AOC vs. Bezos

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On today's show, Trump says the ceasefire with Iran is on, quote, life support. We'll talk about why and what comes next as he heads off to China. We'll also talk about his new plan to make Venezuela our 51st state. That's a perfect plan. Perfect plan. The follow-up from the Virginia Supreme Court's decision to throw out the Democrats' new maps, AOC taking on Jeff Bezos and what she might run for in 2028, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and his wife, Rachel Campos Duffy, getting back to their roots with a new reality television show. Yeah. Exciting. Great. Quick note. Before we start, if you're a friend of the pod subscriber, which if you aren't, you should be, you can now buy tickets for this year's Crooked Con. Special pre-sale just for subscribers. Damn right. Just for you. May 12th. That is today when you're listening. But if you're not a subscriber because you hate pro-democracy independent media and you love listening to podcast ads, you can still buy Crooked Con tickets, but you're gonna have to wait till next week, starting on May 19th. You might get a job at CBS. You might get to someday interview B.B. Netanyahu. B.B. Netanyahu. Say, sir, why are you so great? Yeah, that's the only. Why is your leadership so impressive? There's definitely a limited range of questions you can ask Netanyahu if you get the job at CBS versus if you interview him here at Pod Save America, which I don't think is gonna happen anytime soon. Rhodes has got an ask-in. I think we will be getting Netanyahu before or after we get Biden. Maybe. Actuarial question. Anyway, either way, Crooked Con is gonna be a big fun party right after this. After the midterms, November 5th through 7th, Dan yelled at me for saying big fun party because he thought that was like jinxing the midterms. I'm like, it's still gonna be a big fun party even if we're gonna still have a party. We're still gonna live. Yeah. I mean, you know, what choice do we have? Gallows humor is still humor. June in 2017. I did. I did. And we don't connect those two things. And when Trump won, I remember telling Emily, there might not be a wedding now. Yeah. And she's like, unrelated reasons. Will she listen? Who knows? That didn't take you in through with it. Well, Hannah won't tell her. Hannah won't tell her about that joke. Don't worry about that. Anyway. Don't put this under a comment of Emily's Instagram. You know someone's gonna send this to her. I'm gonna send this to her. Oh, I know. I hate the snitch tagger. It's gonna turn up at your wedding. That's what it's gonna turn up. Anyway, you should go subscribe. What are we talking about? Become a friend of the pod subscriber. No ads for any of your favorite podcasts at Crooked. And you get to support Crooked Media. And you get subscriber only. And you get all of our Substack newsletters. And by the way, you can start buying a ticket for CrookedCon right now. They're going fast. Go get it. November 5th through 7th, Washington, D.C. It's CrookedCon.com. And you can become a subscriber at Crooked.com slash friends. All right. It appears that last week's siren emojis about the U.S. and Iran closing in on a one-page memo to end the war have given way to this week's siren emojis about Trump possibly resuming military action in Iran. Live by the siren emoji. Die by the siren emoji. Are we talking about reporters? I mean, that's who usually gives them. Well, actually, no. Reporters do. And now also just random influencers and accounts that don't give you any accurate information whatsoever. It lends such credibility. It does. And it starts with drudge. The siren started drudge. That's true. The siren doesn't make sense as a news break. Then reporters started doing it. And then just random influencer just, you know, trying to gather information that's not in any way. That just shows up in your for you algorithm. People with names like Joey Bloomberg. Bloomberg is reporting it. It's like a collapse. The market. It is all caps anyway. Anyway, all of this comes after Trump rejected Iran's response to the one page memo. They kept just kept telling it was one page. It's the right length of the memo. They got it all on one page. Anyway, rejected, which Iran waited 10 days to send and included demands for U.S. reparations and permanent Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz. Trump called that, quote, totally unacceptable and inappropriate before elaborating on his initial reaction in the Oval on. Monday, I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support where the doctor walks in and says, sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living. It's unbelievably weak. I would say I would call it the weakest right now after reading that piece of garbage they sent us. I didn't even finish reading it. It was just unacceptable. You know, a lot of people said, well. Does he have a plan? Yeah, of course I do. I have the best plan ever. I have a plan. You know, it is a very simple plan. I don't know why you don't say it like it is. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. They agreed to allow the removal of all their enriching. Yeah, well, they did it two days ago. They didn't. OK, they did two days ago. They said you're going to have to take it. We were going to go with them. But they changed their mind because they didn't put it in the paper. I've had to deal with them four or five times. They changed their mind. They're very dishonest. Vulnerable people. The leadership. Exhausting. Who would have thunk it? He's learning a lot of lessons over and over and over again. Maybe not learning them. It drives me crazy when he says, I have a plan. No, that's a goal. Yeah, that's what you want. What a plan. The plan is how you get to that. Yeah, right. That's a destination. That's a dam. You need a, where you need a route. You need a journey. So far as we start week 11 of the war, it doesn't seem like that plan is bearing fruit. It's also funny that he didn't read the whole one page memo. Yeah, finish. Well, yeah. Get to the bottom of the thing. Maybe there's some good stuff at the bottom. What if there's some pictures? Yeah. Tommy, why do you think the latest deal fell apart? And what other options does Trump have at this point? I mean, it just, all the details weren't public, but I think that the U.S. sent over a bunch of hardline nuclear demands and the Iranians were like, nah, we just want you to stop blockading the Strait of Hormuz and give us all this shit. And that's our take. And so now we're back. So all the options are bad. I mean, you can restart the war, which is extremely unlikely to lead to regime change, but we'll see. It'll certainly lead to economic chaos in the region. He can keep the blockade going and hope that the economic pain breaks the Iranian regime before it breaks the global economy. I don't think that's going to work either. And then he can find a way to declare a victory and slink away, which seems like the most likely option. But Iran will probably control the Strait of Hormuz in that case. I'm very interested in his, how he keeps talking about the leaders in all these different ways. First, he likes the new leaders because they're better than the old leaders. They killed all the old leaders. Then he. He also does sometimes, we don't know who the leaders are. And then this one was, they're awful. They're dishonorable people. They're lunatics. Yeah. It's also, we've been through so many rounds of reporting in which we're, which Trump felt we were on the precipice of a deal and then the talks fall apart. But if you take out the spinning coming from the administration, is it possible that really they've just been far apart the whole time? Because the Venn diagram of on one side, you have Trump requiring a deal that is better than the JCPOA, the Obama. deal because he said that deal was the worst deal ever made. On the other side, you have Iran in a stronger position than when the war began, wanting a better deal than that, including consequences to the U.S. reparations for the cost of the war and the power it's gained from having control of the Strait of Hormuz. Those circles don't overlap. So what are we doing here? And then the reporting is so credulous. And so it feels like we're having this up and down roller coaster, but really we're just dealing with the kind of strategic reality of this stupid fucking war. Yeah. Which bums me out personally. Same. Well, it also sounds like, and they said that they, in all these plans and proposals that Iran keeps sending back or responding to, it sounds like they just want to keep control of the Strait of Hormuz. No doubt. And why wouldn't they? Or they want sanctions relief. Or they want one or the other. They need a financial lifeline. Right. But it's also like they're sending over their maximalist position. We send