AOC vs. Bezos

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The follow 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 Deffy and his wife Rachel Campos Deffy getting back to their roots with a new reality television show. Yeah, exciting. Great. A 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 CrookedCon. Special pre-sale just for subscribers. 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 CrookedCon tickets, but you're going to have to wait till next week starting on May 19th. You might get a job at CBS. You might get to some day interview, BB Netanyahu. BB Netanyahu? Yeah. Say, sir, why are you so great? Yeah, that's the answer. Why is your leadership so important? 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 Potts of America, which I don't think is going to happen any time soon. Rhodes has got an ask in. I think we'll get Netanyahu before after we get Biden. Anyway, CrookedCon is going to be a big fun party right after the midterms. November 5th through 7th. Daniel did me for saying big fun party because he thought that was like jinxing the midterms. I'm like, it's still going to be a big fun party. Even if we, we're going to still have a party, we're still going to live. Yeah. I mean, you know, what choice do we have? You guys, you guys, you guys, humor is still humor. June and 2017. I did. I did. And we don't connect when Trump won. And when Trump won, I remember telling Emily, there might not be a wedding now. Yeah. And she's like, unrelated reasons. Well, she listened to us. That did that did that did take you in through with it. What happened on that? Don't put this under a comment of Emily's Instagram. You know someone's going to you know to send this to her. Oh, I hate the snitch tagger. It's going to turn up at your wedding. It's going to turn up. Anyway, you should go subscribe. What are we talking about? Yeah. I'm a friend of the podcast subscriber. No ads for any of your favorite podcasts of Crooked and you get to support Crooked Media and you get subscriber-only shows and you get all of our sub-stack newsletters. And by the way, you can start buying a ticket for Crooked Con right now. They're going fast. Go get it. November 5th through 7th, Washington DC. It's CrookedCon.com. And you can become a subscriber at Crooked.com/friends. All right. It appears that last week's siren emojis about the US 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. We're talking about reporters. I mean, that's who usually gives them. Well, actually, no. Reporters do. And now also just random influencers in the houses. Do you get any accurate information whatsoever? It's such credibility. It starts with dutch. The siren started dutch. 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 4U algorithm. People with names like Julie Bloomberg. Bloomberg is reporting it. It's like a collab. 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 telling it was one page. It's the right length of it all on one page. Anyway, rejected, which Iran waited 10 days to send and included demands for US reparations and permanent Iranian control over the straight of four moves. 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. It 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 the piece of garbage they sent us, I didn't even finish reading it. It was just unacceptable. You know, a lot of people say, "Well, does he have a plan?" You have to say, "Do I have the best plan ever?" I have a plan, do you know what I mean? It's a very simple plan. I don't know why you don't say it like it is. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. We need to allow the removal of all their riches. 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 for five times. They changed their mind. They're very dishonorable people. The leadership. Exasusting. Who would have thanked it? He's learning a lot of lessons over and over and over again. It may be not learning them. It drives me crazy when he says, "I have a plan Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon." No, that's a goal. That's what you want. What a plan. The plan is how you get to that. That's a destination. We need a route. We 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 are some pictures? Tommy, why do you think the latest deal fell apart? What are the options to Trump have at this point? I mean, just all the details weren't public, but I think that the US sent over a bunch of hardline, nuclear demands, and the Iranians were like, "Nah, we just want you to stop locating this trade or removes and give us all this shit and that's our take." Now we're back. All the options are bad. You can restart the war, which is extremely unlikely to lead to regime change, but we'll certainly lead to economic chaos in the region. You 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. 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 straight-arm moves in that case. I'm very interested in 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 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. It's also, we've been through so many rounds of reporting in 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 he'll ever made. On the other side, you have Iran in a stronger position when the war began, wanting a better deal than that, including consequences to the US reparations for the cost of the war and the power it's gained from having control of the straight-arm moves. Those circles don't overlap, so what are we doing here? Exactly. We keep, and then the reporting is so credulous, and so it feels like we're having this up or down, up and down rollercoaster. But really, we're just dealing with the strategic reality of this stupid fucking war. It comes me out personally. Same. Well, it also sounds like, and they said that they, and all these plans and proposals that Iran keep sending back or responding to, sounds like they just want to keep control of the straight-arm moves. No doubt, and why wouldn't they? Or they want sanctions relief. Or they want one of the other. They need a financial lifeline. 