LIVE(ish) from the Obama Presidential Center

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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 discount. Go safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. We are coming to you from the Obama. Presidential Center in Chicago. I think this is the first ever podcast recorded from the Obama Presidential Center. I just made that up. Yeah. But I think it's great. Reading Library. I mean, it opened today, so. That's what I'm saying. It opened today, so I think that we. Yeah. Yeah. How are you? It's fine. Nice. It's really good. It's really good. Thank you. This is the beautiful Presidential Reading Room in the branch of the Chicago Public Library. I don't see our book. Yeah. What the fuck? You should probably donate one. Maybe the children's section. That's weird. Do we see Dan's books anywhere? I don't see them. Do we see Dan's book? I've heard rumors that our books are in here, but I can't see them. Oh, I see Life of Pi. Anyway, we'll come back to this. I see What It Takes. Oh, I see my book right there. Oh, we saw Dan's books. Two over from What It Takes. Now, if you're just listening on the audio, I know this is riveting. Yes. Us looking around at the books. Hey, let's stop navel gazing about the books. Start navel gazing about the event. So we just came from the event, and we just toured the museum for the first time. What are we calling the museum? The Center. The Center. The Center. Library? Yeah. I think it's the Obama Presidential Center is the official name, and we just took a little tour. What did you guys think? Not of the event, of what we just saw on all the floors. Dan? It's, I mean, obviously very emotional for us to walk through it and see from the beginning of the campaign, through the White House, the good moments, the bad moments. But it's, I mean, it's really, it's very, very powerful. Yeah. Love it. How did you feel about what you tried so hard to stop from happening? Yeah. I mean, look, I think- So poorly tried. Well, yeah, yeah. I think that the beginning of the museum, about the ways in which I couldn't prevent this from happening, and as you move up through the floors, I become more and more excited to be a part of it. Every time we went by an exhibit and wanted to, like, take a picture there, Lovett would say, like, no, no, no, this is stolen valor. I can't do this. Yeah. Before, yeah. As you get into the administration, then I feel like I can celebrate. But when it's, you know, the sign-sealed, delivered speech in New Hampshire, I feel like, well, I was kind of on the other side of that. It was weird when you just started yelling about caucuses. That was strange. Yeah. Superdelegates are there legitimate, the superdelegates. It's part of the process. Respect the process. But it's strange to see something set up. It's great to experience it for us, but it isn't really set up for us. It's set up to kind of take people through something they might not know about, and it is set up for a longer timeline. It's set up for people to experience over a very long time, and it is interesting to see things you experience written in just such a declarative pattern. It's like, this is what happened. This was the history of this moment. Right. It's history now. It's history. We're so old. It sucks. Our jobs in a museum. Yeah, that is true. Tommy, what'd you think? I mean, the museum's amazing. Everyone should come check it out. I mean, Michelle Obama talked about how they wanted it to be interactive. So there's lots of exhibits and speeches and stories of individual people, but you can shoot hoops, and we're literally in a library where you can take out a book or you can hang out and do a picnic. I think the thing that's been amazing for me. Emotional is just all the people we've gotten to just run into. It's like when I go back to DC, you run into a lot of people, and a lot of the time you don't want to run into them here. I've run into a lot of people, and every time it's like, I'm so excited to see this person. It's a blast from the past. Like Hannah and I were dealing with a snafu on our bracelets to get in, and we ended up in a 10 minute line behind Adderall McRaven, and I was like, oh, Hannah, this is the guy who did the Bin Laden operation. Like, that's a conversation. We don't have every day. His bracelet was also incorrect. He was not allowed into the event, unfortunately. Our friend Joshua Dubois, who's like we've known forever, who used to play pranks in the office and one time changed it so my outlook every time I wrote the word the, it auto-corrected to bag of assholes. He gave the prayer and invocation. I just want to say that when Tommy realized this, he didn't think it was a prank, and Tommy's just typing emails, and he's like, we're in the Senate office at the time. It's 2006. He's like, every time I write an email. All of a sudden, it just says bag of assholes. It's like, I don't, I'm sure. I was like, I'm almost positive I didn't write bag of assholes in this email. How are you not more sure? It's like when Mad Reporter thought that she was hacked because she had spilled water on her space bar. Yes. It was the first story I thought of, and I'm like, and now he's the pastor at this event. Josh walked up to me last night and said, what's up, you bag of assholes? Anyway, Eddie Vedder was here. He did a musical number with some 13 to 14 year old kids. They composed it. They put it together. They played it in front of four people. The president of the United States. The whole thing has just been very cool and inspiring and a home game for us. The other thing about the museum just that I think is really noteworthy is it is about how people can learn from what Obama did, what people on Obama did, and do similar things going forward. The whole idea is to inspire people to take their community, their country, their lives in their own hands and try to bring change. That's the entire thing. That's the entire thing from top to bottom at every place of this is about like the core principle. Yeah. He's a very young ex-president, as he mentioned today. Not that young, but young enough. And also started as a community organizer here in Chicago. And so I do think that like they were very, you know, the intention of the whole museum or in the whole center from the beginning was that it wasn't just like somewhere we could walk around and see exhibits or just like a traditional presidential library, but that it would be a place, would be a community center where like people can come in and see and go be inspired to, you know, run for office or help their community or, and so I really think they achieved that. I love the museum. I mean, I went, I first came Tuesday with Emily and the kids, brought Charlie and Teddy and they lasted a couple hours before, before Teddy had a, had a meltdown when he tried to eat the fake apple in the fake Oval Office. Didn't go well. Didn't, couldn't eat it. Wanted a real apple. Yeah. Cried a lot. We left. We've all been there. But before that, I do think that the campaign, there's a whole level dedicated to the campaign. And it tells the whole story of the campaign from beginning to end. And the last panel after you watch the video is Grant Park. And the way they tell the Grant Park story is through newscasts from all over the world announcing that he won. And it just like interviews people in like Africa and people in Europe and people in like Selma here and just talking about what it meant to them. And I was just watching that and I'm like, oh yeah, see, this is a great country. Like when we can, like, this is, we complain about it a lot and there's a lot of bad things going on right now. But I'm like, this is a, this is a great country. The, you know, we'll talk about the speeches more, but I was just thinking about nostalgia walking through the museum. And there's a poll that came out the other day that said, which of the previous presidents do you think was, did the best job? And Obama is the leading president of people who have a positive view of him in hindsight. And you walk around this museum and it has this hopeful view of the country about, you know, the relationship between organizing a community and democracy, civic responsibility, empathy, and, and. You know, the old fashioned civic virtues. And I did find myself thinking walking