Cage Match Inside the White House

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Over 5 million people value and trust SimpliSafe with their home security every day. Right now, our listeners will get 50% off a new system when you sign up for professional monitoring and your first month is free. Just visit simplisafe.com slash crooked. That's half off at simplisafe.com slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. And I'm Alex Wagner. Two weeks in a row. Baby. You know, I'm really glad when you said I want to do a special Knicks-focused episode of Pod. That is what I said. I was like, who will even know where we're going to be? But it turns out, very fortuitous, happy to just talk about the Knicks on this podcast. Thanks for inviting me, Jon. Congratulations. I had nothing to do with it. I had some excellent timing because I put the boys to bed and then I went downstairs and I, turned the game on at the beginning of the fourth quarter when the run started. Oh my God. Fuck you with your Pacific Standard time. Oh, it's watching sports, West Coast time. Not that I ever do because I have two young children. I know. But it's the best. It is the best. You're so lucky. I had put my, I let them stay up a little bit late and we saw the first quarter and it was like, we can turn this off now. They were like, my eight-year-old started like kind of crying and he was like, I hate the Knicks. And I said, you need to manifest positivity. I put them to bed. And then they, he woke me up at seven o'clock. I know I slept in and he was like, Monday one. And then we watched highlights. I was slightly concerned that Trump had cursed them for the rest of the series. But it turns out it's just about him actually physically being there. True. And also smart Knicks fans burned a bunch of sage in front of the garden yesterday because we know how to clear bad vibrations. Clear the Trump stink out of MSG. Yeah, it hangs in the air, especially in this weather. But. Listen. Well, there we go. There we go. That's it. Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe to Pod Save America. We got lots to talk about on today's show. We're going to talk about Trump saying we're on the verge of a deal with Iran for the 39th time since the war began a little over a hundred days ago. Who knows? This could be the big one. We'll also cover the president's latest inflation gaffe. Spoiler. He loves it. And his attempt to quiet Republican fury. Over Bill Pulte by announcing his long-term pick for DNI. There's also new reporting that the knives are out in Trump land, which is perfectly illustrated by an explosive new story from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan about how these morons bumbled their way through the Epstein crisis. And finally, you will hear my conversation with our pal Ron Brownstein, one of the best political analysts out there about the midterm state of play, his take on the Graham-Plattner saga, the House map, the Senate map, and much more. But before we start, please consider subscribing to Cricket and become a friend of the pod. You get ad-free episodes of Pod Save America and all your favorite Cricket pods. You also get to be supporting one of the few pro-democracy, independent media outlets left in the world. Barry Weiss hasn't shut down yet or tried to murder. And you get subscriber-only shows like Dan Pfeiffer's Polar Coaster, our special extra episode of Pod Save America, and access to all of our excellent Substack newsletters. So think about subscribing if you haven't already. If you have, tell a friend. Cricket.com slash friends. Tell five friends. What's that? Tell five friends. Tell five friends. I like that. Thank you, Alex. Why go for one? Don't clip your own wings. All right. I want five friends from everyone. Here we go. All right, Alex. Stop me if you've heard this one before. The ceasefire with Iran broke down. Missiles started flying again. Trump threatened to bomb the shit out of the entire country. And then at the last minute, announced with great fanfare that he's calling off the strikes because a deal is finally at hand. Is this an episode? From six weeks ago, three weeks ago, last week, next week, ten weeks from now, all of the above? You know, John, I've come to the Chris Nolan theory of time that it's a dimension. And so it's always happening. We're always at war, and a deal is always imminent. We're always at war with. It is omnipresent. We live in the dimension of a. Yeah, we're never not about. It will go on forever. Middle Asia. It has been happening. I guess. Yes. It is just. We're going to be talking about this for eternity. It's like, all right, let's talk about the latest Amos deal with Iran, and then we'll talk about the inflation gaffe, and then we're off. I. I think. I've been thinking a lot about this, and I wonder if it's time for the press to stop asking him anything about the war. Because it's so. It's like asking, like, perhaps. A mentally ill person about stock tips. Like, there's no use in doing that. They'll tell you some things. They'll have ideas. Now, I will say. I will say he's pretty good at that because of all the insider information, which he trades off of. Yes, that is true. 3,700 stock tips. So that is one. Yeah, that he's quite adept at doing that. So the latest U.S. strikes hit targets across Iran, including apparently drinking water infrastructure, which would likely be a war crime. And after Trump threatened to take Karg. and assume, quote, total control of Iran's oil, he backed down with the post claiming, quote, final points have been in both concept and great detail approved by all parties involved and then listed 10 countries. Iran was not one of them. As I mentioned, CNN has tallied this up for us. It's at least the 39th time that Trump has claimed a deal is imminent. And, you know, he did take some questions on the deal in the Oval. But like you said, it was all the same questions and all the same crazy answers. We thought it was much more interesting to play a supercut from his call into Fox & Friends this morning between when he threatened to destroy the country and he announced an almost deal. He was there to ostensibly discuss Iran, but that only barely happened. Here are some of the highlights. I mean, I'd like to get a deal now less than three or four weeks ago because, you know, once you do this, you could just go a step further. But I don't know that America. America has the appetite to do what I would really much prefer doing. Look, we were in Vietnam 19 years. If it were me, I would have had that war done in three months. But we did great in 2020. That was a rigged election. And you saw it in California. Very interesting, if I could just diverge. You said all of a sudden, there's, oh, we have a surprise. Steve Hilton won. But Iran. It's a rigged election. Okay, but let's get back to Iran. I shouldn't have brought that up. But how do you feel about Iran? No, but let's get back. Let's get back. I just want to say to the public, it's a rigged election. We need the Save America Act, period. Got it. Okay, let's get back to Iran. Much simpler. Iran is very good at publicity, but they're not good at fighting. So. I took a look, and I must tell you, they can't believe the press they're getting. They can't even believe it. And they told me. They said, it's amazing how well we're doing in the papers. We're not doing so well. They're negotiating with us to make a deal. It's like, they did an editorial today about, we're not hitting them. We're not hitting them hard enough. I mean, it's just, not hitting them hard enough. We dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night. You know, the whole thing is crazy. Part of the problem is that they read the fake news. I mean, because Fox is great. All the anchors on Fox have been fantastic, from Sean to Jesse, Laura. I mean, they've all been great. Everybody, every single anchor has been great. You guys have been amazing. Excellent. Seems like he's locked in, huh? Dude. Okay, I mean, like, where do we even begin with this? First of all, there's so many things to call attention to. The fact that he had to, in the middle of all of this, go off on the 2020 election, and Brian Kilmeade is like, I shouldn't have brought that up. And he says, Iran's for Iran. It's my fault, though. It's my fault. I took us off topic. And then Trump says, let's get back to Iran, a much simpler situation. He sounds like an old, angry person who's not yet even stood up from power. You know, he has that kind of, the throaty congestion of someone who's just ranting from bed. Like, and it's just, obviously, it's just association at this point. Just word salads. None of it makes sense. The fact that he keeps bringing up Vietnam as like a comparison should not make any member of the American public feel assured that they have their hands on the wheel here, that they got their arms around this thing. Well, look at Vietnam. That took so long. Yeah, no, dude. we don't want to do that again. Also, his whole thing about, you know, I do what I want to do, but the American people might not have the stomach for it. Like he's like he wants to do this big war. He wants to keep going with the war. He wants to just he wants he wants more war, harder war. His message at one point, he's pressed to give his message to the Iranian people. And Trump says, and this is a quote, my message to the Iranian people is they're afraid because they have no guns and the other side has guns. That's not a message to the Iranian people, I don't think. That is not a message to the Iranians. Every time someone has asked him about this whole war, though, he confuses. It feels like intentionally now the Iranian people with the regime. And so everyone's like, what about the Iranian people? And he's like, they're running scared. That's what they're doing. And it's like some people are specifically mentioning the Iranian people. And he, of course, does not give a shit about them, even though that was, you know, that was one excuse for why we were doing this in the first place. I also love the notion that the Iranian regime, that Moshtaba al-Rahmani, who has not been seen in public since this began, is calling Trump to be like, it's amazing how well we're doing in the papers. The papers. I read the New York Times here. I grabbed the post this morning. You should have seen the wood on the post. Amazing. I'm getting amazing press. They put the Knicks on the back page. I was right there in the front. And that was a great game, Mr. President. He also starts talking at some point about Tiananmen Square and how it takes a it starts the drivers of the tanks in Tiananmen Square who mowed down citizens, at which point he's cut off. And they're like, we only have a minute, Mr. President. They literally cut him off on Fox and Friends because he's so addled. Can I say, though, seriously, John? I mean, because you mentioned and I think very importantly, and he certainly wasn't being asked about this on the Fox and Friends broadcast. They may have bombed water. Infrastructure, which would be a war crime and the story of whenever this ends or maybe it never ends because time is a dimension. But when it theoretically comes to a conclusion, the story of American war crimes in Iran will live with us as the as our legacy for decades. And we on Runaway Country had talked to the retired master sergeant at the what is it called? The Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which was a department. In the D.O.D., which was set up to mitigate and prevent civilian deaths, like, for example, bombing a girls school or bombing water infrastructure. And Pete Hegseth wrote in and dismantled