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, and 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 this, Bob. Bob to me, I'm not close enough to call him Bob. I just, I call him Rob, Bob. Bobbi. Bobbi. Bobbi, yeah. He just wrote a piece in the Atlantic titled checkmate in Iran that starts, it's hard 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 to the details of it, the neocon high duchon 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 ob, it's worse than Pearl Harbor. Oh, yeah. 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, because that one was, he was like, yeah, and then we left, then eventually, we left Iraq state more state level, and I'm like, oh, did we, did we eventually-- A lot of yoddy, yoddy, yoddy, yoddy, yoddy, for Iraq. That was my big note, too. Like, I want to build the biggest 10 possible, but his idea that Iraq was mitigated by like a strategic change, and then all's well that ends well, because like, said, I'm not there now. Yeah, that was a little much for me. But this is all, like, throw clearing around what was truly a bracing and just dismal read on the situation, including laying out, like, just how few options Trump has, because part of the reason he called off, military strikes wanted a ceasefire is because of the leverage Iran had when it was striking, you know, oil and gas infrastructure in the reason, in the region, how he can try to declare victory, but that still leaves the strait of, or moves, how, like, 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's over. I mean, if you watch, then, yeah, I want 60 minutes, 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, just casualties all the time. Yeah, so I agree with this assessment that these Iranians are not going to get up the strait or her moves unless they get sanctions really for something, like, really big for it, and that we look weak and we look kind of feckless and unreliable. It's also, like, the gall of Trump saying, "Oh, these people are dishonorable." Like, you used previous talks as a smokescreen to bomb the leadership. You have ripped up the previous 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, whose authority came from Obama to you, so you kind of undermined our credibility there. They have no confidence that Trump won't change his mind in a couple months and resume bombing if they accept a deal. They have no confidence that Israel won't bomb Iran if it used it in its interest, even if there is a deal. So just like the way in which we're stuck in this morass because Trump went into this so-have-cocked, it's just sort of gruesome minutes 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, like, Obama's around deal, right, and then call it a victory, but it's going to be 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, Iran didn't control the straight-of-form. No, no. Like, this piece made me think about the, it's like, 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, you know, government agencies. It feels nice, probably. But it seems like the, the, the scenario now where Iran willingly signed some kind of a deal where they fully give up the straight-of-hormouse and it goes back to being like an international waterway seems very slow. There's no chance. They just got this incredible toy and they're going to play with it for as long as they won until it breaks or someone takes it away. There's just no chance. And also, 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. They're in Yemen. They could start firing at ships in the Red Sea. They should, 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-hormouse, 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 there, which is the nuclear material. The 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium, sometimes it's dust, sometimes it's critical to get out. It is still sitting in Iran and also all of that material was enriched after Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, so it's a problem he created and now is probably not going to solve. I like the scenario that he mentioned where they were all, we were going to go in together with the Iranians, a group field trip to dig under the rubble and to find all the nuclear dust together. I'd go. That was a real, it's a show I'd watch. I also, and this is around giving up the straight through some negotiation, then there's the other option of trying to take it by force, but that requires, you know, US Navy ships potentially getting fired on and around small boats firing on other ships too, and then Kagan points out in this piece too, even if they are not firing on the ships, they can retaliate against Gulf energy infrastructure like they did 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 don't give a shit about their own people, they kill protesters like this up, they surely are not going to care if they're going to inflict a ton of economic pain on their country. It's not like they care a lot about their people, so yeah, 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 books 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 in Iran remaining of power and now controlling the Strait of Hormuz or there's escalation and we've already done, we've already, 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 the next escalation is toward the regime collapsing, that's combination of economic pressure to squeeze them, that's more an intense military action and like it all, and while that is happening, 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 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 who's been lifting a lot, we decided to pick a fight with the crazy guy who is cauliflowerier 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 well. Yeah, and by the way, you also killed his father, I guess, and there's no gold toilet room, like it is just like, there was someone I said once a long time ago, which is like if someone is willing to fight you, it means they have less to lose and I don't think you'll ever learn that because I don't think there's ever been a real fight. Pots of America is brought to you by NutriFull. Real change comes from small things you do every day that quietly add up to big improvements. That's the idea behind NutriFull. It's built around a simple, consistent approach to hair health that works from within and delivers visible results over time, not overnight. 