around, okay, uh, this was and is persuasive to people. And I'm, I'm leaving thinking, okay, but let's be honest. This were, this museum is opening at a time in which like Trump is part of the speeches. It is part of this event that people are aware of what's happening in the country. And like, what are the ways in which this was not made durable after, right? What are the ways in which either this vision of. The country wasn't as persuasive as we hoped it would be, or we did not uphold it and make use it to make the best case possible, uh, to prevent Trump from winning not once, but twice. And that, that was also on my mind because I'm not a nostalgic person by nature. And so I, I was sort of stuck on that and think I was trying to like challenge myself to think, okay, this obviously is a vision that, that I respect and appreciate. What are the ways in which, uh, it wasn't able to fully bring more people along after Obama was gone. It's funny. That was, that was what was stuck in my head before coming here. I was thinking about it a lot. And then having spent today, listening to president Obama and Michelle and going through the center. Um, I think that the answer is at least their answer is that it's not ever going to be durable. Like that is the whole point of, um, not just America, but like human nature that like, we're always going to have these moments where, um, you know, people's, I always talk about better angels, people's worst angels take over and, and that's, and then progress doesn't happen in a straight line. And so I think their answer is, um everyone has to just get to work right and everyone has to just keep going and keep and like and don't give into like cynicism and don't you know and don't give up and the first part of the museum doesn't actually start with the obama stories it actually starts with the key moments in history they're like the one we're in right now where bad things are happening you know whether it or where there are real problems in the country they're being changed where the civil rights movement the suffrage movement um all of that stuff the labor movement and the i think the answer to that is it's like at every point it's not always going to be good and but every time it's been bad and we have dealt with it it is because regular people came together they started organizing they started working they started voting and they brought change and that we can the i think the true message of that so we can do that again and they didn't write like obviously this museum was not made for the trump era yeah because it's going to be around for 100 200 years after that but i like and this is like always core in what i'm talking about it's in the selma speech that uh you the building itself is that we are always going to have moments like these and we're going to have to come together to get out of them and so you know maybe a few years from now things will look much more like they did in 2008 and they'll look like 2016 again who knows yeah well yeah i think it's the it's the idea that yes that is that you step back to all right this is this is the path of progress two steps forward one step back there are times where you where people give into their uh uh uh fears in their whatever their smallness uh but part of the work of getting out of it is just stepping back and saying we will come together and figure it out it's like what happened right like what were the ways in which this vision of america seemed to some people to be either like a false or hollow in some way or you know uh uh uh not able to be replicated by the candidates two things one uh back to teddy it's really cool and the thing people probably didn't know that you could walk into the oval office and there was a bowl of apples on the coffee table between the two couches and people would just take them and eat them and actually the actual bowl that was on barack obama's coffee table for eight years is now in this museum because our friend farrell just had it at her house yeah and now it's here that's i think a fun little anecdote people don't know and two on the speeches i mean i literally was just talking to josh shapiro governor pennsylvania no big deal watch your feet guys and as i'm talking to josh and it comes up she's like can we go some food like this come on come anyway um and he and i were talking about like whether jewish energy he and i were talking about whether you know we watched the speech and felt like the reaction to the speech part of the conversation like do we think what he was saying is still real like that there are that people really do want decency and to bring people together and a politics that just delivers for them because it's so easy to see the social media part of politics and the and the viciousness from trump and the moments i feel myself falling into being a shittier person online yeah it's like dunking on people on twitter and honestly my reaction to brock obama's speech was it made me want to be a better person yeah and it made me want to be more like him and more like civically engaged and to pay more attention to the messages we're hearing out of people like shapiro and james talarico that are asking us to kind of get back to that brand of politics i 1000 believe that the winning 2028 candidate will be someone who offers a version of that message to turn the page on this era of division of terribleness for something better is that it won't be exactly the same as obama as much as the world has changed people you know everyone's you know we have a lot of calluses and scar tissue over the last decade but something that's something that is more like that than the liberal inverse of trump it's funny um i think just the nature of the trip and we've been doing a whole bunch of things last couple days that i haven't really been on my phone as much and then where we were sitting we were dan and i were like really trying to get service and then trying to like figure out how to get on the wi-fi and it just wasn't happening and so like i have seen no takes of any of the speeches didn't know nothing what was happening and it really like i sat there like good i don't want to know what all the takes are out there of what this event is and like letting all the cynicism creep back in because i felt like you i'm like it does make me want to be a better person and michelle and we'll talk about her speech in a second but she had this riff in the speech where she talked about how hope is a choice and you know it can just sound hokey when you just hear it like that but i think what she meant is like yes you can decide that things are going to be bad and you can decide that things are going to be bad or that uh you know it's not worth trying all that or you can decide like yeah things could still be bad but i'm actually just gonna stop complaining and try and like put my shoulder to the wheel and see if i can make a difference yeah i do think that part of like you know what is what is trump's skill as a politician and he can really make people's worst qualities just truer about them he just has the ability to make something bad we have good parts and bad parts in us i mean the other day i was i was like you can we go do a tour show in detroit and we say is someone raises their hand and it says they're safe they're from ohio the whole crowd like booze them like fucking crazy there's an ice agent in every heart and but but there is but but so like there's this what i liked about that part of them michelle's speech specifically is choosing trump is takes your agency and it is it we do not have to uh um ignore people's culpability the the harm of that choice the the fact that they could have made a different one right like we should remind you we should take people hold people responsible and treat them like adults and i think uh i one thing that barack obama does as a politician is he tries to treat people like adults and a politics that treats people like adults the other thing he does that i think we as a party are sometimes missing is he is uh unabashedly patriotic yes and talks about his love for the country and that doesn't mean he hides the imperfections of the country he is the living embodiment of the worst stains in our history but he is patriotic and he talks about that and they want to be part of a movement that is patriotic and i was