The Bruised Hand in the Cookie Jar

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By the end, actually feel like you understand what's going on. They're digging into everything from authoritarianism to the rise of people dating AI chatbots to what's really behind the latest mission to the moon. No fluff, no pretending everything is fine, just smart conversations and sharp reporting. The show pulls from the Guardian's global newsroom so you're getting coverage across politics, culture, climate and more, plus conversations with big thinkers and newsmakers. Join Kai right and Carter Sherman three times a week as they try to make sense of all this. New episodes drop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, starting May 13th, you can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - Welcome to PlodSafe America, I'm John Faber. - I'm John Lovett. On today's show, we're gonna break down the new gold standard New York Times poll that shows Democrats opening an 11 point lead in the midterms. Let's have that election today, huh? Please hurry it up. We'll also talk about how Trump's revenge tour came for Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and his coming for Congressman Thomas Massey and Tuesday's Kentucky primary. There's also some fresh new corruption to discuss. Trump's new taxpayer funded $2 billion slush fund. He'll use to reward his favorite criminals and revelations that he's basically been day trading in his spare time, 3,700 stock trades in just three months. - That's so many trades. - So many trades. - It's a bad advice, just put it in an index fund. - Just kidding. - We also got a new Iran taco brewing and renewed interest in Cuba and Greenland, which is just one of the reasons we'll also dive into the latest debate over how much Democrats and commentators should be talking about old man Trump losing his marbles. - It's big and old man. Check out four eyes over here. (laughing) - He's gonna sit here with this guy. He's fucking this fucking nerd's got his glasses on. - I was waiting for you to do it. - Sorry, I scratched my eye. Don't get used to it, everyone, hopefully. But first, before we start, tickets for CricketCon 2026 are on sale now for everyone. Come hang with us November 5th through 7th and Washington DC for live shows, panels, and a big fun party to celebrate and/or mourn the 2026 midterms. See, I added mourn 'cause it was Dan, Dan. So, superstitious, you know. Crickets friends of the pod get a subscriber only price, so if you want a subscription loaded with exclusives and a discounted CricketCon ticket, be sure to join friends of the pod. There's all kinds of benefits that come with that. No more ads when you're listening to any of these, any of your favorite Cricket pods, plus you get exclusive subscriber only shows like Polar Costa with Dan Pfeiffer, only friends, which is our extra episode of, it's just like our secret extra episode of pods in America that we do. And a whole bunch of other stuff. Substacking newsletters, everything. Get the tickets for CricketCon and all the info you need at CricketCon.com, go to Cricket.com/Friends to subscribe to Friends of the Pod. And we can't wait to see you at CricketCon. All right, Donald Trump and the Republican Party have been shitting the bed in nearly every poll for the last few months. But now Nate Cohn and the New York Times have come down from the mountaintop with a stone tablet that confirms how screwed they are. Trump's approval is at 37% in their new poll. That is a record low for him and for both terms in all New York Times, Sienna Poles. And the midterm voters also favor Democrats by 11 points, 50 to 39% over Republicans. President's biggest liability in the poll remains. His handling of the cost of living, which his political strategist, keep hoping he'll pretend to care about, is evidenced by Monday's White House event on his discount drug website, Trump RX. Let's see how it went. - I think outside of maybe a cure itself, it's the biggest thing to happen to healthcare and everything having to do with medical in any way, shape or form. There's never been anything like this. - Really sold it, huh? What? Why did that even mean? - Really sold it. - Trump RX is the biggest thing in medical. - The biggest thing in medical. - You could tell 'cause it's a doctor here. - You could tell he didn't like the event 'cause he cut it really short. 'Cause it kind of looked like Ted X Toledo or something. There's like Joe Gebbi in front of a giant screen. - The whole thing was embarrassing. Mark Cuban was there. Trump RX, by the way, it's not a platform for buying medications, do you know that? It's just, it's a facilitator. You go to the website, it directs you to the other websites to buy the drugs and sometimes it gives you coupons. - Just redirects you? - Yeah, basically. And then Amazon and Cuban's thing, what's his thing called? - Cost plus drugs. - Cost plus drugs. You know, they work with the federal government to have some discounts on some extra drugs. But also if you have insurance doesn't help you, meaning it's cheaper to buy the drugs if you have insurance 'cause the insurance covers the drugs. So really it's for people who don't have insurance, sometimes get some discounts on some drugs. So it's not a bad thing, but it's not weird. It's certainly not the biggest thing since medical. - No. - What stood