SimpliSafe introduces a proactive home security system using AI-powered cameras that detect threats in real time, alerting live agents to intervene before a break-in occurs. The company emphasizes ease of use, smart sensors, and strong customer trust, with a current promotion offering 60% off professional monitoring. The discussion shifts to the upcoming CrookedCon event, which features a diverse lineup of political voices, including governors, senators, and activists, highlighting debates on party identity, liberalism, and democratic values. A central political controversy centers on Donald Trump’s inflammatory remarks during the Michigan campaign, where he labeled a candidate, Abdul, a “jihadist” and linked him to terrorism, sparking accusations of anti-Muslim bigotry and political hostility. Critics argue such rhetoric is not only racist but dangerous, especially as it plays on fears and disinformation. The episode also examines how political actors exploit voter concerns, such as fraud claims and election disputes, to manipulate public sentiment. These tactics, including fabricated voter fraud rewards and legal challenges to election results, are seen as tools of suppression. The hosts stress the importance of voter resilience, ethical discourse, and accountability in a polarized political climate, urging listeners to remain informed and vigilant as the midterms approach.
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SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time.
CrookedCon is coming up right after the election
and we have just added a bunch more great names to the lineup.
We got Governor J.B. Pritzker coming,
Senator Chris Murphy,
and then over from the house side,
Ilhan Omar, Robert Garcia, Sarah Jacobs,
Jamie Raskin, Sarah McBride.
We also have Carlos Eduardo Espina,
Simone Sanders Townsend, Eugene Daniels,
David Pakman, Jessica Tarloff, Heather McGee,
and then all the other people that we've announced on the website.
Plus, more to come.
Great list.
Check out the full lineup and get tickets right now
at crookedcon.com.
We'd love to see you there.
That's crookedcon.com.
CrookedCon.
CrookedCon.com.
Now they are fake news.
I mean, I wouldn't mess with Daniel Dale on this one.
So we got lots to talk about today,
but first, CrookedCon's coming up right after the midterms,
November 5th through 7th.
You're going to want to be there because everyone else is going
and you just don't want to miss out on what happens.
There's going to be a lot going on.
Our Pod Save America live show is sold out,
but there are still a few tickets left for Love It or Leave It
and Strict Scrutiny on Friday night.
We also just published the official schedule
for Saturday, November 7th at crookedcon.com.
There are more than 25 different conversations
planned.
I'm hosting one on the future of the Democratic brand
that includes Chris Van Hollen, Sarah McBride,
and Milak Kiros.
What about you guys?
So I'm doing two panels.
I'm doing one with Jerusalem Dempsis
and Derek Thompson and Faz Shakir.
We're going to talk about why liberalism has become cringe,
whether or not it can be saved,
whether the challenge from the left means
it should be replaced.
And we're going to live out.
We're going to pivot left.
It's going to be a fun time.
Cool.
And I'm going to do a panel on the future
with a bunch of strategists
who are on the 2026 campaigns right now
about what worked,
what didn't work,
what was exciting in those races,
what annoyed the fuck out of them in those races.
It's going to be great.
Nice.
Ben and I are going to do a little
pod tape of world action.
Get ready for that with a focus on
what Democrats should do in terms of oversight
if we win back Congress.
Knock on wood.
Everyone knock on wood.
And then I'm going to host a debate
about U.S. policy towards Israel,
specifically what the Democrats should be saying and doing.
Something light.
No tripwires there, guys.
Yeah.
I'm sure everyone will walk away from that one happy.
We also added to our list of attendees
who are coming Wes Moore and Mark Kelly.
So we're adding names every day.
So check it out.
Crookedcon.com.
Get your tickets today.
And we will see you in D.C.
All right.
Let's get to the news.
The midterms are just seven days away.
Around 30 million ballots have already been cast.
How about that?
And the campaigns are in full get out the vote mode,
which means it's time for rallies
with the best closer you've got for the Democrats.
That's this guy.
We have never seen a president excel
in straight up grifting on your dime like this.
As Abdul mentioned,
the guys become billions of dollars wealthier in office.
Nobody disputes this.
How do you do that
when you're supposed to be looking out for you?
I don't know if you've noticed,
but he is very focused on home renovation.
And then there is just gold everywhere.
What's what's up with the gold?
I mean, he's got the way I was looking like Saddam Hussein
opened a cheesecake factory.
I'll tell you when I saw that line, I loved it.
I was like, I thought that was great.
Just instantly reposted it.
That is great.
It didn't even occur to me that there would be a backlash.
Or a fake bash.
It didn't occur to me.
You know, in the back of my mind,
I kind of I was like, there will be a few.
I didn't think it would go as far as it did.
I thought it would be like now.
So for those who don't know what we're talking about,
because you don't spend all your life on Twitter,
the cheesecake factory line there ignited a discourse
on Elon Musk's platform.
It started with just a handful of like
some of the most insufferable mega types.
You're Scott Jennings, Megan Kelly's producer.
And they tried to argue that Obama was being elitist
and condescending to real Americans who apparently believe
that the White House should match the aesthetic
of their favorite chain restaurant.
If it were designed by the deceased Iraqi dictator.
And of course, then because of the algorithm
and it just snowballs and now it's on Fox News.
And then of course, Donald Trump got a question
about it today on Monday afternoon.
Let's hear what he said.
For you to say it's a cheesecake factory.
That just shows why you were a lousy president.
I love that.
I love that he was talking directly to Obama in the camera.
Well, I, it really hurt his feelings.
It did, it did.
It really, he paused that pause.
He was really hurt.
It hurt.
That was a response.
It's like, why, I'm surprised.
Why didn't he take it as a compliment
that it was compared to the cheesecake factory?
Because I thought that's what real,
that's the top aesthetic for real Americans.
I'll tell you why it didn't occur to me
that it would become one of these.
Because I don't, you know, a lot of these,
like the MAGA people are saying like,
oh, it's an insult to real Americans
in the rest of the country,
in the heartland that love cheesecake factory.
But I have associated since my childhood,
the cheesecake factory as the fanciest chain restaurant
in the fanciest mall in town.
Yes, always.
It's the fancy one.
Burlington Mall.
That's where I'd go to the cheesecake factory.
You would go to the mall.
Chestnut Hill, there you go.
It's an event.
You get your, you get your buzzer
and you walk around the mall till your buzzer buzzes.
And I get the bang, bang chicken and shrimp
since I was in high school.
Crusted chicken Romano, extra sauce.
Pasta's a little dry otherwise.
Can I tell you guys something?
What?
As a surprise, I wanted to order Cheesecake Factory
to have a bunch of apps here.
Come on.
I did it on DoorDash
and then it's right outside the fucking delivery zone,
which is crazy because it's at the Grove,
which is not that far from us.
Again, fancy mall.
Yes, Rick Caruso's The Grove.
That's where, that's the closest cheesecake factory to me.
Yeah, that's MAGA flyover country.
