And, This is Pod Save America's Jon Favreau & Tommy Vietor

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This is Gavin Newsom.

And this is Pod Save America's Jon Favreau and Tommy Vitor.

When did you guys become crooked, by the way?

What the hell is that?

We were always crooked.

No, seriously, man.

I mean, was that a tell?

Are you guys trying to tell?

I mean, what were you trying to communicate?

We named it in 2017 when we started.

Yeah.

And more people knew Podzave America than crooked at first, but we thought crooked media, like it was, it was 2017, so it was the height of Trump just won, resistance, he's calling everyone the crooked media and all that kind of stuff.

We were taking it back.

So it was tongue-in-cheek.

You were taking it back.

You weren't just admitting to something.

No.

No.

No.

But then it stuck, and now we don't know what it's doing.

Now it's just here.

And so, I mean, but the point is, the point, I mean,

this thing has evolved from 2017 in ways that you can act in hindsight.

Like, of course, we always knew this was our trajectory, our vision, our dream.

But did you have any, no bullshit, did you have any idea that this thing would be where it is today and you guys would be so multifaceted, not just with one podcast, multiple podcasts and books and tours, everything else?

No, absolutely not.

Absolute luck in timing.

Me and John,

Favreau and Love It, we sat in John's kitchen and we bought like a website on medium.com.

We tried a bunch of URLs.

I love it.

We couldn't get like crookedmedia.com.

We couldn't get crooked.com for a long time.

We like got a negotiation with the porn king of Arizona.

Yeah, there's some guy that

sold porn sites in Arizona that was going to sell it to you for

crooked media.

And he

wouldn't sell.

He just wouldn't sell it.

He just wouldn't sell.

He was passionate about projects.

So we had to go crooked.com for our website.

Yeah, or like get crooked media.

Anyway, we rolled out like

a medium website in one show and called it a company and just like fake it till you make it for a while we also had no money and we i remember we went to the bank of america and west hollywood the three of us and we're like we'd like to open up a bank account and they're like uh okay well you need to put some money in it and we're like oh

so we sat there when we like wrote a 25 check or something

like that was that woman's name wasn't it like olga or helping yeah she helped us and that was that's how we started no investor money no nothing i think john turned to us he's like i always sort of thought I'd open a joint account for the first time with my wife.

Yeah, that is true.

Yeah, it was the first time.

So was it, were you guys drunk one night and you said, we got some crazy idea or we're just looking for a job, help wanted?

What was it?

So Tommy and Lovett and I, like after the White House, had talked about how there's not enough progressive media, right?

And so we'd have, the three of us had been having that conversation.

Then during the 2016 race,

Bill Simmons reached out to me because we'd known each other.

We both went to Holy Cross.

And he said, so I have this new site called The Ringer and I want to do something about the 2016 election because we mostly do sports and culture and stuff, but would you be interested in doing like a podcast with us for 2016?

And he knew Dan Pfeiffer too.

And he was like, maybe you and Dan can do this podcast.

So we started doing it, became popular.

And then he's like, I could do two.

two times a week.

And then Lovett and Tommy were around and we said, let's do it.

And so then we started doing it at The Ringer.

And then when Trump won,

we told Bill, like, look, I think we want to build something even bigger than just Pod Save America.

And old the time it was called Keeping at 1600.

We want to do something even bigger.

And it's weird to build a progressive media company under the umbrella of the Ringer.

So we're going to go on our own.

And that's what we did.

Wow.

And did you, I mean, you guys are still doing early on side gigs and sort of hedging your bet.

I lived in San Francisco.

I was commuting down, crashing in his guest bedroom the whole time.

We had a company together.

We had a consulting firm.

Consulting.

Full-fledged consulting firmware.

And strategies.

We did speech writing.

Speech writing.

So there was speech writing, of course, which is a good gig.

Yeah.

But people in my life, when, you know, look,

going to your wife and saying, honey, I want to move to Los Angeles to start a podcast with my friends

in my late 30s.

That's a tough situation.

That's a tough situation.

She wasn't totally surprised, though.

Not surprised, not sold.

Wonderful person, supportive partner, lover.

Good.

She came along for the rest.

That will be a good clip.

We'll get that out.

Thank you.

I think we may lead with that.

Thank you.

It's nice.

But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, people I love desperately were like, cool, but you got like a fallback, right?

We do.

That was it, but

you were all in.

You just knew it was going to.

Yeah, once we started Crooked, we realized that we had to move off of Fenway.

And also, I think we both had gotten, you know, we'd done it for three or four years.

I think we'd gotten sick of writing speeches for

we had some really great clients.

You also like end up working with a bunch of people.

Well, you do a company,

corporate stuff too.

Yeah, the whole thing is.

And that stuff is

CEOs.

It is hard after you've been in politics to get really excited and exercised over some CEO who like needs a speech in four weeks and it's like, it's urgent.

And we're like, it's not that urgent.

It's all you urge it fine.

State of the Union's it's urgent exactly i also had this sort of weird i don't know where it came from ingrained belief that like i needed to be an adult now and graduate from politics the things i did with my friend and get a real job right i don't know why i thought that and then throughout 2015 i'd wake up at 5 a.m and like just scroll twitter for an hour and a half or two before doing my job but i was just i was obsessed with politics i could not quit it it's interesting which by the way is twitter the go-to in terms of just trying to i mean and it continues to be, right?

I mean, objectively?

Excellent.

I've tried to put it.

Blue sky.

I have not.

And

it's just not.

I get why people go there.

I just think

it's not fast enough.

It's not updated enough with the news.

There's not enough people there.

So where else, I mean, it's interesting, just as you guys prepare for your podcast and you're just staying on top of everything, and you're, of course, making the news, which is a big part of the, obvious part of your success.

Where else,

what is your media habit?

Are you cable folks or you go home, turn on Rachel Maddow on Monday and wonder when she's coming back Tuesday through Friday?

I mean, honestly, what's...

I never do cable anymore.

I wake up, I read Playbook, I read Axios AM,

and then I immediately go to the company Slack, and people are putting news stories in the Slack.

And then I'm looking on Twitter, and I try to have about an hour of just reading the news and catching up with the morning.

Go to the New York Times, go to the Washington Post, Politico.

And then after I do that, then I try to do other things, but I am constantly scrolling and getting back into the.

Is that the menu for you?

Similar?

Similar stuff, but I'm a sicko like you.

Like, we only have Fox on in our office because we kind of like the conservative perspective.

But then I like to listen to it.

By the way, I just walked in, and it's a newsom swearing like a drunken sailor.

With Sean Rodney.

You're a drunken sailor.

You make a lot of appearances on Fox.

We do now.

For real.

The more you watch it, you become a character, and you're like, oh, I'm a character.

So you're actually, so you're you indulge, you're watching.

Yeah, I listen to like, I try to listen to Tucker, especially around the Iran stuff.

I listen to a lot of Bannon.

I dabble around InfoWars recently.

You're doing InfoWars.

Yeah, I mean...

You just can't quit.

I think it's really even after the bankruptcy.

Like, I, you know, it's it's weird.

It's um, is it the Epstein thing that brought you back to InfoWars?

It was so much fun.

It was Iran.

Like watching sort of hearing their arguments on things I think is really valuable.

And also

like there's people who you see only clips of and you kind of you caricature them or decide that they're stupid or useless.

And then if you see them in their kind of home environment, you realize like, oh, these are dangerous people.

I love that.

And who, I mean, by the way, I could not agree with you more on that in terms of observations.

One of the reasons when I started this podcast, we had those guys on.

We had Bannon on, we had Kirk on, because I don't think people were taking them as seriously as they should be taking them.

