have on

mine would be Matt Aglesias

I just don't even think about it that way anymore I just think that that's like a not a way to think of like whoever would be interesting to talk to biggest dickus

asks didn't make that up uh serious question i'd really like to hear the crooked people's opinion on i'm a government-side civil defense attorney and i'm being softly recruited to be a civil assistant u.s attorney in a major metropolitan city i'm here so it's fair to say i don't share the politics of the administration here being our Discord.

This is a job I've really always wanted, but the realities of the moment make me want to run away.

Is there any value or realistic need for people like me who care, are ethical, et cetera, in joining the federal government at this time, presuming that eventually we're back in control?

Would I just be setting myself up to be purged and then hit the market with a scarlet letter on me?

I thought this was interesting.

Can I ask a question and then someone else can answer the substance?

Do you think you end up with the Discord name Biggest Dickus because you join to talk about Call of Duty when you're 13 and then your interests evolve over time.

I haven't thought about why.

And all of a sudden, you just have the name biggest Dickus and you don't even realize it.

Do you remember messaging important communications advice to someone named Yum Peter?

Yes, that was our single version on ALL Messenger, the Discord of our times?

Yes, yes.

I thought about this one.

I think

I would not have said go in to the administration in the first term.

I think in this term, you do it.

And I think

you try to be a reasonable voice.

You try to push things in the right direction.

And failing that, at least be there to document what's going on and to hopefully tell people.

Like, I kind of think that's the situation we're in right now.

Go in and take copious notes.

Yeah.

I mean, I do.

And that specific role.

Yeah.

Like that specific role, right, would be you'd have a pretty, there's like a, there's a pretty big kind of like.

yes or no question around whether or not you should be there when you're sort of handed a case.

And you're like, oh, this is about trumped up charges against Kilmar Brego Garcia.

I'm out.

But until then, being inside and being a good person inside, like, it's not about whether you take the job or not.

Someone will be in the job.

Should it be you or should it be somebody else?

Right.

And by the way, the people who quit because they didn't want to bring the case against Obrego Garcia in Tennessee, that was a signal to everyone else and to future judges and future courtrooms that, like, yeah, this is a fucked up case.

Yeah, I just, I guess I don't know how much discretion you have in these jobs, really.

I defaulted to where you were.

Like, I think take the job, see if you can improve it from within.

The person who's going to take it, if you don't, will probably be worse.

But yeah, at some point, you're going to get asked to prosecute the dude through a hoagie, and, you know, then it's nut cut in time, and you walk out.

Yeah, I don't think you stay there forever, right?

I mean, I'm thinking about all the CDC folks that just got pushed out, right?

And they were like, look, didn't agree with them, wanted to try to make it work, tried my hardest to like, you know,

do the Maha agenda with as much integrity as we could have and to make it as best as possible.

And it just didn't work, you know.

Can I just read for everyone a quick Maha headline?

Yes, please.

I just want everyone to know how healthy we are making this nation.

I'm vamping because this Twitter is slowly, slowly loading.

New York Times headline, pediatric brain cancer group to lose federal funding.

A network dedicated to early phase trials of treatments for children with brain cancer will be phased out.

Thank you very much to RFK Jr., the HHS team, and everyone at the Maha world making us healthier by, you know.

throwing kids out of a trial for pediatric brain tumors.

I'll give you another Maha headline from today, also from the New York Times.

The Dr.

Osrun Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services today is launching a pilot program where they will now require prior authorization for medical procedures.

And because normally in Medicare, you do not need that.

They just grant it.

And they've hired AI companies who are going to use AI to decide which are needed and which aren't.

AI death panels.

And

robot death panels.

That's what we're doing.

And the AI companies make money based on the savings they get in Medicare, so they're financially incentivized

to deny care to seniors on Medicare.

Pilot program in six states.

I hope it's palantir.

A couple of them are swing states.

I noticed Arizona's on that on that on that list.

How do we not make a thing out of AI death panels?

I feel like this is a good idea.

I know, I know.

What are we doing, Democrats?

The AI death panels are a distraction.

I mean, what?

From the pediatric credit source.

From what?

The MCPOS today.

From what?

The tariffs.

All right.

Friendly cabbager merchant.

What does Crooked see as the next steps for a strong progressive media ecosystem?

A convention or policy event similar to what MAGA has, media partnerships consolidation.

Question mark, boy, do we have an event for you guys?

It's called CrookedCon.

It's called Crooked Con.

I hope CrookedCon is much like TPUSA, where there's alleged fingering in the lobby, there's fist fights between MAGA influencers.