It's the Grove of the Americana.
It's close enough to my house,
but when I made the delivery,
the office, it was, I know, so pissed.
And now I really, now I need to go
because we've been talking about it for two days.
I know, I know.
And then we were, we were posting about it
and I was, I made a joke at my own expense
that sort of hurt my own feelings,
which I refer to.
I know.
I was going to respond with another joke.
I'm like, he made the joke about himself.
I said that my, my,
I was going to order Cheesecake Factory to my home,
which looks like a gay Saddam Hussein
designed a solo house.
And I was like, oh my God.
I really, I genuinely wrote that.
And I was like, ah, John.
I thought the solo house thing was worse.
That's mean.
I was really,
I was really mean to myself.
I was real.
I was like, Jesus,
you worked hard to make this place look nice.
Did you see,
did you see they said Scott Bessant
to Cheesecake today for Obama?
You're, you're a hundred millionaire,
hedge fund manager,
like pissy cadaver treasury secretary.
He's the least relatable guy on earth.
Did you see the clip?
Because the tweet from Bessant says,
oh, Barack Obama,
I recommend the,
the cheeseburger spring rolls.
But in the,
in the answer,
Scott Bessant doesn't say
anything about any of the food at the Cheesecake Factory
because clearly Scott Bessant has never been
to the fucking Cheesecake Factory and his staff was like,
oh, that's what we're going to put in the tweet
because he didn't say it in the answer.
- True heroes of the Cheesecake Factory know
that you order the egg roll sampler
and you don't know which one is which
and you never find out.
And there's four sauces and there's four spring rolls
and you dip with wild abandon.
- Also the buffalo bites, so good.
- Like, I'm surprised they ran this play
because they seem like such humorless scolds.
It's just really, it's just really lame.
And like everyone knows Trump has shifted the Overton window
when it comes to politics.
And when it comes to what you can say at events,
we're going to talk about another version of it in a minute.
But like Trump literally said affordability is a hoax
perpetrated by the Democrats.
They had a great Gatsby themed costume party at Mar-a-Lago
during the government shutdown.
I think on the day snap benefits were suspended.
Like the list goes on and on and on.
- But it's like, you don't even have to get past the fact
that it's like, he wasn't,
he specifically wasn't making fun of the Cheesecake Factory.
cake factory, let alone
own people who go to the Cheesecake Factory. He was saying that the aesthetic of the Cheesecake
Factory, which as those who go to the Cheesecake Factory know, and the people who've designed the
Cheesecake Factory have said in interviews, is purposely over the top and gaudy. That's the
whole joke. That's why I didn't understand. And the idea that most people who love the
Cheesecake Factory would then say, I want my White House to look like that. I want the people,
I want the president to spend time making the White House look like that if Saddam Hussein
decided to design it. When you go to the Cheesecake Factory, and I point this out on social
media, I am a member of Cheesecake Rewards. I'm part of the family. When you go to Cheesecake
Factory, one of the things you do is you sit down and you look around and you go, boy, this place
is fucking nuts. Look how crazy it is. Look how big these stupid columns are. It's like you're
inside of an Egyptian cake. That's the whole point. It's awesome. I love Las Vegas. I like going to
casinos. I like the aesthetics of casinos. I like casinos. Don't pretend they're anything other than
what they are. There's no irony.
There's no irony in the design of a casino. But I don't want the White House to look like a casino.
I want the White House to look like a nice place where foreign leaders will come and Boy Scouts and
so on. Did you see that Byron Tao is a reporter now at ProPublica said that his first job in DC
was a waiter at Cheesecake. And he said he used to see Sasha and Malia Obama there all the time
in the Chevy Chase one. I mean, it's. By the way, if I'm going to a mall, I'm getting Panda
Express. You get those little meats on a stick. It's way better. Or Bertucci's if you're in
Boston. Bertucci's. I think I went bankrupt. No, that's fancy.
When I was a girl, sorry.
RIP.
There was a line that my father once said when we were driving by the Bertucci's on
an island, which I've actually has come to mind many times in my life. He said, no one
ever goes to Bertucci's. There's always a line. You know?
Yeah.
I think about that with how prices, you know.
My favorite thing about this is just like, clearly none of these fucking like rich pundits
on the coast know what the fuck they're talking about or have been to a Cheesecake factory.
Like Martha McCallum was on Fox. She like, she couldn't even put her heart. She didn't
even know what she was talking about. She's like. One thing about the Cheesecake factory thing. It's another clinging to guns and religion
moment.
Enough about this.
And this is why they lost the working class.
Enough about this basket of deplorables. How about this basket of shrimp?
All these same Fox hosts are at these like gaudy Mar-a-Lago parties every weekend. Like
Sean Hannity's wedding was just there. Like, it's ridiculous.
There's no Cheesecake factory on the island of Manhattan and it shows.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Right before we started recording, I noticed a tweet from, uh, I'm just going to read what
the person said about Barack Obama.
And the speech, I wouldn't dismiss what Barack Obama is doing there. Barack Obama may be
the most effective Democrat politician of our lifetime. His ability to communicate is
really powerful and really dangerous. If we didn't have the 22nd amendment, it wouldn't
surprise me if Obama spent the rest of his life in the White House.
Wait, wait. Oh, Hmm. I like, I want to say it's someone in the Tucker world or like a
Marjorie Taylor green type.
Ted Cruz.
Whoa.
On his podcast today.
Huh?
Yeah.
What?
Is that wild?
Why?
I know. I was like, is this right? I like to have to listen to the whole thing.
I don't know.
Ted Cruz.
There you go.
This is a weird day in politics, I guess.
It's a very weird day.
It's funny because, it's because Ted is starting to figure out how to run against
Vance. And so he's starting to find his way.
Well, he said he's like an Obama previewed in that speech, what the Democrats are going
to do, what the plays they're going to run in 2028, corruption, not cheesecake factory,
but like corruption and all this kind of stuff. And so he's, he's really like studying it,
which is interesting.
Well, yeah, Ted, we are.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. So you mean the most obvious case against the worst president in history?
Yeah.
Yeah. Like the, the, the, the billions in crypto.
Shattering corruption. Yeah.
Yeah.
In the land of the blind, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
It's not just the cheese.
Woke jail for you.
Oh yeah. I was just going to say, yeah. Come at me. Come at me. It's not just the cheesecake
factory litmus test where Trump is proving he's a man of the people. He's barnstorming
battleground states like Mississippi, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, and Florida this week. That's it.
That's the final week with his famed I'm one of you message. Here's how it went over this
last weekend.
We're making hundreds and hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars. But my people said,
please don't mention that, sir.
People are paying a little higher. We're making money like this country has never made
before. So I said, let me say it very gingerly, very softly. Just see the fake headlines.
President Trump is talking about all the money they're making while people are suffering
at the pump. That'll be the headline. But I said, I don't give a damn. I'm going to
say it. We'll make it a freaking fortune.