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And at your promo code crooked that's nutriFull.com spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com promo code crooked. Puts in America is brought to you by Rocket Money. What ridiculous subscription did you discover you were paying for any embarrassing doubles? Yeah, a ton of them all the time. There was a time where I was trying to find a good workout app. gives you some workouts to do and then you like sign up and you subscribe and then suddenly it's like there's three workouts apps I never use. What am I doing? I was paying for all these different things. I had someone I was paying for one of them twice. Ridiculous. Rocket money allows you to track subscriptions and cancel them within the app with just a few taps. In fact, Rocket money has saved users over $880 million in canceled subscriptions. You can categorize automatic transactions across your accounts and customize categories with tags to help shed light on your spending patterns. Set budgets and savings goals. 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Trump said Monday he's considering suspending the federal gas tax, which is currently about $0.18 a gallon for gasoline and $0.24 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. Because he'd be excited to him. Sorry. Just because he loves it, you know, it does a press conference for the gas tax. Yeah, sure, sure. For sure. For sure. Suspending the gas tax. Good idea. Or great idea. Yes. Suspending the gas tax, release all this strategic petroleum reserve, get rid of all the sanctions on Iran, maybe Russia while you're at it. 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're 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 assets 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 Hillary Clinton's primary campaign in 2008. Well, she I don't even remember. We were forced. You guys, yeah, I had to think about that too, because it was 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 we were going to solve. That was when we were making, we wanted people to check. He just suggested people check their tires. They're like, you fucking piece of shit. We like running on these soft tires. Cushie. It's Cushie. We're not going to fill up my tires, communist bastard. But the, yeah, I look at the way it is. It doesn't, it doesn't actually bring down the price. No, it's why it's, it's, what is it? It's 18, 18, 18 cents a gallon. And then some a little bit more for diesel. I mean, it's a bigger deal for truck drivers, commercial, like it does make a big difference for people and like that. But it's also ridiculous to jump, said he would do this. Can't do it without Congress. 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 or I guess 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 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 13.1 million dollars, according to David Farron Holdt at the times. This is apparently at an 88% 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-bate contract to the guy who did all his pools at Bedminster, which is Rudy Giuliani. Hope he felt better. There's trying to sue it to stop it. It was funny. The guy that was suing. He was like, we just look, it's a process thing, but also we just think they chose a bad color. Which you know they did. You know it's going to be the tackiest fucking thing. The tackiest blue. Like come on. It doesn't need to look like a goddamn splash mountain thing. Like just kind of the best blue is North Carolina, Carolina blue. Let's just do that. You and see colors. Now be pretty bright in the reflecting pool. I don't know. I'm just making this up. Why it's Kevin Haset. He looks like Dennis. The menace just took down on the biggest nitrous balloon you've ever seen. Then he just spouts like economic bullshit on. It's like he spits the best. Yeah, he's the best. Get him out there. Get him out there. $13 million for the reflecting pool. They're voting on the ballroom this week. I 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 your boy Chuck Schumer, 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 ballroom Republicans. It's not I know it's one of those. I'm like it's it's definitely definitely not using a scalpel there. More of a more of a sledgehammer. But maybe he he throws out ballroom of 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 going to have to vote on it. And I think that's great. It's a yes or no. Oh yeah. On the fucking ballroom terrific. Yeah. That's good. Terrific. The idea that they're saying it's security security. But service needs it. What would they need it if you didn't have the fucking ballroom? Probably not. Hey. Well, it's like you knocked 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? Yeah. When you knocked down a building, put 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 it's like every fucking now it's like a football stadium where you know, there's these donors are going to go to the big unveiling because they're the ones responsible, but the vast majority of the cost of taxpayers because it building the 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 a hundred percent. Just trying to add it up here. There's the ballroom. There's the Trump Kennedy Center. There's the arch. We haven't even started building the arch yet. We'll get going. We got the and now the reflecting pool. They're also 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's escaping. It is, of course, 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. It's like a good mix of shady influence of corporate allies of Trump and just good old fashion, just corruption. They're reflecting pool brought to you by great deal. 