LIVE(ish) from the Obama Presidential Center

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It's powerful enough for an accountant and simple enough for you. Xero is the all-in-one to get business done. Learn more at Xero.com. 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. 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. And it's really good. Thank you. This is the president. Just walked in the room. This is the beautiful presidential reading room in the branch of the Chicago Public Library. I don't see our book. Yeah. What the. You should probably donate one. Do we see Dan's books anywhere? I don't see Dan's book. I've heard rumors that our books are in here, but I can't. 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. Are we calling it a museum? The Center. The Center. The Center. Library? Yeah. I think it's the Obama Presidential Center is the official name. Yes. Mm-hmm. And we just took a look. 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 it. 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. It was like, every time we went by an exhibit and wanted to like take a picture there, I love it, would say like, no, no, no, this is stolen valor. I can't do it. Yeah. Before, yeah. As you get into the administration, then I feel like I can, I can celebrate. But when it's, you know, the signed, sealed, delivered speech in New Hampshire, I feel like, well, I was kind of on the other side of that. But, uh. It was weird when you just started yelling about caucus rules. That was strange. Yeah. Superdelegates are very legitimate, the superdelegates. It's part of the process. Respect the process. But, uh, 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 past tense. Like, this is what happened. This was the history of this moment. It's history now. It's history. We're so old. 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 there's a. 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 and emotional is just all the people we've gotten to just run into. It's like. When I go back to D.C., 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 Admiral McRaven. And I was like, oh, Hannah, this is the guy who did the Bin Laden operation. Like, that's a conversation you don't have every day. His bracelet was also incorrect. It was. He was not allowed into the event. 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'm sure. I'm almost positive. I didn't write bag of assholes in this email. How are you not more sure? It's like when that 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 presidents 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 like how people can learn from what Obama did, what people on Obama did and do similar things going forward. Like the whole idea is to inspire people to take their community, their country, their lives in their own hands and try to bring change. Like that's the entire thing from top to bottom at every place of this is about like the core principle. Yeah. He's the. 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 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, be a community center where people can go be inspired to, you know, run for office or help their community. And so I think. 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 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. 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 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 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 to prevent Trump from winning not once but twice. That was also on my mind because I'm not a nostalgic person by nature. And so I was sort of stuck on that and I was trying to like challenge myself to think, okay, this obviously is a vision that I respect and appreciate. What are the ways in which it wasn't able to fully bring more people along after Obama was gone? It's funny, 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, 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 not just America, but like human nature, that like we're always going to have these moments where people's, I always talk about better angels, people's worst angels take over and progress doesn't happen in a straight line. And so I think their answer is, everyone has to just get to work, right? And everyone has to just keep going and don't give in to, like cynicism 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 there are real problems in the country that are being changed, where the civil rights movement, the suffrage movement, all of that stuff, the labor movement. And I think the answer to that is, it's like at every point, it's not always going to be good. 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, 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. - 'Cause it's going to be around for a hundred, 200 years after that. But I like, and this is like always core in what Obama talked about. It's in the Selma speech that adorns 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, much better. 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 and say, 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 fears in their whatever, their smallness. But part of the work of getting out of it is not 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, not able to be replicated by the candidates that follow. - Two things. One, 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 'cause our friend Ferial 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 of Pennsylvania. No big deal. - Flush your feet, guys. - And as I'm talking to Josh Shapiro, Hannah comes up, she's like, can we go somewhere with some food? Like this, come on, come on. Anyway, he and I were talking about like whether- - That's Jewish energy to bring that. - 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 owning each other and the viciousness from Trump and the moments I feel myself falling into being a shittier person online. - Yeah. - And just like dunking on people on Twitter. And honestly, my reaction to Barack Obama's speech was it made me wanna be a better person. - Yes. - 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 Tallarico 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. - Yeah, I hope so. - To turn the page on this era of division of terribleness for something better. 