By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before Nicki Minaj. I've been living with
this whole thing about the ass.
And believe me, it's of no interest to me other than to say, John Houston is one hell
of an athlete. Okay. So I'm willing to sacrifice. I'd say that about your ass too, Mike, if
it gets you a guaranteed.
One of the, one of his best lines.
It's the, the, the, the funny thing with like, have you seen JD trying to riff on ass now?
He's been doing, he's been like, I won't talk about John Houston's ass. I won't talk about
it. Not like Trump. Well, he can't pull it off in the same way that Trump, look, I don't
think Trump should be talking about Nicki Minaj's ass, but could you imagine if JD Vance said
a word about Nicki Minaj's ass? I think he would walk out.
Yeah. Also his voice sounds like kind of like a fats domino doing blueberry hill thing there.
I liked it. But, um, look, uh, the risk of being on my fainting couch, I think we're
all used to Trump being a little politically incorrect. I think that's kind of the appeal
for a lot of people.
Um, him saying, um, uh, this one surprised me a little bit. I think that him saying to
Nicki Minaj, by the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before that's hard to miss.
And then get up, Nicki. That's a weird thing to do.
Well, I mean, there's reports now that she may be the next white house press secretary.
That's a real rumor. And so if, I mean, if you're going to have your white house press
secretary, you've got to, you've got to check out their ass.
Parade her.
Yeah. You don't become white house press secretary in this administration without walking to
the oval and doing 360.
Yeah. You can't be, you can't be getting that job without having your ass in
suspected by the president.
John Husted is going to need a job too.
I will. That's funny. I will say this. I will say, uh, he did set himself up. If there was
ever going to be a time that Donald Trump could say, uh, uh, Nicki Minaj, I enjoy looking
at your butt. Uh, boy, he's done all the legwork. It's as if it was all, you know what I mean?
It was the long play.
It's actually, it's like, well, he hasn't been talking. It's like you, you step back
and you're like, I mean, it's strange to see a president just outright complimenting, uh,
a celebrity's ass and asking her to show the ass to the arena. But then again, it's kind
of what he's been doing with all the men.
Yeah. In a way it was misogynist to not be mentioning a woman, right? That's fair. Only
talking about men's asses the whole time building to a, a, a pretty epic, no homo there with
Houston.
It's all a way of being like, and this guy played football and he was good. And he thinks
that's like good politics and manly and like kind of effective in Ohio and Trump's whole
like version of politics is like strength versus weakness, right? He's always doing things.
Strongly like using it as an adverb or it doesn't make sense. It's really like fascist
aesthetic kind of calling very strongly to my counterpart, that kind of stuff. But anyway,
on the gas prices thing, uh, Trump's obviously been saying shit like this for months. Uh,
I don't give a damn. We're making a freaking fortune. Does seem like the worst version
to be closing with. Um, though maybe the political damage from high gas prices can't get any
worse for Trump at this point. All baked in. What do you think?
I, yeah, I think that's the gas prices versus him claiming we're making a fortune on, on
Venezuela and oil. But also then you're like, well, he's also personally making money, right?
Like he's talking about the country. He's clearly in that moment talking about the country
making money, of course. And there was a separate story today. We didn't say that, that, um,
that Trump's, uh, his stocks, uh, in oil and gas have been making quite a bit of money.
Oh, good for him.
So, you know, I chalk it up to, I think it's a pretty brazed, like nobody's feeling like
the country's making lots of money, but I just chalk it up to Trump usual kind of bragging
about the economy. Uh, I think it's more of the part where he goes, Oh, the gas prices
are up just a little when it's actually like hurting a lot of people, including, uh, uh,
you know, one of these events, you'll see like truckers for Trump back there. And like,
those are the people just absolutely getting fucking reamed because of this.
Well, also just the way he's doing it and like a mocking voice there. Yeah. Oh, struggling
at the pump, which of course they're not offended by because they're so upset that the white
house doesn't that Brock Obama thinks that the white house shouldn't look like the cheesecake
factory that they're not even thinking about the price of gas. Yeah. The price of gas issue
is probably pretty baked in, but I do think like when you're two weeks out, I think things
that happen are like exponentially more important than things that happened two months out.
And so there will be people who are late deciders who will hear this and be like, what the fuck,
man, this, this sucks. Or there will be candidates who will be doing local TV interviews and
we'll get asked about those comments. They'll have to do the Trump dance and kind of like
half defend what he said, but not offend their voters. So I like, it's not, it's not a helpful
closing message. I'd be really pissed if I was the person campaigning with him. Right?
Like I presumably they've, they've now picked a fight over whether or not the white house
has been turned into a cheesecake factory.
And whether or not the country's making a lot of money, even though gas prices are high.
Like I would say Donald Trump being a corrupt, distracted buffoon. And the fact that the
economy is, is hurting are probably like the two things they should be talking about the
least if I were to pick the two things, maybe the Iran Iran Iran war one, one more, one
more notch up. Remember that there was a thought like a couple months ago that maybe gas prices
would like inch down by the election. I mean, we're a week away now. That's it. It's not
happening. People are voting. It's all the moves, all the things he did, all the, you
know, releasing the oil reserves, the Venezuela stuff, the Russian D the Russian diesel deal,
none of it.