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, 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 is 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 Stephen Spielberg. I think that that world were two memorials. Oh, yeah. My this is my position, which I think is I don't want it. I don't want it. I don't want the final design trickle down ballroom. Stephen Spielberg design. He was part of the class because it was part of the post saving private Ryan Tom. It was in the it was part. He was helped raise money forward. It was kind of a big boost of it. I don't know exactly what is direct involved. It's not the designer of it, but he was a big face of getting it done. So the Democrats over. We're going to bulldoze the ballroom. Bulldoze the world were two more. No, no, I don't want that. Listen, you want to paint the reflecting. What do we do? They're reflecting pool. Is that where Jenny and Forest Gump are united? Was that in the reflecting pool? Yes, it is. It is. It is. It is. Don't mess with that. It's a way to look that this the the painting the reflecting pool, kind of undoing that. That's an easy one. That that actually all the gold on the white house. That's coming off. That's the writing on the outside of the oval. That's like that curse of gold writing oval this way. I'll clip. Why do you think this house needs a fucking name tag? We all you everyone knows what it is. That's the whole idea of it. We funny. They did a big gold like in this house. We believe kind of like the Marlago, Obam Pong, umbrellas, the yellow umbrellas. Those are all gone. Those drive me. It just looks just like Marlago. Yeah. That's the silly color. It's a long list. Well, if suspending the gas tax doesn't work and the and the gusher of oil doesn't open, Trump does have one of the stops saying gusher. Gusher, gusher, gusher. Yeah. It's a snack. Gusher. It is a snack. Yes, Tommy. 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 led in too many people from Venezuela in prisons? 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, every person in the asylum that the worst people in Venezuela will all become Americans. It's a, it's a good question. Uh-huh. 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. Do you know how they treat the citizens of Puerto Rico, right? Donald Maduro's advocate here. Yeah. Well, they're not, but they're not a member. They're not there. They don't have stated that. Right. Right. Right. Well, it doesn't matter. You need Congress. Exactly. Just consider it. Oh, you're considered 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 It will only a flagrant violation of in an international law the Venezuelans don't choose 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 which would be lovely. That's 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 It was in the Miami-Herald actually a couple weeks ago. They did put a big big poll in Venezuela in January 92% 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% 89% of Venezuelans reject Trump's continued backing of Rodriguez and 78% think the country's on the wrong track under her So honestly, honestly him losing support for depositing Maduro that quickly. It's actually very American to me 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 for sure Certainly, there's an easier way to just steal all their oil than to make those in other states. Yeah, that's the end game By the way doing that now and we're 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 we you know I was flirting with not talking about this at all But we saw what happened with Greenland. There's there's for you know NATO had exercises military exercises in Greenland. So we got pretty close on that one Raphael Lemkin just want to shout at us about international law over here. Yeah Like a mole cluny over there. I'm all a mole cluny. That would be out of get the first one. No, no, no No, it's very very. Yeah, say that shit for Ben. Yeah Take it to the world earth. Yeah Okay You Pots of 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 was a real. 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Can we pause on that? Hey, Tim. You're resigning You don't have to do this anymore Tim Cook. You know what you know what? I love it just likes Donald Trump. I think he's in I really do I think anyone who thought Tim Cook was just like do I think Tim Cook's just I figured he just liked fucking screens. No, fuck Tim Cook. He sucks I'll help your iPhone. All right. Well, don't be your Apple carous. Yeah, I think see a pride Tim I guess Okay, anyway So Tommy and Asian diplomat in DC told Politico they're worried that China might offer to help reopen the straight in exchange for American concessions on Taiwan Which I'm sure of Trump read that would be like good idea How big of a deal would that be how concerned are you? I mean I first on just skeptical the China could actually force Iran to reopen the Straight 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 well, we get a couple a couple million worth of Bitcoin I've had a every both that goes by we find a new buyer for that oil like I don't know. I'm skeptical I asked 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 a straight-o hermuz and not sell my Iranian friends anymore 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 arm 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, Congressional mandated Law, so which he signed 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 Well, he cares insofar as losing access to their semiconductors would be an economic calamity, right? And it would be a historic it would be a historic