it effectively. Like civilian deaths are not beside the point. I mean, I think terrorizing people, especially brown people the world over, is the point. And we I mean, the this administration owns these civilians. And we don't have a good tally of them because there's so much opacity with regards to this war, even as it concerns American deaths. And we have a free press. But at some point, the numbers are going to come out. And Donald Trump will own every single one of those deaths for a deal that looks like it will be nothing on par with the JCPOA. Also, one thing he said there in that clip that we played is, you know, he's talking about the Wall Street Journal editorial board saying that he's not bombing hard. He's not doing enough, right, because they're hawks over there. He also calls them. He's like, I know that you guys own them, but they're trash. He said to the Fox people referring to Murdoch. And he's like, what do you what do they want from me? We just dropped two hundred and fifty million dollars worth of bombs on them last night. So now he is bragging to the American people about using their tax dollars to drop bombs on Iran that hit water infrastructure that could potentially cause civilian death. And so he's telling people like, hey, what do you want from me? I spent your money killing people in Iran for no reason last night. It's the first time we've also gotten any kind of price tag from him. I mean, it's so embarrassing that this is like the braggadocio about killing civilians is the only way we get some transparency about the from this White House, about what the damage and the sort of collateral on the table is. It's it's like horrifying. You know, the question is, you know, will will will Lucy yank the football away yet again? Or is this finally? Charlie Brown's moment. It seems like the it's still just a memorandum of understanding. So that's what Trump said that in the Oval, which means it's the sort of the same deal as before deal. The Israelis are apparently surprised. No. And they said they're not part of this deal at all. So no matter what the deal is, it's not it's not solving the conflict between Israel and Lebanon. Trump said that the Ayatollah has agreed already. Iran is not saying that there's an Iranian news agency said there's a high chance the green the agreement will be approved. So, like, you know, maybe we're going to get there. But it feels like we're right back to if it does get approved, what it is is the end of the naval blockade, reopening of the strait and then kicking all the nuclear issues down the road for more negotiations that I'm sure will not go anywhere else. But I don't know. And there's there's definitely going to be some. Sweetening to the tune of, I mean, Marco Rubio on the Hill said they were not going to trade sanctions relief for reopening the strait. But and Nahal Tuzi has like a breakdown of this in Politico today. There's definitely ways that they can make sure money flows to Iran, basically to fill back up the coffers and pay them for reopening, pay them to reopen the strait. We are going to buy any kind of resolution that happens here. We may not know about it as American taxpayers, but it is certainly there is going to be some kind of resolution that happens here. It's going to be a shell game going on inside the bowels of the federal government to ensure that money goes to the Iranian regime, because otherwise, why would they do any of this? No, of course. And what happens, what will happen is some intrepid reporters will find out what the shell game is and report it in a in a great story. And then someone will ask the White House about it and they'll basically say, fuck you, fake news. And then everyone will go on to the next thing. But but don't don't take it from us. Take it from Brian Kilmeade, who said, Mr. President, your life is a living hell. Anaconda squeezing the life that was out of the enemy, slowly squeezing them to death. He said it like four times. Yeah, he was really happy with his analogy. And he just he was like, but did you hear the anaconda really trying to make it happen? Shopping? Yeah. Before we move on, what did you make of his rant about the California election? Did you did you realize that Steve Hilton won because Donald Trump complained about Spencer Pratt losing? Yeah. What did he say about Spencer Pratt? He was like, the kid got shafted. He got shafted. But then I said something, I said something. And now now we got Steve Hilton. Now he made it through. Yeah, it was happening to Steve Hilton, too. But now I mean, it's it's good that someone's got their eyes on California. We guys we know how you operate. And it's a it's a complicated, you know, con, right? You think, oh, well, the gubernatorial race matters more. But no, what this is, is about singular and discrete races that are stolen for no apparent reason, but just to throw you off the scent. Yes, it's about it's about the L.A. mayor, the incumbent, much who wanted to face Spencer Pratt much more than she wanted to face a progressive challenger and yet did her best to rig the election so that she could get that progressive challenger and not Spencer Pratt. That is. Yeah, it's a double cross of a double cross, John. Untangle that cat's cradle, buddy. Man, these people. But like, can I just say, yeah, the election fraud and going back to 2020 is like so much more animates this dude than actually Iran. Both incompetent and incoherent on Iran. But he's also bored of it. Like, he doesn't really have like he would much rather he wants to talk about the Save America Act. He wants to talk about raw power and the stealing of elections and getting his election deniers, you know, having them act with the full force of the federal government. That's what really gets this guy up in the morning. Yes, as you can tell from the tone in his voice. Pod Save America is brought to you by Nutrafol. Real change comes from the small healthy habits you do every day that quietly add up to big improvements. That's the idea behind Nutrafol. It's built around a simple, consistent approach to hair health that works from within and delivers visible results over time, not overnight. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand, and it's the number one hair growth supplement brand personally used by dermatologists. Nutrafol's hair growth supplements are peer reviewed NSF certified for sport and lifestyle approach. 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There are hundreds of dishes to choose from, and the menu is updated constantly. Taste what happens when real award-winning chefs make fresh, small-batch meals just for you. Go to cookunity.com slash crooked or enter code crooked before checkout to get 50% off your first order. That's 50% off your first order by using code crooked. Well, deal or no deal with Iran, it's looking like it may be too late for Trump to turn the economy around before the midterms. And per usual, he's making it abundantly clear that he doesn't care. New inflation data from Trump's own Department of Labor shows that the prices rose in May to a three-year high for the third straight month, with energy prices up 24% from a year ago. Data on wholesale inflation released Thursday morning put that measure at its highest since late 2022. Trump, of course, has delivered an epic run of gaffes on the topic of how much people's financial struggles are weighing on him. Here's a few highlights to jog your memory. People that are really mentally deranged. Affordability is a hoax that was started by Democrats. How much longer will Americans continue to see these high gas prices? Well, they're not very high. I don't think about America's financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all. I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to the midterms. Well, good news. We have a new contender for the crown. Here's what Trump said on Wednesday in response to a question about the latest inflation data. Sir, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning. Could that be a. No, I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation. You know why? Because there's still. He loves the inflation. God, I wish they could pan to other faces in the room, you know? That's good. Yeah, someone should do that for us. Someone in the pool, just go to Susie Wiles' face when this is being said. Scott Besson, I love the inflation. I mean, this is the downside, John, of having a malignant narcissist in office. Like, they can't summon empathy when empathy is the prerequisite from staving off the political fallout from stopping the bleeding here. Like, the war is so catastrophically out of Trump's hands to a certain degree because he refuses to engage in diplomacy and doesn't really give a shit and is also an idiot. But, like, if he's going to try and manage the political reality that he and his party are facing, you got to start the sentence with empathy. And I feel your pain and I know this economy is bad and it's tough to be a working class American, but X, Y, and Z about Iran and the stability of the globe or whatever. But he is constitutionally unable to summon, to even pretend. Not only is he constitutionally unable to pretend, to be empathetic, he's the opposite. He's digging the knife in further. Bill Clinton's message was, I feel your pain. Donald Trump's message is, I cause your pain. And I'm fucking glad I do it. And tough shit. That's me. I cause your pain. You and your dumb cars. You and your dumb desire to put food on the table. Don't talk to me about health care. I need another million for my ballroom. Now, for my money, I still think the reigning champ is, I don't care, but I don't think about Americans' financial situation at all. I don't know. It's funny because he uses the article in front of it, right? So that makes it a little funnier. Well, no, he says it's actually the full quote is so good. You could argue, right? Like he's like, wait, hold it. He's teased it up. He's like, I'm about to, you know what I really love? The inflation. Like it's so, so sadistic. It honestly, I don't think about Americans' financial situations is part of a bigger question. And I'm not excusing it at all. I think it like it was a disastrous quote, but this is psychotic. This is someone who's like, you like the pain. How about a little bit more? You know what I really like? Fucking over the American public. It's always dangerous to do this, but I was trying to think of like, what, what was he actually trying to do there? And I think what he, in his, in his adult, very old mind, he was thinking, you know what, this data, it's going to be great because as soon as the war is over, this inflation is going to come right down. And then I'm going to take all this credit for inflation falling. So I love the, like, I think it's a little bit like, it doesn't, no, of course not. Of course not. Like, cause he's talking about ongoing inflation. It still doesn't, well, he doesn't know. He also doesn't know what inflation is really. Yes. Can I just say also, I don't moonlight as a petroleum engineer, but I will for this podcast. I try and come prepared. Gas prices are not going down. Even if the Strait of Hormuz opens back up tomorrow. No, like this is baked. This is, this is where we're cooked for the midterms. The Washington Post is talking about the reality of these like ships getting through back through the Strait. They're like, even the hundreds of fully loaded tankers that have idled in the Strait since last February will not be able to quickly move their cargo. Vessels are now so coated in oil that teams of divers will need to be dispatched to clean them. I didn't know that. This, this