I'm sorry.

I've just heard this is the first time I'm hearing of supposed fingering.

Oh, my God.

Dude, you got to read about Will Summer.

Oh, you might have been on vacation when this came out.

Will Summer at the Bulwark did a long report on a huge Twitter fight between some MAGA influencer types that revolved around an alleged insensitive

alleged, that's right.

At the TPUSA.

Oh, yeah.

Very much so.

Just in a public space.

Consensual, but like, you know, people might have been married and there's all these allegations.

Like, oh, apparently a lot of shit goes down at TPUSA of a sexual nature.

Yeah, so Crooked Con is going to be like that.

Crooked Con.

CrookedCon.com.

Get your tickets.

Meet the Love of Your Life.

See you in the lobby.

Meet the Love of Your Life or Meet the Love of Your Weekend.

Huh?

CookCon.com.

Did you guys read that directly for the marketing team's pitch?

I think that works.

That's pretty good.

Anyone else want to pitch Crooked Con?

I mean, I think that was the best pitch for it, but

we're going to have a good time.

Less pointing fingers among Democrats.

Finger pointing.

Less finger pointing.

More.

The circular firing squad is something else entirely.

I'm triggered.

Oh, boy.

Oh, boy.

Come out.

What was that, Tommy, about?

I'm sorry.

Oh, sorry.

Get back to your butter churning.

This is my bad.

This is so bad.

I understand.

You have a new sourdough loaf you're starting.

You got a new starter.

Oh, boy.

Well, I guess he techly did not use profanity there.

That's right.

That's true.

That did not.

That is true.

We're excited about CrookingCon.

It's filling up fast.

Yeah.

We're going to Pods Ave America the Night Before on November.

Jesus.

We're going to Pods of America the Night Before, November 6th, live show.

We haven't done a live show in a while.

I know.

That'd be great.

And then on Friday the 7th, we're just going to

have all these panels.

They're not robot death panels.

They're just, we're going to have people, really smart, great people.

Could do it.

Some of the brightest minds in the party.

Some of the brightest minds in the party.

Any politicians?

Yeah.

Some overlap in that Venn diagram.

Hopefully more as you go along.

We're going to have some good conversations.

And, you know, we hope to see you all there.

CricketCon.com.

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Do any of you guys play fantasy football?

Are you excited for football in general this year?

Are the Pats back?

You want to start with the Pats, Tommy?

I don't know if we're back, but we're better.

I mean, Drake May looked good.

Mike Vrabel's good.

Josh McDaniels is back.

Pick it up, Stefan Diggs.

Trick Dan Henderson.

Yeah, we get some good players.

So I play fantasy football.

This is, I am a, I play a lot of fantasy football.

It's something that's really a hack.

You're in multiple leagues?

I'm in multiple leagues.

That's what I'm going to track up, Dan.

Well, I'm in two main leagues.

I have a dynasty league on top of that.

Okay.

And now I now play best ball fantasy football.

What's that?

Basically, you draft your team at the beginning of the year.

You play in like large field tournaments.

And then you don't have to do anything.

It just takes the best scores.

You have to manage it.

That is so much to keep track of.

Well, the best ball thing, once you do it, it's done.

I wasn't too much.

But I think

I could barely fucking pay attention.

I think more people in politics should do fantasy football or I'm not going to urge people to do gambling, but I do think there is like a real lesson in understanding that it's like applicable to political strategy that is like understanding value and understanding ceiling versus floor outcomes.

Because like, that's what you're always trying to pick.

You're trying to find someone who has the best possible outcome and you're willing to take on additional risk to do that.

And the Democratic Party lives in a world of high floor, low ceiling, and all of our decision making.

And so, but yeah, I am a fantasy football lunatic.

I really picked it up during the pandemic and haven't let it go.

You know, I moved out here in 2014, and that was like the last year I paid attention to sports in any way, because my head started getting like so into politics.

And every year I'm always like, I think I want to get like, because baseball is really, there's just like so many fucking baseball games.

But football is like really fun every Sunday to watch football.

And every year I'm like, I'll either do fantasy football or something that like makes me pay attention to football.

Now that I have fucking two kids, it's like, I don't know how I'm going to go.

Well, so I was a Washington Commanders fan, so which you couldn't even use the name of my team for like a decade in public discourse.

So it's like very hard to follow them.

We're going to be heading back to it, though.

According to Trump.

Yeah, it could be.

So fantasy was like the way in which I stayed very involved in football.

And I also living on the West Coast, football is great because

it's over 8:30.