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 is more like that than the liberal inverse of Trump. - It's funny, I think just the nature of the trip and we've been doing a whole bunch of things the last couple of days that I haven't really been on my phone as much. And then where we were sitting, Dan and I were like, really trying to get service and then trying to like figure out how to get on the wifi 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 wanna 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 know, I'm like, it does make me wanna 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, 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 gonna be bad or that, 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. - I think that part of like, you know, 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 like, you can, we go do a tour show in Detroit and we say, is anyone here from Michigan? And someone raises their hand and it says, they're safe, they're from Ohio. The whole crowd like boozed them like fucking crazy. There's an ICE agent in every heart. - There is. - But so like, there's this, what I liked about that part of Michelle's speech specifically is choosing Trump takes your agency. And it is, we do not have to ignore people's culpability, the harm of that choice, the fact that they could have made a different one, right? Like we should remind, we should take people, hold people responsible and treat them like adults. And I think one thing that Barack Obama does as a politician is he tries to treat people like adults in 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 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 the love of the country. And I think people want that. And they want to be a part of a movement that is patriotic. And I was reminded of this when 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's 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 Jerusalem Demsys about this for offline this week. And she was saying there's this, I haven't seen it, but there's this whole discourse online around the world cup where all of these people are coming to America. And then they're like posting America's really great. And people are so nice. - They're going to Waffle House for the first time. - Because of everything that they do. When 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. I was like, this is a fucking great country. Like it is a great country. And just because Trump is president and we don't like what's happening, it 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 this represents who we are too. And 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, 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 that this is what he's doing with his, with this moment. But also the opportunity cost of 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. - I know, I keep thinking about that. - It's like- - 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 on America's 250th? Easily. - I have no doubt that George W. Bush's 250th America thing would have annoyed me in certain respects. - For sure, for sure. - But like, you look like- - But there would have been really nice moments when we've been like, okay, I feel good. - It was nice also in the speech. - A sense of mission. - 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 are cushioned where you need it. Sweat wicking and they don't slide around so you're not constantly adjusting your socks. Step into warmer weather with the Bombas Friday Slides made from ultra lightweight, waterproof, EVA material. 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The exhibits in the center are not meant to evoke nostalgia for some gauzy bygone era. Some unattainable past that we can dream about and say, oh, we miss you, Barack. 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. I wanted to play that clip because I think he had done a few interviews before today where I think he got questions from reporters. 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. And I think in a way it's the mission of the whole center, which we were just talking about. And I think they're 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, which today was, I think, a badly needed one. 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 talked about the Twin Cities and the way they stood up to ICE and came together as a community. I thought that was clearly about this moment. 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. Yeah. Shot at George W. Bush. He's like, I do not believe that's how the story of America ends. Like, we'll talk about Michelle's speech in a minute, which is a little more directed at the Trump administration. But I thought Obama was very much commenting on the politics of Trump today. I would just say criticizing museum for being too nostalgic is just idiotic. Fair point. This museum looks backwards. Which way does your museum face? I think this all started with, I think it was the New York Times. It was Peter Baker. It was the Peter Baker. Yes. And it was the New York Times. 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? And, you know, 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 progressive leaders to be out there and to, like, have their moment. Maybe this is why. That's probably the election cycle that happens. Right. That's right. And I think the point of the center and the point of the foundation. I'm losing with the football. But I think the point of the center, the point of the foundation especially is to train and inspire young leaders here and all over the world. And I think that is, 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 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 in the next 10 years, 20 years. Yeah. Also, I don't. I agree with all that. But also, it's OK to be nostalgic. I'm not. I like nostalgia. It 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. Yeah. And in small doses. Invest in small doses. And especially when experience plus strength. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. And obviously, as I've said, change equals one divided by. No, wait. Strength plus experience equals change. So change divided by strength plus experience equals one. But back. Back to the museum. Like, it's OK to be nostalgic. Right. Like, like, yes, this was 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 finished. But people believed 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 inspires you to act. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to feel. But it's also good to like. Be like, oh, well, then I'm going to 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 nonpartisan journalists that 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, you know, sometimes I've gotten I've been in those moments all the time. But but like but I had this moment was watching. I think it was there was a moment where 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. And you were wondering, is he hitting on her? Yeah, that was a word. There was. I mean, Obama did say, leave my wife, my wife. Yeah. But it was a lot to your point, like the 2020 election, like, you know, it was a thing you'd hear online that people were like, oh, oh. Oh, we're just going to 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 going to 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 going to try is going to do much. 