The big, the interestingly, the main reason prices didn't spike more than they did was
the Chinese drastically cut back their purchases of oil. No one really knows why probably because
they didn't want the global economy to collapse because they export all their stuff. But then
they stopped doing that and they started importing more oil. And I think, frankly, I think the
to play to spike oil prices
before the midterms. That's my guess. Well, they
like brent crude is at like 115 today well and i wonder if i wonder if part of that is
getting remade by brent brent freaking brent and netanyahu is like apparently in a giant fight
with the chief of staff of the idf over whether or not to bomb the iranians again and they're all
everyone assumes it's going to happen after the election yeah i was sort of wondering if that's
what was causing today it was for sure yeah
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helix sleep.com slash crooked on a darker note here's if there's a darker note than
more war after the midterms uh trump's also decided to ramp up the
anti-muslim bigotry in the home stretch uh in a way that's just stunningly grotesque even for him
uh in the middle of his michigan event for mike rogers trump invited to the stage the father of
someone who died on 9-11 uh one of the people who was on flight 93 um and this guy then compared the
election to the horrific terrorist attack on 9-11 he said quote what's different this time is the
enemy has not come from abroad the enemy is right here among us local terrorists and then he said
mike rogers is an american abdul has a
birth certificate a birth certificate doesn't make you an american trump decided to be even
less subtle about this in his remarks i'm here to keep a jihadist muslim brotherhood member
from becoming a united states senator any jewish person that support this guy should
be ashamed of themselves i'll tell you what if abdul and the democrats win they will open the
floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores creating a nightmare of
violence and violence and violence and violence and violence and violence and violence and
terror until you cannot even have a christmas anyone with that record of support for jihadists
would be screened and unable to get a seat on an airplane he would be the only senator that will
have to go through a metal detector before he's allowed to go into the senate i want him to have
a metal detector jesus mike rogers was said nothing at the rally of course but was finally
forced to answer for this on meet the press this weekend here's what he said do you agree with
calling him a violent terrorist he said
the guy said are you going to answer the question hold on will you disavow and he said yeah
absolutely i'll answer the question he never answers the question is that up to your standard
no i don't i've never called him a terrorist i've never called him a terrorist this this
election is about me versus abdul that's a lie by the way dave portnoy tweeted a clip of abdul
making a joke about michigan football and said this guy really is a terrorist and mike rogers
quote tweeted it and said portnoy is exactly right oh yeah that is calling him a terrorist by
like you can't deny that i like what trump is doing there it's racist it's bigoted but i also
think it's like genuinely putting abdul's safety and life at risk yes because that's what i was
he calls him an enemy he calls him a jihadist he does an event with todd beamer right who is the
hero of 9-11 but um the the suggestion is that abdul is like a 9-11 hijacker that abdul is al-qaeda
and trump said 25 years later michigan needs to stand up and fight just like todd did
to stop a jihadist so kill them and like it's an overt call
for violence and u.s presidents they kill enemies u.s presidents killed jihadists um
nothing about that is acceptable or backed up by the facts and like
like all the republicans who blamed the democratic party uh in the rhetoric from democrats after the
assassination attempts on trump and who blamed democrats for charlie kirk's assassination are
silent on this just silent so don't trump says there that any jew would be ashamed to vote for
abdul and there's a debate among jews in michigan about whether to vote for abdul i just want to be
clear jews in michigan have a moral obligation to support abdul they should do it to protect
themselves from anti-semitism and rising hatred in america and if that sounds confusing to you at
all uh you should imagine two futures one in which there is a debate inside the democratic party
about america's relationship to israel military aid for israel and anti-semitism on the left
which is real that is a big and important debate we could have to try to find places of agreement
places of consensus there can be persuasion and argument and hard feelings but there can be
democracy on the other you have this kind of politics on the right where it is about dominance
and hatreds and and othering of people it starts with muslims he does it for trans people he does
it for immigrants he does it for haitians eating the dogs and the cats if you think that that
doesn't end with jews you are out of your fucking minds a country where this kind of politics is
rewarded is a country where jews are less safe
and anyone who has allowed their own uh uh uh concerns and legitimate concerns about abdul
to cloud that ultimate larger point is missing the the big picture here for jews in america
our safety is based around the idea that there's a society in which we can have arguments and
disagreements but we respect those differences trump does not believe in that and we need to
have a check on donald trump in a democratic senate and maybe abdul is not your cup of tea
maybe abdul is
not is going to be a reliable vote against israel fine we can handle that but we cannot handle
a continued slide to this hateful authoritarian right it will be dangerous for us yeah i would
just add that like um you know people say well it's not because he's muslim it's because of all
these ties to the muslim brotherhood blah blah the latest thing is like apparently abdul signed
this this open letter to the new egyptian president this is after the arab spring after
was overthrown the dictator there
and this is somehow now evidence according to mike rogers not donald trump because don't
trump doesn't know anything he's just like he's a terrorist but mike rogers is trying to do the
whole connection thing and this is what people are hanging i've heard this from a few people
like what about what about this letter what about the mother i hear that he won't answer questions
about the muslim brotherhood like i've heard this from people who are you know very engaged smart
people who are just like asking questions about this yeah and i don't know if we're going to play
that clip but mike rogers gets asked about comments he made about the muslim brotherhood
which is basically about trying to find moderating
funding for the muslim brotherhood which is basically about trying to find moderating funding
within the muslim brotherhood that the u.s could work with which again like ironically like neither
abdul nor rogers are saying things that are all that radical at the time because the the chronology
as you said it's like we're the beginning of the arab spring mubarak gets tossed in february 2011
there's parliamentary elections the mother brotherhood does really well and then the
presidential election is in 2012 muhammad morsi is the democratically elected president of egypt
it's a big deal um interestingly he's an engineer who went to usc for a bit and then taught at
california and then he's a president of egypt and he's a president of egypt and he's a president of
al state northbridge for a few years so the west is like okay maybe we could work with this guy
um he brokers he morsi helped broker a ceasefire in gaza in 2012 i don't even remember that um so
he was like immediately seen as this helpful actor on the world stage but then he made this big power
grab uh the economy collapsed he's deposed in a brutal coup and the military has been in charge
ever since so the the letter abdul signed was like purge the media purge the police of the mubarak
everyone thought that they were going to stage a coup and that ultimately is what happened
and the quote that rogers uh gets read by welker that he said in like 2012 is again trying to find
someone in morsi's government to work with to kind of maintain the u.s egypt relationship um so both
of them are being like eminently reasonable given the context and the politics of the time i think
rogers is ultimately probably thrilled to see a military coup happened because then the people
of egypt have no say in their political future anymore and all the like intel and security
officials um you know they're like you know they're like they're like they're like they're
like they're like they're like they're like they're like they're like you know that the intel community
you know that the intel community
you know that the intel community knew are back in charge but it's all just
knew are back in charge but it's all just
knew are back in charge but it's all just like it's very specious it's all guilt by
like it's very specious it's all guilt by
like it's very specious it's all guilt by association and then there's abdul's mom
association and then there's abdul's mom
association and then there's abdul's mom who may or may not have been in the mb at
who may or may not have been in the mb at
who may or may not have been in the mb at one point but like they didn't really have a
relationship no and was doing like charity work for orphans um when she was part of this organization
you know back in missouri and again he never like lived it just the idea that we are like family
members that abdul didn't live with that aren't abdul we're now like he he has to like answer for