is not just going to be an issue, the issue in the midterms. This is going to be an issue in, for J.D. Vance and Mark and, and the Republican primary and whoever decides to run against him from outside the administration. I mean, this is like by, by, by act, by 2028, it won't, maybe it won't be, hopefully it won't be as much of an issue, but like 2027, when the primaries are happening, yeah, this will still be an issue. A hundred percent. You're so right to say that. That is like such a, you're so smart about this, but that is so true. Like, because the, the, the, I mean, again, I'm not a petroleum engineer, but the refineries and the production facilities have taken offline and it takes months to get them back up and running. And like, if the oil supplies, I also didn't know this, if oil supplies drop low enough, then it breaks down the, if there, if there's not actually oil running through the pipeline, it can break down the production systems. So like, if they don't resolve this in the next several weeks, there's like a catastrophic supply side issue where the infrastructure starts breaking down. And that's well, like fixing all that is going to take, forget about the fucking travel season. We're talking about holiday plans, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Like again, I'm not rooting for any of this. I didn't say that. I don't know why I'm saying again, I'm not a politician, but this is a fucked up situation. And yet I will, and not, and yet the incompetence and the refusal to acknowledge reality here is makes you think they really want to lose that. There's something again, they're just, it's, it's self-flagellation politically speaking. Here's the other challenge. And I'm no geopolitical expert, but if they, uh, come to a deal where it's just about opening the straight for money and for ending the naval blockade, and then they go on to negotiate the nuclear issue, which is going to be tricky to say the least, and they don't include Israel and the deal. Um, then as we get into the fall, um, and Trump has his elections and we have our elections here, Netanyahu has his elections in Israel. Like as long as Israel continues to be at war with Lebanon and, and firing, you know, firing at Hezbollah and Hezbollah is firing rockets in Israel. And, and Iran doesn't want to let those rockets go unanswered. And then Iran gets involved like that. We're not bringing peace to the world. Um, so I think that, and there's a risk there both for in the midterms and in the presidential primaries that the middle East is now like permanently in this state of, you know, I mean, it's, there's always been a lot of conflict in the middle East, but like this latest conflict continues as a sort of like in a low boil, I guess in the, in the best scenario, low boil, but like, and they're going to have to deal with it. They're going to have to deal with it. It, it is, this is what I mean by time is a dimension. The war is ongoing. The war never ends. We are constantly on the brink of a peace deal. Call me in 2059. So, uh, also on this note, the Washington post reports that oil and gas executives have been warning the white house that, as you said, that gas prices are likely to spike. So they're hearing this from the oil executives themselves. This is not like, this is not just some, just us talking about it. Um, and then Politico has a story on Wednesday with the headline, the die has been cast. allies fear it's too late to reverse economic woes um i also think there was a funny quote that i just saw from uh john cornyn who is liberated now he spoke to the new york times and he said he said this about donald trump he's going to have the most miserable two years of his life in the last two years of his term i think because i think november is going to be a disaster you know what i mean oh fuck like i know what is that what are you what's going to be miserable i mean miserable thanks to democrats who have backbones and certainly not to republicans who might actually stand up to him i mean john cornyn has no reason to continue to enable the agenda of this madman and yet given the opportunity to break with him hasn't i mean it's just such cold comfort when you hear the guys that are on their way out the door suddenly sort of develop a moral compass it's such bullshit and by the way they haven't delivered on anything there have been some pretty big ticket issues that they could have done something about in the last week or two week and they've chosen not to so like call me when your your your backbone's made of actual like um bone matter and not what am i even saying john cornyn what the fuck ever what the fuck ever is what i say i know i agree with everything you said and then i also love hearing quotes like that so it's you know to get a little bit of both i get mad because i'm like why where have you been but also yeah i i think i think what he said is right i i hope so uh well and i think that there's you know you should be all of these every time an administration official goes in goes up to the hill a fairy gets her wings every time an american administration official goes to the the hill and has to testify under real questioning they prove themselves to be absolute clowns and someone ends up losing their job like just look at the you know look at look at the the track record of pam bondy and christy gnome and you know tulsi gabbard like so the once democrats control congress and i think there's a likelihood that's both houses and i think there's a likelihood that's both houses like there's going to be some real investigation into the absolute i'm not going to say i mean the amorality the potential criming and the deep corruption in this administration and they're going to have to answer for it all of it and then uh and then they're going to continue fighting with each other um which we we hear is happening right now um uh apparently uh trump uh trump is not happy about any of this and um it's putting a real strain on the support of workplace culture that he has uh tried so hard to build um here's a maga operative close to the white house talking to playbook this morning trump is quote increasingly frustrated with everyone from his own team to the senate he's pissed and people are not recognizing the level of pissed that he is and here's another white house ally talking about trump's staff quote knives are out in some capacity this person said i mean people are stabbing people like it's chaos the chaos is like creeping back sounds like a fun place to work no good benefits i mean i'm great great real the ladder is steep but you can climb it um i don't i mean the knives are out like the if you thought what should we be surprised that this the most incompetent and corrupt white house in american history is beset by infighting and backstabbing absolutely not i guess what's marginally interesting to me about that is um those quotes are choice but that it hasn't spilled out as much i'm setting aside like bongino gate and all that that infighting hasn't spilled out in the sort of real kremlinology of this white house the way that it did in trump 1.0 given that things are going so much worse for trump and he's so much more addled and obviously less i mean maybe he's asleep more so that offers a reprieve and people can you know unruffle their feathers but it's it's interesting to me that there hasn't been as much of a revolving door and sort of leaked backstabbing sort of anecdotes coming out of this white house the way there was in trump 1.0 i don't know what that owes to maybe it's suzy wiles but it sure still doesn't sound like a good place to work i mean nothing is once you've been to the crooked media headquarters the bar is very high very high um my guess on this is that the percentage of like diehard loyalists is much higher in the second term i don't know if that's true but i don't know if that's true but i don't know if that's true but i don't know if that's true but i don't know if that's true but i don't and so all the people who might have had a conscience or wanted to speak out or thought things were going too far they're all gone now and so it's just the the hardcore true believers and so if you're starting to get knives out among those people that's that's the good stuff right there that's that's when you know things are combustible and i would say you know and i'm sure we'll talk about this later when we talk about the slush fund there is the carrot on the stick of personal enrichment in a way that is like it's an almost an explicit promise like if you're in this white house and you know pam bondy was doing stock trades they all have sort of various honeypots that they're dipping into there is that will keep you there in your seat maybe a little bit longer because you're making um you have side hustles in a way that that was not an option or that they hadn't discovered that maybe in trump 1.0 there is a reason to stay longer perhaps than you would i mean you know personal personal what is it personalized bourbon doesn't just grow on trees john and if you're kash patel being fbi director you know membership has its perks sure does so uh trump was of course pissed that republicans keep defying him and that's like one of the things he's really mad about and it looks like republican sort of displeasure with him um picking bill pulte for acting dni as you and i talked about last week um uh has led to trump um announcing his long-term pick for dni um and uh it's that's u.s attorney and former sec chair jay clayton so that got announced today on thursday um presumably because enough republicans said fuck no we're not dealing with bill pulte is a bridge too far and also if you go ahead with bill pulte as a permanent dni director or even a temporary uh dni which some of them said absolutely not about um that even if they do that then what they were going to do is hold up uh 702 or the reauthorization of 702 which is what gives the federal government warrantless spy powers got to make sure the government has warrantless spy powers right um that is a again that is a bipartisan push um but anyway so so now the question is does this do it for uh for congress now that they've got uh and also what do you think about jay clayton okay so two things one as i understand it and our crackerjack fact checking team can probably disabuse me of this if it's incorrect but pulte remains i think the times is reporting the current plan is for pulte to continue to serve as acting director until clayton is confirmed by the senate yes and and and bill once and he once again there there was another story about apparently he called tulsi gabbard bill pulte and was like um i know you said you're leaving next month and i'm like i'm not going to do that i'm not going to do that i'm whatever but you're out now i'm starting and she's like what the fuck she's like what happened the president should tell me that and then she called the president and he was like well i what do you want your last day to be and so now it's going to be i think in a week week and a half yeah well that's because he knows he has you know the clock is running and these you know tish james mortgage fraud documents don't just find themselves john he has a special skill he has a special well i mean he's in there to be faffing around in classified material to try to try and drum up reasons why elections have been stolen or democrats are corrupt or whatever the fuck it is but i don't like the idea of bill pulte being anywhere near the office of national intelligence like that is setting aside jay clayton like that is alarming and that is every reason why democrats they should first of all senate