ego. Ego won't Yeah, but like he doesn't give a shit about freedom Democracy human rights Religious freedom Cating communism all the traditional like things that once animated Republicans on this so I assume he would trade away Taiwan in a heartbeat for a good trade deal But even but she didn't think 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 arm sales packages to Taiwan now the the rub here is that those haven't been delivered yet 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 I don't know And then they're gonna be talking about AI A lot as well. Apparently it seems like a good outcome on AI seems like it could be 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 no she gives him a chap on it. Yeah, this is me. I talk I want those who go deep on AI But I would like our country cooperating with China on on making sure that we are keeping a line open on AI when it gets Yeah, yeah, I don't have to worry about it 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 sort of unfettered development Like they're clearly would be some kind of there's a way to have an agreement about some kind of limits Uh to prevent sort of catastrophic outcomes with AI and like that seems like exactly what we would want them to be working It was and they said they were gonna talk about it So I do think that's genuine. Sure. They're not AI the nukes the nuclear decision-making process no AI in that Yeah, and they have they have both agreed so far do that split that off of but there's a lot more There's a lot that plenty of other problems that could in the world You know bio weapons 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 Tommy and Dan covered the news when it broke on the PSA YouTube channel. I have to say we crushed it Ghost that's why you should go subscribe for free subscribe to have a good YouTube free if you want to see Dan looking spicy on the Friday Okay, you know he does most of the YouTube's uh, he pops it up. Oh, he does. Pop plus YouTube that Friday. Yeah for Friday Under the table camera. That's for that's for the subscribers Talk about a polar coaster. You're dumb Nice Anyway, nobody put this in the comments on message box That's the only way Dan will know this happened every shot. We be fucking cool Fucking narks Anyway, what was I gonna say? Oh, yeah, there's been some more developments on the potential redistricting fallout in Virginia And other states ahead of the midterms. Uh here's glass half empty Nate cone of course calculated that Republicans could now lose the popular vote by more than two points and still keep control of the House. 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, which by definition will be more competitive. Amy Walter at Cook Political basically said the same thing. I think you guys probably talked about that on Friday. I think she thinks that when all said and done the realistic gain is probably like five seats in a good scenario. They could net like 11 or 12 but probably won't. And that's because of the Democrats still winning those tough districts not because they still get to redraw them. And Jay Mard argues that they're handing Democrats a generational opportunity to mobilize outraged Black voters. Case in point 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 a state as you represent some people in the state and not all the people in the state. 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. What? The US Supreme Court did rule. They lifted the injunction on Alabama that they had in place before now allowing them to pursue their, their new maps. It's interesting. She was dickheads. They voted forward their new, you know, map proposal in the middle of a tornado warning. They just kept going. They just left to evacuate. They're like no, no, no, stripping away. Black people's voting rights is more important to us. So what do you guys think? How bad? So seen a couple of different numbers but basically even with these new maps, if we have, you know, if we went by let's say 4% right nationally. The House, the House margin is 4% than we still win the House. I get that's an important one just to, yeah, just put an exclamation point on that because that was if, if Louisiana, Alabama, in South Carolina, I'll go, which now seems like we are definitely going to do that scenario. And they say if we won the popular vote by 4 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. We ought to be able to beat that 4% and we should focus on that because if we do that, then not only do we overcome their advantages in the gerrymandor, we can win those Virginia seats that on the old map. And we can actually prove that some of their maps were drawn to aggressively and make them make them more nervous the next time they look at doing this to kind of 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 8 in 2018. So if we're thinking and hoping and expecting this cycle to be better than even 2018, then we should have no problem in the House. And look, if we're not winning by 8, if we're only winning by 4, then something else went wrong. Exactly. And by more than redistricting, like you said, after all this, Democrats won by 4 or 5 or 6 in this kind of year. And so we do worse than we did in 2018. Maybe they like the ballroom. Maybe they like $5 gas. Yeah. And we're 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 would also say, if this does galvanize people and we are able to win the House, suddenly we have people showing up in the Senate races that might not have otherwise. And all it sort of, Republicans can be hoisted by their own petards. Yeah. Nate Cohen points out that the challenge is the median district, House District now in the country will have voted for Trump by five and a half points. Sweet. 