reminded of this we went to the i went to the usa paraguay soccer game the other day and like just being with thousands of people chanting usa usa and like loving their country and cheering for the players and like the fact that a bunch of them are immigrants right and one was like literally like his mother like the ben shapiro is out there calling him an anchor baby right and this guy scored two goals like it just getting back to that brand of politics is so important i talked to uh jerusalem dempsest about this for offline this week and she was saying there's this i haven't seen it in a while but there's this whole discourse online around the world cup where all these people are coming to america and then they're like posting america's really great and people are so nice like because of everything that they hear about trump they thought coming here would be this like dark dystopian and they're like this is a wonderful country and i thought about that walking through the center too and i was like this is and i this has been my feeling the last two days here like this is a great country like it is a great country and just because trump is president and we don't like what's happening doesn't mean that we should say oh this country sucks now it doesn't don't let them take this from you yeah it's the yeah i think like holding just the like this is not who we are well you know trump is who we are but also what we are too the the part where in the speech where he started he talked about the 250th anniversary and it just was a small moment for me of just like we're there's so much noise around trump politicizing the 250th birthday and the ufc fight on the lawn and the trump rally on the national mall and the reflecting pool and all the rest and that's a terrible price just this is what he's doing with his with this moment but also so the opportunity cost just like what it would have been like to have literally any other person in that job who just had some modicum of patriotism or respect for the country to understand how to make it a genuinely uniting moment and the fact that he doesn't even have a shred of it it's it's like it could have been a republican president like i wouldn't have been happy about that but like could have been a republican president that brought the country together around america's 250th easily i have no doubt that george w bush is 250 in america i think would have annoyed me in certain respects but but there but like you look like but there would have been really nice moments it was nice also it's a mission yeah yeah when obama gave a shout out to he was like john mccain loved this country like i did like mitt romney did you know there was a nice bipartisan spirit to it that wasn't i thought corny and cliche positive america is brought to you by bombas summer has arrived longer days outdoor adventures and more reasons to move as the weather warms up upgrade your go-to footwear with everyday essentials from bombas bombas is one of the best footwear brands in the world and it's one of the best footwear brands in the world and it's one of the best footwear 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predict or represent the performance of any acorns portfolio investment results will vary investing involves risk acorns advisors llc and sec registered investment advisor view important disclosures at acorns.com slash crooked speaking of that i think we do have a clip from uh obama's speech that we can uh play and then react to how are you that's it tommy did it tommy has the clip the exhibits in the center are not meant to evoke nostalgia for some gauzy bygone era uh some unattainable past that we can dream about and say oh we miss you barack they're meant they're meant to remind us of who we can be to remind us of what's possible so we can forge ahead clear-eyed and confident and do the work that still needs to be done and do the work that still needs to be done i wanted to play that clip because i i think uh he had done a few interviews before today um where i think he got questions from reporters that were in the vein of like isn't this nostalgia or isn't this like a long lost era and doesn't it feel like a different reality because of what we're dealing with right now and he actually wanted to respond to that in the speech um and i think in a way it's the mission of the whole center which we were just talking about and i think it's the mission of the whole center which we were just talking about and i think it's the very sensitive to the idea that this is either a monument to them or about the accomplishments of the administration or about some gauzy past and what it is supposed to be is basically like a pep talk for america yeah which today was i think a badly needed one but yeah look i think a lot of people are frustrated that he's not more engaged with kind of like the politics of the day-to-day and i think we've even at times expressed like wishing he was just talking about things but he was just talking about the way they stood up to ice and came together as a community i thought that was clearly about this moment yeah he talked about government is more than one that divvies up the spoils that punishes enemies that keeps those that are different from them in their place shot at george w bush he's like i do not believe how that's how the story of america ends like we'll talk about michelle's speech in a minute which is a little more um uh directed at the trump administration but i thought obama was very much commenting on the politics of trumpet today i would just say criticizing museum for being too nostalgic is just idiotic fair point oh this museum looks backwards which way does your museum face i think this all started with i think it was at a new york times he said it was a peter baker yes and it was like and i think i mean i get why reporters would write that right because we are living in this reality and then you step in here and you're like okay is this just a pining for the past kind of thing sure and i you know what they're what they're really trying to say and this goes to your point about how people complain like obama's not more involved in politics and what obama always says is like i don't want to be out there forever because i want the next generation of uh progressive leaders to to be out there and to like have their moment and maybe this will be the election cycle that happens right and i think the point of the center and the point of the foundation i'm losing with the football right now but even the point of the center the point of the foundation especially is to is to train and inspire young leaders here and all over the world and i think that is it it finally makes sense to me now because like it is nice when obama goes out there and he's great on the campaign trail and he's great on the campaign trail and he's great on the campaign trail and he gives great speeches and he motivates people and that's important to have in democratic politics but we do need leaders who are not obama and who take the spotlight um in the next 10 years 20 years yeah also i don't i i agree with all that but also it's okay to be nostalgic i'm not like nostalgia doesn't do it for me in the same way i'm not really like a hope person i'm more of an anger and rage person but i understand its value in the same way that trump appeals to you're more of an experienced person yeah yeah and especially when experience plus strength yeah yeah yeah right and obviously as i've said change equals uh one divided by no way strength plus experience equals change so change divided by strength plus experience equals one uh but uh but back to the museum uh like it's okay to be nostalgic right like like yes this was a a moment where people were really hopeful and a lot of really good was a lot of good was done a lot of things weren't but people believed uh in the mission they cared about it they fought to make it happen and they elected him twice and it led to really good things that nostalgia is a good thing to feel and there's a way in which to like especially if it especially if it inspires you to act yeah right it's good to feel but it's also good to like be like oh well then i'm gonna go do something and that there's a whole and there's a lot of people who are very very hyper engaged in politics it applies to a lot of people that are