over our maximalist position and then we just get mad and walk away. That's not how negotiations work. Get in a room, hash it out, give a little on each side. Maybe we can come to some conclusion, but they're just like, they're not even trying. Trump's like, I didn't read the one page memo all the way to the bottom. Bob Kagan, the hawkish neocon, Iraq war supporting Bob Kagan, that one, just wrote a piece in the Atlantic. He's Robert to me. I'm not close enough to call him Bob. I just, I call him Robert. Bobby. Bobby. Yeah. He just wrote a piece in the Atlantic titled a checkmate in Iran that starts. I need to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in the conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored. He then ticks through every conflict since Pearl Harbor and basically makes the case that Trump's fuck up in Iran will be more consequential than all of them. What'd you guys think? I just want to just, before we get into the details of it, the neocon high dungeon of the 2000s, I still do not miss like, look, this is a very big blunder. I think it is a little, it's a little premature to be saying it's, it's worse than Pearl Harbor. Oh, see, I thought Pearl Harbor was actually one of the easier ones because Pearl Harbor's thing was like, we came back and we won that one pretty decisive. Sure. In hindsight, it looks pretty fucking good. But a year or so after Pearl Harbor, things were pretty up in the air. I think we're going to go to Iraq. Cause that one was, he was like, and then we left, then eventually we left Iraq more stable. And I'm like, oh, did we, did we eventually. Yada, yada, yada there for Iraq for sure. That was my big note too. Like I want to build the biggest tent possible, but his idea that Iraq was mitigated by like a strategic change and then all's well that ends well, because like Saddam's not there now. I, yeah, that was a little much for me, but this is all like throat clearing around what was truly a bracing and, uh, uh, like just dismal read on the situation, including laying out, like just how few options Trump has, because part of the reason he called off, uh, military strikes wanted a ceasefire is because of the leverage Iran had when it was striking, uh, oil and gas infrastructure. In the reason in the region, how he can try to declare victory, but that still leaves the straight of form moves. How like the, the, that all the options that Trump has are fucking terrible. Yeah. They're all terrible. And also the Israelis have also just been crystal clear that they don't think the war is over. I mean, if you watched Netanyahu in 60 minutes, he, he said as much, there's also the war in Lebanon. If you want a weaker ceasefire, I could point you to one, the one in Lebanon where they're bombing each other all the time. And there's constant fighting like daily. There's casualties all the time. Um, yeah. So I agree with this assessment that, that these Iranians are not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not going to give up the straight over moves unless they get sanctions really for something like really big for it. Um, and that we look weak and we look kind of feckless and, uh, unreliable. It's also like the gall of Trump saying, oh, these people are dishonorable. Like you, uh, use previous talks as a smoke screen to, uh, to bomb the leadership. Um, you have ripped up the previous, uh, agreement and you may not have liked it, but it was negotiated in good faith by the United States, which you can, you know, which, uh, uh, whose authority came from Obama to you. So you've kind of undermined our credibility there. They have no confidence that Trump won't change his mind in a couple of months and resume bombing. If they accept a deal, they have no confidence that Israel, uh, won't, uh, uh, bomb Iran. If it views it in its interest, even if there is a deal. So just like the, the, the kind of the, the, the, the kind of the way in which we're like stuck in this morass because Trump went into this. So half cocked is, just, it's, it's, it's just sort of gruesome. And it's when you step back and look at it, I think there were times in this conflict where people said, oh, you know, I remember thinking this at one point, oh, he could end up just going back to, uh, like Obama's Iran deal. Right. And then call it a victory, but it's going to be like around, we were like, oh, you know, you all criticized Obama for this. I think it's pretty clear now that there's no way he gets a deal. That's better or even the same as the Iran deal. It's going to be worse because when the Iran deal was made, uh, Iran didn't control the straight of four moves. Like this piece made me think about the psych, not the, I knew about the strategic importance of the straight, but just from Iran's perspective. Now they've got the control. Even they get some sanctions relief. They're going to have to get a lot more sanctions relief and a lot when they're calling it reparations or whatever than they ever were before, because they got the straight, they have full control over it. Now, maybe they go for a deal where they charge some tolls. Maybe they share control with other Gulf nations, but it seems like the, the, the scenario now where Iran. Yeah. Yeah. Willingly sign some kind of a deal where they fully give up the straight of Hormuz and it goes back to being like an international waterway seems very slim. There's no chance. They just got this incredible toy and they're going to play with it for as long as they want until it breaks or someone takes it away. There's just no chance. But also, um, it could get worse. Like if Trump decides to go back to war, the economic cost could be just a resumption of what we've seen, but also the Houthi rebels could get involved there in Yemen. They could start firing at ships in the red sea. They could choke off, you know, the Saudis have been sending a lot of their oil and gas that they can't get out through the straight of Hormuz west through a pipeline. And then it'll get out through the red sea or through the Suez canal. If the Houthis get involved and they choke off those access points too, like prices could hit $300 a barrel. It's a disaster. And also, by the way, we're not even talking about the reason we're in we're there, which is the nuclear material, the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which sometimes it's dust. Sometimes it's critical to get out. Um, it is still sitting in Iran. And also all of that material was, was enriched after Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, JCPOA. So it's a problem he created and now is probably not going to solve. I like the scenario that he, he mentioned where they were all, we were going to go in together with the Iranians, like a, just a group field trip to go, uh, to, to dig under the rubble and to find all the nuclear dust together. I'd go, I thought that was a real, that's a, that's a show I'd watch. Um, I also like, and this is, so this is around giving up the straight, like through some negotiation, then there's the other option of trying to take it by force, but that, that requires like, you know, uh, US Navy ships potentially getting fired on, um, and, and Iran's small boats firing on other ships too. And, and then Kagan points out in this piece too, even if they were not firing on the ships, they can retaliate against Gulf energy infrastructure, like they did, uh, our many weeks ago before the ceasefire. So like they have plenty of options around and clearly they are fine taking a whole bunch of punishment because you know, as the Trump administration likes to point out, they're taking a whole bunch of punishment because, you know, as the Trump administration likes to point out, they don't give a shit about their own people, they kill protesters, all that kind of stuff. They, they surely are not going to care if they're going to inflict a ton of economic pain on their country. Um, like it's not like they care a lot about their people. So yeah, they're going to have, they, they're going to have the appetite for a lot of pain. Yeah. That's the part that's sort of like chilling about where we're at, because we're in this sort of stalemate in which Trump looks like a loser. He can try to declare victory, but there'll still be the ongoing cost of us having kind of shown our might and Iran remaining in power and now controlling the straight of Hormuz or there's escalation. And we've already done, we've already, um, you know, launched a massive campaign against Iran and the regime held together. What escalation looks like, how far they'd have to go because you, the next, the next escalation is toward the regime collapsing. And that's a combination of economic pressure to, to squeeze them. That's more an intense, uh, military action. And like it all, and while that is happening in, even if it were to happen relatively quickly, you're still talking about Iran unloading, whatever it is it's willing to do in the Gulf. And so you're just, there are terrible options in front of America's worst person. And this was totally like Trump is a drunk guy at the bar. He's been lifting a lot. We decided to pick a fight with the crazy guy who was cauliflower here. And that guy is kicking the shit out of him and is willing to go a lot further to win this fight than Donald Trump is and take a lot more pain. And it's not going to end well. Yeah. And by the way, you also killed his father, I guess. And there's no gold toilet room. Like it is like there was something someone said once a long time ago, which is like, uh, if someone is willing to fight you, it means they have less to lose. And, uh, I don't think I've ever learned that cause I don't think it's ever been a real fight. No. Pod Save America is brought to you by Nutrafol. 