out to you guys in the New York Times, Paul? - So whenever we're talking about a poll that looks good for Democrats, you gotta go down and find the part where it's terrible for Democrats. And there's a, this was a new one, I think. They said, "Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the Democratic Party?" And I'm used to seeing that voters may be really unhappy with Republicans in planning to vote for Democrats, but then are ultimately not super satisfied with Democrats either. I was surprised to see that 70% of people say they are dissatisfied with the Democratic Party. And only 5% are very satisfied, which is a third of the number of people that are very satisfied with Trump. And I get being, look, Republicans earn power. This is representing people that hate Democrats. It's represented by people that wish Democrats would fight more. It's represented by Democrats. Everyone who has a criticism of the Democrats is represented in that number. But the fact that-- - Where would you be in that when someone asks you? I would be-- - Oh, I love it. - I would be unsatisfied. - I'm unsatisfied, babe. - Yeah. - I'm unsatisfied. - But then, when they gave me the generic ballot thing, I'd be right there, right there. - But just the fact that right now, if this whole big, beautiful country of ours, there's only 5% of people that just love the Democratic Party. Like, we talk a lot about the base. It's like, we don't really have-- You know, the Trump has a base that is-- - Who are those people like? - Right. - Who are those 5%, I love everything they're doing. (laughs) Can't wait to see him on tour. - Like, some of the staffers maybe? - I don't know. - So I know it's relatives. - A couple of folks on Blue Sky. I don't know. So anyway, that was that's what stood out to you. - That stood out to me, and then there was a number on AI that I thought was just interesting. That only 16% of people think AI is more good than bad. The vast majority are either undecided or think it's more bad than good. - And it comes in a weekend where there's always commencement addresses where students are booing the mere mention of AI. - Yeah, which I love. - You can tell there's something on my foot there. - Yes, there is. Yes, there is. Tommy, what do you think? - I liked that, I liked that. I noticed that 64% in the Times Pole said, they think that going to war with Iran was the wrong decision, including 73% of independence. That is pretty clear cut. And it's not going to get better as this thing kind of drags out and the straight-over moves remains closed and the price of gas goes up. 76% rate economic conditions today is only fair or poor. That is quite bad. And then the glass half full thing of the Democratic Party was 50% say they will vote Democrat 39% say they will vote Republican in the midterm. So it's one of the better numbers of that nature. I think we've seen it a while. - We've been saying Trump bad for so long now that when there's a pole this bad, it's almost like there's a crying wolf thing. - Yeah, yeah. - Or not Trump's, I mean, Trump's always been bad, but this is it for Trump. Things that the walls are closing in. But Nate Kohn points out in his write-up of the pole, no president's approval rating has been under 38% for more than a few days in the last 17 years according to our average. Now we got Donald Trump. And then he realized 17 years is George W. Bush, which just makes us really old. But that is the last president to be this unpopular for this long. Like it is, the fact that this is worse than January 6th now for him. - Well, the economic indicators are just so bad. - I mean, 76% say they're concerned about their personal finance. It's a CBS poll. 67% say they're stressed. Both of those have been ticked up the last year. Only 29% in the CBS, recent CBS poll. that the economy is good. 77% say their income's not keeping up with inflation. So gas prices are just killing everybody. - Yeah, to me, you look at it too. What's hidden is just how many people have just, they're done, right? You look at this poll and it's basically almost half, not quite half the country. They don't approve on Iran. They don't approve on the economy. They don't approve on cost of living. They don't approve on immigration. They are done. And the number of people who now say, Trump has personally made their economic circumstances worse. - 44% - 44% which has gone up by like eight points since the last time. So it's gone up from, out of the third of the country, it's rising up to really half or no longer saying, just I don't just disapprove. Like I'm feeling personally that he's not doing what he said he was going to do. So that, to me, was stood out. One other thing that stood out just about what's happening with Iran, that a lot of internet debates about the anti-Semitism and anti-zionism and the Democrats position on Israel. Meanwhile, opposition to economic military support to Israel has gone from 38% to 57% over the last two and a half to three or support has gone from 54% to 37%. And so a lot of-- - Same number as Trump's approval. - And so a lot of hands for support for Israel, financial aid, support for Israel is just about as popular. There's Donald Trump in this country. - And so, look, this is not an argument that's being lost on the margins and it's not an argument that's being lost based on who gets platformed and who