But who do you, when you guys look at that universe, particularly from the conservative or even conspiratorial conservative side, who are the folks that would be in that category as folks that are weapons for that grievance, that are folks that we should pay a little bit more attention to?

I mean, do you still count Alex Jones in that space or is it more the Bannon types?

Tucker and Bannon are kind of the most,

they're just really good at what they do.

But like, look, I got...

I think they have the most cohesive ideology, too.

And they're just like...

Tucker Carlson's a very, look, I don't agree with him on almost anything, but he's very talented at what he does.

And he like brings in the, like, I i listened to his entire interview with sean ryan before i listened to you on sean's show because like initially tucker was saying some things about trump and sean was saying some things about trump being corrupt and i was like oh this is damaging to trump this is good but then i got sucked in because sean ryan's like a navy seal who became a cia contractor who became a drug runner for cartels and metin i'm like this guy this is the most interesting guy i've ever heard of you know you go in his studio and if you didn't think that was interesting you just look at all the memorabilia he has and the stories there's a hinge and he explains what that hinge did and what it represented and there's there's machetes and there's all kinds of other things you gotta got that huh and i even got it by the way for the record for the 10 reporters that have already called have you registered it first i haven't received it yet have you reported it as a gift i haven't yet received the invoice yet all of that will be uh that will be taken care of just on the record you didn't leave for like 15 hours or something yeah don't you got one of yours are four hour interviews right four hours did you not can you believe four hours did you pee during this?

We had one quick break.

By the way, I got to say about that guy,

it's a hell of a resume.

There's a decency to him.

Oh, he seemed great.

Meaning, he's like, he talks about his family.

I just, for me, the character is about, I want to talk about your kids, talk about your wife.

Yeah.

A sense of community contribution.

He's a good human being.

I was really, I was, and he created a sort of safe environment where he, you know, I mean, that's where, how else are you going to spend four damn hours going back and forth?

I haven't had a four-hour conversation with my wife, my closest friends, my parents in as long as I can remember, like four hours.

Well, this is only scheduled for three.

So I admit I missed them all.

I don't know Sean Ryan's politics.

I did like come away just feeling like he really wanted to connect with you as a human being and he seemed curious and I really respected that.

There was one very funny moment in the interview where you're doing this like thoughtful answer about masculinity and politics and you sort of do this long thing and Sean goes do you know what the number one most searched porn turned my life

I laughed out loud I texted your staff when I got that and I was like wow didn't realize incest porn was going to come up in our two minutes 230

hey guys legit you listened I mean that was yeah that was way deep in

well he I thought he asked well I don't know how we're going to get into the condom conversation too

you were very funny during the condom one because I could hear I could I could see the wheels turning in your mind because he was like, did you have anything to do with the condom lot?

And you're thinking, like, is he for it?

Is he against it?

Like, I can't tell.

Because I do 2,000 bills a year.

I mean, it's been seven years.

I mean, I may have done something.

Like, I feel, should I feel guilty?

Am I proud of it?

And then he was like, no, I think porn is really bad for our kids.

And I was like, oh, you're like, okay, okay, that's right.

He's on that side of it.

Okay.

That's fine.

You.

So, what, you know, look, it goes to what you guys were trying to solve for back in 2017, that the right right at the time, it wasn't even the big podcast, was probably, or was, was a not dominantly right-wing radio, right?

That you were kind of up against and some emerging,

who was sort of the dominant right-wing podcaster in 2017, 18?

Or were there any that would really stand out?

Do you recall?

It's funny.

I don't think it was like a big deal back then.

I'm sure like the...

Ben Shapiro kind of emerged around that Daily Wire time.

Daily Caller, Daily Wire.

I don't know the dates in my head.

Right.

But yeah, I I think those guys did a really smart thing.

The right-wing donors invested earlier and helped them build infrastructure, and they all invested in YouTube early and built shows there and audience there.

There's something about the format, which we stumbled into, like we didn't plan this,

but we had complained to each other and anyone who would listen how cable and like television interviews just...

they force you into sound bites because you only have a five-minute hit.

100%.

And so you just don't get to have those conversations.

And before, like at one point, Lovett and Tommy and I pitched a television show that was going to be like a like Pod Save America on TV before we did the

podcast.

Everyone's like, no.

Well, every time we did it.

We did an HBO thing.

Yeah, that was just our podcast.

But then it was like, when we tried to pitch that show, it wasn't working partly because we're like, the conversations we want to have are longer than like television executives would want to fit into a show.

And once we started doing the podcast, we realized like, oh, you get to have conversations that are more in-depth, nuanced.

People are more likely to be themselves the longer you talk to them.

And you can sort of make the points you want to make without sounding like a fucking talking point machine.

And was YouTube the weapon for you to really scale this?

I mean, was it the visual?

When did it become more of a visual medium than just online, just voice?

There were some like...

inflection points seemingly in podcasting.

I think one of them was 2017 when

there were a lot of like OG podcasters who came long before that time, like Simmons and Mark Maron and lots of folks.

But I think there was

a lot of growth in 17,

which

got us, a lot of people's like first podcast was us.

We built a big RSS feed.

We actually didn't

invest enough into YouTube until pretty recently.

And that was a mistake and it's a deficit we're trying to build out of.

But that just takes reps.

I think we didn't even film until the pandemic.

You weren't even filming.

Because I remember there's a little, we have like a Dan Pfeiffer on the phone and a picture of Dan because Dan's in San Francisco.

And so we used to do that because Dan would just be a little bit more.

It's just the phone.

That was the first time.

And then in the pandemic, we all started doing Zoom.

And then I think after that, we were like, now we got to do a whole studio and we'll do filming.

What do you guys think is the biggest, I mean, if you look back at some of those early podcasts with you guys, what's the biggest change?

perceived or otherwise, intentional or just happenstance, in terms of how you approach interviews versus how you approached them before?

Have you become more or less fill-in-the-blank?

What?

Argumentative, passive?

Good question.

You know what I've been trying to do is

approach interviews thinking, what do I actually want to know from this person?

And not think about it in terms of like, what is the audience going to need and want and be happy about?

And I also think that

I'm trying not to interview politicians like they are interviewed on cable,

which I think I sort of automatically fell into when we first started doing it because

that's the example that you have.

And when you interview them like that, they're more likely to just give you the talking point stuff.

And when you sit down for a while, then

you get more interesting stuff.

You break them down.

You break them down.

And it's not even like, oh, you finally get news out of them that their staff's going to be pissed about.

It's just, you know, like you, just listening to you for four hours on Sean Ryan, it's like I knew I got to learn more about you than I've learned in many other interviews.

And it was just.

And

not to blow smoke, but I don't think there's a lot of Democrats that could just hang like that for four hours.

Like everyone's like, oh, Democrats go on Rogan.

It's like, well, not the wrong Democrat.

You know what I mean?

That's not going to help our case.

But yeah, I think

to your question about.

Rogan came on that podcast, too, from that first question, which is

what I was expecting.

That was

a good question.

Oh, we have an audience question.

The first one, I'm like, whoa, okay.

I got a gun and then I got a gun.

The vaccine question

with Rogan.

Anyway, rocky start.

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No, I do have a bone to pick with you, though, because when you launched four hours, you got more than a bone.

I mean, I got an entire

skeleton.

When you launched this show, I had been trying to, I've been in talks with Steve Bannon because I was trying to book him.

And my strategy with this was trying to get Steve on.

I do think it's interesting.

And I was kind of hoping to drive a wedge between the kind of populist wing and the Elon wing of the party because they were just starting fights.

And then you had him on, and I was just like, well, shit, I can't do that now.