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Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocketmoney.com slash cricket. That's rocketmoney.com slash cricket, rocketmoney.com slash cricket. Good news, though, for all you drivers wondering if we're ever going to see a $3 a gallon gas again. Trump said Monday he's considering suspending the federal gas tax. Do it. Which is currently about 18 cents a gallon for gasoline and 24 cents a gallon for diesel. President said he'd suspend the tax for as long as it takes, which seems like not that long if you believe Kevin Hassett, which of course you should, who just said oil prices will drop quickly before the midterms once, quote, the gusher opens. Where's the gusher? I guess in the straight? Chuck Schumer's office. Now they'd heard about the gas tax bill. He excites him. Sorry. Just because he loves it. You know, he does a press conference. Yeah, no, yeah, for sure. For sure. Suspending the gas tax. Good idea. Or great idea. Yeah, suspend the gas tax, release all the strategic petroleum reserve, get rid of all the sanctions on Iran, maybe Russia while you're at it. Just go nuts. Prices will stay high, but now we won't be able to pay for highways or mass transit. It's a great idea. Let's do it. Yeah, we already can't pay for those things anyway. And over the last sort of half century, more and more of our roads are paid for without the gas. The gas tax is supplemental, but we still pay for it ourselves. I mean, having a gas tax is a good idea. The politics of suspending it are great. Just do it. This is said, said like someone who was on a Hillary Clinton's primary campaign in 2008. Was she? I don't even remember. Were we forced? You guys? Yeah, I had to think about that, too, because it's like the mandate fight. No, you guys, when we did the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, Hillary was saying we should suspend the gas tax. And Obama was saying, that's just a that's just a gimmick and it's bad and we shouldn't do it. And it's just it's not really going to affect your prices that much. That one, John McCain sent tire gauges to us. That's something different. That was that was when that was when we were going to solve properly. That was when we were going to solve. That was when we were making we wanted people to check. He just suggested people check their tires. You fucking piece of shit. We like running on these soft tires. Cushy. It's cushy. We're not going to fill up my tires. Communist bastard. But the yeah, look, the point is, it doesn't it doesn't actually bring down the price. No, it's it's what is it? Eighteen, twenty, sixteen, eighteen cents a gallon. And then some a little bit more for diesel. I mean, it's a bigger deal for truck drivers, commercial. It does make a big difference for people like that. But it's also ridiculous that Trump said he would do this. Can't do it himself. There's some bipartisan legislation that was floating around. It might get a little more lift now that he said it, but he can't do it on its own on his own. Or I guess he he's not supposed to do it on its own on his own. Who knows? He can try anyway. And yeah, of course, it robs the government of, you know, revenue. It can't afford to lose because we have a lot of big ticket items that we need to pay for, like bombing Iran and schools, building a ballroom. And now apparently painting the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool American flag blue, which along with some other repairs is apparently going to cost thirteen point one million dollars, according to David Fahrenholtz at The Times. This is an apparently it's an 88 percent jump in the cost of what it's going to take to repaint the reflecting pool. And you know why it jumped so high? Because Donald Trump decided to give a no-bid contract to the guy who did all his pools at Bedminster, which is Rudy Giuliani. Hope he feels better. It's also they're trying to sue it to stop. And it was funny. The guy that was suing is like, we just look, it's a process thing. But also we just think they chose a bad color, which is what you know they did. You know, it's the tackiest fucking thing. It's the tackiest blue. Like, come on. It doesn't look like a goddamn like Splash Mountain thing. Like, just kind of the best blue is North Carolina, Carolina blue. Let's just do that. UNC colors. That'd be pretty bright in the reflecting pool. I don't know. I'm just making this up. Why did Kevin Hassett always he looks like Dennis the Menace just took down the biggest nitrous balloon you've ever seen. And then he just spouts like economic bullshit on me. See, it's like he's the best. Yeah, he's the best. Get him out more. Get him out there. $13 million for the reflecting pool. They're voting on the ballroom this week. I've remember that's a billion dollars that they want to add in security. That's a lot of security. Did you see what? What are we doing to that? Speaking of speaking of your boy, Chuck Schumer? Uh huh. He coined a new term for Republicans because the ballroom. Did you see what it was? I didn't know ballroom Republicans. He's calling him ball. He's calling the party. And it's one of those. I'm like, it's it's definitely definitely not using a scalpel. They're more of a more of a sledgehammer. But maybe he he throws out ballroom Republicans and then everyone it's like a signal and everyone says it in a better way. But everyone knows what the message is because he shot me. It shots me at this point last week that because this billion dollars is in the budget, they're all gonna have to vote on it. And I think that's great. It's a yes or no. Oh, yeah. On the fucking ballroom. Terrific. Terrific. The idea that they're saying, oh, it's security. Security needs it. What would they need it if you didn't have the fucking ballroom? Probably not. But it's like you knock down the East Wing and you got to rebuild it. Did you did you not? Was it a different America in which there wasn't security when you knock down a building that line item in the budget when you were doing up the budget for the new ballroom? You knew what the thing was going to fucking cost. It's like now it's like every fucking now it's like a football stadium where, you know, these donors are going to go to the big unveiling because they're the ones responsible. But the vast majority of the cost of the taxpayers because of building that if the actual kind of construction is 300 million, but securing the facility is a billion dollars cost that were inevitable and required in order to ever use it. It's a taxpayer ballroom, just 100%. Just trying to add it up here. We got there's the ballroom. There's the Trump Kennedy Center. There's the arch. We haven't even started building the arch yet. Well, get going. We got the and now the reflecting pool. They're also that that UFC fight. That's going to that's going to take some doing to put up that and take it down on the White House lawn. Now, some of this is like privately funded. It is, of course, the it's the it's the worst of all worlds for Trump, best of all worlds for us in the politics. But it's like some of it's being funded by major donors, corporate donors who now get special access to Trump because of their donation. And then the rest is the taxpayers foot the bill. So it's like a good mix of shady influence of corporate allies of Trump and just, you know, good old fashioned, just, you know, corruption. The reflecting pool brought to you by Raytheon. So when you're reflecting on your life, you like to think about the drones like, hey, we got really the reflecting pool wasn't a problem. No, it was fine. I'm open to the possibility that they could use a ballroom. I don't think it would have been my priority. Right. But the reflecting pool was just doing its thing. It was just it's not the wrong color. It looks great. It's classic. I do think. Listen, I've said this before. No offense to Steven Spielberg. I think that that World War Two memorial. Oh, yeah. This is my position, which I