doesn't. There's a huge shift that has happened. I think you can lay that at the feet of Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe Biden and Donald Trump. But the sooner people make this less about the specific individuals they dislike, often with good reason and more about the deeper shift that is happening, I think the sooner people can actually reckon with what is a real and lasting damage that has happened to America's relationship with Israel. - Yeah, I mean, actually, it's a story this morning about there's the horrific anti-Semitism being directed towards members of Congress and voicemails and threats and all that. And it's horrible. And I would just say that I do think it's important to separate virulent anti-Semitism from people who are pro-Israel and making the case for supporting Israel. I think we talked about this last week, but Josh Gautheimer's op-ed about anti-Semitism and my party has a problem too. It starts with talking about actual anti-Semitism and then halfway through it suddenly veers into, oh, and also, Democrats are voting against funding military aid to Israel. - Which is down major opposition. - That should not be in the same op-ed. - Oh, Nanyahu and says that he wants to ween off military support for Israel, so yeah. - Right, I wish, I would say the only other thing that stood to me is on the generic ballot, there's real movement just within the Times poll, right? Because every poll is a single poll, snapshot in time, but you take a poll over time and it was D plus two to D plus five for the beginning part of Trump's term, second term in the Times, Santa Poles, and now it's D plus 11, like it's a big shift, and then when they take it to only almost certain or very likely voters, it's D plus 14. So even that D plus 11 is like, may not be what we ultimately see because, you know, the most motivated voters end up turning out in a midterm, more so than in a general election. So that's pretty big and it's late May, you know? Not a ton of time left. - Knock on wood, yeah. - Well, I mean, look Trump's still out of time to become a different person. (laughing) - The bigger news from the White House on Monday was the announcement that President Trump's justice department is settling Donald Trump's lawsuit against the IRS for $1.776 billion. Get it? - Get it, get it. That is money that will be taken directly from taxpayers and funneled into a slush fund that apparently exists to pay Trump supporters who were investigated or indicted or convicted during the Biden administration, or I guess none of those things 'cause there's really no guardrails whatsoever. It seems like they did this, so Trump wouldn't be attacked for directly pocketing taxpayer dollars, but I'm not sure this move is clever as they think. What about you guys? - No, this is particular. This Trump's second term is a political smash and grab job, where he and his family and the people around him and people do his bidding, just take what they want, get reward, they take it from taxpayers, they trade on polymarket, they front run the stock market, and I think the fact that Trump is doing this before the midterms just shows that he doesn't give a shit about politics anymore. It's all about money, and it's all about building monuments to himself and appreciate it, enriching himself. And they made an end run around the judge in this case, and they just cut a deal with another political pointy that he had named to create the slush fund. And do you think they thought it was cute saying it was 1.776? Doesn't that just make the whole thing feel like made up in arbitrary? More than anything else? They think it's like, oh, we've got patriotism. And America's 250 is coming up, and so if we call it a patriotic fund for patriots, then no one will get mad at us. Shouldn't a fund to pay out restitution to people harmed, be based on like metrics and not just like the amount of research the number coming from the calendar? And how many, how much earnings did you lose? That's great. When you were at the Capitol on January 6th, when you were right, you know, I will say, Congress passed a law to give the Department of Justice basically on unlimited fund for restitution for anyone who sues the federal government. And so that's how they ended up doing this. So it's like, it is a one of those technically legal, but extremely corrupt things that we have because of a stupid law that was passed, that no one thought to themselves. Maybe there'll be an administration that just has the fund being unlimited because the president will sue himself. We'll sue its own government. Well, in fairness to the people that wrote that law, you would also assume that if it were to be so completely and obviously embracingly abused by a president who's basically just going into the treasury and stuffing his pockets and leaving, that there might be a Congress that would care about that, which we don't have, just like to Tommy's point, the judge was like, hey, before this lawsuit by Trump against his own administration, which is unprecedented, that's being administered by his personal attorney, former personal attorney at the Department of Justice, I want you to come in and explain to me how you're actually parties in opposition, how you're not on the same side of this thing. And they're like, the deadline's May 20th. That's when now it's May 18th. - And