republicans like john cornyn who are you know intent on giving the president keeping him in line they they got the wool pulled over their eyes on the slush fund i know we're talking about the slush fund but they got the wool pulled over their eyes on bill pulte like that man needs to be locked out of the intelligence infrastructure and give get a restraining order basically um because even two weeks on the job for him is too many and if that means holding up fisa reauthorization until and unless that happens then that's what should happen like he is a danger to democracy now this is basically what that's basically what um i haven't seen other democrats yet but i don't know if they're going to be able to do that but mark warner who's a ranking member on intel said that warner was like this is fine i'm like we i wish we could have got here earlier but there's no way we're uh we're we're there's no way we're reauthorizing fisa unless we get assurances that there's no bill pulte at all like bill pulte needs to be extradited to a different country and get nowhere near uh like a passport office i will say i mean clayton oversaw a lot of the review of the epstein document he was the one i think his off his prosecutors brought the case against nicholas maduro which was you know nominally the reason trump went in and seized maduro he's very capable of doing the president's bidding um and i think that's probably what won him favor he also in recent days has been raising alarms about fraud in california and the vote count so like i noticed that yeah he said he said i'm not saying there's fraud but the laws the way they're written in california present the opportunity for fraud i'm like okay now we know why jay clayton was now we know why jay clayton was totally i mean that's and that's a prerequisite for anybody like i don't know there's a part of me that thinks okay maybe clayton gets in there and he proves himself to be more of a bulwark against trump's most lawless impulses or maybe he becomes more of a stooge like todd blanch was was a kind of respected like white, you know, white shoe law firm kind of guy and has turned out to be like the architect of our national nightmare. So I'm a little worried. I'm worried about anybody that meets Trump's standards or substandards for any of these positions. I like that Jim Himes, someone I, you know, and Mark Warner, people, Democrats who have like very good reputations on this are signing off on him and saying he's good. That's reassuring. But, you know, I worry something happens to you when you walk into the Trump administration. You have to check your morals and your brain at the door, especially if you're someone who wants the job. That's that's a that's a red flag. You know, one in their right mind should want this. Also, want the promotion. Yeah. Idiot ass administration. Understand there's a legislative branch that like needs to confirm this. But like, why did he nominate this guy as the House is out and the Senate's out? Like this is nothing. Nothing's. Going to happen till I think June 23rd. So FISA authorization is going to expire almost no matter what, even if the candidate is more to the liking of the upper chamber. Yeah. And again, is it some kind of a scheme or is it just typical incompetence? It could be probably probably probably incompetent. The latter. is even minutes in the day for ourselves. Skip your trip to the post office and stop letting mailing steal your precious little time with stamps.com. With stamps.com, you can print postage and shipping labels from your computer or phone 24-7 with up to 90% off UPS, USPS, FedEx, and more. No lines, no trips, no waiting. Get everything done in minutes and even schedule free pickup so carriers come right to you. Whether you're sending letters, contracts, important legal documents, or packages, stamps.com makes mailing simple for businesses of all sizes, including multi-location offices. You can even send certified mail with proof of delivery right from your desk. 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That's 50% off your first order at sundaesfordogs.com slash crooked50. sundaesfordogs.com slash crooked50 or use code crooked50 at checkout. On the slush fund that you mentioned, the Atlantic Sarah Fitzpatrick, who broke those stories about Cash Patel drinking on the job, has new reporting that administration officials are going to be doing a lot of work on the job. So we're going to have to wait and see. We're going to have to wait and see. We're quietly telling allies that, quote, plans for some form of payout remain on track. So we've talked about this, too. Blanche said we're not moving forward with it. But then Republicans in Congress blocked any provision in the ICE funding bill that would have killed it for good. And then Trump talks about how much he loves it still and he loves the slush fund. And sure enough, it sounds like from this reporting, and Sarah talked to quite a few officials, current and former in the Justice Department and Congress and the Trump administration elsewhere, who said that basically the plan could be that anyone who wants a payout from the slush fund or from what used to be the slush fund would just sue the government because that's who you'd sue for that. And then the federal government, the DOJ, will just settle and settle for an amount of money. Some amount of money as a payout. And that's that. Even if the courts are like, because they wouldn't take their case to court because the court would be like, well, that's fucking crazy. You're on the line. You're on video almost murdering a cop. So no, we're not going to pay you any money or find in favor of you. And they'll say, well, we don't have to go to court because the DOJ will settle with us. Yeah. I mean, it's not an adversarial lawsuit. Therefore, it would be thrown out in court. But with this true story of this administration, as obviously corrupt as the ballrooms and the reflecting pool contracts and all that shit is, the true story of corruption is what they're doing behind closed doors inside the guts of the federal government. And I will just, I'll just plug Runaway Country one more time because this week we talked to ProPublica reporter Robert Fattorecci, who's been breaking amazing stories, including the way in which the Trump kids are dipping their hands in the deep coffers of the Department of Defense and, you know, making 10X investments on venture capital funds or rare earth mineral startups or drone contractors. There is a lot of cash floating around in the American federal government and they have figured out a way to tap that, that maple tree, if you will. And the slush fund is, is exemplary of the opacity. Once people stop, once it, once these kind of issues stop being adjudicated publicly in courts or, you know, politically, and it's just a kind of behind the scenes process, a settlement fund at the DOJ that hush, hush, you can tap if you have friends at the DOJ, that's where the, the most brazen corruption happens. And I have every reason to believe that they intend on, I mean, Sarah's reporting, yes, but it's also Todd Blanche refused to write down, like he wouldn't submit a written statement saying the slush fund is outlawed. Like their behavior in and around the cancellation of the slush fund was so transparent. It was clear that they were going to try and resurrect it in some fashion. And the statements in the piece, I think she quotes Tom Tillis, who's like, he has grown vocal in his criticism of the administration as he heads towards retirement and indicated he may not vote to confirm Blanche unless, the fund is truly dead. Gee, you fucking think, Tom, why are you even alive? What are you doing, Bill Cassidy? What is the point of you? I think I said this last time we were on the podcast lesson. What is the point of you, Bill Cassidy? Like, how cuck can you be to this madman and his stooges? When is enough enough? Apparently there, there is no limit. And I do think that what you just mentioned about Blanche, that is one leverage point here is, don't confirm Blanche unless, you know, they put it in a court filing, right? You gotta, you can't just say it anymore. You have to like, and also don't confirm Blanche because he helped with the Epstein coverup. And I just saw there was breaking news that a group of Epstein survivors, you know, announced public opposition to Blanche's attorney general nomination. Like, I do think that's the kind of fight you can pick that actually is, you know, gets more attention than just we don't want Todd Blanche because Todd Blanche sucks, right? Like we have, like, you have some good examples. I think on the slush fund too, I would make like, this is an extreme example that tells the whole story of the Trump administration. And if I were Democrats, I would hammer it every single day from now into the midterms. If they win, they have a secret plan to take your money and give it to criminals who beat cops and abuse children. Yeah. That's because those are a lot of the Jane six. Sells itself. Somehow, somehow, so many of the January, six convicts are also have either gone on to commit child abuse or had in the past. So that's just, that's interesting. But yeah, these are the people that they want to give your money to if they win. And this is one area too, where there's a lot of things that Trump's doing where if Democrats take Congress, unfortunately, we're not going to be able to do anything until we have a Democratic president. So everyone's going to have to, you know, keep fighting and we're not gonna be able to pass legislation because Trump's still president. But everything where you were just talking about happening behind closed doors, happening in secret with the slush fund, with the other stuff, Democrats take Congress, they're going to be able to like shine a light on all of that and make sure that it doesn't happen. A lot of it, at least. And nuke the filibuster and make sure it doesn't happen. A slush fund's a perfect example of that. And so I would be saying that all through the fall, like you elect Republicans and they are going to, Donald Trump is going to take your money and use it to pay out criminals, criminals who beat cops. John, they're such jabronis though. Like they probably can't even pull it off in secret. Like they have, they quote Stanley Woodward Jr., who's an associate attorney general who signed off on the slush fund. And he responds, we're on it to a post by Lindsey Graham that suggested victims of the weaponization fund could still be compensated through other means. It's like, you're not supposed to say that, dude. He then deleted the post. They're so dumb. They are so dumb. And the criminals who were going to try to get the payout they're not going to be able to stop themselves from bragging about it because they're also dumb. Yeah. Videos of themselves rolling around on bed. of money like Demi Moore and Indecent Proposal. Yeah, like videos that they took of themselves breaking into the Capitol and trying to, you know, exactly. So speaking of knives out in Trump world, let's talk about the explosive story in The Times about just how badly the administration fucked up the entire Epstein saga. The story is actually an excerpt from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's forthcoming new book, Regime Change, and it includes some pretty incredible details and anecdotes that involve Trump officials screaming at each other and just generally acting like morons. What were some of your favorite bits? Oh, God. I mean, do I have to talk about abused nipples or will you talk about that? I really don't want to have to talk. We're going to have to tackle