think is I don't want I don't want it. I don't want the final design. Trickle down ballroom. Steven Spielberg. No, he was part of the class because it was part of the post saving private Ryan Tom. It was in the it was he was in the post saving private Ryan Tom. It was kind of a big booster of it. I don't know exactly what his direct involved. He's not the designer of it, but he was a big face of getting it done. So Democrat takes over. We're going to bulldoze the ballroom. Yeah. Bulldoze the World War Two memorial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want that. Listen, you want to paint the reflecting reflecting pool. Is that where Jenny and Forrest Gump reunited? Was that in the reflecting pool? Yes. Yeah, it is. It is. It is. Don't mess with that. Look, this the painting, the reflecting pool kind of undoing that. That's an easy one. Yeah, that that also all the goals. The gold on the White House. That's coming off. That's easy. The writing on the outside of the oval. That's like that cursive gold writing oval this way. Why do you think this house needs a fucking name tag? We all know you. Everyone knows what it is. That's the whole idea of it. It'd be funny if they did a big gold like in this house, we believe kind of like the Mar-a-Lago, Au Bon Pain umbrellas, the yellow umbrellas. Those are all going. Those drive me. It looks just like Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, that's that silly color. It's a long list. Well, if suspending the gas tax doesn't work and the and the gusher of of oil doesn't open. Trump does have one other- - Please stop saying Gusher. - Gusher, Gusher, Gusher. - Begging you. snack gusher uh it is a snack yes tommy uh trump does have one other trick up his sleeve president told fox on monday that he is quote seriously considering making venezuela the 51st u.s state because there's quote 40 trillion dollars in oil there and quote venezuela loves trump isn't this the mega fever dream isn't he president because joe biden let in too many people from venezuela in prisons what where is stephen miller on this one i don't understand like i'm pretty sure every person in a venezuelan prison would become an american right he would make he would actually make an unprecedented number of venezuelan prisoners quite an amnesty every person in the asylum the worst people in venezuela would all become americans it's a it's a good question but i wonder if um just to play this out if this administration is even miller would make sure that they are second-class citizens who have to stay in venezuela we know how they treat the citizens of portugal maduro's advocate here well they're not but they're not a member they're not there they don't have stated that right this is 51st state well also it doesn't matter you need congress exactly it doesn't matter he's considering oh you're considering it so am i you also need i mean i know that we don't care about international law or the un anymore but it's a flagrant violation of international law the people of venezuela would have to of course vote on this well only a flagrant violation of an international law if the venezuelans don't choose to to do it that's what i'm saying yeah yeah presumably you'd have to have some sort of vote on it that's what yeah which would be lovely that's quite a presumption also also boy creates a bunch of new interesting borders that presumably would also need walls for mexico to pay for i guess yeah yeah also he said that they love trump and i did look at some polling on this uh it was in the miami herald actually a couple weeks ago they did a big poll in venezuela in january 92 percent of venezuelans said they felt grateful to trump for capturing maduro that was like a couple days after after the capture and a few weeks ago it's down to 47 percent 89 percent of venezuelans reject trump's continued backing of uh rodriguez and 78 percent think the country's on the wrong track under her so honestly honestly him losing support for deposing maduro that quickly it's actually very american to me it's like wow what have you done for me lately bitch i'm 100 sure that we've now officially thought about this longer and deeper than donald trump has but certainly there's an easier way to just steal all their oil than to make them another state yeah that's the end game by the way are we doing that now are we doing that now already the oil is not just like it's like in the amazon it's like very hard to access actually it's real pain i know i only you know i was flirting with not talking about this at all but uh we saw what happened with greenland there's there's you know nato had exercises military exercises in greenland so we got pretty close on that one rafael lemkin just wanted to shout at us about international law over here yeah look at maul clooney over there i didn't know how to get the first one that was very very yeah save that shit for ben take it to the world yeah okay pod save america is brought to you by helix sleep is so important a good night's rest sets you up for a great day i've had all kinds of sleep issues over the years brain can't stop you know i had a dream last night in the middle of the night that i had signed a contract that obligated me to an unlimited expense over a real estate deal involving apartment buildings i woke up in a panic you know i sometimes think nightmares get a bad rap if you have a really good dream and you wake up it's not true you have a nightmare and then you wake up that wasn't real yeah that wasn't real that's a 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get 50% off your meal and you'll be able to get 50% off your meal and you'll be able to get 50% off your first order that's 50% off your first order by using code crooked or going to cookunity.com slash crooked all right so trump staying on this subject trump's about to spend some quality time this week with fellow imperialist xi jinping when he takes his first trip to china uh since 2017 uh naturally uh trump will be rolling a few billionaires deep elon musk and tim cook are joining among others probably because of their diplomatic skills uh pause on that hey tim you're resigning you don't have to do this you're resigning you're resigning you're resigning you're resigning you don't have to do this anymore tim cook you know what when likes donald trump i think he's i really do i think anyone who thought tim cook was just like do i think tim cook's just a fan i figured he just liked fucking screens no fuck tim cook he sucks hope your iphone all right hope your apple cares yeah see you pride tim i guess okay anyway uh so tommy an asian diplomat in dc told politico they're worried that china might offer to help reopen the strait in exchange for american concessions on taiwan which i'm sure if trump read that would be like good idea how big of a deal would that be how concerned are you i mean i i first of all i'm just skeptical that china could actually force iran to reopen the strait and kind of go back to the before times because if you're like china buys 90 of iran's oil but still if you're around you're thinking look we get a couple a couple million worth of bitcoin i've had every boat that goes by we find a new buyer for that oil like i don't know i i'm i'm skeptical i i asked um a china expert friend about this quote in politico and his take was like it would likely be more like how can you expect me to help you with the straight or her moves and not sell my iranian friends any more weapons when you're selling weapons to the taiwanese and giving them diplomatic cover um that could certainly happen and trump i think basically said today that taiwan arms sales are up for negotiation which is a huge deviation from traditional foreign policy where that's just not a thing that is discussed with the chinese it's you know congressionally mandated uh law so which he signed like right yeah well this is an interesting thing is like i've always assumed trump could give a shit about taiwan he cares insofar as losing access to their semiconductors would be an economic calamity right and it would be a historic it would be historic ego ego wound yeah but like he doesn't give a shit about freedom democracy human rights uh religious freedom hating communism all the traditional like things that once animated republicans on this so i assume he would trade away uh taiwan in a heartbeat for a good trade deal but even but xi jinping like he doesn't need trump to be to make some historic shift even rhetorically like i think if he gets what he if he hears what he wants to hear behind the scenes that's more than enough like yeah you do what you got to do i'm not gonna go after you i mean so we'll see like all that said the trump administration has greenlit huge arms sales packages to taiwan now the the rub here is that those haven't been delivered yet uh they're like 20 billion behind in the