so, basically proving the point that the judge was worried about, they have decided to reach a deal beforehand. Now, the Justice Department, if it was actually advocating on behalf of taxpayers, the American people, which is what it's supposed to do, it would fight this thing to the bitter end, or the very least settle for zero dollars, which has happened in not exactly similar, but cases that are akin to this in the past. But instead they're doing this. - King Griffin. - Yeah, doing this exactly. - Set up the same case, his taxpayer info was leaked, and he settled it for zero dollars. - Zero dollars. - It's not a public apology from the IRS. - Because he didn't pay, and that is something that could have come of this. But it said no, they are proving that they are in cahoots here by doing this kind of a settlement. We have, they're using a ridiculous justification based on something that happened in the Obama administration, which even conservative legal scholars have batted down because it had, that had actual specific people who were harmed by an actual specific policy. And like this, my pitches, James Comey, Tish James, Lamanica McIver, Lisa Cook, Jerome Powell, they should all be submitting when this thing comes out. They should put their names in to get money from this fund, and if they do not receive a fair hearing, they should sue the federal government. Like there are people that are being politically prosecuted by the government as far as we know publicly. Nobody on that list would not be kind of, at least potentially included in the people hurt that could receive from the 1776. - My pitches, no one gets it. Give us the fucking money back. That's our money. - Oh yeah, I don't think James Comey should get money from the federal government, but I think we should take this, put this thing through its pace. - This is fucking, yeah, they're not gonna, I mean, Trump points the board, it's five people. He gets to hire and fire the board. It's gonna be five cronies, dishin' out money. They're like, this thing doesn't even have to be like, oh, and here was my case and it was tried incorrectly. Like someone's just can go to fucking whoever Todd Blanche puts on the commission and be like, hey, I want $10,000 because I donated to the president and I'm mad that Joe Biden sent the FBI after me. Do you have proof of that? No, but I just know they were watching me. - It's crazy. - Like, that's it, that's it. - It's just that way. - I mean, this is, it's just, they're at the point where they're just saying, we're gonna take money from the treasury. - Give it to whoever we want. - And give it to our friends. - Particularly people who are maybe criminals to let everyone else know that if you commit a crime on Trump's behalf, not only do you not go to jail, but perhaps you might get some compensation for it. - Yeah, but he was asked at the press conference today. What could this potentially go to people who committed violence in January 6th? He said, oh, it's gonna be up to the committee. Absolutely, those people would be eligible, could totally receive money from this fund. - And he pretends he doesn't know about it. - Okay. - Also, it's a danger going forward too, is we're heading into 2028 and Donald Trump and JD Vance, and whoever the fuck it is, tries to stay in the White House after they lose an election, and a bunch of people do their bidding for them to help them out. What do you think they're gonna think? They're gonna be like, well, if he stays in there and I help them out, I'm gonna be okay. I'm gonna get a pardon, might get paid. Great. - You guys all like my idea that James Coney tries to get into that fund? Come on. - Yeah, I mean, I see your saying's like, test the price. - I think he's just right out the amount he wants on. - In shells, shells, yeah. - And his shell-based crime should apply. (upbeat music) - Pots of America is brought to you by Smalls. Smalls makes fresh human-grade food for cats. 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She is the former county clerk from Mesa County, Colorado, she was in jail for orchestrating a security breach of her county's voting system. Trump has been publicly and privately pressuring Polis to pardon her completely. They also tried to like transfer her from state prison to federal prisons so that Trump could pardon her, didn't do that, but now Polis has commuted her sentence through sentence to nine years. He cut it to four and a half years with parole next month. I have to be honest, I know this is not a great answer for the purposes of a talk show. I just couldn't give less of a shit. I know people are like outraged about this, I read JVL's long piece on this, I don't give a shit. I don't care, I have so much to be outraged or to worry about. I just can't even get myself to engage with this person, I might even go a step further. I think Polis might have done the right thing. Like color sentence down. Wow. I know. I got to get, excuse me, boys, if you need me, I'll be at the fucking bulwark where the real lips are now. Go on. I don't feel strongly, I'm more into, I'm closer to Tommy's camp, but like, here's the thing. She was sentenced to nine years, right? She's a nonviolent first time offender. And three appellate judges who were appointed by a Democrat, they were Democratic judges, they all just ruled that they threw out the sentence, the nine-year