partisan it applies to a lot of people that are non-partisan journalists that uh that they see that is inherently naive that there's something inherently naive about having that warm and good feeling about politics in any way that it's cringe right like nostalgia to us sometimes i've gotten i've been in those moments all the time but but like but i had this moment i was watching i think it was there was a moment where uh bono was singing michelle my bell and boy i have a photo i have a i'm cringing i got a photo of tommy just print just a full body cringe and and i get and like but why do we cringe and i think it's sometimes because we're uncomfortable with a display of care or like a direction that we might agree with but take something too far in a way that feels syrupy or saccharine in some way anywhere wondering is he hitting on her yeah that was a word there was well i mean obama did say leave my wife my wife yeah but it was a lot to your point like in the 2020 election like you know it was a thing you'd hear online that people were like oh oh we're just gonna vote our way out of this problem it's like well yeah yeah actually that's the whole thing that's i mean democracy i mean it's not the only thing you're gonna do but at some point you do have to vote otherwise if you don't do it a lot of the other stuff you're gonna try it's gonna do much right right well otherwise it's not a democracy and then we're the other system that we say that we're against right so you do have to vote um so uh let's talk about michelle's speech um all right let's just listen to a clip because then we can then we can comment on it the native kid showing us that resilience and pride can never be stolen the 4-h'ers and ffa members with calluses on their hands from feeding livestock the immigrants proving what it truly means to be a dreamer these folks these folks aren't americans too they are america they are the beating heart of this country they are us and we are them deep down in our hearts and souls we all know right from wrong we know selflessness from greed righteousness from injustice all of us all of us are created equal that each of us is a child of god with an errant value and no one and i mean no one has the right to sit in judgment of who's american enough so i will say um i i get like a little misty when i saw the grant park uh panel at the at the center but um the the first time this whole week that i actually just like cried was during her speech oh yeah for sure i saw the um song language interpreter wiping tears i did too i did too it was a fantastic speech like listen i mean it's like it's almost cliche to say that michelle obama always knocks out of the park but it really was this i thought obama's speech was really good she like i can't remember the last time i didn't see her just kind of knock the cover off the ball i'm trying to think of a bad michelle there's no there's there no she the the part that also was really moving was she she says at the beginning i'm going to do what oh you know what brock won't want me to do and just like brag about him and and she talks about like how he carried himself um in the eight years as president and that's what like really did it for me yeah i i lost it at that point it is see him crying it is like like what she said about him it's like what we know but just like he is such like a decent human like just truly to his core decent like he's flawed like he's a human but he's a decent human i think all the time about like the one thing and this is like at the core of what michelle was saying but he used to think all the time about how every Like I'd be in meetings with Obama where it would just be like people who you saw a lot. He would be pretty grumpy, right? Like shit is bad going on. But then someone would come in the room who would be like a younger staff briefing on something or someone coming in for a visit. And he like instantly knew that that interaction with him, maybe that's the only time they'll ever be the president in their life, was going to be matter. Life-changing. Life-changing for them. And he, no matter how shitty the day was, he would pull it together and just like treat that person with the utmost respect and make that like a special moment. And that is like – that to me has always like summed up who he is. And it was really just powerful to hear Michelle talk about it that way. I always thought that it was – there was an irony in the Obama campaign being about change and that that carrying him all the way to the nomination. But ultimately he's able to defeat John McCain because – In the weeks of the financial crisis, what actually carried him all the way to the presidency, which was not a quality that I think was necessary for his rise until then, was a kind of preternatural evenness, reliability, consistency, trustworthiness, a calm that was sort of in his bones that infused everything that he did. And it gave people the assurance, unspoken, that they could take a chance on him when John McCain was supposed to be the more senior and seasoned person but had seemed erratic. And the President was supposed to be the more senior and seasoned person but had seemed erratic. And when people would say things like, which Michelle referenced, that, oh, he wasn't qualified, it wasn't this, it was that. It's like, why is he qualified? Well, look at what he is – look at how he is modeling what it means to be a senator and a candidate in a way that, say, Sarah Palin, right, who could claim a similar whatever experience in the public – in elected office that didn't have the same effect. And now we're all these years later and it just stands in contrast to what Trump is. And the fact that there were so many Republicans who spent – Eight years denigrating him as a person, pretending he was some threat or some alien or some evil and socialist sort of extreme force when, of course, the whole time he was this even-keeled, center-left, consensus-building, reliable figure, which now, in hindsight, the country terribly misses. Yeah, I think – when I just, like, think about why I was lucky to work for him, like, yeah, he was cool. Yes, he was a great communicator and speaker. But the thing – Yeah, I think upon, like, a long time of reflection that I've come to realize was the best part about working for him is that on literally anything you could go to him and he had a core belief about whatever it was. And that was from a good place. That was from a sense of decency and, like, yes, politics are a part of everything, but it was about doing the right thing. And, like, you just never doubted that or, like, their motivation of their family. And it's just – like, contrast that. It's that to, like, you walk in the Oval Office now and they're fucking day trading on the war with Iran. You know, it's just insane where we've gotten. One of my favorite lines about Obama ever is that Ta-Nehisi Coates line at the beginning of that long piece about him at the end of the administration, which was, for eight years, he walked on ice and never fell. Yeah. And it was about race and how he handled race and being the first black president. But I also think it's about – it was about so much more than that. It's that, like – The job of president and the job of him being president and being the first black president, as Michelle also mentioned today, it requires so much care and thoughtfulness and, like, balance of so many different competing interests and competing desires within yourself and trying to channel your emotions and trying to suppress some emotions. And I feel like Michelle's speech was that line, that Ta-Nehisi Coates line. Yeah. And I think that's why it was so affecting. I was like, you know, I think we all get that having been in politics. Like, we all do that. We've all done that throughout our time in politics is you realize that so much of the job is constant thinking about, like, what is the right balance of this and that and how do I not piss this person off and how do I persuade this person. And, like, so much care goes into it. And the fact that he was able to do that and get through eight years still intact is just, like, you know, it's inspiring. I think the – being the first black president, like – What Michelle – like, we – like, anyone who worked with him or worked – from the very beginning knew the historic