delivery of those weapons but like people like marco rubio is making sure that the packages get authorized so and then they're gonna be talking about ai uh a lot as well apparently it seems like a good outcome on ai seems like it could be um there's reports that they may open a channel of communication to make sure that like cold war style with like nuclear weapons like make sure there's she gives him a chat bot yeah this is me i talk like you want i i want those two going deep on ai i don't know no shit but i would i would like our country cooperating with china on uh on making sure that uh we are keeping the line open on uh ai when it gets kind of scary yeah i talked to bernie about it what was it last week feels like time flies but uh like there's obviously a space between like hamstringing whatever advantage we think we have and allowing to sort of unfettered development like there clearly would be some kind of there's a way to have an agreement about some kind of limits uh uh to prevent sort of catastrophic outcomes with ai and like that seems like exactly what we would want them to be working towards and they said they were going to talk about it so i think i do think that's generally sure that one that place is not ai the nukes the nuclear decision-making process no ai on that yeah and they have they have so far do that split that off but there's a lot more there's a lot of other problems that could in the world uh you know bio weapons all the rest of it um all right we haven't had a chance to talk about the shitty news we got on friday about virginia where the state supreme court overturned the referendum that voters just passed to create new congressional maps ahead of the midterms uh tommy and dan covered the news when it broke on the psa youtube channel i have to say we crushed it go go that's why you should go subscribe for free subscribe to pots of america on youtube free if you want to see dan looking spicy on a friday okay he does most of the youtubes uh he pops the top oh he does topless youtube is that friday yeah for friday under the table camera that's for that's for the subscribers talk about a polar coaster nice anyway nobody put this in the comments on message box that's the only way dan will know this happened everybody be fucking cool fucking narcs oh anyway what was i going to say oh yeah there's been some more developments on the podcast potential redistricting fallout in virginia and other states ahead of the midterms uh here's glass half empty nate cone of course uh calculated that republicans could now lose the popular vote by more than two points and still keep control of the house uh then there's glass half full jonathan martin is out with the column arguing that republicans still might lose many of the newly drawn districts uh which by definition will be more competitive um amy walter at cook political basically said the same thing i think you guys probably talked about that on friday i think she thinks it's a good idea to do that i think she thinks it's a good idea to do that i think she thinks that when all of a sudden done the realistic gain is probably like five seats um in in a in a good scenario uh yeah they could net like 11 or 12 but probably won't right and that's because of the uh democrats still winning those tough districts not because they would still get to redraw them um and uh jay mart argues that they're handing democrats a generational opportunity to mobilize outraged black voters case in point uh republican representative ralph norman said on monday about the state's lone democratic congressman jim clyburn who's one of the longest serving black members in the house quote i like him personally but he does not represent the rest of south carolina well that's you know that is part of the point of representing one district in the state as you represent some people in the state and not all the people in the state um how are you guys processing the news generally and specifically on the question of whether this is all as bad as people think and on that point some breaking news while we were recording this the u.s supreme court uh did rule they lifted the injunction on alabama that they had uh in place before now allowing them to go back and do their job and i think it's going to be a bit more difficult for them to um uh pursue their uh their new maps shocking dickheads uh they voted forward their new you know map proposal in the middle of a tornado warning they just kept going they're supposed to evacuate they're like no no stripping away black people's uh uh voting rights is more important to us um so what do you guys think how bad so seen a couple different numbers but basically even with these new maps if we have you know if we went by let's say four percent right nationally the the house the house margin is four percent uh then we still win the house i i get that's an important one just to yeah just like put an exclamation point on that because um that was if if louisiana alabama and south carolina all go which now seems like we are definitely that scenario and they say if we won the popular vote by four in that scenario democrats still win the house right and so i'm all for doing like a round of worry and and recrimination but i would say that in this political environment the deeper the deeper problem would be not having confidence that against a president with this approval rating with both kind of on the politics and on the policy has been as bad a president as you could ever imagine as destructive a force as you can ever imagine enabled directly by republicans who deserve to be held responsible for this president's misadventures uh we ought to be able to beat that four percent we should focus on that because if we do that uh then not only do we overcome their advantages in the gerrymander we can win those virginia seats that on the old map and we can actually prove that some of their maps were drawn too aggressively and make them feel like they're the only ones that can win and i think that's something that we need to do in order to be able to make them make them more nervous the next time they look at doing this to try to redraw the maps because the republican incumbents will start to think oh if there's even a slight wave i could lose my seat yeah i mean democrats won the house popular vote by eight in 2018. so if we're thinking and hoping and expecting um this cycle to be uh better than even 2018 then we should have no problem in the house and look if we're winning by eight if we're only winning by four then something else went wrong exactly more than redistricting if we're if like you said if after all this democrats win by four or five or six in this kind of year and so dude worse than we did in 2018. maybe they like the ballroom maybe they like the ballroom maybe they like the ball maybe they like five dollar gas yeah people were like upset they had so much money left over after they filled up their tank yeah people hate it they hate having other options with what to do with the money but yeah and i'd also say if also this does galvanize people and we are able to win the house suddenly you have people showing up uh in these senate races that might not have otherwise and all it sort of you know republicans can be hoisted by their own petards yeah nate cohen points out the challenge is the the median district house district now uh in the country will have voted for trump by five and a half points sweet um so that means to win back the majority you're winning a lot of not all but you have to win some significant amount of seats that you know trump won by five five and a half look it's which we've already been doing in every yeah right yeah the swings from from 24 to these specials have been like on average i think 13 points you know these are base elections democrats are already more motivated hopefully they will all learn about this be angry about it be even more motivated to turn out and the the good thing about trump is he just things are as bad as they've ever been for him politically and he's like give me a shovel i'm not done digging billion dollar ballroom 1.5 trillion dollar pentagon budget let me drive my stupid car on a fountain for some reason he's just like wasting his time on stupid and look the bigger long-term problem here uh that will outlast trump is the concentrated power of the state legislatures in red states which they have because they have gerrymandered their state legislative districts in such a crazy fashion and in many cases like in north carolina um know that if the full state elects a democrat as governor which happens in places like north carolina wisconsin then the state legislature which never has to worry about competitive elections or republicans losing just takes all the power away from the government so like at some point whatever project 2029 whatever long-term thing we're doing like we