You know, I'm old news.

You're old news?

Steve's got a

derivative of this newsome guy up there.

Steve's got a new crush.

You know, he's a new crush.

You started big with like Bannon and Charlie Kirk, and now you're at us.

I had Dr.

Phil.

Yeah, that was good.

That's good.

That's good.

Even Newt Gingrich, who helped run my recall.

You need filler guests every once in a while.

Yeah, no, filler guests.

So, but

back to that, just, I mean, when you talk about that, it's serious.

I mean, you guys, you've sort of raised the bar, your own expectation, your own excellence I mean how do you I mean is how important are guests to you guys versus just staying current on the news and providing an insight that may not be offered anywhere else because of your own experience I mean how how stressed are you about getting a bannon type or getting whoever's you know I mean getting you know Jeffrey Epstein's you know cousin on who we'd love to talk about who's really in the list booking Epstein would be huge yeah

by the way he I'm told he's alive some say some say

When in doubt, some say.

Yeah, some say.

Some say.

Many people are saying.

Some say.

I would say that we spend the most time on the news portion of the show, which is kind of the first three blocks, because that's when you just,

it just takes a lot of, for me, it takes a lot of preparation to feel prepared and have something to say and to feel

to reduce my own anxiety about doing something.

I just have to work until I feel comfortable.

100%.

The guest,

I think early in the show, we felt the need to go for names or electeds or to check a box in some way.

And now it's a little more freewheeling, like what is interesting to the audience.

And also, you know, I think we were very much a democratic safe space, and we still are, and we're trying to think of ways to like

change it up.

You know, like I had Glenn Greenwald on the other day on my foreign policy show, like not someone that a lot of Democrats love, but has a really interesting perspective on freedom of speech, and we wanted to hear it.

Yeah.

I talked to Ross Douthitt on offline about his book on religion and like the existence of an afterlife

which the I would say our audience was a little like what why what are you doing?

But I was like you know what I read the book I found it interesting.

I want to talk to him.

I also like

we are always going to be democratic strategists because that was our life in the White House.

And so each show I see as like balancing a couple different equities.

One is I want to make it interesting for people.

The other is I want to give people good information and not just bullshit and give them the details that they need.

And then I want to make sure we are persuading people,

either people who aren't persuaded who are listening, or

people who are already persuaded who are listening, but might be talking to their friends and family.

And we sort of want to give them advice on how to convince other people to get involved in politics, to vote for Democrats, right?

And so

that's part of it, too.

And then we also want to be honest so that when

Democrats fuck up or do something that we disagree with, that we can say it and say it respectfully.

Yeah.

When did you guys, I mean, it's you obviously we talked, I mean, it's obvious to anyone who listens to you guys, but it's not just a podcast in a nutritional sense.

You've kind of, to your point, sort of built a movement.

The book itself was about democracy, is about civic engagement.

You lead with action, not just complaints and gripes.

You talk about what people can do to get mobilized, organized.

But one of the things that's really been remarkable to watch is how successful you've been on the road in building out events.

Was that always part of the original theory of the case?

Was that sort of table stakes in 2017 said, yeah, and we'll do this, but we're going to do big events.

We didn't think anyone would show up.

No.

We had this amazing agent named Kevin Shivers, who worked at WME,

now is at, I'll put the name, Casey Wasserman.

Sorry.

now,

we had this amazing agent, Kevin Shivers at WME, now he's with Casey Wasserman, who was like, trust me, let me build this touring thing for you.

I promise you it'll work.

And we're like, okay, buddy.

And the first time we did an event,

there were like folding chairs and we didn't realize that we had to end the event and Lovett had to run off at like hour three to go pee and government.

Jay Angela was on the stage with us

taking questions about light rail.

It was a late late night in Seattle.

There's a lot of showing on the side.

We're definitely talking about the same Jay Angel.

Yeah, yeah.

And like, yeah, we slowly evolved and like kind of figured it out.

But what we noticed over time is that

often the best shows were in red states because it turned into this like little revival.

Get it.

Totally get it.

I was just in South Carolina and did seven, nine events.

And to the same, every time I'm in a red state, it could be Alabama, Mississippi, was out there for Biden, specifically going to the Red States on his behalf, intentionally not going to the blue states.

And everyone, I mean, the state of mind there is just more of gratitude.

Thank you for showing up.

Exactly.

Thank you for not turning your back.

Arkansas was the same way.

And so I'm not surprised to hear that.

It didn't surprise me even with Bernie on the tour saying, well, you're part of red rural parts of California or red parts of the state.

Of course.

Yeah.

I mean, that's, you're going to get that energy.

Well, because there's still, you know, 20, 30% of those red areas are still Democrats.

And those Democrats are starved.

Yeah.

Starved.

But I also think that, I mean, what I've really loved about the touring is just

you spend too much time in a studio with just

your co-hosts and

you do lose,

like, what are people talking about?

What's interesting?

You don't get that just by like looking online and looking on Twitter.

That's a good point.

And just being around people, like, I get energy from that.

And then when we go and do campaign stuff before like midterms and we go do, you know, we knock on doors and do canvassing and just like getting to meet people and talk to them, it does inspire you uh because you're like okay all is not lost there's a lot of good people out there who care about this shit and and you know they just want to know what to do and trump treats it like he treats going to events like he's a a comic on the road yeah he tries out new material he sees what plays he comments back to them about how it's playing in real time and he like he focus groups everything he does in that sense it's interesting you say that because he the whole news he calls me new scum and he goes oh audience loves it audience loves it and it's just it's just like he's i mean he says so it's applause.

So he's like, hey, man, I got to, I got to go, you know, they got to go.

It's my base.

It's my base.

Nothing personal.

It's a way of him saying nothing personally.

I'm like, really?

Okay, Jesus, man.

But, but it's interesting.

Just, I reflect on what you guys are doing, reflect going back to Charlie Kirk and turning point, obviously this weekend, and there was a sort of turning point as it relates to the Epstein stuff.

We've danced around that a little bit.

And watching Megan Kelly, who's like, I think, gone full mega.

She's always danced around, but is now fully in.

And Charlie, and of course, Bannon Bannon and the who's who.

Just

teen off.

But before we get into Epstein, I mean, what do you think of what Kirk is doing and how he's doing it?

And are there cues?

Are there lessons?

Are there concerns?

Should be

cautionary flags for Democrats.

Should we be doing some of similar things, but from the prism of progressive politics?

What's your sort of over-under on what they've put together?

I think it's really smart and strategic.

I thought it was interesting, just

for present day, I thought it was interesting that they allowed so much space for conversation about Epstein because like

Charlie like to a large extent I think kind of

trades his credibility for a seat at the table, right?

Like he will be on Team Trump eventually, but he felt the need to let some air out of that balloon and it was notable and not something the Democrats always do.

I think we sometimes suppress arguments and we should do more of what they did.

It's interesting.

I will say what he's built is super impressive.

It did help that he got a ton of like big donor and fossil fuel money early on because they were kind of worried about libs on campus.

And I think we need to think about long-term infrastructure and party building like that.

I mean one thing that Charlie Kirk also did that was probably smart is he goes to these campuses and finds libs to debate.

Yeah.

And is not afraid to debate.

And I think we are,

there's enough of us now sort of turning the corner on that in the Democratic Party, but for a long time it was, don't go on Fox, there's no use in debating these people.

And I get the reasons for that, but it's also like, if you can't defend your ideas live

in front of another person who you disagree with and who may be crazy extreme, but you disagree with them, they've got an audience, and people are paying attention.