it. Tommy and I did a lot of nipple talk responding to this on YouTube. When don't you? Sorry, we don't do a lot of public nipple talk. Right. OK, good. But yeah, we did. We did. We did lead off with this yesterday on the Pod Save America YouTube. But that's that's why that's why I want to hear. Well, that's why you should be a subscriber, huh? Exactly. That's a good clarification. It's a great place to. OK, where to begin? Let's do a table abuse nipples. Maybe we won't even get to it. We'll drive people to the subscription only YouTube rapid response. I think just one of the things that grabbed me initially was the idea that they're sitting in the sit room. Trump isn't there. And it's like the Cracker Jack 18 to figure out what to do about the Epstein scandal. And it's like Susie Wiles, David Warrington, fine. Caroline Leavitt, Stephen Chung, Pam Bondi, Al. This is like I'm trying to think, is it like a gang of like Rasputins or Yago? Like what's the appropriate character delineation for this group of malicious idiots? But anyway, then I of course my I focus a lot on the J.D. Vance of it all, because in these inside Maggie and Jonathan have done great reporting and they did another similar sort of piece about how America decided to go to war, which also involves a group of. A lot of J.D. Vance. Malicious idiots. Yeah. And it's clear that J.D. Vance is a source for some of this. Like in some parts of this, he comes across as like the only clear thinker and understands that Epstein is a major problem for Trump and he needs to do something about it and they need to be aggressive. And, you know, he needs to he he presses for the administration to release all the files and even the unsubstantiated allegations and anecdotes. But then he also has like the most dumb fuck ideas ever, like having suggesting that that Tucker Carlson go and interview Ghislaine Maxwell, like somehow that's going to solve their problems, which would only spin it into the stratosphere and is like asking a six year old to go eat a whole bunch of cotton candy and then take the teacups ride like it's all sensory overload. Can you even imagine what that conversation would be like? I can't. I don't know. What did you think? Also, well, so I had a couple of like big thoughts on the whole thing. Big picture thoughts. One is that the people in the administration who most understand like what really drives and angers the MAGA base, your J.D. Vance's, your Dan Bongino's, they may be sources for this story. That could be likely. But clearly, like they what's awesome about this is that they, you know, spoke up and and are trying to stop this and trying to fix it. And yet they are. They are going to be tarnished forever by not having achieved any of what they set out to achieve. So it's not like like no, no one in the MAGA base is going to be like reading this and thinking like, oh, you know, J.D. Vance, our guy on the inside, he tried his best. Did you read Maggie and Jonathan's TikTok? Come on. Like no one's going to think that. Yeah. So J.D. Vance is like, I have a great idea. We'll have Tucker interview Ghislaine Maxwell. And then it was like, that's kind of crazy. And then Todd Blanche is like, I'll interview Ghislaine Maxwell. And then the white. House counsel floats giving her a pardon. And then the rest of the room strongly disagrees. And then Stephen Chung says, quote, pardoning Maxwell, a trafficker of young girls would create a huge PR problem. No fucking shit, huh? Wow. Also, good thing you're in this job. You're you're a bright guy. Well, but also not even a gesture. I know towards the morality, more the morality here. Not a word they understand. The ethics never, ever come into debate. It is just about spin. It is just about minimizing the drama for the Trump administration. It is nothing about the victims and survivors who went through this hell. Like, it's so naked. Not that it should surprise anybody, but really, it's astounding. And then J.D. Vance is like, then they thought when they were coming up with that wonderful memo that did nothing but cause them more trouble. They had this original plan to have Todd Blanche go on Joe Rogan to talk about this. And then J.D.'s like, well, how about I go instead of Todd Blanche? And I can take a few questions about this, but because it's me, the vice president and not Todd Blanche, he'll have to ask about other stuff like the administration's progress on helping working people and the tax cuts and the bill. Like, well, have you listened to Joe Rogan? And then, of course, Joe Rogan was like, I'm only taking J.D. Vance and not Todd Blanche because who the fuck is Todd Blanche? And so and then it never goes anywhere. But I did. I like that little anecdote just because J.D. clearly has some really the mind of a communication strategist. You'll definitely want to hear about how we're helping working families and how we're gutting the social safety net to help those working families. Also, Pam Bondi released her fake dummy Epstein files without any consultation with the White House. And this is a small, small thing, small thing. But she was left out on some of the emails about the memo. And the reason is, is because it said Bondi, rarely used her Justice Department email and was not on the chain where the group worked on the memo. The attorney general rarely uses, rarely used her Justice Department email. Remember 26? Why? Is there some irony in that that I'm missing? No, no, it's we've always we've always cared a lot about. It's not like she's dealing with classified information. OPSEC here. And so and then Dan Bongino screams at Pam Bondi, yells at Susie Wiles, storms out of meetings. He said to Pam Bondi, you fucked this thing up from the start. The way you've been talking about this, the dumb fucking charade with the Epstein files, the there on my desk nonsense, all the promises to the folks out there. So that was fun. I threatened to quit. Bongino, definitely a source. Also, this I like this part of it. Privately, Bongino seethed in conversations with confidants. He lamented what the job had cost him. Millions of dollars in podcast revenue, family time, his audience. Family time, family time, just sandwiched in between the millions of podcasts. Yeah, I left. I'm sorry. Millions. Yeah, no, I've left to spend more time with my audience. Just like, OK, no, it's good to know where your kids stand. Now they now they know for sure. We should sandwich between your your like your downloads and your YouTube subscribers. Cool. Before we before we move on from the from this, we should at least talk about Nipplegate because otherwise people are going to think that we're weird, that we didn't. We just threw it out there and then and then didn't actually explain it. We don't want them to think we're perverts. No, right. So what president that would be the president. So when they looked through all the emails and all the files, they found allegations from a woman named Sarah Ransom and she claimed that she knew a girl in Epstein's sex trafficking ring named Jen, who said she had sex with Trump. Ransom also claimed that Jen had told her that Trump had a predilection for nipples and that he had aggressively flicked and sucked hers. She wrote that she had seen evidence when she shared a bathroom with Jen, quote, they looked incredibly painful as they were red and swollen. And I remember wincing when I looked at them, she wrote. Thank you for taking that one for the team, dude. Yeah, no, I was like. I'm going to have to do this because I'm a woman, but you really thank you for doing me that solid. So, of course, you know, unsubstantiated. But there was we heard we didn't hear this exact story, but like this story had been out there. And then the White House has tried to say that. It's because she had basically rescinded other allegations because she said she was afraid for her life, that maybe she's not a reliable source. And so, oh, she she said the other things weren't true. She took it back. And so this is so there's like some confusion on there. But anyway, the point is, this story is why they didn't make the searchable database for all the files and left some out of there, which also ended up fucking them, because obviously people knew they're withholding some of the files. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. And there's like the fact that we now live in a universe where these kind of stories. Are ones about the president of the United States, where we're talking about the document that connected Trump to the claim about abused nipples was among the material that came out. I also like that's what we're we now have to talk about abused nipples in the context of the president of the United States. And then I also like the J.D. Vance is like, Trump would be OK if you released the nipple related documents. Put it out. Get it out there. It's going to be better. It's going to be better to get it all out there. Abusing nipples. It's nothing to the it's nothing compared to the other abuse. And then Susie Wells is like, hard no, hard no, J.D., not letting Nipplegate get out there. Obviously, like the lurid nature of that story and the description makes it like that. That is what sort of attracts your attention. But just stepping back from it all, That is an allegation. donald trump was involved with jeffrey epstein's sex trafficking of underage girls right and so now we have like and we're just all like oh well that's that's a wild story it's like no no no the only allegation right that was and it's it's and and it's like the one person in the white house who did not want to deal with the epstein files did not want to deal with the strategy around transparency and what was released and what wasn't was donald trump and it's like hmm and why could that be and he says privately to marjorie taylor green in the piece um oh it's because i don't want it released because it could really hurt some of my friends like yeah yeah including his best friend yes exactly his very closest friend um and then we yes i mean there are a lot of listen we're just asking questions john yeah as i mean look it's it's all out there it's all out there um one other data point on why trump might not be in a great mood um i know you saw the post story um saying that uh the washington post story saying that his last medical checkup trump was seen by 22 different medical specialists i do not read this whole story but i know you wanted to uh that's all there is have you ever seen 22 doctors the last time he was at the at walter reed he was seen by uh 14 specialists 11 before 22 doctors seems like a lot now you could say oh biden saw 20 i think according to korean john pierre at his last year in office but biden also wasn't covering his hands in like the maybelline concealer on a on the daily didn't have a rash creeping up his neck wasn't falling asleep all the time at any hour and as you know addled as biden seemed he he i don't think he approached the incoherence of trump and certainly not with the same stakes like we're in the middle of a war and the global economy is in a tailspin there's like food shortages happening around the world people in the philippines can't go to work five days a week because there's not enough fuel i mean it's like anyway i think we should all be talking thank you for including this in the rundown john because i do think we should all be talking a lot more about his fitness for office like it's kind of crazy to me that the the the jabroni who fell asleep at the knicks game gets a pass for any of it like it is he increasingly shows no signs of competence in office and the american public deserve to have more transparency about his