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 points. Look, it's a- Which we've already been doing in every- Yeah, right. These are the swings 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 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. And he's just like, wasting his time on stupid shit. And look, the bigger long-term problem here 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, know that if the full state Alexa Democrat as governor, which happens in places like North Carolina was concerned, then the state legislature, which never has to worry about competitive elections or Republicans losing, just takes all the power from the government. So like, it's simple, 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, and we know from the constitution, right, that it, you know, in Dow state legislatures with a lot of power when it comes with elections and it comes nail-edible rights like life, like that, yeah. But that is greater. And on that note, if Democrats do control Virginia, I don't know if you guys saw the mini-new cycle about Virginia Democrats considering whether to, what was the mini-new cycle? Many, yeah, so it was like a mini-war, which we talked about this morning, it's already over. Anyway, they were considering whether to change the retirement age for state supreme court justices. 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 change the maps and then have the new democratically appointed, Democratic Party appointed state supreme court justices approve the new maps and in time for the midterms. First of all, first they don't have to get a bunch of new, they don't 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 creativity, local news outlet in Virginia floated this idea and all of a sudden we're talking about it. Real dog, no, the thing says that golden retriever can't be speaker in the house situation is without a doubt, that undemocratic, terrible precedent, the kind of thing the voters would absolutely despise. In this climate, absolutely would do it. Yeah, I mean, the governor of Louisiana is just talking about on TV how he's like thrown out ballots and he's like, "Oh, my fault, Supreme Court's fault." Yeah, so 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 voter doing this early on? I doubted it, I bet she has other things she wants to do. 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 out the mess, to send it back to court. Because the technology, 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. And we lose fucking, we lose that. Are we putting the maps like, are we like, to flop? Yeah, as a punch card, like, I don't know what we're doing. Like, how big is it, is it a room, does it overheat? Like, I don't understand. But the idea that we could potentially lose the house. The computers, the computers, if called upon the Virginia, the Virginia government's computers are too slow to be a democracy. That's what the potential, I like 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 dead. 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 kind of a real person, but that guy was like, hey, listen, it was a rock, yeah, love your idea. Yeah, I mean, look, my my take on it was, okay, drawing bikinis on all the districts have just magnificent, magnificent Yavos, the, look at these cannons, look at these kids. It's just so, yeah, Virginia state senate majority leaders, Scott serve. Yeah, I mean, was he old and doesn't know, I mean, that's fair, but I just want to, I'm calling him the Jim Comey of fucking Virginia. No, I don't, I don't think that's fair. No, look, the thing about it is 86. He's the one who picked up the phone, I call the phone. Yeah, never been doing that. Could have been Spanberger, she didn't pick up the phone. Yeah, well, smart. No, 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, judges, because the democracy, the way, to save democracy, I've gotten rid of all the judges. They're worse than us. Everybody get behind me, we're going, this is come on. Gavin Newsom's breathing down her neck. Yeah, Gavin Newsom, we get about, we get out, we get out, we put him out wrapped and send him off to fucking Hawaii. That, that, that fucking institutional fucking bag, we could have had all democratic districts, all democratic districts. What kind of coward is he? Yeah, why is Gavin Newsom such a coward? Yeah, put that out there. No, but if you told me right now that we, there's no time, we don't know what the future holds, we can still win the house, we should fight the win the house. Yes, this made it harder, but the idea that if we knew with certainty that our only path to having some check on Trump was doing this. With updating machines. With the supply and new laptop. It was Tim Cook's software effect. - Updating the fucking, updating the-- - He's not gonna give me now. - Updating to see, or a 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 resort. - Second year lay you. - 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 one, and it would be on us. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Here's what you're gonna be upset about. - No, here's where I'm gonna 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 the cycle's clearly already passed as five. - 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, and they can squeeze out another one at Illinois. - But JB Prisker probably will be bulldozing the court houses, you know, guessing that's not gonna be proper. - Right, you know, 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 a public, I mean, it's actually probably a fair for democracy. - No, it's great for the country, but. - They can't, they can expand from seven to 11 seats, as you need actually like a big, a super majority in the legislature, I think to prevent exactly, 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. - Yeah, and not as individual states, which is why you need to eliminate Jerry Mandering as a country. - Now, how can this court of work? - You all about the state. - The U.S. Constitution does not require any specifics on expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court, and that is just a custom. Now, have we ever, did the Biden administration ever finish that report? (laughs) - Whether we should do it, we're, we're, we're, we're, - Good point. - Hey, where are we in that report? - Yeah, you know. - I think they did put it-- - It's on Merrick Garland's to-do list. (laughs) - Oh, that guy. - Yeah. (upbeat music) - Pods in America is brought to you by hymns. ED is way more common than most guys. Thank millions of guys deal with it at some point, and that's exactly why hymns offers a straightforward way to handle it. hymns connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatment options from home, no awkward appointments, no pharmacy lines is complete, a simple online intake, and a provider will review your information to determine if treatment is right for you. 