And if you're one of the, you know, the majority of people who don't pay close attention to politics in this country,

then when you hear one person's message, and even if there's filled with lies and all kinds of extreme stuff, and you just hear the other side is just talking to themselves, you're just naturally going to say, well, I don't know,

at least they're showing up, at least they're debating.

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It's interesting to me too, and

we'll circle back circuitously a little bit to Epstein.

But I did when I did that first podcast with Charlie Kirk, first of all, he was gracious enough to come into the studio and do the first one.

And I made a comment that got a lot of blowback, including at home, because my son, quite literally, 11-year-old, was actually heard the night before and woke me up early, say, Are you seriously meeting with Charlie Kirk?

I'm not going to school.

You're taking me with you.

I'm like, I thought it was a joke the night before.

I thought he was just playing with me.

But it's on his, he doesn't have a, we don't have a phone.

He doesn't have any TikTok.

It's just the YouTube that's on his school tablet.

And it was wired in this space.

And here's where I'm going.

A space where I started knowing, you know, he starts talking to me about Jordan Peterson.

He says, hey, dad, I don't know.

Andrew Tate, you know, I think they were misrepresenting.

You know, they're not as bad as you think.

You know, Andrew Tate's coming to California.

He just said something bad about you.

You're going to respond.

You know, and, you know, he's got, I mean, and I'm like, what?

11-year-old?

Yes.

Wow.

How do you know about Andrew Tate?

What's this Jordan Peterson stuff?

And how do you know about Charlie Kirk?

And I started talking to his friends the same thing.

And he started getting it through just, frankly, just game stuff.

He wanted to watch YouTube games.

He started, you know, he's 11.

Now he's, now he's older, but he's 12.

But he's, you know, he's trying to get in shape now.

And so is like body stuff.

And this whole quote unquote, it's overused or misused or even mislabeled, but this manosphere.

This sort of space, which then gets to Epstein, gets to these conspiracies, gets to these darker pizzagate places, and gets to where we are today in our politics.

I mean, you guys,

you've been part of this ecosystem broadly defined, but what do you make of these subcultures and how serious those algorithms are and what that means to our body politic?

I think they're really serious.

I mean, like, there's...

schools and school districts and I think the UK and Australia that developed entire curriculums to combat Andrew Tate.

Like it's a real crisis in a lot of places.

He's incredibly, I mean, what what was it, 2018 or 2019?

He's the most Google person in the world or something like that, right?

So it's real dangerous.

I do think one thing someone pointed out to me that really stuck with me is a lot of the kind of pipeline to conservative influencer spaces are through self-improvement.

It's like dating advice, crypto, get rich,

how to get jacked.

And we're like, there's not that

wellness.

I know you talked a lot about RFK and sort of your relationship with him.

And, you know, that's the thing I hear more than anything else

from people in California.

And also, you know, my wife and I had a bunch of fertility challenges, and then now we have small kids.

So there's sort of a pregnancy or small kid algorithmic control, right, that gets you lots of stuff that takes you to anti-vax or takes you to Jordan Peterson saying, you know, women are objects, right?

And it's incredibly dangerous, I think.

Two big trends.

One is there's a crisis of trust in this country.

And there's

probably distrust in almost every institution, government, media, business.

And some of that is just the actual

economic statistics, right?

And there's inequality, and there's a whole bunch of other things around that.

And then there is a

crisis in masculinity.

And I think I'm actually interviewing Ruth Whitman for Offline Tomorrow, who wrote Boy Mom.

And my wife was reading Boy Mom first and then I read it and and her whole point is that like she doesn't want to call it toxic masculinity anymore she says it's impossible masculinity because it it's a standard that

it's impossible for boys to live up to now because you're either funneled into like you've got to be super tough and alpha and get strong or if you go but also you're supposed to be um tender and you're supposed to be emotionally available to whip but if you do that then you're not masculine, right?

And so you look like these boys are growing up stuck in between and they're becoming lonely

and they have less confidence in themselves and they have less confidence in trying to, you know, talk to girls.

And it's easier to stay home and be online by yourself because there's less friction when you don't have to actually build relationships and go through the awkward phases of conversation and making a connection with someone.

You can just be home, talk to people online, watch porn online, and like be lonely.

And it's hurting a lot of young men.

It seems to have hurt our party too because it's been politicized and weaponized a bit against us.

Trump seemed to be very in tune and in touch with, and back to this notion of manosphere, but around the issue of masculinity and that sort of pushback against quote-unquote toxic masculinity and how that was used as a weapon to sort of tear down men, understandably coming out of me too and everything else.

But

where do you see our party, the Democratic Party?

Because you see these trend lines.

They're now becoming headlines.

It's suicide rates that are off the charts.

It's educational attainment where women are dominating over men.

The crisis of not just loneliness, but deaths of despair, overdose rates.

I mean, in every category, boys and men are struggling.

Where do you see the Democratic Party in relationship to that conversation?

It doesn't seem to me an easy conversation for a lot of Democrats because they still see men in disproportionate positions of power and influence, men still getting paid more than women.

And until that's equalized, they may not necessarily want to have the conversation about what's lying underneath.

Yeah, I mean, I think I, was it Theo Vaughan or somebody talking about this

who's a comedian sort of in the so-called manosphere.

We need a better term for it, right?

He's like a very popular comedian and podcaster who was talking maybe with Bernie about

the way he and some friends of his community community sort of reacted to being told they had that male privilege or white privilege.

And he felt like, well, I'm sort of like dead broke.

So that may exist in the world.

And it's not me.

And I think it closed off a conversation rather than opening it, right?

So there's a part of it that's like just messaging and how you talk about these things.

I think

if you frame it the right way, people will listen to you.

But then also, you know, you talked about this with Sean.

Trump is so malleable.

Like he's for the thing that's happening, right?

So he was against crypto.

and then a bunch of, if you read the New York Times, they had a big piece on how he was

lobbied.

A bunch of them came to him and were like, we can make you a shitload of money and get you a ton of contributions for a super PAC or whatever.

And he was like, sign me up.

Right.

And

that is, you know, making him hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars.

But also, there's a lot of men who think of crypto as an opportunity to catch back up in an economy where they feel left behind by economic inequality and all the things that are bad about capitalism.

And like, I'm not saying that we should be super for crypto for that reason, because I think a lot of people get scammed and people get hurt.

But it's like, how do you not sound like work like you're going to poke your eye out with that thing to everybody, right?

Like, and we're scolding them.

I think the other challenge is we have to do more showing and less telling and just more setting an example for young men as opposed to like when you see the Republicans and they're like joking around and having fun and then you hear the Democrats and the Democrats are like we have commissioned a study and we will find the young men in the wild and we will approach him

you know do not cancel the young men when you see him in the wild

it's like it's just really because it was just like how we are we analyze everything and it's like just fucking be a normal person

just just be yourself you know but I the other big thing that happened is of course the pandemic And you're seeing this within Gen Z.

Like,

there's two Gen Z cohorts now.

And the ones who were graduated when the pandemic hit are still pretty democratic, even the men.

And the ones who were in high school or in college when the pandemic hit, the gap between how the men voted and the women voted is the biggest of any generation.

Any other generation.

And I said those, and I don't know, I mean, I'm hoping, because I have a five-year-old and a and it's almost two-year-old and I'm hoping that you know now that we have a generation below them that didn't grow up in the middle of the pandemic that it could be a little bit better but that's still a whole generation of kids who dealt with the pandemic who I think are and we don't talk about I mean you were talking we don't we don't talk about it because no one wants to no one wants to because it's a little PTSD and no one wants to go back to that but that really fucked people up how did especially in your formative years how did you guys deal with being at home you're the governor of of a state, and you have four kids?