health i do i do agree i will also say though if um if donald trump was uh turned out to be in a hundred percent tip-top shape um not fit for office don't think it would don't think it would be improving his performance uh one percent two percent no percent i think that he i think if he had if he is if he was like a physical specimen at whatever his age is to be 80 years old this weekend uh if he's a physical specimen uh if he had the the if he had the uh the constitution of a 40-year-old he would still be as bad of a president as he is right now respect i agree i concur but but it is fucking weird it is fucking weird exactly it'd be good to know if he's dying um speaking of this weekend uh we'd be remiss if we didn't discuss the massive sporting event bringing americans together in a celebration of our shared purpose and values the ufc-sponsored cage match that donald trump is staging on the white house lawn for his 80th birthday on sunday a group called public integrity project is suing to put him on the line for his 80th birthday on sunday to try to stop the event not sure they'll succeed according to the ap um the government attorneys revealed in legal filings that the ufc and other private groups have already spent 60 million dollars on the event that is the government uh saying that they did not say how much the federal government has shelled out but wrote that seven different agencies are involved and have quote allocated significant resources and manpower most of this is uh you know ufc is footing the bill for most of this uh and various sponsors but um i don't know you have seven different government agencies involved that's that's going to be that's going to be directing some some time and energy and resources that could be going to the business of the people i suppose again i point you to the real grift that's happening is inside the guts of the federal government like there will be an accounting for it at some point but this we should assume the very worst about what they're doing and the way they are reappropriating resources to serve donald trump's massive ego the only thing i can hold out hope for john is first of all um the cage matches on sunday is that right weigh-ins are on saturday i'm looking at the forecast for washington dc 92 degrees and thunderstorms i know i saw that i saw that because when i thought i was going i was i was was saying it was gonna be that hot it was a chance of thunderstorms i don't know if the chance is increased but it's a 55 chance of scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening you know i don't want to i don't want to say anything that's going to uh trigger any kind of karma because forecast for chicago on thursday is going to be at the obama library opening one day in chicago it's supposed to rain heavily yes but is there an outdoor cage match happening at the library that i'm unaware of david axelrod versus jack have you seen the pictures of the of the octagon yes dude it looks like six flags it's so bad i will say like mom that's ai you got tricked if it wasn't on the white house line i'd be like that looks pretty cool and i'm not like a ufc fan but like that looks pretty cool but i'm like this is on the south line of the white house it's also extremely funny and just talk about the symbolism uh they built a like an 800 foot octagon cage right next to the rubble of the east wing yeah you can still see john the weigh-ins are happening at the weigh-ins are happening at the lincoln memorial no like i i looked into this the is it getting canceled the no the weigh-ins so this was this the the the organization that was filing the lawsuit got in trouble for this because they put it in the filing too but the press conference is being held at the lincoln memorial and the weigh-ins are happening at the ellipse oh so there you go fantastic so there you go he loves the ellipse for all important things i don't know i i am not a fan of this but it is the country i wanted this president and some people in this country will be served by this gruesome spectacle so i'm not a fan of this but it is the country i wanted this president and some people in this and perhaps they will enjoy it or perhaps mother nature will have the last laugh and shoot down bolts of lightning to the south lawn of the white house preventing the cage match from happening on donald trump's birthday the thing that honestly the only thing that the story that has bothered me the most about this is the um the hot troops only story that um for all the the for all the service members that are getting invited that have to pay first of all they have to pay their own way um to get there and then they have to meet a certain like weight requirement and one defense official told cnn that uh they wanted to make sure they pick people who are going to look good on television this is so fucked up when you install a men's grooming expert as the secretary of defense this is the kind of stuff that you get i he i wish he was just doing tiktok videos about um how to keep salt and pepper hair looking dignified but instead but unless he's running a war in iran yeah good stuff when we come back you'll hear my conversation with cnn's ron brownstein uh we will talk about the senate map the house map and all kinds of other good stuff pod save america is brought to you by walmart you know we talk a lot about finding a job but what about building a career walmart is actually making that happen for their associates by investing over a billion dollars in training and education and the proof is in the numbers last year more than 100 000 associates earned promotions add in great benefits like 401k matching and paid parental leave and it's clear walmart isn't just a place to work it's a place to grow go see for yourself at walmart.com slash grow at walmart that's walmart.com slash grow at walmart ron brownstein welcome back to pod save america hey good to be with john uh so since you're one of the smartest political analysts out there wanted to check in get your thoughts on the uh the primaries we've had and the midterms ahead of us maybe we can start big picture where are we right now a little less than five months uh till the midterms how does this political environment compare to where we were in 2018 which was the last midterm when democrats faced an unpopular donald trump and did quite well that is a really good place to i think the the right point of comparison and i think this election to me is just shaping up as the classic collision between the irresistible force and the immovable object and both of them both the irresistible force and the immovable object are getting stronger as we go the irresistible force is the widespread disapproval of trump and dissatisfaction with the economy you know if you go back to 2018 in the exit poll trump's approval rating was 45 percent um it is not going to be 45 percent in all likelihood on election day this year i mean it may not be as low as it is now in the high 30s but you know i think at best it's going to be in the low 40s so trump is probably going to be more unpopular today than he was on election day in 2018 uh second um you know in the 2018 exit poll two thirds of voters described the economy in positive terms you know even as democrats were winning 40 plus house seats um it's probably going to be two-thirds describing it in negative terms uh this time um so i i think you know if you think of those kind of attitudes as the motor that drives the wave There's every reason to believe believe the Democratic, now the Democratic, overall Democratic performance will be even better, I think, than the wave behind them is even stronger than it was in 2018. I will put one caveat on that in a minute. But so like the wave looks to me like it could be very high. Democrats won the popular vote by eight and a half points in 2018 when Trump was at 45. Could they win the popular vote by more if he's at 41 or 42 and two thirds of the country is dissatisfied with the economy? I think that's possible. Now, the other side of the equation is the immovable object, which is that to a greater extent than in 2018, this election is being fought out on Republican terrain, right? In 2018, you had, what, about two dozen House Republicans in districts that voted for Clinton two years earlier. Now, before the redistricting, you only had three. And even kind of more broadly, in 2018, you still had the remnants of all of the Republican voters that voted for Clinton two years earlier. Now, before the redistricting, you still had the remnants of all of these House Republicans who were holding on in suburban white collar districts outside of the South, even in the South, I guess, a couple, mostly outside of the South, that had been voting Democratic at the presidential level since Bill Clinton. And Democrats really cleaned them out in 2018. Three quarters of the House seats that Democrats won in 2018 had more white college graduates than the national average. It was kind of the bookend. I blue dog Democrats who are surviving in heavily blue collar rural districts that have been voting Republican for 20, 30 years, and they kind of wiped all of them out. And then Democrats in 2018 did the same with the kind of suburban, in the 90s, they used to call gypsy moth Republicans. So as a result, there really aren't that many more of those white collar seats left to win in 2026. There are a few. There's Mike Lawler, there's Tom Kane Jr., there's Don Bacon's seat, there's Brian Fitzpatrick. But most of the seats that Democrats are targeting this year in the House, in very distinct counterpoint to 2018, have more non-college whites than the national average. And of course, that is a real challenge. I mean, you know, you look at districts in Ohio and Iowa and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that is a big chunk of what Democrats are trying to win back. And most of those seats are more heavily white blue collar than the national average. Same story in the Senate, by the way. 10 seats that both sides consider the most competitive in the Senate. I wrote about this a few months ago, have more blue collar whites than the national average. And, you know, if you kind of look at it by presidential vote, you have Maine, and as we've talked about before, let me just take one step back. You know, Senate results and presidential vote are just much more correlated than when even you got started in this, much less me. You know, there are 25 states that voted three times for Donald Trump. Republicans now have all 50 of their Senate seats, which obviously makes it tough. I mean, you're kind of seeding 50 seats at the start, you know, it leaves you a pretty narrow pathway. There are 19 states that voted three times against Trump. Democrats have 37 of their 38, with Susan Collins as the last exception. And then there are six states that have flipped back and forth at any time in the three Trump races, and Democrats now have 10 of their 12 Senate seats. And that is very much the way I look at the Senate. The job for the Democrats is, first of all, to beat Susan Collins, to get rid of the last Republican left among the 38 in the states that voted three times against Trump. They've got to defend two seats in the flip states, which is Georgia and Michigan. But ultimately, they have to break into, not only in the near term, but in the long term, because it's obviously not, you know, it's not a plausible strategy to give 50 seats away at the start. They have to break back into the Trump three-time states. So what do you got? You have North Carolina, which he only won narrowly. After that, every other state they have to win in the Senate, Trump won