nature of his candidacy and the different set of rules that were applied to him than any candidate. And it's the same way different set of rules were applied to women candidates. And he refused to complain about it. He refused to complain about it. And he could – and Michelle – like, that was subtext of everything that we always talked about. But Michelle made it text, right, and said very clearly that he, for eight years, could not make a mistake. He could not slip up. He cannot lose his temper. He cannot lash out. He could not send an angry tweet. He had to bear the expectations and the pressure of being the first black president because how he did it was going to dictate if and when we had a second black president. Yeah, right. For example, literally just pointing out that Trayvon Martin looked like what his son would look like if he had a son, right? She said that today, and I was like – Yeah, she leaned in. Yeah, and I think that – I think – She got some stuff off her chest today, which I liked. Yeah, it was great. She always does. Yeah, I – But, like, it was great. It was powerful. We should talk – yeah, we should talk about, like, the – sort of the backdrop of all of this. Yeah, invisible in the backdrop and sometimes not very visible is Trump. Yeah. And how they all kind of – how they both handled that today. Yeah. Well, yeah. It's funny. I felt the same way at the convention, too, that when Michelle's speech is – there's, like, an edge and a kind of darkness to them that I'm like, oh – I'm like – I'm always caught off guard by it. I'm like, oh, like, she's pissed a little bit. Like, she's going to say some things that she's feeling about what's going on right now, and it always works because I do think, like, she taps – it's a very – you know, it's a – It matches what he does. It sort of complements what he does because she has this – she understands how to use that feeling people have. That's all – we're living through the Trump era. We're always a little bit mad. We're always a little bit upset. It's always there. It is a cloud over our society. And she just – without saying the name, she just said, you know what? That's part of today. And I'm going to – and it makes me upset, too, because – not just because of what's happening right now, because of – but because of what the other standard that was applied. To Barack Obama, when I saw what kind of a man he was. And – The thing that I think will probably, like, get clicky is, like, you know, he actually won a peace prize, right? That was, like, a fun shot at Trump. The thing that I thought, to your point, Lovett, about the darkness was failing to see the humanity in others puts us on a slippery slope when she was talking about immigration. Yes. Right? She's, like, talking about this slide to fascism in her remarks. I can't remember who said this, but someone said about Michelle after her convention speech in 2024 that she is your friend who just tells you like it is. Not beat around the bush. Just tells you exactly what you need to hear. And her speeches always just reflect – like, there's no – like, there's a way to make those points that are so subtle that, like, maybe you – or you get it, but you've basically wasted a bunch of words. She just says it always. And it's what makes it so powerful. I always roll my eyes when people are like, Michelle Obama should run for president because we obviously know she's never going to run for anything because she despises politics. But, again, today, like, halfway through the speech. I know. As I was crying. And then Emily was also crying next to me. And she was like, I mean, maybe she should run for something. I had the same exact thought. She's like, are we crazy? Or was this – I had the same thought. Then I slapped myself. I'm like, well, we can want it all we want. She's not going to do it. But, like, she just should really – she can command a stage. By the way, we're in a working building. There's – you might hear some background noise. Positive America is brought to you by Stamps.com. We could all use a few more hours, even minutes in the day for ourselves. Skip your trip to the post office. And save some precious time with Stamps.com. 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It's a true story. Awkward. Anyway, if mailing is taking more time and more money, than it should, try Stamps.com for free for four weeks and get a welcome kit. Go to Stamps.com/PSA to get this offer today. That's S-T-A-M-P-S.com/PSA. Stamps.com/PSA. Taxes and fees apply. As someone tuned into politics, you've probably seen the constant bickering about who belongs in the pro-democracy movement. Well, we think it's best to have these conversations in person, and hopefully it will also be more productive. Cricket Con is right after the minute. We're in the midterms, and it is going to be the first time we come together to hash it out in person and kick off the 2028 debate. We just posted a ton more info about what to expect from the big event from November 5th to 7th. So check it out at CrookedCon.com and get your tickets now. CNDC. One more thing before we move on. Dan, you had a message box today in honor of today. I did. About what Democrats can learn from Barack Obama, which I thought would be a nice way to end this section. Well, look, I think. you know obama says every every election cycle he goes out he goes on the trail and everyone says like why can't more democrats look at this and obama's obviously as we all know and everyone is a generationally talented communicator and so just telling people to be more like obama's like not helpful advice it's like be more like michael jordan like dunk more yeah but i think there are like a few things that any communicator can take from him i'll just give you a couple one is like tell me you mentioned this is that there is this inherent patriotism in everything he says like he owns it he will not let republicans take patriotism he is not he will you know and often does talk about all the flaws of this country but makes the point about what a special place is you heard that today the other one is that he you know i remember this uh early on the administration we were going to do a youtube town hall which was like very innovative at the time which was just a town hall that streamed on the internet and but youtube was hosting it and we were taking we're doing a youtube podcast and they were taking questions over the over i guess in youtube comments um i can remember but the number one topic by far was legalization of marijuana and so we went in to say like this is the one question but you don't like we don't have to take it and he's like you always have to talk he's like well if it's the number one question we're going to talk about it yeah talk about the thing because he like he will always say it's like you always have to talk about the thing right the elephant in the room you cannot avoid it just take it head on you know and then the last one is like the number one question is like you always have to take it head on you know and then the last one is like the number one question is like you always have thing i think is really powerful is we talk all the time about like how democrats need a better affordability message uh economic message all this and what obama always understood is that the discussion of the economy is not really about policy it's not about how many times you say affordability it's not whether you say bottom up or middle out it is a it's a story about values about who you're fighting for and who you're fighting against and like that is the frame to bring to all of this like and this is like ultimately i think the biggest thing to take from obama is that it's not just about the economy it's not just about the economy it's not just about obama over the whole time is that politics and messaging is a storytelling exercise it's not a slogan it's not a soundbite it's not a tweet it is an overall narrative about the country about why you are the person who should be elected why the other side should not be elected and fitting things into those stories what do you have to say about this moment that we're in right now in the country and where you want to take us what do you have to say about it yeah like and everything has to flow from their message flows from their policy flows in there like that's where