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 at some point. So let's talk about Michelle's speech. 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 at the table. No one has the right to sit at the table. in judgment of who's American enough. So I will say, I got like a little misty when I saw the Grant Park panel at the center. But the first time this whole week that I actually just like cried was during her speech. Oh yeah, for sure. I saw the sign language interpreter wiping tears. I did too, I did too. It was a fantastic speech. Like, listen, it's like, it's almost cliche to say it, that Michelle Obama always knocks it out of the park, but it really was this time. - 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. The part that also was really moving was she, she says at the beginning, I'm going to do what, 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 in the eight years as president. And that's what like really did it for me. Yeah, I lost it at that point. I didn't see him crying. It is like, like what she said about him is 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'd be pretty grumpy, right? Like shit is bad. Like, you know, I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. apply. Right now, the midterms are the biggest story in American politics, but however they go, the Democratic Party is going to have to do some serious soul-searching. Join us, Washington, D.C., November 5th through 7th at the second annual CrookedCon. It's going to be the Pod Save America hosts and some of the smartest people in politics. We're going to try to answer some big questions, stuff like, if we won, how did we win? If we lost, how could we possibly have lost? And with 2028 around the corner, where do we go from here? If you believe in democracy, community, and fighting for the future, now's the time to grab your tickets to CrookedCon 2026. Head to CrookedCon.com to get your tickets now. That's X-E-R-O. It puts accounting payers at a high level, and it's a great way to get the confidence in their numbers. Payments, payroll, and analytics all in one place, so you always have one clear picture of your business. You know exactly what's coming in and what's going out, so you can make smarter decisions that can help grow your business. And then on the ballistic missiles, 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. Oh, right. Right. And now Trump is like, eh, who gives a fuck? They can have some ballistic missiles. It's no big deal. It's the Saudi Arabia. And Rubio 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 Strait. The theoretical opening of the Strait for 60 days. The theoretical opening of the Strait that Iran and Oman are going to jointly control and can charge fees whenever they want. And before the war, the Strait used to be open and controlled by no one because it was international waters. Right. And there were no tolls. So, like, I don't think we got. Anything. And 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 you know, Iran knows that as we get closer to the midterms, he's not going to go back to bombing them. They shouldn't go back to bombing. They're not going to get bombed out of, you know, their nuclear know-how. We just unleashed a bombing campaign for weeks. It costs 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 you had Vance sort of brushing back the the Iran hawks and specifically referring to pro-Israel Iran hawks saying 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 the for for Vance, I'm glad Vance said that. Right. 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 turned Israel into pariah state. Do you feel good about where Israel is 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 have been saying that Benjamin Netanyahu was terrible for Israel might have 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. It just very quickly, like I want Democrats to just stand up and support the JCPOA and say that it was better. Stop all the fucking throat clearing about its flaws and what was omitted. The JCPOA. The JCPOA is better than what Trump may eventually get here because with the JCPOA, Iran shipped out 97 percent of its stockpile is 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 U.N. Security Council. Right. So this was that 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 dollar slush fund, like what are we doing here? You're 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 like, you know, opponents or detractors are trying to hang this deal around his neck and say it's 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 is 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 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 will not not in this November. I think the question is about J.D. Vance's presidential race. So by the time we did. 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. I think anyone's going to remember it. I think the damage of the war to J.D. Vance is I think it has. To ensure 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. 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That's BetterHelp.com slash PSA. 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. 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. That's X-E-R-O. You know exactly what's coming in and what's going out so you can make smarter decisions. Xero's AI can help grow your business. 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. Um, he, uh, he went to The View, went into the lion's den, uh, 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? Yeah, this clip will be my first, uh, my first experience with J.D. on The View. So let's, 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 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, that's what he said. That's not what he said. That wasn't a duress, not what he said. Wait, 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, 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, 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 have thrown a lot at me and I think I see we've got 30 seconds left here, but let me say number one, it sounds like that went well. What'd you guys think? 