Well, not only four kids, I had 400 protesters and drones

overhead, and people with bullhorns waking the kids up at night.

That was an extra wrinkle.

It's a little extra wrinkle.

I mean, I had little Dutchie, who didn't know any better with his Nerf guns, going up there and acting like he's a little member of the military and hiding out and looking at people.

And I'm like, brother, you're actually going to get shot because someone's going to believe that's a gun.

Trying to explain that to a six, seven-year-old.

Oh, my God.

And having ways of getting out of the house, we had to sneak out the back for

it seemed like a couple years.

And it ended up with my oldest daughter being homeschooled because of what was happening in the class when we did come back and just getting bullied and hit.

And so, I mean, it is, look,

I think the biggest,

I think we have an obligation.

We have an obligation to have an honest,

thoughtful, reflective analysis, not least of which from a policy perspective, but we have to for our own sanity in terms of our own personal, the trauma everybody went through, and we're all suppressing that.

And people are acting like, oh, yeah,

I don't want to talk about it.

No, yeah, well, it's good.

Okay, yeah, learning a lot.

I mean, it's just what?

Who?

Yeah, no, good.

It's good.

And so, I mean, it's just, people went through, I mean, it was social unrest.

It wasn't just a pandemic.

It was everything that happened on the streets and sidewalks.

You talk about the National Guard.

I had the second largest deployment in U.S.

history during that time of social unrest after George Floyd here in California.

And then obviously all the supply chain issues and the inflationary scars and wars.

And now Trump again.

I mean,

it's been a hell of a time.

So we got to unpack all that.

But look, I want to unpack just a few other things with you guys as I've got your time.

As we figure out these algorithms, as we figure out how

we're all living together

online, but feeling more and more isolated, alone.

But I need to understand, was Trump on the Epstein list or not?

I need to know from the two of you.

Was Trump on the damn list?

I think he is worried that he is somewhere in the files.

So like, I don't even know if there's a list.

Like, I'm willing to believe that there's just no list.

Okay.

But there's clearly...

tons and tons of documents that the DOJ has.

And he has now, because he's gone through a criminal trial and been charged a couple other times, he knows, and ran the Justice Department once before, he knows that there are plenty of court filings and documents that have all kinds of information in it.

And, you know, the standard to put something in an indictment is obviously not the same.

So I'm sure he is concerned that, yeah, maybe he's not on a list as a client or whatever, but he's somewhere in there, and it could be embarrassing.

So he told Pam Bondi, do not release this.

Stifle this.

That I don't know.

Yeah, well, how do you think?

Pam Bondi, independent.

How in the hell do you not know that?

You seriously think Pam Pam decided on her own as an independent source for the AG?

Mr.

President, I just want to let you know: here's my decision.

I won't be reduced,

eliminating or providing any fault.

Give me a damn break.

Come on, man.

My theory, and this has always been the conspiracy is hiding in plain sight.

This guy was a rich, powerful creep with rich, powerful friends, and he used those associations to get this sweetheart deal from Alex Acosta, who was then the U.S.

attorney in Florida, became the Secretary of Labor.

They included a non-prosecution agreement.

Secretary of Labor under Donald Trump.

Under Donald Trump.

Unalt Trump.

With Pam Bondi as the AG of Florida.

I'm now getting down my own.

That is.

I'm just saying.

That's a threat.

So now.

But you're right.

Like, look, I'm like not a very, I'm very not conspiracy minded because having worked in government, you see that like...

Well, you were suppressing all the UFOs.

Yeah, that.

And you guys had to write speeches suppressing.

Tommy also did Benghazi.

Yeah, I did Benghazi.

Well, Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.

But also, no one can keep a secret.

You know what I mean?

Like, no one, we could fuck up a one-car parade in the U.S.

government at times.

Like, there's no way you can.

Well, you kept a secret about chemtrails.

Why have you done that for all these years?

Well, but to your point, like, there was a document that came out this week because of a House investigation into the JFK assassination where we learned that the CIA has been lying about having an agent in South Florida who was like running this group of anti-Castro students.

They've been lying about it for 60 years.

They lied about it to the Warren Commission.

They lied about it to the House Investigative Committee.

They lied lied it in the 90s to a committee on assassinations.

And you see stuff like that.

And you're like, and also they named the dude who was running those guys in Florida to be the congressional liaison to stifle the investigation in the 70s.

And you're like, okay.

All right.

So try to get a lot of money.

That is a skepticism.

Yeah.

So now

you guys are lying to us about UFOs, and you had conversations with Obama.

Tell the truth.

Honestly, UFOs, if they're

more to know about UFOs, you must have had conversations with Obama.

Tell me

you were sitting there.

You guys are relaxed, second term, everybody won a couple martinis, and you're sitting there and you go, come on, come on to the big boss.

Tell the truth, man.

What have you seen?

I had never been that into

UFOs, but I wish I had.

Wouldn't Donald Trump have said something?

He would not be able to shut his mouth about UFOs.

Are you kidding me?

We would have gotten something from Donald Trump.

Like, Obama, no.

Obama.

I don't know if I trust you guys.

I really don't know if I trust you.

But this is, I think, the thing, I think people think out there about classified information, which is if you have a top secret clearance, then you can just go into the secrets library and kind of leaf through.

And I don't really think there's a deep state per se, but there are career people and there's a lot of inertia.

And they're not given goobers like me access to the good stuff.

I had top secret clearance.

I had never looked at any classified information.

I got edits back from the CIA and DOD on speeches and they would sometimes just cross things out with no explanation or whatever.

I guess I just have to take that.

What'd they cross out?

Tell us.

That's why I remember I was like, isn't that anything?

That's your book.

And I'm like, revealing those things.

I'm not a crisier.

Like, what is happening?

Well, then, the cool thing that would happen was there would be a crisis.

We just do that on signaling.

Right.

And then in a crisis, like, something would happen, and you'd go to a meeting, and they'd be like, we know this, this, and this through this means.

And you're like, holy shit.

Like, we can do some stuff.

So that's how it would kind of come out.

All right, so let's talk about what else came out.

This morning, Donald Trump, as we do this pod, this morning Trump allegedly talked to the delegation out of Texas and said,

not dislimit him saying, find me 12,000 or so votes in Georgia, I need five Republican additional congressional representatives.

We need to redistrict Texas.

How serious a concern is that for you in terms of the midterms?

Maybe in terms of the redistricting?

I think it's a serious concern.

I think that they also run the risk, if they redraw the maps, that if there's a big wave, that basically they're asking some Republicans to take on more Democratic voters than some districts.

So it could backfire.

It's crazy that they're, and the way Trump talked about it when he was asked today, he was like, yeah, it's just picking up five seats.

I'm just picking up five seats.

Like he's just grabbing groceries.

Like he's calling Raffensburg.

Yeah, right.

And then he also said he's like, in some other red states, maybe we'll do some in other red states too.

Well, maybe we'll do it here in California as well.

I was going to ask you about that because.

Challenges, this little constitutional problem we have.

That's what I was going to ask.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

So what what do you have to

do

you know big majority in the legislature legislature there's creative ideas we have ideas we have ideas I mean the the fact is you have I mean let me ask you this I actually saw I'm one of the few Democrats back in the day when we created the Independent Redistricting Commission which I think personally I think should be the case in every state.

I agree.

This is ridiculous.

This gerrymandering is outrageous.

I don't like it on either side.

And so I supported that.

I remember doing that.

I was mayor of San Francisco at the time when that initiative went forward.

I think under Schwarzenegger, who was promoting at the time, was the governor.

And I got a lot of grief from my own party for supporting it, which was interesting.