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So if you want to vote this year, you should request your ballot right away. Go to votefromabra.org and click request my ballot. Ask to receive it by email. Questions? Ask our support team directly. Don't miss this chance to shape the future. Don't delay, votefromabra.org. - Blanclay, our docu-series exploring the people and forces shaping the South is back. Newsflash, the South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Aaron Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Paul Mary, former White House communications director. Tune in on Mondays to long-play series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. (upbeat music) - 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 Axler out at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Boy, was there an event that was just designed for us? - Yeah. - Acts at the IOP with interviewing AOC? - Good times. - So 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 with their 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. - President, come and go, Senate, House seats, elected officials, come and go, but single-payer health cares forever. - A living wage is forever. Workers rise for forever. Women's rise for all of that. - Which this president would come and go a little faster. I thought it was in terms of non-answers to questions about are you gonna run for president? That's one of the questions. - I went to the crowd to a guy named Shuck Tumor, who is like, "Bang with a question." (laughing) - Yeah, we've all heard a million politicians duck that question. And usually in some version of like, "I'm not thinking about that right." And my priorities are on the state of Virginia, 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, as well done. Now, the nitpicking response that we kind of hinted at is legislative accomplishments are more durable, but they're not forever the Supreme Court overturned Rovers' way. But I think that's a little too literal. - Yeah. - We all know the truth. - I feel like we would have written the line forever. And then like the policymakers or the lawyers would have been more durable as more accurate, which is correct. It would have been more accurate to say that. - Almost forever. - ACS still hanging on. - Nearly forever. - Yeah, by the skin of its teeth. - That's right. - I don't know a little bit. - 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 gonna read you the editorial board "so that it focuses on free markets and not attacking success." And 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 headspinning it and saying that was. And then the part about what, did you hear that 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 and economic hardship. 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 rich. But 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? I don't know why we need to be debating that. - So I feel like there was something about the online debate that was very frustrating to me because there's a lot of people talking past. - There's a few aspects of the online debate that we can get into, but we'll 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 moral language. And I actually think the debate over the kind of morality of who can amass fast sums of wealth and how they do it is not, I think it's more than academic. I think the way we happen 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 defenses, they always land on celebrities like Taylor Swift and Seinfeld and people like-- - Like old people. - Well, like old people and people that nobody had a 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-- - Do you see that documentary about the Aristotle? - How many children were working those gears? - No, it seems like she had to pee in a few bottles. - Oh, maybe she did. - I was going to run, pissed himself a couple times. - Is that girl? - But then, so it's like, oh, 'cause they really earned it. And what the underlying defensive it is, like, well, Taylor Swift by dint of talent without exploitation. created more than a billion dollars worth of value. And I think I largely agree with that, but they are talking past the deeper argument, which is a system in which one person can accrue all that wealth. Even Taylor Swift, 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 the righteousness or the morality to me. That's just not what 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 back end, the incentive structure and power structure of the economy, and then the tax structure on the back end. And so whether a billionaire 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 for me, that 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? That is a tax wealth. And it goes into regulations and lobbying and all the corruption stuff is money and there's all that. But, and I also think about Ruben Gaiego 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 in this country want to be rich, working class people want to be rich. And do they all want to be billionaires? 