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 JD Vance credits him, I guess we're going there, right? That's he, 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 who thinks he is the victim of everything. Yeah. He also says Democrats are terrible at one point. I do. It's just, it's just, not possible to be it's not possible to fairly answer questions, defend Donald Trump and build a and sort of be tilting at any kind of broader sort of a nonpartisan coalition like 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 figures 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 where he went on Blue Sky for like a hot minute to take people. Well, you just referenced a little bit that he calls Democrats terrible people. So he did that. It's a Megyn Kelly. That was later. It was that it was Gutfeld. 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. They were such assholes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But he he does. And they didn't even beat him up, though. They were like very substantive in 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 is, even worse than that is it's a it's a he couldn't stop himself. He he started by saying, like, the thing that bothers 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. 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 we had to say it also bothers me that some of them are terrible people like that. He looks like an aside. Wasn't even some terrible, terrible people. 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? Like, he's crazy. He has no deafness. He has no deafness. I really. He was on a book. It is crazy that Marco Rubio has just gone into witness protection. He's the national security advisor and the secretary of state. Has he done a single interview about the surrounding? There's a picture of him over Trump when Trump's signing the treaty in Versailles. Yeah. And he looks like. Did you guys watch him behind Trump in the press conference, like shifting back and forth, like dead eyed. He looked like he'd taken like 6000 Provi and hadn't slept in a month. I just looked miserable. Well, before we go, I do think we should talk about briefly the reflecting pool. I guess that's a that's the thing in the news. Right now, because the reflecting pool. So let me get this straight. Please correct me if I've got this is important to me because I've been on vacation for two weeks. So in my lab, trying to avoid learning something, this is the thing that I know very little about. I'm excited to learn in a very lovely fashion. Explain it to Dan. Here's what I think. Obviously, Trump decided to paint the reflecting pool. Yes, he did. The American flag blew. Then they. What was it? How do you describe the paint? It was like thick, rubbery, rubbery, rubbery, rubbery, robbing. And then. And then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they 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 start dumping hydrogen peroxide or chloride or whatever. Hydrogen peroxide. Yeah. 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. Nice. And they said and the algae is gone from the algae is now just at the bottom of the reflecting pool. Just like the Iranian Navy. Yeah. Yeah. The Department of Interior. They're like the Department of Interior, which in a previous era might have posted a picture. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, oh, 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 here's 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 they're going to do it. And then 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 a middle of the of a swamp. And there's algae. And so maybe maybe the paint color American flag blue doesn't have magical properties. The conservative else. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, my God. and saying, actually, this is residual algae. And it's like, hey, it's not, we don't believe in spontaneous creation of life anymore. We're not Lamarckians 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? - Phlogiston? - Yes, yes. Thank you, Reid. - How do you know this, Reid? - 'Cause we didn't have sports. And so nobody invited us to Flip Cup, 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 percent- - A pool, a lot. - The kind they were using, the 12%, that's for a hot tub. This is a 7 million gallon tank. You would need at least 5,000 to 7,000 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 gonna work. And 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. So the algae is just gonna 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 solution. It's not, and then he pretends it is anyway. - And news flash, 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 it. - Yes. - Oh, sabotage is everywhere. Everyone thinks we've been pouring phosphates. We've been fertilizing the fuck, yes. - And then Jesse Watters sent his like baby dork goon down there to be like, well, at least our president cared enough to fix it and try. Like, what are we doing here? What do we even care about this? - The Washington Post did report, by the way, that the ballroom, that there's, they found a invoice to a contractor that, for like $600 million and that half of it was gonna be taxpayer money. And so they've been lying the whole time. - Shocker. - Then Notice reported, I believe, that they found out that OMB has been moving money from the Secret Service budget into Purdue. It's because they couldn't get it passed through Congress. So it is, look, we are paying for the ballroom after all. - Well, famously, Secret Service has had a great run recently, so they don't need more resources. - They had some loose change. - Yeah. - So that's happened. Anyway, we started very- - You used that money to buy a couple pairs of binoculars, boys. - Well, we started very inspiring and we ended up with algae in the pool, so. - That's a tale for our times. This has been fun, guys. 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 Substack Titan, Heather Cox Richardson. - And thanks to the Obama Library for letting us in here. - Yeah, absolutely. - Yeah, seriously. - That's great. Now let's go find our book somewhere. - Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Faris Safari, with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heathcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelleviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. - Right now, the midterms are the biggest story in American politics, but however they go, the Democratic Party is gonna have to do some serious soul-searching. It's gonna be the Pod Save America hosts and some of the smartest people in politics. We're gonna try to answer some big questions. Stuff like, if we won, how did we win? If we lost, who we possibly have lost? Head to crookedcon.com to get your tickets now.