you have to start and you know michelle and barack obama has something to say today right yeah and um people can have something completely different to say but you you still need to run for president having something to say about this moment um that is beyond just donald trump um and what policies uh you want to enact when you're president um okay let's get to some news before we leave because i guess news has been happening we've not had access to it but we hear it's happening uh we got the we got the text of the iran deal apparently the mou and uh boy is it a stinker tommy was the treaty of versailles at mou i don't know that's a good question yeah so we have a treaty of versailles he signed it uh in versailles uh with macron which is an insane choice wait a second didn't they auto pen it i'm sorry i'm learning this in real time you're telling me they signed this piece of paper in literal versailles yes dude he stayed an extra day just to go have dinner in versailles he's like it's real gold and it's not even the signing ceremony it was just like he decided to just sign it in versailles that's crazy yeah and it's like wow it's like the 20th crazy thing about the about the the text which is the administration an administration official read all the text of the mou you couldn't just copy paste i was like cnn bloomberg got it and then cnn got it i think but then the administration steven chung was like they're just wrong that's not the text and like i got it from the president of iran's twitter and the real one ended up being like a couple words were different but not not by any uh not anything significant um so the memorandum of understanding the mou the treaty of the mou of versailles yeah the memo calls for the suspension of the naval blockade of iran's ports and for iran to use its best efforts to allow traffic through the strait of hormuz without tolls for 60 days um it calls for a permanent end to a war in israel and lebanon um iran is allowed to resume exporting oil uh we'll get access to a 300 billion dollar redevelopment and reconstruction fund uh the mou creates a six-day window for negotiations over iran's nuclear program and in the meantime iran reaffirms its long-standing commitment not to procure or develop nukes uh so it's not playing super well no um uh you got your bill cassidy's john cornyn's all the people who feel liberated now that trump has defeated them um they they have been voicing some some criticism uh other republicans are just sort of hiding um so funny these guys he threw off a mountain and and then while you're rolling down towards your demise over cliff it's bad it's yeah actually i never liked you you the hawk the iran hawks are very mad you've probably oh yeah you probably consumed a lot more of uh mark levine content those ben shapiro's tears in there that you've been watching some fan clips i might have downloaded a commentary podcast from john podhorst yeah he's got tommy's got the daily wire open an incognito window here's uh we think we have a clip of trump talking about the uh the mou of versailles uh in france and it's a memorandum of understanding if it doesn't get done in 60 days that's all right we go back to bombing unlike barack hussein obama who sent iran pallets of cash and any relief they receive under this deal they'll have to get based on merit and it won't be from us we don't have to give them anything but some people may want to invest i said well what am i going to do i'm going to let saudi arabia have missiles but they can't have them yes sir missiles aren't the problem missiles are they hurt a little bit but they're not the problem missiles are they hurt a little location but they don't blow up the planet and in all fairness to bb netanyahu who happens to be a good man gets a little excited sometimes we have a little dispute over lebanon i say you can do a little softer touch bb you don't have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that's from hezbollah yeah that's true that was that that guy i'm sorry that guy and the other one too is like well every time the best uh best case the other line was uh you shoot a couple missiles down they don't hurt you but it does or you're knocking down a building in beirut it was the the the shit a democrat oh my god the shit that we brought down on these people and i'm sorry no i just the idea of the number of times these fucking anti-jcpoa people were like this doesn't even address ballistic missiles ballistic missiles ballistic missiles proxies this is rubio said it a million times at the beginning of this this is a this is why the deal is so shameful you're going to give them money but they're not addressing the core problem of the ballistic missiles and the cotton hezbollah and their proxies and then trump gives up completely and 300 billion dollars is what twice three times four times as much as what was ever contemplated but also by the iran deal they got an immediate license to sell oil and gas so they're gonna be making money off of that then they're clearly planning to you know they call it fees but it's they're going to be toll ships in the straight over moves iran's gonna make so much money off of this i mean look big picture the best outcome is the war being over so like i'm happy the the original sin here is this war starting and the best thing to come out of this is that the fucking lindsey graham foundation for the defense of democracies neocon hawk worldview is smothered to death right and that trump hates these people and that he runs them out of dc but they cleaned his clock in this deal and then just hearing him just on this on this ballistic missile thing um clearly like the reason you go to the the core national security priority with iran is the uh preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon right like non-proliferation is a good thing generally i think the way you do that is through negotiations not bombing them we did you know fuck up a lot of their uh infrastructure but whatever they can rebuild that but to hear trump from going from these maximalist positions to being like who cares about the nuclear dust we got eyes on it maybe we'll get it out maybe we won't it's like head spinning and then on the ballistic missiles like remember when rubio went up to capitol hill and he did that press conference where he blamed israel and then ran away and didn't talk to the press for two months the core argument they were making there is that iran was on the cusp of having a ballistic missile arsenal that would make their nuclear weapons program like impregnable and we couldn't go after it oh right right and now trump is like eh who gives a fuck they can have some ballistic missiles it's no big deal if the saudi arabia ruby also is that this our goal is to stop them from their ability to project power in the region ballistic missiles is how you project power it is the definition of their power in the region having read the mou this morning the text i was like did we get anything from this no the straight straight that's right the theoretical opening of the straight for 60 days the theoretical opening the straight that iran and oman are going to jointly control and can charge fees whenever they want and before the war the straight used to be open and controlled by no one uh because it was international waters right and and there were no tolls so like i don't think we got anything in the theory of the case on the nuclear negotiations that your leverage is military action and sanctions and he just gave up both of those in advance of the 60 days of talks over the nuclear program and he says like oh we can just go back to bombing them but no you won't iran knows that as we get closer to the midterms he's not going to go back to bombing them uh they and you shouldn't go back to bombing them they're not going to get bombed out of you know their nuclear know-how we just unleashed a bombing campaign for weeks it cost us tens of billions of dollars and the end result is an unconditional surrender in versailles so i don't know what additional bombs are going to do for anybody the other thing is i don't know if you're going to go to it but um uh you had vance sort of brushing back the uh uh the iran hawks and specifically referring to uh uh pro-israel iran hawk saying uh trump is the only leader on earth that is sympathetic to