by double digits two years ago, which is not easy. So that's probably in order, you know, North Carolina, Alaska, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, right? And if you don't win Maine, if you don't convert Maine, and you and I are in different places about Maine, we should probably talk about it at some point. If you don't convert Maine, you got to win three Senate seats in states Trump won by double digits two years ago, and that's asking a lot. So overall, I would say, Democrats, the conditions are more favorable to Democrats than in 2018, with the exception that you've had the Biden presidency in the middle, and that definitely took, you know, put a dent in the Democratic image. That matters. I think the party outside of the White House, their image matters less than the performance of the president in the midterm. But nonetheless, it's there. Conditions should be overall better for Democrats, but the Republicans have built stronger defenses, both in terms of the inherent nature of the White House, and in terms of what they want to do. So I think we're going to have to wait and see. Yeah, let's, um, that's a very good summary of where we are right now. So thank you. Let's, let's dive into Maine. That was my next question anyway, because, you know, we had the primary this week. Also, as you mentioned, like you've been sounding the alarm about the electoral risk Democrats are taking with Graham Plattner. And since everyone's heard enough of my not quite as worried view, I want to I want folks to hear a good, smart counter. You want to give them the full worried view. Look, Susan Collins, I'm going to give them the full worried view. Look, Susan Collins, I'm going to give them the is an anomaly or a unicorn, whatever you want to call her. As I said, she is the only Republican left in the 19 states that voted three times against Trump 37 to one, she's the one. In Trump's first term, she was the only Republican senator or challenger, according to the exit polls who won in a state when more people disapproved and approved of his performance as president. She was also the only Republican Senate incumbent or challenger. To hold their Democratic opponent to less than 89% of the people who disapproved of Trump. Sarah Gideon in 2020 only won 71% of Trump disapprovers. Every other Democratic Senate candidate during the first Trump term won at least 89% of Trump disapprovers. You know, and that relationship is not getting weaker. Generally, Jay Jones in Virginia won 89% of Trump disapprovers. Cheryl and Spanberger won 93, 94%. There was a poll from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, even before the latest rounds of revelations about sexting and the New York Times story about his relationship with former partners that found Plattner winning 74% of Trump disapprovers in Maine. That is Susan Collins's superpower. She is able to get to a greater extent than any Republican anywhere. She is able to get any other Republican to win. She is able to get voters who disapprove of Trump to vote for her, especially older women. And the key to her, why did she win in 2020 in a state where Trump's disapproval in the exit poll was 58% and obviously Biden won the state by, I think, nine points. The reason is because she ran really far ahead of Trump among older white women. Both in the exit poll and the AP vote cast are two major sources of, you know, voter behavior at the state level. So a Gideon ran 15 points behind Biden among women 45 plus. Now, when I started doing that, doing this in the 80s, things like that happened. They don't happen anymore. You do not have a major demographic group that veers off by 15 points between how they view the president and how they view other candidates. You know, that's why Republicans have all 50 Senate seats in the 25 states Trump won three times. Not because they're all great candidates. It's because those attitudes really shape things. So, you know, I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. Platner seems to me, I would not say, you cannot say Platner can't win. In this environment, Trump is weaker than he was in 2020. His disapproval is now over 60 in Maine. And Collins is weaker than she was in 2020 because, you know, she, Brett Kavanaugh in the interim between 2020 and now voted to overturn Roe v. Wade after she stood on the Senate forum, promised she would not. He would not. So I would not say Platner can't win. I will say that Platner makes it a lot harder than it has to be. I would not say that Platner can't win. I will say that Platner has to be because his vulnerabilities, I think, map ominously over her strengths. I mean, I look at older white women as a prime audience to be worried about all of the things that have come out about him. And I also think, and I haven't talked about this as much, I think his strengths are less relevant in Maine than they might be elsewhere. I mean, if the guy's strength is that he, you know, and it does seem legit that he can mobilize a lot of younger non-voters, kind of a reverse. I mean, Maine, I mean, this isn't Georgia or Texas or, you know, even Wisconsin, where you have a huge pool of non-voting young people. You have like the second or third oldest electorate in the country. I mean, your job, the job of a Democrat in Maine in 2026 is not to mobilize new voters. It's not even to persuade a majority that Trump and the Republicans are taking the country in the wrong direction because a majority, a big majority already believed that in Maine. The job of the Democratic Senate candidate in Maine is to reassure the majority who already think Trump and the Republicans are taking the state in the wrong direction, that it's okay to vote against Collins and that you are a reasonable alternative. And I think Plattner, again, he could win, but he introduces a tremendous amount of risk in that equation that doesn't need to be there. He has until July 13th. I don't know if you've talked about this. Under Maine law, they can't push him out at this point, but he has until July 13th, I think, to step aside. And as I pointed out in a column this week, they have really good candidates It's got over 20 percent of the vote in the first round, including three who have very broad support on the left. And I do think that if there are more negative stories that come out or if simply there are a lot of polls that raise, you know, worrying direction between now and then, it would it would be in the interest of Democrats to kind of look at some of those alternatives. Because I do think and this will really get the mailbag. I do think that the forces that are the national forces behind Platner, particularly the Sanders Warren orbit, are so determined to prove that their model is the right model for how Democrats come back, that they have lost sight of the actual human being that they are betting on and the place that they are testing it. And they seem to me more interested in beating Schumer in the primary. Than in beating Collins in the general. But I do think that if there are more negative stories that come out, I do think that they have lost sight of the actual human being that they are betting on and the place that they are testing it. And they seem to me more interested in beating Collins in the primary. overall climate, given the specific, as you say, Collins is weaker than she was in 2020. Trump is more unpopular than he was in 2020 in Maine. So you can't say that any Democrat can't win. It's just that this is much more of a jump ball than it should be because of his unique vulnerabilities. I kind of like. Are you surprised at how weak Mills was and still is in all these? I mean, even that poll, there was a poll out right before the primary where I think that Mills was like the first poll where Mills did slightly better than Plattner against Collins, but still by only like one point, two points. Like, I don't get how that is. Mills doing that poorly and Gideon doing that poorly also makes me think, like, what is it about those candidates who seem like they should fit the the older women in Maine sort of voter model that you were talking about? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I'm not an expert on Mills's relationship, I'm not an expert on Mills's relationships in the state, but there's no question she's conflicted pretty consistently with a lot of the same liberal groups in the state that are promoting Plattner. And, you know, would one of the other alternatives in the governor race have done better against him in the end than Mills did? I think that's, you know, I mean, Hannah Pingree, former Speaker of the House, Troy Jackson, Bernie endorsed in the governor race, former Senate president, and then Sheena Bellows, who was now the Secretary of State, who was kind of the sacrificial lamb against Collins in 2014, when she was much younger. And at that point, I think had only been the head of the state ACLU. You know, the thing about Mills is, the thing I felt about Mills was that if she got to the general election, it wasn't clear to me what Collins would run against her on. Like, if she was one point ahead now, the thing about Plattner is he gives them a lot to work with. And it may not prove it, but it may prove it. And I think that's the thing about Plattner, is he gives them a lot to work with. And it may not prove it, but it may not prove it. It may be that everything else is sufficient, but it introduced, you know, to put him over the top, but it introduced a level of risk that I think is just unnecessary. And I think, like I said, I feel like many of the national forces in particular that are pushing Plattner are just so determined to show that this is the right way for Democrats to win, that they are not willing to acknowledge, A, this may not be the right place to test the theory. And I'm not sure it is. But B, you know, like candidates are not just like on. It's like baseball. You could be the greatest prospect in the world. You actually got to go out and do it. And and the realities that he is presenting them with, they are just powering through. And people say, well, you know, switching to Kamala Harris didn't work that well late in 24. I would say it worked out better than trying to stay the course. Like, yeah, I know. I'm not sure that Alyssa Slotkin and Ruben Gallego and Jackie Rosen wouldn't say it worked out pretty well. But this is I was thinking about that, like to me between now and July 13th, the the easier scenario in some ways is if there are if like a ton of really damaging stories or even one story that's much more damaging comes out and suddenly you see polls where he's down five, six, seven, eight. Right. Then it becomes like fairly easy. Not easy, but. Easier for Democrats in Maine, which would have to be to like go to the campaign and try to convince them to drop out. I think if there's like a few polls showing it tied or he's a point or two behind and then there's no big stories or maybe just one kind of in the middle story, then it's really hard to go to someone who did better in the primary than Sarah Gideon did when she was facing two kind of no names in 2020 and say, OK, you got more votes than the last nominee against Susan Collins. But now we're going to make now. We should push you aside because we're worried like that to me is the tougher that that introduces another that introduces risk that I think is greater maybe than the risk we have right now. To the extent it is Republicans and not the media who has access to more damaging information, they're not going to put it out before July. Certainly not. But it feels like the media would get there. I don't know. But yeah, I mean, on their