have to figure out a way to win back power in some of these state legislatures in some of these southern states and other heavily republican states that have gerrymandered themselves on a state level forget about the federal level into such a play when and we know from the constitution right that it it you know endows state legislatures with a lot of power when it comes with elections certain inalienable rights like in the new york state you know we're going to have to figure out a way to win back power in some of these state legislatures in some of these southern states and other heavily republican states that have gerrymandered themselves on a state level forget about the federal level into such a play when and we know from the constitution right that it it you know endows elections certain inalienable rights like life like that yeah but that that is um and on that note if democrats do control virginia i don't know if you guys saw the mini news cycle about virginia democrats considering whether to uh it was a mini news cycle yeah it's over like a mini war which we talked about this morning it's already over um anyway they were considering uh whether to change the retirement age for state supreme court justices uh so to bring it down in order to get rid of all the state supreme court justices on the virginia supreme court and appoint new ones in time to uh change the maps and then have the new democratically appointed uh democratic party party appointed uh state democrat uh state supreme court justices approve the new maps and in time for the midterms first of all first they'd have to get a bunch of new they'd have to replace those justices because they've been retired by the government at the age of i think in decrepit 54. i mean first of all shout out for create points for creativity creativity news some local news outlet in virginia floated this idea and all of a sudden we're talking about it uh it's real dog another thing says a golden retriever can't be speaker of the house situation it is without a doubt undemocratic terrible precedent the kind of thing that voters would absolutely despise in this climate absolutely would do it 100 appropriate you know the governor of louisiana is just talking about on tv how he's like throwing out ballots and he's like it's not my fault yeah court's fault you did cancel an election do we really think abigail spanberger governor spanberger would have wanted to you know kind of hemorrhage all the political capital she built up with independent republican voters doing this early on i doubt it i bet she has other things she wants did you see greg sargent's piece in the new republic on this one when it when it the reason they're not doing it so may 12th which is the day you're listening to this that is the deadline set by the department of elections for having congressional maps in the system in time for early voting in june ahead of the august primary so they couldn't pass the law to lower the retirement age to get rid of all the judges to appoint all the new judges to reach on the maps to send it back to court because the technology because because the technology is so old it takes a lot of time to input new districts into the computers i don't know what that meant the computers if we lose are we putting like are we putting the maps like are we like a flop yeah is it punch cards like i don't know what we're doing like how big is it is it a room does it overheat like i i don't understand can you get claude but the idea that we could potentially lose the house in virginia the computers if called upon virginia the virginia government's computers that's where the potential sergeant just call an old person by accident like a luddite who doesn't know i think it was like the guy that runs the state senate he was the one that was saying the deadline yeah i think no no he got a real guy on the phone no i don't think i don't think i don't think greg sergeant got got by like i don't know he was talking a real person but that guy was like hey listen it was grock yeah i love the idea it was great love your idea yeah i mean look my my take on it was okay drawing bikinis on all the state legislators in virginia on all the districts of just magnificent magnificent yavos the uh look at these cannons okay it's just just so we yeah virginia state senate majority leader scott serve yeah i just meant was he old and doesn't know computers that's fair but i just want to i refuse to google it i'm calling him the jim comey of virginia No, I don't think that's fair. No, look, the thing about it is- 86, that idea. The guy, he's the one who picked up the phone. Yeah, never do make that- Could have been Spanberger. She didn't pick up the phone. Yeah, well, smart. I guess that's why she's governor. Yeah, I'm not taking that fucking call. Oh, the crazy, I will get rid of all the judges because of democracy. To save democracy, I've gotten rid of all the judges. They're worse than us. Everybody get behind me. We're going, come on. Gavin Newsom's breathing down her neck. Yeah. Gavin Newsom. We could have had all democratic- I'd put him on a raft and send him off to fucking Hawaii. That fucking institutional fucking fag. We could have had all democratic districts, all democratic districts. What kind of coward was he? Why is Gavin Newsom such a coward? Yeah. Put that out there. No, but- Just kidding, Gavin. Just kidding. Governor. If you told me right now that we, there's no time issue. We don't know what the future holds. We can still win the house. We should fight to win the house. Yes, this made it harder. But the idea that, if we knew with certainty that our only path to- to having some check on Trump was doing this- Was updating the machines. Was updating the machines. Was buying a new laptop. Was Tim Cook's software update. Updating the fucking- He's not going to give me now. Updating to Sierra 15.2, so we can upload the map, so the new judges that are young and vital, just the 32-year-old new democratic judges could approve the map. I'd be like, okay, I get it. Maybe it's worth the risk award. Second year late Yale. But everything can get worse. And look, I believe Republicans are leading us down all these escalatory paths all along the way, every step of the way. But this would be a new- This would be a new one, and it would be on us. Yeah, big deal. Here's what I'm going to be upset about. They're expanding courts. They are being aggressive. Here's what I'm going to be upset about Democrats is, it is clear that any state where Democrats have control, either of the governorship or the governorship, and ideally the state legislature, if we do not act to maximize the number of seats that we win between now and 28, because this cycle has clearly already passed us by- Which Virginia will have a chance to do. Right, which Virginia will have to do. If you decide to take a pass on that, yeah, then you're fucked. But like, I expect, New York, Virginia, and Colorado better get in the act. Minnesota can, I believe. Wisconsin can. Maryland, I think, can squeeze out another one. Illinois. But J.B. Pritzker probably won't be bulldozing the courthouses. You know? I'm guessing that's not going to be part of the problem. The problem is the Virginia state constitution, commonwealth, that gives, you know, the legislature the authority to appoint the judges and gives them certain terms so that you get a bunch of Republican- It's actually probably fair for democracy. No, I actually was looking- Well, it's fair for the country, but- They can expand from seven to 11 seats because you need actually like a big, a super majority in the legislator, I think, to prevent this exact scenario. Sounds like a good model for America, actually. Right, yeah, yeah. One more thing. But again, we have to do things as a country and not as individual states, which is why you need to eliminate gerrymandering as a country. Back in this quarter, what? Can you just make a decision? Well, I was about to say, the U.S. Constitution does not require any specifics on expanding the number of justices in the Supreme Court, and that is just a custom. And I'm- Now, I'm- Are we- Have we ever- Did the Biden administration ever finish that report on whether we should do- I can't remember. Where were we on that? Good point. Hey, where were we on that report? Yeah, you know. I think they did put it out. It's on Merrick Garland's to-do list. Oh, okay. Yeah. Pod Save America is brought to you by HIMSS. ED is way more common than most guys think. Millions of guys deal with it at some point, and that's exactly why HIMSS offers a straightforward way to handle it. HIMSS connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatment options from home. No awkward appointments, no pharmacy lines, just complete a simple online intake, and a provider will review your information to determine if treatment is right for you. 