It starts at 10 a.m., which is awesome.

And then if you have small children on the London game, when it starts at 6 a.m.,

is like a real gift.

Bet the Lunder.

You know, this conversation made me think of something that pissed me off about J.D.

Vance.

I remember what it was.

So J.D.

Vance did an interview yesterday with this guy on Fox named Will Kane, who's basically a set of veneers who was given a show.

And they were talking about like, they were talking about Ohio State versus Texas, I think.

And clearly, he had been prepped that this was going to come, right?

Because Will Kane's like, I got my orange tie, and you're a Buckeyes guy, JD.

And JD's like, I'm told that the Buckeyes are an 11-point dog.

And Will Kane, who came from sports media, was like, no, that's like not even close to the line.

He couldn't even pretend to be nice to him.

Like, it was funny because it was a rare moment when Will Kane was like, what are you talking about?

If you understand anything about gambling lines or football, it would be fucking absurd for the defending national

dog at home.

Like, it's impossible.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

So, like, again, total phony was be clowned on Fox News.

By a clown, literally.

It's the first beclowning ever done by an often be clowned person, Wilcane.

Yes.

To our earlier conversation,

immediately blamed someone, nameless that.

She's like, I don't know, someone sent me a link with the line.

Someone sent me that line.

Did they?

Did they?

I think you got a prep document.

Glad that you're getting good information all the time.

You want to talk about the Pats at all?

Did we talk about the Patsy?

Sorry, quick.

I think it's done.

Which part?

This part of the show.

It's the longest you've ever been silent on podcasts.

Monica Not Monica asks, Labor Day special, since it's Labor Day, you are attending a holiday cookout and must choose between a paper plate with two hot dogs, a scoop of potato salad, and a wedge of watermelon, or a paper plate with a cheeseburger, bean salad, and two chocolate chip cookies.

There is a condiment table with standard toppings, but between you and it is someone who wants to critique your recent Twitter posts, so you may have to do without.

You have arrived late, and the only remaining beverage to pair with your food is LaCroix limoncello.

Which plate are you taking?

Why is this hurting my head?

Why is the

paper versus normal plate?

Why is that so highlighted?

Because I'm sure this person thinks you don't eat a straw with your coffee.

So I think it's for me.

Oh, I missed the paper plate part.

Here's what I do.

I take the cheeseburger in one hand i take the two cookies i just throw the bean salad out on mobile and the limit cello yeah i don't want the limoncello that's the whole thrust of the question they want they're trying to figure out whether you like you want a hot dog hamburger cheese bean salad whatever and whether you're willing to go whether you love condiments so much that you engage in an awkward conversation about your twitter feed to get them yeah i just took it as like which plate you can't have any condiments which plate do you pick

To me, it's easy.

I just pick the hot dogs.

Yeah, I would pick the hot dogs.

Bean salad is not that great.

And I like watermelon, and bean salad is not that great.

What is it?

It's like there's some mayonnaise in beans.

Let me tell you.

That's

and I like potato salad and I like hot dogs.

Yeah, that's great.

That's me.

I don't know.

Anyone else got it?

And I think if somebody criticizes,

I think the best thing to do, if somebody talks to you about something you don't feel like talking to, I'd probably just agree with them more than they ever expected.

It was a stupid post.

Right here, I'm out.

You're right.

I totally hear you.

I totally hear you.

It was stupider than even your saying.

Man, do I regret that?

Moving on.

Have never gotten in a fight with someone in person over my tweets.

Yeah, this is not likely to happen.

I know that could surprise a lot of you.

Handy Pants.

You guys have been doing the podcast.

Handy Pants sent this in directly from TP USA conference.

Confirmed that you could come.

Handy Pants.

You guys have been doing the podcast for a good while now.

Thousand episodes.

Looking back at those first few years, how have each of you changed as podcast hosts?

Who would like to begin?

See, there's, see, there's a lot of growth.

I changed this show.

That's what happened here.

You know, I don't know.

Like, it's like,

I think, like, we, over the years, I mean, part of it is like, did we change?

Did the environment change?

But, like, I do think one thing, like, it got worse, I think, during the pandemic.

Like,

we, we, we said from the beginning, you know, we want to, we had like a slogan, right?

We want to entertain, inform, we want to inspire action.

And, like, informing people and talking about what people do to do to get involved, like that's a little bit more objective than what's subjective, which is just being entertaining.

And I think there were times where we got so concerned about the mission that we didn't focus enough on like what we were really in, which is this crazy attention war.