But I think it's the right thing to do.

That said, if these guys are playing by a totally different set of rules in democracies in the balance, which you can start to go down that, it's not even a rabbit hole and argue may be the case if we're not able to get some system of checks and balances in two years, particularly going into the 2028 election where they can wire a lot of things from that position of power and influence.

Is it right for me to explore?

It's a a question for you guys.

Is it appropriate for the governor of California to explore potential alternatives?

It's absolutely appropriate, like to the extent that you can find a legal avenue to do it.

There's that,

but I mean, you know, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, right, that was going to create a national

independent redistricting thing.

And I think it's either national or not at this point.

That's how I am.

I am also for it nationally, but we're not, it's just like, like

the results of Citizens United, right?

Which is like, we can't unilaterally disarm in the face of them

exploiting these decisions and these weaknesses in the system.

Absolutely.

But kind of the stuffy-headed question is

it's not like a moral question, but it's a question of

Yes, of course we can't unilaterally disarm, and I agree with you, and I don't think we should.

But there is a more nuanced question of like, what is the upside and value of presenting a message to voters that we're actually better you know what I mean and it can be like we don't take pack or lobbyists money we believe in principle or like we wouldn't do this redistricting thing because it's wrong I'm like I'm not agreeing with the things I'm saying right now I think like we have to win

you're very persuasive

I mean I'm feeling very guilty right now no but like there is there is a question like we need like a reform agenda what is that no I'm with you man no it's the worst part you don't want to become them i mean they win if you become them uh and they shouldn't implicate us in into their just mischievous and and uh illegal ways and or immoral ways i mean it's this is hardly illegal now the question for california in terms of texas they have more uh latitude in california it's interesting you go back you could do a special election so we can go back and do that and change the state constitution that created this we'd have to move immediately you could do two-thirds of the legislature do it urgency i could call a special election and then you'd spend hundreds of millions of of dollars both sides, weaponized, it'd be one of the, you know, it'd be a big sideshow for something going on.

It would absorb a lot of resources, literally and figuratively.

Or there are some other theories of the case, and that's what we're also exploring.

That is relates to the Independent Redistricting Commission.

It states in the Constitution explicitly that every census they will do one redistricting.

It doesn't say what happens in between.

And the legislature is then afforded some latitude in between.

And that's a legal theory that a lot of legal scholars have advanced.

And full disclosure, we're looking at.

Now I'm looking at it in the spirit, sort of the Stoics of, you know, not becoming your enemy, mindful that I rather maintain the higher ground, some moral authority, not just formal authority.

But when I look at the ground that these guys are leveling and the core tenets of our democracy, our republic being literally taken down in real time, I'd be in peril of being judged not to have lived if I don't at least explore an alternative to save our country.

It's the way I feel.

I know it's a little romantic or a little overstated, bloviating, but I feel that way.

I mean, if these guys are literally going to rig de facto the outcome in November next year,

I can't just sit back passively, can we?

Look, I think

the way you are...

framing it and started to frame it as we first started talking about this, which is if you had your way, there'd be independent redistricting all across the country.

And that is not the reality we live in right now.

And now, before the midterms, they're trying to just pick up five seats.

Like, that's just a reality that we're dealing with.

And we're not.

And the Santis is talking about doing, he says, well, we had an extra one there.

We gave up.

And they moved first on this.

And I think if you were talking to, again, just a normal person who doesn't pay attention to politics closely and asked you about it and you explained it that way, I think people would understand that.

I think people would be like, well, yeah, it's politics.

It's competitive.

And you're not going to be able to just sit down and take it because you didn't want to dirty your hands on it.

And you'd be like, look, it's a shitty solution.

It's not the way I want to do it.

But

the alternative is that they just redistrict everywhere they're in control and just steal a bunch of house seats and pick their voters everywhere.

Yeah.

And it's not that.

It's the consequences of that that are pretty outside.

Well, that's awesome.

You talk about your two kids, your two kids, my four kids.

I mean, this is what kind of world you want to live in.

I mean, we're already seeing.

Do you guys are you, and forgive me, sort of moving slightly off topic, but does this shock and awe shock even you?

Are you in awe of how much this guy has done in the first six months?

The damage he's done, how aggressive he's been?

Yeah, I mean,

I knew there would be horrible things.

I knew that Look, people held up mass deportations now, signs at rallies, right?

Like, that part shouldn't have been a surprise.

Sweeping up at random, seemingly, Venezuelan men and sending them to a transnational gulag in El Salvador where they're being tortured

is shocking.

Shocking to me.

I think it shocks the conscience.

I am constantly testing myself on making sure that I am not

trying to exaggerate the threat

and

cry wolf because I do worry that maybe even in the first term, the first Trump term, like I look back on some of the things that I said then and thought then and I was like, did we

reduce our effectiveness by taking everything to an 11?

And now I really do believe,

like especially around immigration.

I mean that stuff.

And look, I was after this last election, I was out there saying, you know what, we should have taken the border more seriously.

And look, we're Obama people from immigration.

When Obama would say, we're a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, and we're going to do deportations, but we're going to try to

prioritize recent arrivals, criminals, people with records, and then we're going to try to do something for the people who've been here for decades and are working.

And you have to get in line, learn English, learn AFC, all that.

And I'm like, I think that's where most Americans still are.

And I already got away from that.

So I was very,

but once he took office and he started doing what he's doing, like it is worse than anything I ever thought.

That sending them to the third countries, especially some of these third countries that are just fucking like, you know, war-torn and

picking up citizens, picking up, you know, people with legal status.

Yeah.

It's really scary.

Based on their skin color.

Really scary.

Or if they're nearby a Home Depot or they are standing adjacent to a day laborer or at a car wash.

I think.

You know, it's just, I just sort of fascinated because as we stand here today, just back to just sort of this normalization, there are 5,000 U.S.

military in the streets that have been deployed by the President of the United States.

He hasn't deployed in his first term.

He didn't deploy any troops, ground troops, anywhere in the world.

He hasn't deployed any other ground troops in the first six months.

He's only deployed them in the United States to the state of California and here in L.A., which just in and of itself is sort of remarkable and sobering to consider and think about.

Almost 1,000 U.S.

Marines and federalized 4,000 of the National Guard.

And people, quite literally, are being disappeared.

And it's not an exaggeration.

I mean, I've been with, I was with a 16-year-old kid.

Mom and dad disappeared.

He didn't even know how to get back in his house.

He has no brothers and sisters.

You know, he's barely learning how to do his laundry.

They just disappeared 20-plus years going to the same fields in Ochnard and disappeared.

No contact, no consideration for this kid who was born in Ventura County.

and was still in school while the raid occurred.

And how how the hell, the other party,

I think it was one thing for Trump to advance this.

It's another to see Speaker Johnson and these goddamn guys just completely complicit at this moment, you know, as he's sitting here quoting Bible verses.

And it's getting pretty

worse.

It's going to get worse because

they are not getting the 3,000 arrests a day that they want.

And they are also, you know, today, like, I saw news that the IRS is going to turn over, you know, a lot of information so that they can figure out who's who's undocumented.

They're trying to take all the state databases.

That's crazy.

I mean, all of them, they're coming.

I mean, like all, I mean, can you imagine every state that people, you know, with the confidence the state would never turn it over?

Of course, we don't want to, now being compelled to turn over.

So they're going to start cross-referencing all of that.

The other challenge I worry about, too, is like, I don't...

They do this partly because they really want to get rid of all the undocumented immigrants in this country and maybe legal immigrants too.

But they also want to spark a backlash from us.

Like they want, they want us to react.

They want us to overreact.