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Last year, 2,500 people joined us at CrookedCon for conversations with some of the smartest organizers, least in all, most annoying politicians, and most interesting voices in politics about how to fix this mess. We're doing it again, November 5th through the 7th in Washington, D.C. There's even more podcast panels and workshops. Plus, there will be drinks, which we'll need after the midterms, no matter which way they go. Get your tickets at CrookedCon.com where we'll also announce the lineup. If you're a Friends of the Pod subscriber, a limited number of discounted tickets are still available. Get them before they run out. See you at CrookedCon. The U.S. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John. The U.S. Virgin Islands is truly a magical place, one of a kind, and unlike any other destination with incredible food, warm hospitality, vibrant culture, and breathtaking beaches. It's everything you could want in a vacation. And the best part? Whether it's the world-famous Trunk Bay in St. John that was voted the best beach in the world, the picturesque Megan's Bay Beach, or the stunning Point Udall, America's easternmost point, USVI will take you to a place that no other Caribbean destination can match. For most, the U.S. All right, anyway, why worry about 2026 when we can speculate about 2028? Nice. AOC made some news over the weekend when she sat down with our pal David Axelrod at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Boy, was there an event that was just designed for us? Yeah. Axe at the IOP with interviewing AOC. Good times. We reviewed the IOP tape and I'll tell you all about it. No? Yeah, pretty good. 2017 joke. Where she provided the Terminally Online Among Us plenty of content to engage with as people have been over the last couple of days. There was one response in particular she gave to the age-old question of whether she's planning on running for president or Senate in 2028. We should talk about in which she answered by pivoting to a Washington Post editorial last week going after her for saying that it's impossible to become a billionaire without breaking rules and abusing workers or paying them not what they're worth. Take a listen. It was very clear this was a veiled threat, right? So the elite saying if you want this job, you just stepped out of line. They assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. And my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country. Presidents, come and go. Senate, House seats, elected officials, come and go. But single-payer health care is forever. A living wage is forever. Workers' rights are forever. Women's rights, all of that. I wish this president would come and go a little faster. What did you guys think? I thought it was in terms of non-answers to questions about are you going to run for president? That's one of the better ones I've heard. They went to the crowd to a guy named Chuck Schumer who was like, answer the question. Yeah, we've all heard a million politicians duck that question. And usually, it's some version of like, I'm not thinking about that right now. My priorities are on the state of Virginia and my calendar. It's like, she made it bigger. She made it about what she wanted to do, the people she wanted to help. I thought that was nice. It was well done. Now, the nitpicking response that we kind of hinted at is the legislative accomplishments are more durable, but they're not forever. The Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade. But I think that's a little too literal. I feel like we would have written the line forever and then the policy nerds or the lawyers would have been like, more durable. More durable is more accurate, which is correct. It would have been more accurate to say that. Yeah, almost forever. ACA is still hanging on. Nearly forever. Yeah, by the skin of its teeth. That's right. I did think it was completely wild to have a Washington Post editorial, not a column, but an entire editorial from the Ed Board owned by Jeff Bezos being like, hey, stop picking on billionaires. It's so funny. Well, he's like, I'm going to redo the editorial board so that it focuses on free markets and not, like, attacking success. It's like, you know, promises made, promises kept, I guess, on what that editorial board would do, yeah. I watched the whole thing, though. I'd never heard her talk about the specific experience of going from candidate to overnight celebrity. That was a really interesting story. That's it. And how just, like, head-spinning and insane that was. And then the part about why, did you hear the story about why she didn't go to med school? Like, her dad got sick, passed away, actually, and her mom started working on these jobs. I mean, it's not just, like, the bartending story that makes her feel like more of a human being than any other politician. It's the very recent past in economic hardship shit. I don't know. It's just a very compelling event. It was worth watching the full hour, I think. Yeah. I will say that the whole conversation about should billionaires exist, to me, is not the most productive use of time on either side of the debate because it's like, here's the thing about billionaires. I just want to make sure that they are taxed appropriately. I want to make sure that they can't use their influence and power to change the laws and have a bigger megaphone than everyone else in the country just because they're a rich. But like, it seems like an academic dorm room debate to be like, should they exist? Should they not exist? If they exist, does that mean that they broke the law or not broke the law? Like, I don't know why we need to be debating that in the first place. So I feel like it's, I was thinking, there was something about the online debate that was very frustrating to me because there's a lot of people talking past one another. There's a few aspects of the online debate that we can get into, but we can start with the billionaires one. And I was trying to figure out what was bugging me about it. And it is, I think, because you end up in this conversation in which the terms are moral and fuzzy, terms like earned, legitimate, deserved. And those are, because it's moral language. And I actually think the debate over the kind of morality of who can amass vast sums of wealth and how they do it is not like, I don't think it's, I think it's more than academic. I think the way we have it is academic. But what was interesting to me is the response. It is absurd that Jeff Bezos' paper is writing a defensive of billionaires. And what was interesting about the defense is they always land on celebrities like Taylor Swift and Seinfeld. And, and, and people like, well, like old people and people that like, you know, nobody had to pee in a bottle for Taylor Swift to write the music. Right. Like nobody had to sew sneakers with their little hands. Right. So like they see that documentary about the error store. How many, how many, how many children were working those gears? It seems like she had to pee in a few bottles. Maybe she did. Maybe she did. Scooter Braun pissed himself a couple of times. Was that girl? But like, but then, so it's like, oh, cause they really earned it. And, and the, what the, the kind of underlying defense of it is like, well, Taylor Swift by dint of talent without exploitation created more than a billion dollars worth of value. And like, I think I, I largely agree with that, but where I kind of, what they are talking past the deeper argument, which is a system in which one person can accrue all that wealth. Like even Taylor Swift, like she's protected by intellectual property laws. She's been able to take her vehicles on the roads and all the rest. And it's not about like, like the, the righteousness or the morality to me. Like, that's just not what I. I care about. I think it matters a lot in politics. It's like a system in which those benefits accrue so much is both wrong on the front end and the backend, the incentive structure and power structure of the economy. And then the tax structure on the backend. And so whether billionaires should or should not exist, if a lot of them do, it is because the, something is fundamentally broken in the system and they have the ability to exploit that wealth that has kind of also wrecked our politics and like that to me is what makes it worth having. Yeah. And, and for me. It brings us to like, all right, so what are the policy considerations here? What are we going to, what rules and laws are we going to put into place to make sure that the system is more fair? How do we tax wealth? And it goes into regulations and lobbying and all that and all the corruption stuff as well. Right. There's a, there's all that. Um, but, and I also think, I think about Ruben Gallego and what he would always say after the 2024 election is that Democrats with