And I think sometimes we felt like, oh, people would message us, like, you guys got to talk about climate change.

It's so important.

And so then we would try to force it in or try to prove we were doing what we were meant to do as like good members of the resistance, which led to, I think, a worse product.

And I think we've gotten more comfortable just feeling like it's very important that people coming, come back because it's like a fun conversation.

And that's not like a nice thing.

It's like a necessary thing.

I think that's one thing we've done differently over the years.

It's taken me a while and I've not gotten there yet, but I think more about

what do I want to say about this and not, and less about how is it going to land necessarily, because I think if you're constantly like, oh, this take will get me in trouble or someone's going to be mad about this and whatever else, Then it just makes you, it makes the conversation tighter and also just harder to have.

And you just start feeling like, if I have a platform to say this stuff, I might as well say what I,

not to not be thoughtful about what you believe, but like I just try to say what I believe, you know?

Like, I love doing this podcast.

I'm very grateful you guys are starting this company so I can do this podcast.

Like, I love talking about politics.

I love talking about the smart, entertaining people who are my friends.

I would say that for a very long time, I like had a real identity crisis about being a podcaster.

It's just, it's like, in my life, like, I always was like a political operative.

Like that's what I was from the second I left college and it's what I always was.

And then all of a sudden I was a podcaster.

And I will say that when I left the White House, Barack Obama, as he would do, had some life advice from me.

And I told him that I was like negotiating with CNN about doing like a cable deal.

And it's like, Axe was doing that.

Jay Kearney had just finished one.

Like a bunch of his people were doing it.

He's like, and he was like, that's a good thing to do right away.

Like keep your profile.

It's like, but I, I just don't want to look up in 10 years and still see you on cable TV all the time.

Like that's not what you want.

And so like that.

haunted me.

Boy, don't worry about that.

That whole autonomy is going to fall apart.

And so, that has always haunted me about

like we're media people.

And it's, but it's this conflict between.

And then he went and

sang a podcast.

Yeah, he went to podcast.

Anyway, check him out with Bruce Dacey.

That's right.

Yeah.

Boy, I can't turn off Netflix without hearing his voice talking about some migrating manatees.

But these manatees make the cars right here in America.

But like there was this moment, like it took a while, and it really has been probably since in the last couple of years, but just like, this is politics now.

Politics and media are the same, and it's information warfare.

And even though I would like say those things and write those things, it took a while to like adjust in my head that like the way I will contribute to politics going forward is not like being on conference calls, like going through pulling data for candidates like you used to do, or like working on messaging or pitching reports or other thing.

It's being, it's like having a platform and using it and thinking about ways in which you can grow the platform and other people can grow the platforms and stuff like that it's understanding that media is politics now yeah yeah you want to clear a room tell people you're in podcasting you know what i mean can i tell you the hardest thing about just like going about life is when you're like at

the playground with your kids and or you're at a birthday party with your kids and they're like so what do you do yeah i know it's hard i never engage on that

well in a in an uber on the way home from from a trip recently, I told the guy I was a consultant.

And usually that just like ends the whole thing.

And he's like, what are you a consultant in?

And I was like, PR.

He's like, you mean like marketing?

And then he, I then had an hour conversation where I just had to pretend I was in marketing because his wife was in marketing.

Do you know how many Uber drivers I've just started podcasting?

And then by the end of the Uber, they're like, oh, positive American.

I can't do that.

I would not be in sales.

The reaction to this had changed a lot over time.

Like in 2017, when I was like, Hannah, can we please move from San Francisco to Los Angeles so that I can do a podcasting company with my friends?

It was like, that was a challenging conversation.

You know, there are people in my life who are like, you have a plan B, right?

There's a lot of that.

It's pretty happy now.

Now it's far more mainstream.

She's

dirty, hairy threat of my wife.

Pretty happy now.

No, no, now it's like a very different thing.

It's like, what, like, it was a much more niche thing.

I think it's more widespread.

I think you're right, Dan, though, that like the kind of media piece of politics is so much more important now.

It's so much more central.

It's like, I think the way I would think about it is like we all spent so much time shaping the words and now the clear challenge is getting the words to the people and like being a part of the last mile is like interesting and fun yeah schumer fans 69

if in the near future someone can go to chat gpt and ask it for a political podcast to catch up on the day's news are you worried you will be replaced

kind of i mean There'll probably be an older, like some generation that wants real people to do their news, but then there's going to be folks who just could care less is what I think.

I've been working on a, on the side, an AI podcasting company.

Oh, you're going to have to get ahead of this, yes.