israel's point of view and we're the leader of the world's superpower which i the, for, for Van, I'm glad Van said that, right? It's like, look at what, for all these people that claim to be so pro-Israel, right, that have been, that have, that have turned AIPAC into this partisan weapon, that have alienated Democrats, that have, that have, have turned Israel into pariah state. Do you feel good about where, where Israel's at now? Alone in the world, beholden on Donald Trump, a guy that does not give a fuck what happens, who could turn on a dime, that, do you think this was a long-term great play? Now the Democratic Party is opposed to the, to the Netanyahu government. Israel has never been more unpopular in its entire history. It's never been more isolated. You guys feel good about where you landed after all this while calling everybody out there anti-Semites and anti-Israel? You think the people that might've been saying that Benjamin Netanyahu was terrible for Israel might've had a fucking point rather than calling us all what, self-hating Jews? Like, anyway, that's a little point I wanted to make about that. Very quickly, like, I want Democrats to just stand up and support the JCPOA and say that it was better and stop all the fucking throat clearing about its flaws and what was omitted. The JCPOA is better than what Trump may eventually get here because with the JCPOA, Iran shipped out 97% of its stockpile. It was out of the country and went to Russia. In this case, we're talking about down blending it to making it less usable for nuclear weapons. In the JCPOA, that went through the UN Security Council, right? So this was, they had sanctions into the backing of all their closest allies, like the P5 plus one, et cetera. This will have none of that. And now this $300 billion slush fund, like what are we doing here? All these Gulf countries are now getting told they're on the hook to rebuild Iran when Iran was firing ballistic missiles at them. Can we talk about, before we move on to this, you mentioned J.D. Vance. I want to sort of ask a hacky political question, which is, I read in Playbook this morning, I think, that a lot of J.D. Vance's opponents or detractors are trying to hang this deal around his neck and say, well, we're going to get rid of J.D. Vance's deal. And there's people from J.D. Vance's office that basically pushed back and said, those people obviously can't read a poll because this war was very unpopular. And the idea that this is going to be bad for J.D. Vance to be associated with this deal, this treaty, is crazy because people don't want war anyway. And so it's not going to be a real political risk for him at all. What do you guys make of that? Because I think it brings up the question of how this war and how it ended sort of plays out politically or whether it even does, whether it has a lasting political impact as we head towards the midterms and beyond that. I think the, on like a substantive political level, no one is going to remember the war by the time that voting happens in November. And well, not in this November. I think the question is about J.D. Vance's presidential race. So by the time we get to, yeah, I think the war will matter this November in a couple of ways we can talk about. When it comes to the Republican primary or the general election of 2020, J.D. Vance and I may, I think anyone's going to remember it. I think the damage of the war to J.D. Vance is, I think it has ensured that Donald Trump will be a very unpopular president when J.D. Vance is possibly trying to be the third term of that very unpopular president. I think that is bad for him. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Not everyone experiences summer as an endless parade of hot dogs, vacations, and pool parties. For some people, life's woes don't abate when the temperature climbs and the days get longer. 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Speaking of Vance, he's been on a book tour about his conversion to Catholicism. Tough timing, man. Tough timing. Yeah, it's really, this ruined the tour. He went to The View, went into The Lion's Den on The View. They did a great job. I haven't watched any of it. The questions were really good. You're learning for the first time now. Yeah, this clip will be my first experience with J.D. on The View, so let's take a look. Everybody knows that Americans are struggling. What is he spending all this money for? Well, I got to defend the president on the hoax point. What the president said is the idea that Republicans cause the affordability problem is a hoax. He just said he loves the inflation. What he said, Anna, what he said is that he loves the fact that the inflation is going to come down when this war is over. That's what he said. That's not what he said. That wasn't a duress. Are you his interpreter or are you his vice president? I believe as a Christian, I can tell my kids why it's important to have borders. I get that. There are laws. There are resources. I get all that things. It's much harder to explain when I see someone dragged out of a house or wrongly taken to a thing that isn't a violent criminal. That is, that is, it's a little more nuanced as a parent to try to say when someone's referred to as vermin or scum when I teach them in school about people that have done that before. But this is different. It's very hard as a parent and a Christian to say both things. I would urge you as a Christian and as a father to visit those detention centers where the children are being held. So you guys. You guys have thrown a lot at me and I see we've got 30 seconds left here, but let me say number one. You're the vice president, you can go long. Sounds like that went well. I was great. Anyone watch more of it? I watched a bunch of it. And what they did that I think we heard there was the questions weren't like from a like a shitty liberal perspective. It was like as a Christian, as a human being, how can you as a parent like see what's happening at the Dilley Detention Center and be okay with that? And I think J.D. Vance credits him, I guess, for going there, right? That's he's clearly trying to. Make an argument that he's the kind of candidate that can build bridges and reach new voters by going on the view, right? Like that's like a thing you tell people you did. He answered the questions, but I don't think he did a good job. And he also just cannot help but sound like a whiny little bitch. He is the victim of everything. Yeah. He also says Democrats are terrible at one point. It's just it's just not possible to be it's not possible to fairly answer questions, defend Donald Trump and Bill Day and sort of be tilting at any kind of broader sort of a nonpartisan coalition. Like it's just that those things there's no talent on Earth that could both defend Donald Trump and pretend to be some kind of broader, more appealing figure. It's just not can't be done. And so I don't think he could do it, but I don't think I think there are people that are far more talented than J.D. Vance that would make it look a little bit easier. He's just so bad. He's terrible. Like in those answers, he thinks he's being smart by basically just gaslighting about what it is Trump actually said. And he just doesn't like there's a way. Like defending Donald Trump is an impossible task. It just you cannot do that and remain any sort of dignity or seriousness as a human being. You just can't. But there's ways to do it with more charm or humor. Yeah, he just had he just has no he says no charisma. Yeah. And I mean, you know, and I think I think he goes on The View and I think he was I think in his mind, maybe he wants to show that he can go to this place. I also think he wants to show that he can go on the lips. Remember, he went on Blue Sky for like a hot minute to take people off. The you just referenced a little bit that he calls Democrats terrible people. So he did that to Megyn Kelly. Later, it was that it was Gutfeld. Yeah, he's got a dog. You're right. Because I saw that clip and I realized that, yeah, his whole play was I'll go on The View and then they'll beat me up and then I'll go to the right wing outlets and I'll be like, oh, I survived The View and they were such assholes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But he he doesn't think they didn't even beat him up, though. They were