Latino voters failed the big ass truck test and that people, people in this country want to be rich working class. People want to be rich. And do they all want to be billionaires or do they think they can billionaires? No, but they want to be wealthy and what they just want is to like have a, you know, fair playing field, whatever you want to call it, whatever cliche you want to bring out. But like people want to make a lot of money and they also want to make sure that people who are absurdly rich, like pay their fair share in taxes and don't have more power and influence than everyone else. Yeah. But I think like Democrats end up focusing on the tax side of it and not as much on like the deeper kind of. Uh, like structures that mean individuals, like whether they have, whether they have a union or not, whether they have other protections, like let's say non-competes and things like that, all of which like kind of mean as, and as like more, like all the productivity gains are sort of going up to the top, which means the individual has less negotiating and bargaining power than they used to. And their dollar doesn't go as far because of all of our failures across housing and all the rest. And to me, like those are the questions that I think Democrats struggle the most to answer. The least compelling answer on like upriver from the taxes. Uh, one last thing we have to talk about, uh, gas prices, maybe 450 a gallon, but transportation secretary and road rules, all-stars veteran, Sean Duffy really wants you to get out and take a road trip so much so that he and his wife and nine children have been apparently doing their own road trip over the last several months, which they've documented in a gauzy documentary series, premiering soon on YouTube. Duffy's wife, Fox news host and fellow real world and road rule star, Rachel Campos Duffy. Uh, that's where they met, uh, described the project as really wholesome, good family stuff. That's an antidote to the quote porn hub world we're living in the fuck kind of road trip to Chigo. Well, she was on real world road, real, I can never say real world road rules challenge. Yeah. It's it's hard. It's yeah. Anyway. Uh, here's a, here's, here's a clip. What a beautiful family. Hi. It's just Adam. Mr. President of the president of Trump. We're inviting you along with our family on the great road trip to Chigo. That's where they met, uh, describe the project as really wholesome, good family stuff. That's an antidote to the quote porn hub world we're living in. Here's where they met, uh, described the project as really wholesome, good family stuff. That's where they met, uh, described the project as really wholesome, good family stuff. Yeah. The Duffys, they've got tons of kids. I think they have like 11 kids. Nine. Nine or 11 something. Is there a difference? Before Kid Rock became Kid Rock, you're traveling all over the country. You're. Oh yeah. Basically an Aerostar van. Dad's real world house. If I never lived in this house, none of you would be here. Was that. That looks so boring. Was that antidote to Pornhub or no? Uh. Well, I mean. He's got a lot of kids. So something's working. All right. That's all. That's so many. First of all, you can't road trip with nine kids. What are we driving? Is it a school bus? Cause that looked like a little car. Nine kids. So we're just leaving them behind. Nine kids is a lot of kids. Also bullshit that they're really driving around the country. They're flying places and then driving around and filming it. Right? We assume. Yes. You think the moon landing was fake? No. You might be right. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You might be wondering who paid for this massive boondoggle. Um, 501c4 called the great American road trip, uh, Inc, which says it fully funds its own efforts to celebrate and share America's story and, uh, whose sponsors happen to be industries with a business in front of the department of transportation. So that's helpful. Um, and the department later confirmed that taxpayer dollars paid for the secretary's travel to a bunch of the stops, but not his family's and the whole thing is official business anyway, because he's the transportation secretary and he was doing some transportation there. I guess your job is driving. Yeah. Right. Dude. Remember when the planes were all crashing and like Sean Duffy was the guy who was going to fix it. Well, I just watched a guy get hit on the runway in Denver the other day. I don't know. Maybe don't road trip around so much. Look, you know, this, first of all, this would bug me less if a, they didn't have a bunch of, uh, sponsors who have business in front of the department of transportation. That's one. And if they were Democrats, right? John. Well, no, I was going to say, I was actually going to say, uh, you know, you know who fucking wouldn't stop talking about Pete Buttigieg and criticizing Pete and Chasten Rachel Campos Duffy. When they spent two months when Pete took two months paternity leave because the twins were in the NICU. Yeah. They were. And she criticized him for that. And so it's like, okay. And now, now you're going to go do this. It's crazy to film a seven month reality show where they said that he like popped in for a day here and a day there, but it's like, whatever, if he wants to do it on his days off, it's not, none of these people are fucking doing a good job anyway in the cabinet. It's all a grift. I would say he's one guy, not my Sean. Yeah. He's one guy where it's like, dude, like you got like. Real legitimate ongoing like management problems at your department. Yeah. And if, and if butt rocket Duffy can't fix it, who can, you know, that's what his nickname was in the, in the real world. Um, but why was it that because he, uh, would run around the house streaking and mooning people. There's, there's, there's, there's the rocket. I remember he did a front moon, I think too, not a window in one of the episodes, but also on the show, Cyrus, Rachel, Rachel was, yeah, Rachel Campos is Lawson's a pretty good series. There's so much reality. I don't begrudge him his youth. I don't need that. There's too much reality TV. It's a great name, but rocket shirt, Trump, Sean Duffy, fuck Spencer Pratt, torturing us in the mayoral race here, like all these annoying reality, people just popping back up and ruining the 2026 Sean Duffy. I defended you as one of the lesser, uh, offenses, uh, in terms of actual cabinet performance so far. And that remains the case. It's like, but this is tough. I also look as a rule. Like if someone's producing their own reality show, it's just more boring. That's just how it goes. You got the only reality shows like, oh, it's wholesome. Like what would you think that's why people are gonna Bravo con? No, they want to watch these bitches throw shit, you know, and get into, he was also a lumberjack. Yeah. We're gonna chop some wood. That part of the board. Nothing. He was a lumberjack. Oh yeah. Wow. I didn't know that. That was a part of the real world Boston thing. Yeah. Huh? That's right. That was his, that was his shtick. That, that and butt rocket. I don't remember butt rocket. And I watched all of these episodes. I'll send you the video. I was gonna, I thought, I thought that was an old joke that was gonna be like, I've said it too many times. Um, also flagging that he was briefly NASA administrator. You guys remember that? Yeah. I wanted to keep the job. Yeah. That's get some other rockets up there. You know, he's got the expertise. He has a history of he's worked with, he's worked with all kinds of rockets. Anyway, is that it? That's it. That's our show for today, everyone. Yeah. It was a good one. Was it? It was a gusher of a show. Dan and I are gonna be back with a new show on Friday. So I wanna check that out. I think we're starting. This is a new ending. This is a new end segment of POTS of America. I wanna apologize for calling Gavin Newsom a woke. I wanna apologize for suggesting that removing the gas tax would cause Chuck Schumer to come. I think I regret saying that or applying it. Now I regret saying it. Oh, it was ass rocket. Sorry. Oh. Well, same thing. I was just being family friendly to pick up. Uh huh. Took his rocket. Unlike me. Yeah. A real rump rocket. Speaking of Tim Cook going to China. What? Oh, fuck. Oh, man. End the show. We're out. credits. Pods of America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Faris Safari with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pellevive, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Hey, it's John. Last year, 2,500 people joined us at CrookedCon for conversations with some of the smartest organizers, least annoying politicians, and most interesting voices in politics about how to fix this mess. We're doing it again November 5th through the 7th in Washington, D.C. 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