Are they going to let you be part of AI, Dan?

Well,

I'm starting out in charge.

How that ends, I don't know.

Yeah, it's called Great Point, Dan.

I'm like, I go back and forth about, I feel like AI,

we get bogged down because it's like an abstraction, right?

Like it's a, it's a tool that can do a lot of different things.

And so like, was the hammer good for, like, it's like, it's a very, it's, it's a very broad question.

And I feel like sometimes it's like, do I think like technology that can imitate real people

to confuse people into thinking they're real is good?

I don't.

Am I as worried about that as I am all these other implications?

No.

Because on some level, like, it would just be doing an impression of the things that already existed, right?

And people ultimately are seeking something out that feels new.

So it's like, am I worried about something that's kind of a mirror of what people have already done?

Like not as much, but maybe not as much as I should be.

I don't know.

I'm worried about AI a lot, as anyone who listens to offline knows, but on this point, I do think there's a limit to AI is limited by its inability to be creative.

And for now, I even, but like, if AI is always going to be scraping the internet or the entire world for information, and that's what's like,

there's just something, and I notice it when you, just to try it out, like when you ask it to write or you ask it to do stuff like that, it's just not,

I know it's going to get a lot better.

I can imagine it being extremely proficient and accurate and all these kind of things, but there's just an added, like the humor, I think, is not as good as it could be, as sharp as it could be.

It's just, it's, I don't know if it'll ever completely replace human creativity.

In terms of just like being a newsreader, yeah, no, I think that's a.

Yeah, it's like, it's hard to, it's like hard to wrap your mind around because it's like the technology is improving.

And it's like, okay.

What can it improve?

Like, what does it look like when it's maximally improved?

Right,

that's what I'm doing.

And what are the limits that are like endemic to the technology?

And one of the things, one of the like limits of it is it is of the past.

It has to be of the past.

And

we're making new things.

Totally.

That's it.

And that is a protection.

That is something that I think

it traps you in the moment I did its scraping.

And that can never change.

Right.

No matter how good it gets.

Right.

It can't change.

I mean,

we're all trapped in the past, and we have the capacity to take what's in the past and use it to project new things forward.

That's sort of what I am, too.

It's like, I think that's what creativity is.

It's like kind of taking information that that already exists in your brain and like connecting different strands that might thematically, people might not think of otherwise.

Yeah.

I think what it's missing, though, is human, is individual human experience, right?

Like it can't ever

be.

It's essentially, unless till it reads all the memoirs in the world, it can't be.

Well, but I, but then like, okay, it's also when it does, when like you see a photo or when like someone makes a video or a fake photo, wow, that looks really real.

It only has a function in a universe in a world where people expect most things to be real, right?

What is it doing an impression of, of real things, right?

And in a world where there are fewer of those real things, it starts to have less meaning and have less utility because it has to do the trick.

Like it has to do the function of replacing someone.

Those people need to exist to be replaced.

Right.

Right.

Well, we'll see.

Christy Gnome's injector asks.

Due to a series of shocking coincidences and mishaps, you find yourself trapped in an undersea habitat, stocked with food and water and little else.

The seas are rough, and

it will be between two and three weeks until you are rescued.

Oh, so two and three weeks.

Okay.

You are down there with one other person.

It's either Stephen Miller, Don Jr., or Marjorie Taylor Greene of the three.

Who do you hope it is?

That's an easy one.

Don't got drugs.

It's not Stephen Miller.

Yeah, that's

who it's an easy one for you.

Marjorie Taylor Green?

Yeah.

Jr.

Marge.

Wow.

What a great way to meet your crush.

Yeah, you're doing workouts.

You were going to go Don Jr.

Well, I just want to make a joke about him having a bag, but I think Marjorie Taylor Green is

a more fully formed person, surprisingly.

What's interesting is when I made up

those two were tied for me.

Stephen Miller is like, you push him out of the habitat.

Well, I thought it was more evenly balanced.

I pushed myself out of the habitat.

You did?

Exactly.

Christy Noam's injector.

Yeah, I'm Christy November's injector.

Yeah, Lovett did this question.

And I thought it would be more balanced in part because, yeah, like I...

Yes, but as I say it, no, I think we all like you, I would rather spend the time with Marjorie Taylor Greene because I do think she has a genuine ideology, but so does Stephen Miller, but he's so heinous.

But when you maybe learn something, trying to kind of understand him, like after the

time.

Keep in mind

on Katie Miller's podcast, JD Vance did say if he could pick one cabinet member to fly

transatlantic with next to on a plane, he would pick Stephen Miller, even though Stephen Miller's not in a cabinet.