sentence. So that was never going to happen. And the reason they threw it out is because they thought that the judge, basically in giving her a nine-year sentence as opposed to a smaller sentence, violated her free speech rights, because the judge basically said the reason I'm making your sentence longer is because you spouted election conspiracy theories, which is a horrible thing to do with spouting elections in various theories, but that is protected first amendment speech. I thought we have to be consistent. I appreciate that, but we understand that if someone were to hit somebody with their car, and then publicly say that bitch deserved it, that is free speech of the right to say that, but it does potentially inform the sentence. Does it? Of course it does, of course we allow remorse in people's motivations and feelings about the crimes they committed, what they've learned from it. But the no remorse thing was already factored in because she was not remorseful when she was sentenced. But he didn't say you didn't show remorse. He said it's because you have these theories. I'm just saying that. Not just for submit, that we take people's motivations and expressions. I agree that people are the right to believe elections are stolen. I'm just saying it's a little bit more than just the first continue, sorry. I guess I'm saying if we believe that there is an incarceration problem in this country and that people are incarcerated for too long and that prison is, it is a deterrent and yes, people should be jailed and they should be kept from society, but that unusually long sentences are bad, especially for first time nonviolent offenders. Like don't we have to extend that belief to people whose political beliefs we detest? So I would say the answer is we should allow a process to play out. She would have been resentants. Why did this become a big public controversy? It is because the President of the United States is publishing pressuring the governor of Colorado to commute Tina Peterson. Now, look, I'm sure Jared Polis would say that the pressure had nothing to do with it. Obviously, the fact that Donald Trump was threatening Colorado unless he did something, right? Donald Trump was saying this woman should be pardoned. He is saying it's some kind of pushback against Trump that it's only a commutation. She has kind of done the bare minimum of acknowledging that what she did was wrong, but if you go to her Twitter feed, her allies were saying, recently as I believe last week, I have to go look at the exact timing that if Tina Peters isn't released, Trump should invade the state of Colorado. It is a nonviolent offense. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that should happen. Right, but it just, it goes to, like, the reason somebody who even commits a lot of first time offenders who do something that are part of a, that are part of something so dangerous that you have to say, wait a second, yes, it's a nonviolent offense, but it goes to the core of what we are as a society, the safety of our democracy. And so he has given into that pressure from Trump rather than let the process play out. So that, I think, is a, like, a huge problem. Like, I just, I don't know that we'd be having this conversation if Donald Trump hadn't personally intervened to try to get the governor to do something and then it seems as though he did it. And after listening to this thoughtful debate, I still don't give a shit, you know, I might care less, actually, than one of the same skips. I don't know. No, I wouldn't say that I'm, it is interesting. I would say that it's, yeah, it's more interesting to me and that, like, I think that, I think he might have, I do think, I would like to hear Jared Polo's answer to the question, why don't you just wait for the resentencing of the three appellate judges? Like, what made you not want to just wait for their decision if they were going to throw at the sentence anyway? I would like to know that question. I'd also say to you that the Republican prosecutor was against this and said that you should talk to the people that were impacted by Tina Peter's schemes before you'd make this decision. Well, sure. That's what prosecutors are. Well, come here. But the, it's also a defendant who pled guilty to almost the same charges in the Georgia Rico case and was sentenced, no time and probation. Yeah, we look, there's all kinds of unfairnesses and unequal application of sentences all across the country, all the time, like, that, if that were the case, you'd go and say, oh, well, there's somebody else who was given less. You can commute most sentences that way, but, but I think, look, in this, it wasn't just her. He commuted like, it's like 35 or 50 commutations or something like that in the same day. I think he has to answer for whether or not he gave anti-transpolitical pressure. And we are in a moment where, like, Donald Trump is threatening elections again. Like, this is a grave threat to the Republic. Why does our generosity, our sense of justice, our, our empathy turn for Tina Peter is when there are so many others who have, who deserve it? Yeah. I don't think it should. I don't think we should be generous or empathetic at all. I think we should just be like, what is the, what is the standard? Like, is there a process to reach the decision to meet a standard? I do think that, like, criticizing