And so when there are people in the streets, even if it's like a couple blocks downtown in LA, of course they love that.

So I'm also mindful, like I don't want to say anything that's going to, but then I hear them.

And like right before you came in, Stephen Miller was on Fox and he was like, Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, their rhetoric is they are literally encouraging people to kill ICE agents.

And Will Kane on Fox is just like, I know.

And I'm like, of course.

That is insane to say.

That is an insane thing to say.

It's insane.

It's disgraceful.

Quite the goddamn contrary.

Just, yeah.

That's a dangerous.

I have empathy for these damn.

I mean, come on.

I just think about our National Guard.

We had 30, almost 3,000 of these guys that were in your backyard, man, in L.A.

And people were coming up.

The biggest problem we were having was was so many people coming up doing selfies, thanking them for the help during the fires and after the fires and doing the traffic management.

These are the same kids that now have been told to put masks on.

These are police officers and firefighters.

They literally are being taken off the streets.

They're paramedics.

They're teachers that are supposed to be teaching summer school.

And they're being used as pawns.

So, I mean, Stephen Miller, I care about those kids.

You don't.

You're using them as pawns.

That's right.

You're using the military as damn pawns.

And that's why I've been.

I know you get this better than anyone, but like, it's so, I heard it in your conversation with Sean Ryan because he's like, I saw the clips on X and it looked like hell and those Waymos.

And like, just explain to people the disconnect from what they saw on social media and the reality of living in Los Angeles.

Like, first of all, the city is so scarred from those fires that were six months ago, and they were absolutely terrifying.

Just imagine here, listener, you're going to bed, you have two little kids, and you're like, is my house going to burn?

Am I going to be able to drive out of here?

Like, those are the thoughts people were having, right?

So, six months, whatever, a few months later,

these communities in Los Angeles, mostly Latino communities, immigrant communities, are being terrorized by these ICE agents, wearing masks, throwing people into unmarked cars, not wearing uniforms.

And like, they're not getting criminals off the street.

And my friends are like, oh, well, aren't there horrifying protests?

No.

No.

It's like three blocks downtown.

Yeah.

It was, it was completely manageable by the lapd they've taken care of bigger messes in

1600 chp and and and lapd i mean 1600 surrounding a couple square blocks i mean it's just it's just it's overwhelming what these guys are putting out and i've told people too like we this is why we have we also have to remember too for the guard for the police even for some ice agents too right like you can't make them the enemy no that's it because first of all a lot of democrats need to be careful about that that's my point yeah i mean when we say abolish this or abolish that, I mean, we're still climbing out of the damn defund police stuff.

I know.

And, you know, even, you know, we've had some well-known Democrats defund ICE back in the day.

I mean, just, I hope we're, this is exactly, I mean, that truly is what these guys want right now.

And it's just so easy to be like, we need immigration enforcement in this country.

We do.

We do.

We don't need a fucking secret police that answers to Stephen Miller.

The largest private secret police in the world now with the money that's coming in from this big, beautiful betrayal.

Wasn't there a California bill that said that they would have to not wear masks?

So back to you guys asked that very stubborn question about, well, what about the Constitution and the law on the issue of redistricting the question of the Constitution and the law as it relates to a state's right to enforce or determine the enforcement or demand a prescriptive act of a federal agent, meaning can we legally enforce the federal rules around masking?

And so so it's an open-ended question.

That said, there is not only a bill, it's being amended this week.

It will be on my desk very shortly.

And

based upon how it reads, we're making a lot of amendments.

But how could I not sign that?

Just if nothing else, to send a message.

I mean, no identification, no warrants.

I mean, I'm sitting there, you know, I mean, how many states, you got people running around concealed carry?

I mean, if some masked person came up to me and tries to throw me in the back of a white van,

I mean, how in the hell are we not going to have some problems?

Which has been happening, right?

Like, there are people who've impersonated ICE officers who are trying to assault people, rob people.

And it will only, and I mean, you know, that's going to get worse.

And so it's not an unfair question.

Like, I understand the doxing.

They always go to these exceptions and they try to prove that as a rule.

So there's some balance.

Anyway,

we're just going to, there's a federal, obviously the way to solve for this, what Corey Booker and a few others, I think Padilla's got a bill with Booker to do it at the federal level.

In the absence of that, states are going to have to try to push back and see what we can and test fate in the courts and see what the limits are.

But, and by the way, we've had wild success in the courts.

California's sued more than any other state.

We're winning 80 plus percent, or at least the preliminary injunctions and winning some of the early decisions, as we did with the 122 lawsuits we had against Trump 1.0, won the vast majority.

So they still, the overreach in this administration still is next level of legendary.

Let me ask you guys this in closing.

It was interesting to hear your former boss a couple days ago at a fundraiser in New Jersey.

And he said, you know, Democrats need to step up.

I know you guys have been talking about this.

And we need to be more aggressive, more assertive.

But he also implied, you know, let's not look for the guy, Gal and the White Horse to come save the day in 2028.

Let's get our shit together every day between now and then

and not lose sight of what's right in front of us.

Give me your over-under on assessing your former boss's comments, the timing of them, the tonality.

Yeah, you're on the spot.

Don't give me the political answer.

Don't be a politician here.

And don't even be a pundit.

Tell me personally, what's your sort of sense tonally of where the party is?

As a leader of the party, Barack Obama made these comments.

Obviously, they've been been debated.

They resonate with me.

How do they resonate with you?

Look, I think that what's been heartening in the last few months is the way you've seen individuals step up, like different Democrats stepping up, right?

Like a lot of people have said comments to me like,

I didn't really like Gavin Newsom, but I like that he's fighting.

And I think I might like him now, right?

Like Chris Van Holland going down to El Salvador, meeting at Brego Garcia.

Like, I didn't know I was a big Chris Van Holland fan, but now I am, right?

So people are stepping up in ways, big and small.

One thing we're working on here at Crooked Media is we have a pilot program going where we're trying to encourage our audience that live in Arizona, Texas, and North Carolina to run for office at every level.

dog catcher, you know, like school board, everything, because we just don't want any race to go unopposed.

I think we've got like a thousand people who've tried to sign up so far.

So we're just trying to like rally people, have people feel like they have agency and they can do something, especially especially in this moment.

I think Obama's comments are right.

I think he's also in a tough spot because a lot of people miss him.

They feel like he's been absent.

They want him to speak out on more things.

I think it was especially complicated for him during the Biden administration because there's a bit of a fraught relationship there.

And there were just, you know, some issues that people probably really wanted to hear Obama on, like Gaza.

He was just the wrong messenger.

Like Joe Biden thinks that he is the Netanyahu whisperer and was not going to listen to anybody else on that.

So I do think, like, would I love to see Barack Obama out there more?

Yes.

I think sometimes

us political advisors, us hacks, I'm looking at John, not you,

we get in a mindset where it's like you save your powder and you go out two weeks before midterm.

And that's how you win an election.

And I think what Donald Trump taught us is he did constant care and feeding of this kind of media world, built their audiences, built his profile,

built a brand for MAGA and himself, and that was more effective.

And we need more of that like kind of, you know, 24-7, 365 work.

I think there's a few things going on with him.

And,

you know, one of his comments, I think he said something like, we can't be, it's too much navel gazing.

Yeah, navel gazing.

And if you, again, we talked about this earlier, if you look at the news and you look at news about Democrats, it is inevitably Democrats talking about about how to win back someone we lost and what do we do and what's the future of the party.

So there's a lot of navel gazing, which we always do as a party, especially now that we've lost a second race to Donald Trump.