everything they've ever done or said every tweet they've ever done every letter he's ever signed
even though it says the same thing that most members of congress were saying at the time as
well democrats and republicans it's so fucking absurd and it is designed just to be like if
you're someone who wants an excuse and someone's like don't be anti-muslim anti-muslim bigot don't
be islamophobic and you say well no no i'm not it's not because he's muslim it's because he's
tied to this organization and so you throw out little crumbs right of like well there is this
connection and then you just hope that people aren't don't know enough about the history that
or aren't going to research it that they just say i don't know he seems extreme yeah that's it
that's that's the what the whole thing is based on yeah and and
all italians are mobbed up and right all uh catholics have dual loyalties like this is all
very old that that jews can't be trusted they're not really americans right this idea that oh sure
abdul has a birth certificate but he's not a real american like that is the exact same kind of shit
that has been directed at jews and other minority groups for a very very long time and uh people
really need to wake up for whatever your whatever your concerns are with abdul you can talk about
them you can debate them you can try to pursue persuade
him you can uh accept or not accept the apologies you've given for statements that i think were wrong
and stupid and bad uh but to pretend that what this is isn't the greater threat is i think to
have your head in the sand and to allow your uh bad feeling and kind of to become a kind of privilege
um in that same interview and meet the press uh rogers also had to defend an association that
might end up being a lot more politically damaging than any
ties to the muslim brotherhood let's listen do you consider yourself to be a maga republican
listen i'm going to tell you this is i i get you guys uh on the national press but this is a little
bit disgusting to me building around as all you all want to do is talk about something else no
you're on the ground are you i've already answered the question kristen that's just what i want to
know do you consider yourself to be a maga republican kristen let me i'm going to go
right back through this is a vote for you a vote for the trump agenda
um i'm apologizing
i'm having some difficulty in my piece but i is a vote for you i'm not sure i'll tell you what a vote
for me is it's a great day for the state of michigan the question i heard is is abdul and
the muslim brotherhood great question kristen it's so easy to answer that and not be like a
petulant baby like i'm a mike rogers republican so you know what i mean like are you gonna i'm
gonna vote for the agenda that's going to help the people of michigan like you don't have to be a
petulant little baby yeah but here's the thing like he's having trump he needs the maga people
to show up and think he's
part of the team he really is in a bind the guy yeah but they're not watching meet the press just
like the clip will go viral baby about yeah well they don't he doesn't want mr trump to hear yeah
bad for mr trump to hear bad for the clip to go around
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on election night we will all be feeling a lot of feelings do not spend it alone spend it with me
alex wagner for crooked media presents live election results we're gonna have john favreau
john lovett tommy vitor stacy abrams dan pfeiffer aaron ryan and many more special guests to be
announced and they're all gonna help us make sense of what's happening as the election results
roll in so here's what you need to do subscribe to pod save america on youtube and tune in on
tuesday november 3rd at 9 p.m eastern 6 p.m pacific for hot takes catharsis and as many
results as we can possibly analyze
so abdul and his campaign have been obviously pushing back on these anti-muslim attacks
for most of the campaign uh he did get some help from obama during the event in michigan let's
listen we have seen this movie before i starred in it i've got a long form birth certificate to
prove it this stuff didn't work on me not in michigan it's not gonna work on abdul
imagine the power duo of abdul and alissa you've got a muslim man you got a jewish woman
fighting for you in the united states
so i thought that was a a good way of handling it from obama like abdul's campaign this is the
challenge here like obviously they want to focus closing message on cost of living issues rogers
being tied to you know uh donald trump maga he's gonna be trump's vote in the senate to what extent
do you think they also have to deal with these attacks because this is the tension every day
in the campaign you're like we don't want to have another day on this but also they're they're we're
hearing things from you know it's like you got to take a head on i
i think you can't just do this is a distraction i think you sound like you're ducking and i think
we learned this the hard way with obama i mean there was a period of time when
their the birther stuff the questions about whether or not he'd been born in the united
states was like email forwards and seen as a subterranean smear campaign and we had to take
it head on we like built a it seems sort of hokey now but built a website stop the smears.com to
like fully take on these charges and i think abdul has to speak directly to these attacks
i think uh republicans have made the election about abdul
he would have to speak directly to these attacks and i think uh republicans have made the election
about abdul he would rather it be about trump and the mega agenda and mike rogers being a rubber
stamp for that but voters in michigan are getting inundated with ads and articles and you know clips
about you know mother motherhood or whatever it might be and he used to speak to it because the
late deciders are getting this information now and they're paying attention now and so um it's
unfair and it's bigoted but i think that was an effective way to push back from obama i think
part of it is abdul like broing out and talking about football and talking about going to michigan
but obama's saying they tried this shit on me
you know they're gonna try to do it to him but there's nothing radical about you know universal
health care like it's a good pivot yeah yeah clearly like obama spent a lot of that speech
trying to do the consolidation work right he's trying to make an argument to get uh whatever is
that subset of black voters in michigan uh some hayley stevens voters some jewish voters whoever
that just don't feel totally comfortable yet with abdul to come on board and to make the best to tell
the best story about why they should and why they should see themselves as people that should be
excited to be part of that conversation and i think that's a good pivot yeah i think that's
a good one for that even if right now they're not and i think what rogers is doing right this
fear-mongering does two things for him one it is about trying to get some maybe disaffected or
unenthusiastic republicans to show up and to keep some of those democrats or potential democratic
voters to stay home so he gets to do one thing and that one thing does both of the things that
he needs to do and so abdul has a bit of a harder job uh because it's it requires kind of making
two different cases yeah and i think i you know i saw there was an ad from abdul uh over the last
couple of years and i think that's a good thing to do and i think that's a good thing to do and
couple weeks where it's just an ad about his faith and um it's a little broader than like
answering the specific charges but i think you're right tommy like they just in the final week when
people are looking for information as they're about to go into the into the voting booth you
kind of need to knock down the specific stuff's breaking through i mean you got to speak to it
you just can't let it go yeah uh one more thing on michigan you know ton of state democrats are
out there campaigning for abdul but there are some notable exceptions uh here's his primary
opponent hayley stevens on cnn this weekend you're still fully behind i
look i'm i'm on the democratic ticket you know i i can't say that i agree with everything that's
going on i'm not looking to be front and center right now i'm looking to be on the team to support
you know my next governor jocelyn benson and frankly these great democrats who are working
their tails off who are going to make hakeem jeffries the first black speaker of the house
you didn't mention abdul has said in that last answer well look i i would just say you would
ask me if i'm still on the team i'm on the team so i'm on the team
so stevens did endorse abdul of course as soon as the prime like right as the primary ended
she said at the time you know the time for the disunity is over she made a strong case against
mike rogers i remember like we were all saying right after that primary was over like wow
very gracious of hayley stevens that's like exactly you know really like stepping up there
um this was kind of a confusing uh shift in tone from her like i i didn't quite get it
what'd you guys make of it yeah it's strange right because she's already endorsed so
So a statement like this doesn't make you less for him, it just makes you less helpful
right like okay you're on the team but you're just not interested in being very good as a teammate
right you're just you're you're i'm on the team but i'm not like super committed to helping my
team win or anything right so i i like find it strange because if she thinks that's gonna like
if she if there's some specific thing she wants from abdul in order to become a better endorser
the time for that has long since passed right so there's no strategic benefit to doing this in the
week before the campaign like she's registering some dissatisfaction with some specific thing
she'd like him to do differently uh instead it's just kind of feeding this idea that there's