That's how much he likes Stephen Miller.

He said that to Stephen Miller's wife.

Yeah, but she gave him an out with the cabinet.

But just a perfect example of why he's the phoniest loser.

That is such a lame answer.

It is not what the question asked.

You're kissing the ass of the person you're naming.

It is like, you suck.

And fairness, probably more powerful than most of the cabinet, though.

Yeah.

I think the answer has to be Marjorie Taylor Green.

I mean, just imagine you could ager on for conspiracy theories.

Marfie,

day seven here.

So wait for the rescue boat.

Tell me about the Jewish Space Laser again.

Or the CrossFit glasses for free.

Yeah.

You think you could get, though, good info out of Don Jr.

that could be useful about his dad.

Yeah, that's the only thing that changes.

That's interesting.

That's interesting.

He probably has good stories.

Well, I think as many intelligence agents have figured out over the years,

a little bit of flattery, a couple of drinks, he eventually softens.

That's true.

Okay.

This is Lovitt's second question.

I'm with that little girl is me.

Solid combo.

You can open a portal right now.

You will either see yourself 20 years ago or 20 years from now.

Would you rather tell your past self about the future to change our present or learn about the future so that you can shape it from this point forward?

That's a really good one.

I'm definitely going to the future.

I feel pretty good about where my life is now.

Wait.

Right.

You can either go to the past to make your present better or you can go to the future and have not and have knowledge, bring knowledge back to the present.

And you'll go to the future.

I'll go to the future, both because I think you can maybe help shape in the world, but also, just like in Back to the Future 2, I would get the lottery numbers and the Super Bowl winners.

And Austin has a thumbs up to that.

You fly back and go back in time.

You either say, buy Bitcoin or you go and get it.

Oh, that's a good point.

I did not think about that.

Run from the machines.

Yeah.

Tell the machines you really like them starting in 2022.

What if you go to the future, though, and it's just like an apocalyptic wasteland?

That'd be bad.

And you don't know how or why.

Well, you know what?

You've really caused me to question my initial answer here.

But what's interesting about this, what I like about this is this is going in the direction I thought because I did think everyone's initial response would be, well, I love the, I love my life.

Yes, Trump is bad and things are bad, but this is the life that I have and where I led.

I'd love to change my future.

My initial response was go to the past.

But the thing is, what are you doing?

I'm dissatisfied about your present.

No, no, no.

It's funny because this is how hard broken my brain is.

I didn't even think about my personal life.

I just thought about the politics and the world.

And I was like, we go back and we

don't give those jokes.

Good to see you, Mr.

Trump.

You're going to have a proud future in Politics.

And tonight I'm naming Donald Trump to Mike Havana.

So, hey, you know what you need to do?

Run the Kennedy Center starting today.

Oh, that would have been so good.

Hey, but it's interesting, right?

Because then you're saying, okay, I would like to have information about the future to change it.

But you didn't have that about a present you currently have that you wouldn't change.

And if you went back and gave yourself in the past information, it would not only give you power now, it would give you power 20 years from now.

So it's that to me is what's interesting about it.

It's interesting.

Cool.

Yeah, buy Bitcoin.

Smart.

You going past future?

No, I'm a real butterfly effect person, and I feel like anything I changed in the past might impact today.

And then, like, what if my kid is...

You already go to make out with your mom?

Like, what?

Why?

What's exactly what he fucking?

We knew what he meant.

Oh,

got it.

Dan's porno too.

I was just saying, by the way, that Hannah enjoys the lifestyle now because you're a very successful media company.

That's literally all I was saying.

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You're about to hear a special preview of our subscription show, Inside 2025.

If you're not already a member, we really hope you'll consider signing up.

Dan, Elijah only wants you to do these pitches, which I know is a signal to the three of us that we don't do them as well.

And he's right.

And you do do them better.

It's important that I take it.

It makes me want to try harder, but especially now that we're literally substack competitors, I think it's good for me to do this.

Yeah, soon as you go by Democrats fail, right?

Because it's not because of the words he's going to use.

He's a trusted messenger.

We haven't built enough credibility.

So it's not like we have the magic.

We said what Dan said, it wouldn't work.

So the usual pitch is you would get ad-free episodes and you get to hang on the Discord, which are all great things.

People like that.

But I think the reason to be a subscriber is the mission of this company, the company you guys started 1,000 episodes ago, was to build a- Give or take a few.

Just go with the bit.

The company you guys built a thousand episodes ago, give or take a few, was to build a counterweight to the right-wing media ecosystem.