So I think people's I think people are not trusting, and when I say people, I mean like Democratic politicians, a lot of them, are not trusting their instincts anymore because you're like, how does Donald Trump won the presidency twice after an insurrection?

After, you're right, like, and so maybe nothing I believed about politics is right, right?

So there's a lot of, there's extra caution.

And so I think he was talking about that.

I think he, I know he is like extremely concerned about this.

I also know that he believes that

he has a very big presence and that when he's out there that a lot, that a lot of other people don't get oxygen.

And he feels very strongly that he needs to make way for a new generation.

I also think there's, I was president for eight years.

I gave you this much of my life and i like i can't keep doing this all the time like there's a little bit of that yeah but i also know that when he gets out there

like you know i winds up yeah i like worked with him around the i worked with him around the convention and that was like his first he's back he was doing the convention speech and he was like he the more we worked on it the more he got into it and he was like and now i'm psyched and i'm ready for the speech this is great and i want to hit the trail so it's like he is still a political animal but when you're the longer you're out i think the harder it is to get back in and i do think there is I think there's plenty of space between Barack Obama being out there every day in Donald Trump's face, which I don't think is a good idea,

and

not doing much at all.

I think there's a big space in between there, and I think he's just got to figure out how he's going to be the most useful because that's how he thinks, right?

It's not like, what about my brand or what about this?

How can I actually be useful in moving the ball forward?

What's actually going to be most effective coming from me?

And because he's cerebral like that, and I think that's probably what he's trying to figure out.

Are you guys just your over-under on 16, or excuse me 16, 26?

26.

I mean,

sitting here today with all you know, the big, beautiful bill, smart.

A lot of the provisions don't,

I mean, we're going to assert, but we can't prove the impacts necessarily on a lot of them, some very much so, but some will be delayed intentionally.

What's your over-under in terms of how we're going to fare?

I will say

on the bill, Tony Fabrizio, Trump's pollster, had a memo out today, and he found in most of the battleground districts, Republicans running behind.

He also tested

the extension of the ACA credits and found that it is wildly popular to extend those credits.

And that is going to start, people are going to start getting those notices this fall

that their premiums are going to go.

We're expecting 2 million people to have premium increases on that just in California alone, 2 million.

And we expect, based upon legitimate, conservative

prior experience, 600,000 people will drop out because they can't afford the premium increases.

So just that alone, that's not the 3.4 million in California that we expect would lose under Medicaid or Medi-Cal, separate and above $600,000 just on that alone.

So that's interesting, and I appreciate that memo coming out and that being illuminated.

And

his suggestion is that Republicans should vote to extend the credits.

We'll see if they actually do that.

Because it's sort of separate him up in the bill.

But look,

when we passed the Affordable Care Act, we owned everything that went wrong with the health care system.

And guess what?

Now they passed Trump's health reform, and they gutted Obamacare to give rich people a tax cut.

So they own.

everything that goes wrong with the health care system now.

Your premiums go up, you're pissed at your insurance company, your rural hospital closes down,

it's all on Trump, and rich people get a tax cut, and by the way, you're paying for more, you're paying more higher prices because of his dumb fucking tariffs right so I think I feel good about the midterms but I also feel like Democrats need to

and I know you know a lot of strategists don't agree with this but I think Democrats should talk about what they'll do if they have power again and now you have to be careful because we went back the house and senate basically all we can do is stop harm you know like we can send out subpoenas too but like who knows if they'll even respond to the subpoenas so like we don't have we can't overpromise but i think we can say look this is part one of a two-part

step, you know, a two-part thing here where we take back the Senate and the House and then hopefully take back the presidency.

And then when we do that,

this is our ideas.

Like, this is what we want to do for people.

Well, let me end on that because now we're extending this one quick time because on that, it's just so interesting.

So I had Frank Luntz on my pod and I had Gingrich.

And obviously, we're going to talk about the contract on America or with America or however you want to phrase it.

And it was really interesting.

Frank calls balls and strikes about Newton.

Newt obviously will toot his own foreign.

And it's just interesting the perspectives.

But the potency of that at the moment was obviously outsized.

The political utility of having an agenda, holding yourselves to account on the agenda, sort of scoring your own progress and having some transparency.

It wasn't just that as a document, as a weapon to get into power, but how they actually utilized it.

Is that something the Democratic Party should be working on along the lines of what John just said?

I mean, we

right now.

Yeah, yes, yes, yes.

I think, like,

like, um,

I am, I'm hopeful about 2026.

I feel like you kind of have historical trends.

And also, the thing I'm really watching is just inflation in prices.

And, like, the tariff stuff, it has not bit yet, but none of it makes sense.

Like, we're putting a 50% tariff on Brazil today because we think Bolsonaro tried to stage a violent coup.

Bolsonaro is a national security emergency.

She's a national security emergency that was necessitating 50% tariff, right?

So none of this makes sense.

He's not addressing costs.

That's what people really care about.

And I think that'll bite him in the ass.

I hope, I hope, I hope.

Healthcare stuff, maybe we'll figure out if we can sell that.

But I think Democrats have done a lot of work trying to figure out what went wrong in the last election.

Media, podcasts, like,

hey, it turns out Biden was old.

We haven't done a lot of work.

By the way, we're guilty.

Yeah, we've been doing it.

Right, but like, we haven't, but we're not the party.

We haven't done a lot of work on ourselves.

Like, how do we fix our brand problem?

How do we make it?

You didn't like the 27% in March and then the NBC poll?

At least we got 27%.

I mean, it could have been 25%.

It could have been two.

How do we become a party that people want to, first of all, a movement people want to be a part of that is fun and inspiring and exciting?

And also just policy positions that get back to first principles, like anti-war for working people, ethical, right?

Like, what's our reform agenda?

And I think, like, whether it's a contract for America or like a policy proposal, there's got to be an alternative that you can turn to that isn't just Trump bad.

And thinking back to the 2020 primary, how many fucking debates did they go into the minutiae of Medicare for all proposed implementation?

Implementation.

Right.

Which was what we do.

Like imagine if instead of like arguing about this, we were just like,

what's a big goal that people can grab onto, right?

Which is Trump has done that, Mom Dani did that, and New York, right?

What if we just said, like, all right, no one ever has to pay over 10% of their income for healthcare?

And how, well, we're going to, we're going to, look, we're going to, it's going to be a mix of credits, government expansion, whatever.

We're going to figure it out.

That's our goal.

Everyone who works should be able to live in a house and never be homeless.

That's it.

We're going to figure out where to build more houses.

We're going to figure out rents.

Like, I just think that we get into the policy details of like how we're going to get it done.

And we need to be more like, here's a big goal that people can grab onto.

And

it's a good contrast with them and then just go from there.

I love that.

And just to close the loop on this,

who does that?

I mean,

you say it through the prism of our presidential aspirants and they're all putting out their damn white papers and they're trying to shape the party conversation.

You have the sort of DLC version of this and the Bruce Reed folks and Al From and we need a version of that 2.0

community opportunity responsibility type agenda that can frame broadly those values and then we can back into them.

Is it Nancy Pelosi working with Jeffries?

Is it Ken Martin?

Is it state Democratic Party parties?

Is it Mayor

this or Governor that?

I mean, who is it?

Look,

I think California has always led the way.

Look at the way you're going to be.

For those listening, if you saw this son of a bitch's face, really, really,

the future happens here first.

We're America's coming attractions.

We are the laboratory.

You know what?

On that, we will close to all you listening from the great state of California.

It's been Mohan.

This was really fun.

Thank you for

having us on.

I like having you on the other side of this dinner.

Honestly, I love it.

It's great.

Thank you guys.

This is an iHeart Podcast.