democratic disunity uh and uh no matter what happens she will still in the future be very
much tagged with being associated with abdul if that's her concern so i just it's of no value
and only harm to me yeah i just don't i don't understand why like if you don't have if you
knew that if you don't want to be out there saying of course i support abdul and just because i'm
out in the campaign trail doesn't mean i don't support him a hundred percent
don't do interviews right do you want to lose because if you're going to do an interview
can you get asked unless that was the intention to to knowing that you were going to be asked to
say that in which case that's not great do you want to seem like you want him to win but actually
you want to lose right she was on cbs and she was asked are you going to campaign side by side with
abdul and she said whatever he wants me to do it's like i did something i wonder if something
changed yeah that's right was there some falling out did they not do their politics well enough on
the outside campaign like i don't know it was odd yeah but i was like you know that seemed like the
worst of all worlds for her politically yeah i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know
yeah and to echo what you said love it like we we're in the final week here and it's like
you know whatever reservations people have about abdul i think we just if you're a democrat or an
independent or anyone who finds what trump uh said they're odious and what rogers has been doing
odious then like you know i would i would urge you to lock in just for the final week and help
because i think that whatever reservations you may have what they're doing is far far worse and
i'll be cynical for one second i don't think what i was saying before was cynical i sincerely
believe it let's be cynical you want to you want to either help him lose or not be needed to help
him win great that's helpful yeah i think there's also some people who are like well i think we
could win the senate and just lose michigan you know that's no no no like it is very all the
possible outcomes there's a very possible outcome where we come michigan one michigan senate seat
short of losing the senate and then will you feel like happy that you left it blank for senate you
know that you didn't vote for rogers but you left it blank because you had like i don't think you want
i don't think you'll feel good about that when we're like you know nominating a replacement for
uh when trump is nominating a replacement for uh fucking sam molino in the spring have your
senate eat it too huh um all right as we get closer to election day trump is also trying to
use every lever of power at his disposal to uh screw with the outcome uh just before we recorded
this on monday afternoon trump posted that he's offering a one million dollar reward for anybody
reporting voter fraud in the past elections or the upcoming 2026 midterm election payable when
fraud is convicted first of all does anyone think they're getting that money what's the process for
submitting these claims do you think so now we're doing citizens arrests what are we doing where
do you email todd blanche directly uh who's gonna vet these things how do i get paid out how do you
know what because i'm gonna start submitting some ideas if there's a million bucks we're just
asking neighbors to go like like report on your neighbor who you don't like send a tip into to
the doj that they might be an illegal voter can i tell you i've had a theory about this which i'll
share here uh so there was a point during um the rise of fascism in germany where at some point the
okay yep it's an analogy just everybody fucking deal with it we're all adults all right uh where
um the gestapo had to tell people hey we're getting way too many reports on our neighbors
uh we can't follow up on all these leads you all hate all your neighbors they're all being disloyal
uh can you please be more discerning because you're all ratting on each other a little too
much and we just don't have the bandwidth to do that and we're all being disloyal
to follow up on all these fucking fucking reports and i was thinking about just like clearly there
is this they really want people to be reporting on undocumented people on reporting on their
neighbors and maybe it's happening more than it's than it's being reported but so far they just
haven't had that kind of groundswell right like we're just not seeing that as driving deportations
it's not a big part of the story right and i sometimes wonder if the kind of social media
policing of each other tattletailing video each other at fucking
sweet greens and and and pink berries and my they were mean to me at the airport all this filming
it's a strange little release valve for whatever that impulse is in our society right now whatever
that feeling is that things are so unfair and i must have justice all the time and report on
people i'm the only one following the rules and so they try to find this sort of energy but it's
actually being spent with what they would call cancel culture or kind of like each other policing
each other with our phones and so they don't get that they don't get the juice from it that's just
my little theory about it it's so weird i mean maybe or they could just be
trying to it's just voter suppression they want people who think they might be seen as you know
fraudulently elected because they're a person of color or recent immigrant or whatever just to stay
home and not risk it because no one wants to get sent to you know sea cot or whatever yeah there's
also and i'll tell you from the you can't really tell a lot about the early vote in terms of like
who's voting for who but the uh latino turnout uh is is breaking some records in texas already so i
do not think this is necessarily working so far they also just came out with a bunch
of people that they're charging for voting illegally as as non-citizens right they're
just they're also just looking for the even if it's just a few it's an examples that proves
their point that there's rampant fraud yeah
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you there on election night we will all be feeling a lot of feelings do not spend it alone
spend it with me alex wagner for crooked media presents live election results we're gonna have
john favreau john lovett tommy vitor stacy abrams dan pfeiffer aaron ryan and many more special
guests to be announced and they're all gonna help us make sense of what's happening as the election
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in on tuesday november 3rd at 9 p.m eastern 6 p.m pacific for hot takes catharsis and as many results
as we can possibly analyze
another thing they're doing is in alaska uh the justice department has filed a lawsuit there to
prevent the election from being certified if and i'm quoting from the lawsuit here one senator dan
sullivan does not win the election and two had all votes cast for daniel j sullivan been cast
instead for senator sullivan and alaska's ranked choice process played out accordingly senator
sullivan would have won the election so just to catch everyone up who needs it on this someone
with senator dan sullivan's name named daniel j sullivan will be on the ballot as one of the top
four primary vote getters along with democrat mary poltola doj is arguing that if senator dan
sullivan loses because of the votes that may mistakenly go to other dan sullivan the election
should not be certified uh and if you're wondering whether the lawsuit is the result of elections
experts at doj simply
following the facts as they see them uh. here's your answer
i'm the one that said
at least let him use the name senator dan sullivan
as opposed to incumbent his
a lot of people don't know what incumbent means
i know you say it's not fair with his name being on the ballot
but how is it illegal
i think it's illegal because it's unfair if it's unfair you don't uh. you want you want fairness in voting
honestly so insightful from him that is how he thinks well so if it things that i think are unfair of course illegal
and if i think it's fair it's legal that's it
there's no laws here's i'll make a deal right now if they can say that votes for the wrong
dan sullivan don't count
then we get to go back and count all those fucking pat buchanan votes from two thousand
uh. by those those old rewind the timeline from the aldacacas in palm beach and we get to install al gore immediately that's right we get to we reverse all of us we all get to go back we go back
uh. yeah i'm not uh. i don't think this is
i don't think this is the the best legal work
of uh. the the trump administration that they were going to cancel the votes of the dan sullivan we don't like without it being able to know who voted for who and for and for what
reason after the fact because we don't like the outcome if they would like to get dance the wrong that they're they're wrong dan sullivan removed they had their chance to do that it didn't work
yeah i think that's the uh. that's the the the legal challenge that they face here is that state litigation already addressed the second l sullivan's eligibility
uh. and the ballot
as as trump referenced
does identify
dan sullivan as the incumbent and daniel j sullivan is not the incumbent which is a word a lot of people know
more and more these days i think you know what that word means
so as many who know that the dumb is spelled d-u-m-b
yeah the alaska supreme court did rule that he could be on the ballot
it's i will there's a it's funny too because he could just
be kind of out there saying don't forget to vote for the right dan sullivan this is donald trump reminding you to vote for the right dan sullivan
And I guess this is, in a way, going to get that out there a little bit.
But what do you call it when it bounces off the backboard?
Ricochet?
Backboard?
Bank shot?
Bank shot.
Nice.