polls for it is completely fine. Like, you can criticize them for it, you can say it's fine. Some people are, and people who I like in politics too, and support are, like, calling for his impeachment over this. And I'm like, I don't, I just, I do not think it rises to the level of it. Everybody's at nine. All the time is this. I can't get there. I can get there. I can get, I can get to, like, your criticism for sure. I, I can't get to, we, he shouldn't be peaked and peaked over this. I don't know if you guys saw that, uh, Trump's latest financial disclosures show that he and or his financial advisors made more than 3,700 stock trades in the first quarter of this year, uh, bought one million dollars each in companies with business before his administration, like Nvidia, Oracle, Microsoft, Boeing, and Palantir, which he bought right before he praised the company on truth social in a post that if you recall, even included the company's ticker symbol. Um, now I know this may look suspicious, but the White House did say that Trump's assets are in a blind trust managed by his children. So there are, quote, no conflicts of interest seems fine, right? This is, did they really, I think there was no blind trust. I thought they'd already previously said there was no blind trust either way. They're still there. There's a blind trust made. Yeah. That's right again, this is part of the political smash and grab job. I mean, they're making money everywhere. It's, this is crazy. Like, so Bloomberg reported, um, Trump had trades that involved Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Meta, Visa, City, Boeing, Qualcomm, and GE. Top executives from all of those companies were on his trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. So you don't think he's getting insider information, having that access, talking to them, cutting deals with them. He, what the, some of the stock trades included up to 680 grand worth of Eli Lilly, right as the administration was preparing policies that would benefit their GLP one business. He took a huge position, a couple huge positions in Nvidia right before they announced major news. five million dollar position, a week before they announced a partnership with NETA, then there was a half a million to a million dollar position. A week before the Commerce Department announced some, you know, determinations to do with NVIDIA. They're buying and selling Intel stock, which the US government took a 10% stake in the company. This is insanity. Paul Pelosi somewhere is like, what the fuck, man? I could have been doing this so much better. Like, we're sort of every single, well, Jesus, I'm like Jim Kramer now. Do you see the clip of Jim? He just glitched out for a second. We drop it in here. Let's drop it in the clip. The president's been trading some Intel in the quarter. Yeah. Yeah. We're not having technical difficulties here, everybody. What's funny about the Jim Kramer clip is that it's like people like, oh, wow, he's so, he's stammering because he can't figure out what to say about this. But when I was watching, he was like, is he stammering because he can't figure out what to say about this? Or is he making a joke about how it's so beyond the pale, but he doesn't want to be critical of Trump in this moment? Like, I didn't know what we, what are we, why is he stammering? He knows what's going on, but take it in Jim Kramer's head. But we're just, no, live and run free inside of Jim Kramer's head. But the, like, we're at a new level of brazen corruption because every step along the way, nobody has stopped him to get to this point, right? Like, he can't, the thing that I find stunning about all this is that there's no, like, the level of brazenness is going up, but the dollar amount isn't always. It's like, why are we doing 500 grand stock trades, $1,000,000 crypto theft and the watches? Like, why, like, why do you know what I mean? Like, it bothers me. It's just, it's just all of it's left over from the old world. Right. You had to just do corruption like the watches and the hotel rooms, like, we're getting you the Trump phones, but they're not coming. Yeah, that part doesn't make sense, but the aggregate stock trades was a range between $211,000 and $687 million. So that's a pretty good quarter. It's also like the, just the volume of trading Bloomberg interview. This guy Eric Dighton, who's the president manager, director at the, at the Wealth Alliance, and he said, I'm baffled. And the 40 plus years of my time on Wall Street, this is an unusual amount of trading by any standards. We need to see the actual trades to try and understand why anyone would want to do that much trading. It's just like the practical way in which this is being done. Like, is there a team that is doing this? Is it right? Sons through their, like, it feels like they've got like, like, Christopher multi-Sante trying to like push with his, like, he's got like some fucking back office in New Jersey somewhere with computers doing it. Just Baron Trump in the outer oval with a shitload of Adderall. Yeah, just like mine already reporting it. Like, I can see the future. I know what's going to happen at the commerce meeting next week. I know that I have the BLS. That's just because he's got the briefing book. Yeah. But again, they took like seven transactions related to Boeing. One was between one to five million