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, and I think like Democrats end up focusing on the tax side of it and not as much on like the deeper kind of 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-compete and things like that, and all of which, like kind of mean. 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 the housing and all the rest. And to me, like those are the questions that I think Democrats struggle the most to answer. We have the least compelling answer on like, upriver from the taxes. One last thing we have to talk about, gas prices may be $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 Gazi documentary series premiering soon on YouTube. Duffy's wife, Fox News host and fellow real world and road rules star Rachel Campos Duffy. That's that's where they met. Describe 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 wasn't real world real 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 a clip. What a beautiful family. Hi, it's just Adam, Mr. President. Can you send it to President Trump? We're inviting you along with our family on the great American road trip. The Duffy's stayed got tons of kids. I mean, they have like 11 kids. 9 or 11 something is there a difference before kid rock became kid rock. You're traveling over the country year. Oh, yeah, basically an arrow star van ads real world house. I find it lived in this house. None of you would be here. Was that that looks so boring? Was that antidote to porn hub or no? Uh, I mean, you got a lot of kids. So, someone'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? Because that looks like a little car. Nine kids, so we just leave in the behind. It's a lot of balls of 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 of them? That he was saying? You know, you might be wondering who paid for this massive boondoggle. Um, 501 C4 called the great American road trip, uh, ink, which says it fully funds its own efforts to celebrate and share America's story. And, uh, who sponsors happen to be industries with a business in front of, uh, the Department of Transportation. So that's helpful. Um, and the department later confirmed that tax payer dollars paid for the secretaries travel to a bunch of the stops, but not as families. 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. Right. Right. Dude, remember when the planes were all crashing and like Sean Duffy was the guy who was going to fix it? I just watched the 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 right. 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 Chaston when, when Rachel Campo's stuffy, when they spent two months, when Pete took two months, paternal leave, because the twins were in the NICU 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. It's almost seven months. Yeah. It's real. What are they saying that he like popped in for a day here in a day, sure, whatever, if you want to do it on his days off, it's not any 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, Butt Rocket. Why was it that? Because he would run around the house streaking and mooting people. There's, there's, there's the rocket. I remember he did a front moon, I think, too, out of window and one of the episodes. Butt Rocket. Lost on the coast. Speaker Warren. Rachel. Rachel was. Yeah. Yeah. Rachel Campo says. Lost on a pretty good series. Butt Rocket. It's a great name. Butt Rocket. Sure. Trump. Sean Duffy, 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 offenses in terms of the actual cabinet performance so far. And that remains the case because the bar is a pretty low. But that is a rough. This is tough. I also, like, 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 going to bravo con. No, they want to watch these bitches throw shit, you know, and get into it. He was also a lumberjack. Yeah. We're going to chop some wood. That part of the board, nothing. He was a lumberjack. Oh, yeah. Wow. I don't know that. That was a part of the real world Boston thing. Yeah. Huh. That's right. That was his that was his stick. That that butt rocket. I don't remember butt rocket. That's not any of the video. I was going to have episodes. I thought that was an old joke that was going to be like, I've said it too many times. Also, flagging that he was briefly NASA administrator, you guys remember that? Yeah. One to keep jobs. Yeah. Let's get some other rockets up there. You know? He's got the expertise. He has a history of he's worked with all kinds of rockets. Anyway. Is that it? That's it. That's our show for today, everyone. Yeah. It is a good one. It was a gusher of a show. Dan and I are going to be back with a new show on Friday, so I want to check that out. I think we're starting. This is a new ending. This is a new end segment of Pots of America. I want to apologize for calling Gavin Newsom a woke f***ing. Uh, I want to apologize for suggesting that removing the gas tax would cause Chuck Schumer to come. Uh, I think I regret saying that. We're applying it now. I regret saying it. Oh, it was ass rocket. Sorry. Well, not that. Same thing. I was just being family friendly. I pick up. Uh-huh. I'm like me. Yeah. Real rump, real rump rocket. Speaking of Tim Cook on a China. What? Oh f***. And the show. We're out. Predates. Pots of America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed Jerlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heffko, Jordan Cancer, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellevive, David Toll's, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's Guild of America East. Longplay, our docu-series exploring the people and forces shaping the South is back. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South too. We're in the final stretch of the midterms, and the political map has only gotten more competitive with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. So we thought it was time to get back on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. Tune in on Mondays to Longplay Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.