And when that started, the idea was Fox News.

And now it is much bigger and more dangerous than Fox News.

And that need for a counterweight is even greater than it ever was before.

You can argue that we almost lost the 2020 election.

We lost the 2024 election because Democrats lost the ability to communicate with large swaths of the American people.

The way to fix that is not to double down on the old broken media system.

It is to build an alternative, to build an alternative, independent media system.

So your $10 a month, I think it is,

it goes to help do that.

It helps the company

develop new initiatives, develop new shows, get bigger, reach new audiences, find more talent.

And so it is an investment, just like your contribution to a political campaign or a PAC, this is an investment in a better, more progressive democratic future.

Can we put some fucking patriotic music in there?

That's why Dan does the pitches, guys.

That's beautiful.

And

we're now on Substack alongside YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Supercast, and all the info you need to be part of all this is at crooked.com slash friends.

Here's Inside 2025.

All right, let's do a gimmick as Bill Simmons calls it.

I'm revealing myself as a Bill Simmons listener.

I mean, Bill Simmons, obviously legendary podcaster and in many ways responsible for the creation of this podcast, but I don't think he invented the word gimmick.

I don't know, man.

I was just like, what do I call this?

Well, Simmons calls it a gimmick, so I'm just going to call it that.

Okay.

Before this recording, I gave you guys a prompt.

Here's the prompt: You're a political consultant, and you can magically make the campaign that you're working on have a robust presence in any of the platforms listed here: TikTok, Facebook/slash Meta/slash Twitter slash Substack, TV News, podcast slash YouTube, and then digital and linear paid advertising.

Rank those in the order you prefer your campaign to have a robust presence on, and then let's see how much you guys align.

Dan, what's the most important for you?

Before Dan goes, can I just ask why you grouped, I know Facebook and Meta, obviously, but why you grouped Facebook, Meta, Twitter, and Substack all together?

I don't know, man.

I was looking back on this and I was like, why did I do that?

Okay, I know.

Can I read you your game, just real fast?

Can we read it?

Yeah, my thought was TikTok is just its own beast, but it should be.

TikTok is one.

YouTube is another.

Instagram is a third.

Facebook is a fourth.

Substack is a fifth.

Linear advertising is a sixth.

Those are your sixths.

Well, now I don't know.

Now I don't know.

Did I say that?

Podcast and YouTube.

Did I say

YouTube be together?

Yeah, podcasting should be together.

I think that's true.

That is because, John, as you know, most podcasts are watched on YouTube.

That's right.

That's right.

Wait, so what are we taking out now?

Facebook, meta, Twitter, Substack.

Which ones are we removing?

Let's just, I guess you could put Twitter in there, but just make them individual.

Okay.

All right.

Cool.

Like, substack is one.

So, Facebook, Instagram is one, basically.

Sure.

No one, no one, no one would ever pick Facebook in 2025.

It's ridiculous.

And Twitter and substack.

What's the other option?

Parchment paper?

Like, what are we doing?

Dan, what's your number one?

We'll work through it.

We'll talk about how combined these things are.

It will be messy, but what's your number one pick here?

YouTube.

And I think there's no other.

You can't pick another option.

It's not even close.

John, do you align with that?

Yes.

Yes, I do.

Can I guess it's because YouTube feeds all the other ones?

You get clips on, you do something on YouTube, and then you get clips on all the other ones, including cable news.

That's where most people are.

That's where most people in this country are watching,

getting their content right now.

YouTube is TV.

That's the thing that people don't recognize is that.

More people, most, many people are now watching their YouTube, not on their phone, not on their tab, not on their laptop, but on their actual television.

In 2024, 1 billion hours of YouTube were consumed on TVs globally, and that number is going up.

It's particularly going up among Gen Z.

Yep.

Okay, so then what's your number two?

If it's the same thing, I'm going to be upset.

I hope you guys have some deviations.

No, because there are clear answers here.

It's TikTok and you shouldn't pick anything else.

John?

Get ready.

Oh, please say Facebook.

Well, first of all, there is a fuckload of people still on Facebook, just not any people under 40.

And under 60.

Yeah, right.

I was going to say, this is different now that we, this is all fucked up now that we have changed the categories, but I was going to say Twitter sub stack, because I do think if you are running a campaign, there's still

an influence, an influential set of people in politics and media that you're going to have to reach and you're going to have to talk to.

And it's not, I have to sit down with the New York Times or the Washington Post editorial board or anything like that.