Nice.
It's a bank shot.
That's what that is?
Yeah.
Nice.
Hell yeah.
Some good news, bad news for the Comey family today.
Good news.
Thorns and roses.
Uh-huh.
Good news, the court found that Maureen Comey's termination, James Comey's daughter, was unlawful
from termination from the DOJ, and it violated her rights under the Civil Service Reform
Act, and they granted reinstatement and back pay.
I'm sure she wants to take that job.
The bad news, James Comey facing indictment in D.C. for alleged disclosure of classified
information.
That is not a repeat headline.
You are not hearing an old episode.
This is now the third time, apparently.
They have tried to. They're indicting James Comey.
That's just. It's so fucked up.
So fucked up.
Is it the same underlying substance, or are they saying he disclosed something else that
was also classified?
Was the first. Well, no, the first one was perjury, was false statements during the testimony.
That's a memo to somebody or whatever.
The second one was the seashell threat.
Oh, I'm sorry.
You're right.
I forgot about the big seashell threat.
Yeah, John Bolton was the classified info, right?
Yeah, sorry.
And then this now one, now they finally got him on classified info, apparently.
Because they're claiming he corrected a journalist, or that they reached out in some way.
And he sort of conveyed something, which may have been classified information.
Un-fucking-believable.
Yeah, and again, I obviously think this is wrong and pernicious and terrible to have
the politicization of the Justice Department, but I also think James Comey should die in
prison, so. I don't.
That's just my feeling.
I think people should only go to prison if they've broken laws.
I usually agree with that.
Then they should serve the exact same. That's a sentence.
Yeah, no, I know.
That is commensurate with their. No, I know that that's right.
I'm telling you, I know that's what your mind says, but in your heart, in your heart, I
don't mean it.
I don't mean it.
I think it's wrong.
I'm just kidding.
I think what's happening to James Comey is horrible and what he deserves.
I'm just, I don't. Our producers are laughing.
I can hear it through the walls, yeah.
I can hear Austin laughing.
Speaking of. Think about James Comey lying in that cell, his feet dangling off the edge of the cot.
He's so tall.
A cell for him is worse than it is for the rest of us.
Jeez.
He's so big and tall.
Disavow.
Disavow.
Disavow.
Disavow.
Speaking of DOJ funny business, the department's sloppy cover-up of the Epstein file debacle
has returned as a midterm issue in the final week.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released an unsigned staff report on Monday
that, quote, demonstrates that Trump was a, quote, active participant in Epstein's abuse
in the 90s, including new details on a rape allegation.
And they also called for a special counsel to investigate Trump's Epstein connection.
They also called for a special counsel to investigate Trump's rape allegation.
According to analysis pieces in both The Washington Post and Politico, Democrats have also spent
north of $30 million on Epstein-related ads in battleground states.
Kind of a sleeper there, because I knew there was a few Epstein ads here and there, but
there's. I think it's a lot of mentions, though.
A lot of mentions?
Yeah.
I don't know.
The details in that congressional report are very troubling and should be run down and
investigated.
I think calling it the Epstein election is a touch overstated is my guess.
That's what Playbook actually said.
That's what Playbook called it.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the Epstein. I think it's. Mentioning Jeffrey Epstein is useful because it's shorthand for how rigged the system is
and how elites get protected in Donald Trump's America.
It is also shorthand for Trump breaking his promises.
It's responsible for a huge rupture between Trump and Republicans and also the kind of
Joe Rogan podcast cohort.
So Democrats should keep mentioning it.
We should keep doing these oversight hearings.
But also, I think, like, Trump promised to get to the bottom of what happened and punish
the abusers.
He lied.
Like, this would be a good opportunity for Democrats to deliver on a promise to really
follow up on this one.
I think it's important.
Daily had a good episode on this today.
Well, they had an episode on just ads, all the ads that were being run and Shane Goldmarker
was on.
And it's interesting that a lot of these Epstein ads are running in red states with. In some of these, like, yeah, very Trumpier districts as a way to kind of depress turnout
a little bit.
Just to, like, if you're not going to vote for Democrat, at least, like, aren't you upset
with the broken promises?
The Republicans who promised they would clean up corruption, promised they would do something
about Jeffrey Epstein's, the Epstein files, and then absolutely broke that promise.
Yeah, it's as if he's methodically. It's as if he, like, had a board that had the different coalitions that he assembled
to become president and wanted to go through and cross them off, right?
Like, the America First crowd he got with the Iran war, the people genuinely concerned
about prices he got with sort of tariffs and the gas prices and failing to address this.
I mean, the one group of people he's kept are the kind of. The kind of old-school Paul Ryan-type conservatives because he did do a fair amount of deregulation
and tax cutting.
He's managed to keep them.
And with Epstein, there's this sort of conspiratorial part of the right that was relying on him
to kind of expose the deep state.
I don't. Like, it is one of many conspiracy theories that are important in that world.
I think RFK Jr. is a part of it, too.
Like, kind of an amorphous group of people that believe the government is lying to them
all the time and he was going to expose it.
And he just played them for fools.
That's why Dan Bongino was, like, in this. In this difficult position of having been someone who said that the conspiracy theories
were real and then couldn't justify it once he was inside the government.
So, I don't know how much of a difference maker it is, but I think it is one of the
reasons he lost people in a way that makes it hard to get them back.
Last thing before we go, on Sunday night, when most of us were savoring the last few
moments of the weekend, Donald Trump posted a dense 1,300-word essay to Truth Social.
Again, record-breaking.
On a subject of vital importance to all of us.
Talk show host Bill Maher.
Trump trashed Maher and his show, said Maher's visits to the White House, which he called
a, quote, very seductive and beautiful place, were no fun, and that Maher was stoned and
drunk, and he defended Caroline Levitt's performance on Maher's show last week, which I'm guessing
is where this all came from.
Has to be, right?
Among many other tangents.
Trump added at the end, Bill, don't call anymore.
That was my favorite part.
Bill, don't call anymore.
What were your favorite parts, guys?
That was wild.
Do you think he dictated it to Natalie?
Did she have to. Did she have to write down all of that as he, like, sort of read it aloud?
I mean, I'll just. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but can I just read a sentence?
Because I don't know how Natalie could have faithfully just written this down or typed
this out.
This was all one sentence.
CNN did another poll at who was the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party,
and I won that, too, with me being at 53%, Ronald Reagan being at 18%, and Abraham Lincoln
being at 8%, and these are CNN polls.
People not exactly in love with me.
So Bill Maher lied, but he lies about everything, and I believe he lied to me when I asked him with
all the applause and laughter he gets after almost everything he says about things that
aren't funny or even any good.
What laughter machine does he use?
That was the line that jumped out at me, the laughter machine.
The laughter machine.
He said it again later.
He mentioned the laughter machine three times.
Yeah.
Turn your laugh machine off.
It's a joke when they laugh uncontrollably, even when you say nothing funny.