own, you know, look like I like we keep saying he can win. There's no guarantee he's going to win. And he gives he gives her he gives her an opportunity to play the card she's played before. I mean, it's it's you know, I mean, it's it's you know, and and like I like like we're saying, you know, the if you don't if you don't win Maine, you got to win three out of four in Alaska, Ohio, Texas and Iowa. I mean, that's asking a lot. I mean, in the long run, Democrats have to start competing again in these heavily blue collar Trump three time states. But, you know, and maybe the war goes on. Gas prices stay high. Trump stays under 40. Like if Trump stays under 40. Yeah, I could see them flipping three of those four conceivably. But if he gets back to the low 40s, which I still would bet on on Election Day that, you know, that's that's asking a lot to win three of those four states. Well, let's let's leave Maine and talk about those four states. Like what? I think you sort of ordered them earlier quickly, but I would just love like, you know, you have financial decisions. If you're the. The Democrats like Texas is a very expensive, very big state to compete in. Alaska, Iowa, not as much. Ohio's obviously they're going to go all in in Ohio. How do you look at those four states in terms of feasibility for in flipping them? And so you got North Carolina, which which looks pretty good for Democrats now. I mean, I think Republicans could end up pulling the plug there. So like to me, like, you know, as I said to you before, like in Trump's first term, only Republican who won in a state where, according to the exit poll, more people disapproved than approved of his performance. So if you're thinking about Alaska, Ohio, Iowa and Texas, they're all probably going to be right at the tipping point. Either he's either going to be slightly above 50 or maybe more likely below 50. I mean, you know, I saw what is it, the argument that knew that, you know, Lacatia, Jane and my former colleague at the Atlantic, Jerusalem, they tried to use their polling to. Project Trump's approval in all of in all 50 states, and they had him seven points or more negative in all four of those states. And if that's the case, Democrats have a shot in any of them. Now, if you're going to rank them, I think Peltola is an unusually good candidate. Alaska has kind of unusual population dynamics. It really doesn't have a huge white blue collar population. So I think Alaska is the strongest. By conventional measures, you'd have to say Ohio is the second. I mean. You know, Ohio is a big blue collar population. It's like 50, 51 percent of the electorate will be whites without a college degree, even in the midterm year. Now, maybe that will go down to 49 this time. And if you look at Sherrod Brown, when he won in 2018, he won 45 percent of non-college whites. When he lost in 2024, he won 35 percent of them. So he doesn't have to get all the way back to 45, but he does have to get somewhere north. So I think if you're going to rank them, I think you're going to have to say Alaska is the strongest. among those non-college whites. So like even in 28, so he won two-thirds of whites without a college degree in all three of his races. Even in 2018, again, according to the exit poll, his approval rating among non-college whites was 61%. Now, in every national poll, it is right at 50-50, either, and usually slightly below 50-50, at best, 51-48, something like that. It's like the best. And then there have been polls where he's been as low as 46 among non-college whites. If he stays there till November, Sherrod Brown can win. I mean, you can win. And people should take into account that when I say Trump is basically at 50-50 among non-college whites nationwide, well, that includes evangelical Christians, most of whom are non-college whites and are heavily concentrated in the South. There aren't as many of them in Ohio. So if Trump is at 50-50 among non-college whites nationally, he's probably going to be below 50-50 in Ohio, which makes it possible for Sherrod Brown to win. And this is like what I was saying about Maine. Sherrod lost in a presidential turnout year where you have a greater share of non-college whites coming into the electorate than you do in 2018 when he won, which was a midterm year. And then you have fewer non-college whites as a share. And I think Trump's approval will be lower today than it was in 2018 in Ohio. You know, the difference is Sherrod's been around the block a little, so there may be a little tread off the tire in terms of how voters are looking at him. I kind of feel like that's going to be the tipping point. I mean, if Democrats don't mess up Maine, if either Plattner steps aside for someone more electable or they kind of stabilize things and are able to just pound, do you really want to give Donald Trump another vote to put another Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, which seems to me their best argument. Then you look at Ohio and, I'm sorry, Iowa and Texas. Iowa is Ohio, but even tougher because in Ohio, roughly 20% of the voters are non-white and in Iowa, it's only, like, eight or nine. The non-college whites are more like 56, 57% of the vote in Iowa compared to, like, 50, 51 in Ohio. And more of those non-college whites in Iowa are evangelical Christians than they are in Ohio. So, like, by every measure, I can't see Turek winning before Brown wins. Like, if Turek wins, the wave is big enough that Brown is going to win. Texas is intriguing, right? I mean, you know, if you, if you look at, again, like, I love how you started with 2018. Beto is, in 2018 versus Ted Cruz, Beto O'Rourke is kind of the template for any kind of competitive statewide race for Democrats in Texas. Since then, the state has added three and a half million, I think is the number, new voters. And almost all of them are people of color. It's like 90% of the new voters. And they're metro, right? I mean, they're, they're like, they're in those four big metros. Beto won the four big metros. Didn't win them. By quite enough. Now, so, you know, Richard Murray, who I love, a professor emeritus at the University of Houston, been new in Texas politics since, you know, before any, either of us. He says that if all the groups, all the major groups in the electorate, non-college whites, college whites, Latinos, Black, Asian, all vote the same way they did in 2018, but vote in the numbers they are present at today, Beto would win, right? So, but the problem is, the problem is, can you really, can you really get back to where Beto was among Latino voters, which was the low 60s? You're probably, you're going to, Trump, Trump won Texas Latinos in 2024, which is kind of remarkable. He won like probably 55% of them. That's not going to happen. Tallarico is going to win them. But is he going to get back over 60? You know, I mean, there was another poll out yesterday that Siena poll only had him at like 52. I don't think it's going to be that low. But is he going to get back to 60? I kind of feel like the ball game in Texas and in Texas, you know, a very large share of the non-college whites are evangelicals. The fact that Tallarico, you know, is a seminarian is not really going to help because he's a different kind of seminarian. I mean, the, you know, Texas blue collar evangelicals do not want to hear that God is non-binary. Although it seems like as a, you know, seems like a perfectly defensible argument. I think the key is going to be, can you get a few points more out of the suburban, college educated voters around Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio? Beto got like 44 or 45 percent of college whites in 2018. Can he, can Tallarico push that up to 47, 48 against Paxton? You know, the other, the other dynamic about Paxton is, I mean, I forget which one, so you probably, you might remember, but out of Slotkin, Rosen, Baldwin, and Gallego, the four Democrats who won in states, where Biden lost, several of them did not get more votes than Harris, right? It was just Republicans skipped the Senate race. And that, you know, it's hard to see a lot of Texas Republicans voting for Tallarico. It's not hard to see a few of them voting for Abbott and skipping Paxton or skipping Paxton and jumping down to Abbott. You can squint and see how this works, where like some of them leave the Senate race blank. He gets up, he bumps up his numbers in the suburbs, by a little few more after than Beto did. And then he gets that Latino number, maybe if not all the way at 60 in the 58. And then that's enough. Yeah. By the way, as, as people point out all the time, if they are a larger share of the vote than they were in 2018 Latinos, you can get a bigger net vote out of that community. Even with a smaller share, you don't have to match the share, but matching the share would help. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think Democrats can get back to 62, 63, maybe among Texas. I was down in south Texas a few weeks ago and you know, there's a lot of economic discontent. There's a lot of ice discontent. Um, and I think, you know, um, my, my CNN column for later this week, tomorrow's news today, I think subtraction is going to be a bigger issue in this election than addition. I don't think you're going to add a lot of new Democratic votes, either with new voters coming out or with Republicans who voted for Trump and 24 switching to vote for Democrats, but you could subtract, a lot of Republican votes. I mean, Trump's, uh, according to one of the stats, I'm kind of unveiling in this column later this week among Hispanics who voted for Trump, his approval rating now is 66%, right? That is not so good among all. I remember all of the focus on the non college, non white voters and how this was kind of the, you know, the, the augers of the, of the realignment, his approval rating among non college, non whites who voted for him. His 68% among non college, non whites who didn't vote in 24, his approval rating is 20%. Yeah. You saw, I saw that in the New York times Sienna poll. It was, those, those numbers were the worst among non voters in the New York times Sienna poll among non voters in 24 people who either skipped it or who have become eligible since he's a 21 71 in job approval. So, you know, I'm not sure, you know, this is 2018 was another thing that was unique about 2018 is you did have this enormous surge of new voters. Catalyst says 13% of all the voters in 2018 had not voted before. Census says turnout in 2018 was 10 points higher than in either of the Obama midterms. It was 50% as opposed to 40% in the Obama midterms. So there was this surge of new voters. That's where I think the Biden experience is going to really hurt. I mean, because, you know if you were a, you were a 21 year old in 2018, you had, you had Obama as your counterpart. You had a lot of other people in the room. or hives or something. Dan, Dan, send up two flares if you can still hear us. We love you, Dan. We miss you, Dan. We do. Thank you for letting me warm the mic while you were away. And thank you for warming the mic. You have been a fantastic addition. Oh, it's an honor and a pleasure, my friend, to help us navigate these choppy, insane waters of our American democracy. Have a good weekend, everyone. Love it. We'll be back with an episode of Pod Save America Sunday. He's talking to David Sedaris. How about that? Nixon 5. Yeah, okay. And then Tommy and Lovett and I will be back with a new show on Tuesday. Bye, everyone. Nixon 5. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safari with Ree Churlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelleviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.