like very substantive. And the way he said that, too, it was such a he's like, and the thing about Democrats that I don't like. It's it's it's not the policies necessarily, it's that they're terrible people. Right. And they're not grateful to the country. He did the grateful thing. The thing that's even worse than that is it's a he couldn't stop himself. He started by saying, like, the thing about me about Democrats is it's not what it's not their policies. It's not this. It's that they're not. I think the grateful thing, I think in this context, what he was trying to awkwardly do was that like to try to suggest we run down America, but he knew he was on Fox. We couldn't just say that. So he had to say it also bothers me that some of them are terrible people. Like that's he looks like an aside, wasn't even some terrible, terrible people. And I was like, that that is a wild thing. Like, does he think that he can just I mean, I know he's going to run in a primary here, but does he realize that kind of undermines the whole softening your image effort? He's crazy. He has no deafness. He has no deafness. I really he was on a book tour. It is crazy that Marco Rubio has just gone into witness protection. He's the national security adviser and the secretary of state. Has he done a single interview about the surrounding? There's a picture of him over Trump. Trump's signing the treaty in Versailles. And he looks like did you guys watch him behind Trump in the press conference, like shifting back and forth like Deadeye? He looked like he'd taken like 6,000 Pro-V and hadn't slept in a month. He just looked miserable. Well, before we go, I do think we should talk about briefly the reflecting pool. I guess that's the thing in the news now because the reflecting pool. So let me get this straight. Please correct me if I've got the facts wrong on this. This is important to me because I've been on vacation for two weeks. So in my trying to avoid learning something, this is the thing that I know very little about. I'm excited to learn in a very loving fashion. Explain it to Dan. Here's what I think. Obviously, Trump decided to paint the reflecting pool. He did the American flag blue. Then they refilled. How do you describe the paint? It was like thick rubbery. Rubbery. Rubbery. Frobbing. And then he painted it. They filled it up again. And then it quickly turned green because of algae. And so then there was a green reflecting pool after spending however much he spent to make it blue. And then they just quickly had parks people or interior people or whatever run over there. And they started dumping hydrogen peroxide or chloride or whatever hydrogen into the just dumping it into the reflecting pool as if like like this reflecting pool is quite large as Donald Trump showed us on his chart and just like doing a couple of buckets was not really going to do anything. And then they have like algae scoopers in there and then getting the algae off the bottom. And then the Department of Interior this morning decided to post a series of tweets that was like it's back and they have a picture of the water is blue again, which I think is just a fake picture. And they said and the algae. The algae is gone from the the algae is now just at the bottom of the reflecting pool, just like the Iranian Navy. Yeah. They're like the Department of Interior, which in a previous era might have posted a picture of, say, Zion National Park. Boy, check out Zion National Park. We think everybody's going to love it. You fucking cuck bitches. This thing is blue now. It's crazy. So they drained the pool. They painted it a darker color, but a bluer color or whatever. OK, they claim because. Oh, you know, Obama and Biden, they didn't have the stuff to fix. They couldn't get that. Couldn't get it done. But as we all complained about for years, the big thing we really cared about. So they're going to do it. They're going to fix it. And then the algae comes back. Why? Well, maybe because Donald Trump isn't magic. It is an acre short fucking swamp painted black in the middle of one of the like in the middle of a swamp. And there's algae. And maybe maybe the paint color American flag blue doesn't have magical properties. The conservative. I regret to say that I read a long Washington Post article about this because there's all this like drainage and filtration infrastructure that they didn't actually choose to fix. And that's the core problem. Well, so just painted it. So the other part of this is a perfect metaphor for the entire fucking. So you're going to drain the swamp, if you will. Yeah. But so, of course, the algae comes back. Now, the Interior Department then puts out a statement saying, actually, this is residual algae. And it's like, hey, it's not. But we don't believe in spontaneous creation of life anymore. We're not Lamar. Markians or whatever it was. Who are the fucking people? Oh, that's evolving quickly. Who's the ones that thought the maggots became the that maggots spontaneously arise? Yes. Yes. Thank you. How do you know this? Because because we didn't have sports. Nobody invited us to flip cups. So we learned about these things. But so. So, yeah, it's always residual algae. That's where the algae fucking comes from. Now, they did. Now, hydrogen peroxide can shock a pool. However, the pool, a pool. The kind. They were using the 12 percent. That's for a hot tub. This is a seven million gallon tank. You would need at least five thousand to seven thousand gallons of this stuff. And that's just to get it clean for a week. And then they're like, well, the new nano rubber tubes are going to work. It's like there is runoff because this is a park in the middle of a city that there's like from the Potomac and all the rest of the algae is just going to keep coming back. And it is a great metaphor for Donald Trump thinking for people thinking that the only problem has been that our leaders were stupid or didn't care. Didn't break enough rules. Donald Trump does something cheap and easy that he thinks is a magic, magic solution. It's not. And then he pretends it is anyway. And news newsflash. Donald Trump Jr. Now owns a hydrogen peroxide company. Did you guys see like the Newsmax guy who is down at the reflecting pool doing interviews suggesting that the Democrats had like sabotaged? Yes. Oh, sabotage is everywhere. Everyone thinks we've been pouring phosphates. We've been fertilizing the fuck. Yes. And then Jesse Waters sent his like baby dork goon down. Yes. Yes. Yes. And they're to be like, well, at least our president cared enough to fix it and try. What are we doing here? What do you guys care about this? The Washington Post did report, by the way, that the ballroom that there's they found an invoice to a contractor that for like six hundred million dollars and that half of it was going to be taxpayer money. And so they've been lying the whole time. And then notice reported, I believe, that they found out that OMB has been moving money from the Secret Service budget into doing it because they couldn't get it passed through Congress. So so it is. Look, we are paying for the ballroom after all. Well, famously, Secret Service has had a great run recently. They had some loose change. So that's happened. Anyway, we started that money by a couple of pairs of binoculars. Well, we started very inspiring. We ended up with algae in the pool. So it's a tale for our times. This has been fun, guys. Everyone. Everyone have a great weekend. That's our show for today. Alex Wagner will be back in the feed on Sunday with a conversation with historian and sub stack Titan. Heather. Cox Richardson. And thanks to the Obama Library for letting us in here. Yeah, absolutely. Let's go find our books. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts and Farrah Safari with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellevieve, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. As someone tuned into politics, you've probably seen the constant bickering about who belongs. And the pro-democracy movement. Well, we think it's best to have these conversations in person and hopefully it will also be more productive. CrookedCon is right after the midterms and it is going to be the first time we come together to hash it out in person and kick off the 2028 debate. See you in DC. Subtitles by the Amara.org community