So he's watching Maher every Friday now?
What's going on?
He looks like hell this time.
Bill was drunk and had alcohol in his hand as he walked through the White House.
Overall, I thought it was a good meeting.
It didn't last four hours.
It lasted two hours, maybe less.
Everybody was happy.
We have the timestamps.
I learned nothing.
Felt it was a waste of time.
I learned nothing.
I learned nothing.
After the first dinner, Bill Maher was friendly.
I guess everyone walked away pleased.
He gave me a good first show with lots of laughing machine laughter, which is a real
term, but it is what it is, and then reverted back to his former self and his old ways.
It's translation.
I had the dinner.
He was nice to me for one episode.
Then he was mean again, and I'm going to complain about it.
But talk about, Natalie could not have done, I mean, there was no proofreading.
You would have cleaned it up a little bit.
I don't think she cleans it up, man.
I think she wants to stay true to her voice.
Just pure uncut.
Yeah, I think that's what she thinks the gig is.
Certainly no one's going to accuse.
AI of writing his stuff.
No, absolutely not.
That is 100%.
This is not the Hunter Biden Chronicles.
This is raw, uncut, real typing.
1,300 words.
Yeah.
And it was like, when I first heard about this, I'm like, oh, how much do you have
that much to say about Bill Maher?
But really, Bill Maher is just like the delivery vehicle for this.
He's tangentially part of it, but most of it is just a long ramp.
There's a thing about The Apprentice and why it was a great show and how we would
have won anyway, even without The Apprentice.
It sounds like.
Dictation.
It does sound like dictation.
It sounds like saying something out loud that someone else is typing.
He's not typing all this.
It sounds like he's lost his fucking mind is what it sounds like, which, you know.
It's good stuff.
It's great stuff.
It's a great closing message.
Put it in an ad.
The end of, in Abdul's speech, he talked about Trump bragging about the neurology test,
which was great.
Just like, you know, he was bragging about taking this test.
You only give these people the test when people, he's a doctor, you only give tests when people
are in trouble and something's wrong and they've given it to him multiple times.
And then he might end saying, well.
Mike Rogers knows that this is ridiculous and he stands by the guy, which I, it was
the first time I'd heard somebody tie directly the fact that he's doing the cognitive test
with the fact that everyone's pretending he's not losing his mind.
Yeah.
And he's proud of identifying the giraffe, which is a tough one to identify, I guess.
Is it?
Maybe the least challenging animal to identify.
I think it's a big horse.
What do you think it was?
Yeah.
Just a sort of long neck gives it away.
I'm just.
Long necked horse.
Like that SBA administrator.
I'm no genius.
Who's that SBA person?
What's her name?
What's her name again?
Kelly Loeffler.
Kelly Loeffler.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She ran for, she ran in Georgia.
That's right.
That's right.
Because Kelly Loeffler and giraffes, they actually evolved separately.
You see those TikTok memes?
It's her and Susan Dell.
Yes.
And then the other woman.
Barbara Thornhill.
Barbara Thornhill.
Barbara, Barbara misspelled Thornhill.
They're AI and they're doing some TikTok.
It's great.
It's great.
Anyway, that's our show for today.
If you're itching for updates during this election week, reminder, it's a great time to follow
us on YouTube.
Or you can just search for us on Twitter.
Search Breaking News from Pod Save America on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, where we post
the audio version of these quick conversations between shows.
We're doing all kinds of reactions.
actions to the news in between these shows. You've got to check them out on YouTube. We've got a lot
of content coming this last week before the election, so check it out. And of course, Dan
and I will be back with a new show on Friday.
On election night, we will all be feeling a lot of feelings. Do not spend it alone.
Spend it with me, Alex Wagner, for Crooked Media Presents Live Election Results. We're
going to have Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vitor, Stacey Abrams, Dan Pfeiffer, Aaron
Ryan, and many more special guests to be announced. And they're all going to help us make sense
of what's happening as the election results roll in. So here's what you need to do. Subscribe
to Pod Save America.
And tune in on Tuesday, November 3rd at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific for hot takes, catharsis,
and as many results as we can possibly analyze.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
SimpliSafe uses AI cameras to detect potential threats before intruders enter, with live agents intervening in under 30 seconds to stop breaches.
The system includes temperature and water sensors, making it useful for monitoring home safety across changing weather conditions.
SimpliSafe’s CEO installed the system quickly and praised its ease of use and remote control via a user-friendly app.
Over 6 million people trust SimpliSafe for home security, and current users can save 60% on professional monitoring.
CrookedCon is set for November 5–7 in D.C., featuring prominent political figures like J.B. Pritzker, Ilhan Omar, and Ted Cruz.
A major controversy involves Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, including comparing a Michigan candidate to 9/11 hijackers and calling him a “jihadist,” which sparked backlash and accusations of bigotry.
Critics argue that such rhetoric targets marginalized communities and reflects a broader trend of hate-driven politics, especially in the final stretch of the election.
The show highlights how misinformation, voter suppression claims, and social media backlash are being weaponized to influence public opinion and election outcomes.
Summary:
SimpliSafe introduces a proactive home security system using AI-powered cameras that detect threats in real time, alerting live agents to intervene before a break-in occurs. The company emphasizes ease of use, smart sensors, and strong customer trust, with a current promotion offering 60% off professional monitoring. The discussion shifts to the upcoming CrookedCon event, which features a diverse lineup of political voices, including governors, senators, and activists, highlighting debates on party identity, liberalism, and democratic values.
A central political controversy centers on Donald Trump’s inflammatory remarks during the Michigan campaign, where he labeled a candidate, Abdul, a “jihadist” and linked him to terrorism, sparking accusations of anti-Muslim bigotry and political hostility. Critics argue such rhetoric is not only racist but dangerous, especially as it plays on fears and disinformation. The episode also examines how political actors exploit voter concerns, such as fraud claims and election disputes, to manipulate public sentiment.
These tactics, including fabricated voter fraud rewards and legal challenges to election results, are seen as tools of suppression. The hosts stress the importance of voter resilience, ethical discourse, and accountability in a polarized political climate, urging listeners to remain informed and vigilant as the midterms approach.
FAQs
SimpliSafe uses smart AI cameras to detect potential threats before an intruder enters, and live agents intervene within 30 seconds to stop threats and call 911 if needed.
The system is installed and ready in just a couple of hours, and the app is simple to use, allowing users to arm or disarm the system from home.
SimpliSafe includes temperature and water sensors that help monitor different areas of the house, especially during weather changes.
You can save 60% on professional monitoring by visiting simplisafe.com/slash/crooked.
CrookedCon is a political event happening November 5–7 in Washington, D.C., featuring live discussions with prominent politicians and journalists.
Speakers include Governor J.B. Pritzker, Senator Chris Murphy, Ilhan Omar, Robert Garcia, Sarah Jacobs, Jamie Raskin, Sarah McBride, and others.
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