But I think you you kind of need, if you're going to have a campaign presence, you're going to have to need to have some presence in the

world of journalists, influencers, sort of the traditional establishment gatekeepers.

And that's one of the reasons why we're going on Substack, because unlike a lot of other places where people get podcasts and content these days, Substack actually has a very robust, very successful discovery algorithm.

I have benefited from this over the last, as I spent the last five years building a newsletter on Substack, and it is incredibly helpful.

It has helped me find other newsletters that I'm very interested in.

It has grown my newsletter.

And one of the reasons to be on Substack is to help us reach new people who might be interested in our content.

And their algorithm helps us do that.

Where did you have TikTok ranked, John?

Three.

Next one.

Okay.

And then, Dan, what was your three?

Instagram.

Interesting.

Okay.

Why Instagram?

See, I'm going to build a bottom-up campaign where I'm going to reach voters first.

And

then the elites that John is fighting with on Twitter will then see the success of my campaign and then start writing about it.

Where will they see it?

In Iowa or Michigan or wherever the state is when I'll probably be coming out.

Yeah.

Or when I'm sending out.

Yeah.

I mean, we're not going to not be on Twitter.

I would just rather have a robust TikTok presence to reach voters first than then we can tweet out our massive TikTok TikTok following numbers.

And you think that is it just because Instagram has a bigger user base than TikTok that you would rank Instagram?

Oh, no, you because you put TikTok before Instagram.

Yes, yes.

And I would pick TikTok over Instagram.

Now, why did you do that if Instagram has a bigger,

like bigger,

because

one, TikTok sets culture in a way that Instagram does not, right?

As someone who has mostly abandoned TikTok for at, and Instagram Reels for my short-term memory.

But

the one thing you know is that what it like, whatever is cool on TikTok shows up on Instagram like three weeks later.

It's just more culturally relevant, reaches more young people.

Dry is it's a cultural driver of what's happening in the way Instagram is less so.

Dan, what I'm hearing from you is you are an admirer of Zoran Mandani's campaign.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That's actually the one like that is

like when you talk about like how you build your campaign and then you get the elites last, that is an example of how that works.

AOC is another example of how that works.

Bernie frankly in 2016 is another example of how that works in a very different media environment.

All right.

So Dan, what'd you have number four?

What's left on the

sub-sec twitter is one combined right

sub sex twitter probably john did i do inst i would do did i do instagram did i uh no you haven't done instagram you've not done instagram instagram instagram well no facebook instead tiktok i did tick tock yeah tick tock tick tock was his three yeah three

now and then facebook instagram is four yep so you guys both have tv news and digital slash linear advertising paid advertising as your five and six here uh yeah my my six is tv news

I mean, like, I wouldn't even, I'd cross off the list.

No,

I would pick a robust early state billboard presence over dominance of TV news.

I would love to have some like people who are working in democratic politics right now do this because I, how much you wonder about the digital and linear paid would be further up the list than where we are.

Depends.

Are they

depends on what part of the industry they work?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't think it's like making money.

Some of the people who work in politics genuinely believe that like digital and linear paid are sort of underestimated by, you know, the pundit class and everyone else who doesn't work in democratic politics.

I fundamentally disagree with that.

Me too.

Me too.

And just, I think the way that, here's what I'm thinking about is if you are 40 years old, your entire life has been about skipping ads, right?

Skipping them on your DVR, just ignoring the digital ads that pop up at you on Facebook when you were a kid, just skipping right past them on Instagram stories or TikTok.

And you just are culturally attuned to believe, to not believe a advertisement paid for by the people who want you to vote for the person or buy the product.

And that is like, and it's also almost impossible to reach people under 40 with paid television ads because they are other than like major sporting events and award shows, they, you can't run political ads on TikTok.

You can't run political ads on Netflix, the two biggest platforms people spend their most time.

Or also on YouTube.

People are constantly skipping that ad at the beginning of it.

And so you have everyone under 40

either doesn't get or doesn't believe in ads.

And next election has to be 45.

Election after that has to be everyone under 50.

It's everyone.

It's just, you're just reaching a, you cannot reach young people with linear television ads.

It is, you cannot find a less efficient way to spend money right now.

That's our show for today.

If you like what you just heard, please consider subscribing on the platform that makes the most sense for you, cricket.com slash friends to learn more.

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend.

Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday.

Bye, everyone.

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts.

Also, please consider leaving us a review.

That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricut.

Pod Save America is a cricket media production.

Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich Frank, and Saul Rubin.

Our associate producer is Farah Safari.

Austin Fisher is our senior producer.

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