dollars. Like, the biggest deliverable of the China trip was to get the Chinese to buy a bunch of Boeing planes. And by the way, the announced meant was so underwhelming that the stock went down because they did a shitty job. We're still users proof that see we see a good announcement. Yeah, you thought it was. You tried to trade on inside information. It just turned out you suck at diplomacy. That was the problem. You're good at the crimes. You're bad at diplomacy and deliver on that. Yeah. All right. So Trump's also doing his best to drag the Republican party down with him. On Saturday, he sent yet another message that descent will not be tolerated when his chosen primary challenger Congresswoman Julia Letlow took out Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, who sin was voting to convict Trump in the January 6th impeachment trial. Cassidy went down in flames. He got third in Louisiana's primary. The first time an incumbent Senator has come in lower than second place since 1944. Trump's next target is Thomas Massey, who is trying to unseat in Tuesday's Kentucky primary. Massey has been the strongest and kind of the only Republican in the House breaking with Trump on Epstein, Iran and the big beautiful bill. Trump has been posting about Massey non-stop. I think right before he recorded, he did like a video from the oval, which is very legal and normal to just to just tell people to vote against Thomas Massey. We're going to run the midterms on the hatch act, guys. Yeah, that's yeah. He's grabbing the $2 billion for his slush fund and then trading on Nvidia and Boeing. Pete Hegseth was doing an event in Kentucky today. His personal capacity. And then Trump announces that he's delayed an imminent military assault on Iran that was supposed to happen tomorrow. Yeah, what was Pete going to do? It seems like bad timing. It's like you need him for that. Yeah. Maybe it now. It's maybe it now. Who's going to drink the boost? To early to say what will happen in the Massey race, but it certainly seems like Massey himself is staying loose. Here he is on Sunday doing his best Trump impression. Whenever I call him, I got to schedule a minute for the first thing he tells me every time I call him, "Massey, you're sharp cookies. You went to MIT." You know, my professor was my uncle with Professor John G. Trump. He was an MIT 41 years. It's a record. And, you know, I went to work, which is basically the hardest school of the world to go to. So I can't even do better genetics than you. I kind of want him to lose now. I was rooting for him until just then. I'm doing listen. He's going for it, you know. Put that accent work on the area. Trump impression. You know, don't do it unless you really feel good. You gotta nail it. There's just too many people doing it and it's too big a target. Anyone have thoughts on the primary? Yeah, look, I mean, how big of a deal this is. On Bill Cassidy, like, fuck that guy. You know, like he thought he could like appease Maga by voting for a Robert of Kennedy, Jr. And ended up kind of like selling his soul and his credentials as a doctor and it being worst of all worlds. Any new better? And we know it because he told us as much before he flipped flopped. And so what I'd rather have him in the Senate than his replacement? Yes. I would. But ultimately, I don't think it'll make a big difference. Thomas Massey's a different story. Like, he's the reason we have the Epstein files because he worked with Rocana to get him released. He's a principled vote against wars and militarism and lots of other things. I don't agree with him on everything. And, you know, like, you don't share the same worldview. I don't send out, you know, Christmas cards with me and my kids with machine guns, like I think he did one time. But, um, yeah, you know, it would be a big loss. And I think it tells you everything you need to know about Donald Trump's political worldview that he will not lift the finger to help his party build, but he will take down anyone who criticizes him. It is all about punishing his own critics and the cult of personality and protecting his personal power and not about the party or doing anything. Right. I think he's far more passionate about defeating his enemies than he is about helping his friends. Yeah. With Cassidy, you go back to that to him, uh, uh, approving RFK junior and accepting his fake assurances and his private meetings, pretending that RFK didn't believe what he obviously believed in, like, no, you can't, you can't sell half your soul. He doesn't work like that. They're not divided. They're not divisible in that way. And so these guys that end up being reluctantly for Trump, they don't, they're not better politicians. They're just worse horse, you know. Uh, so, uh, you know, good riddance. I suppose I will say this is, there's a lot being made because we had Indiana and then Cassidy and then, and then, and then Massey. But this is sort of the last gasp of this. I mean, it's Louisiana too. Well, what do you expect? This is Trump's last midterms. Right. And do we think he's going to spend, he's going to be spending time in 28 going around doing primary problems, maybe, but like, also does it lose its force at some point? Right? Like the Trump's like a, and he's already a lame duck. Like he clearly has the juice to do it now. But as we get to 28 and then beyond that, like, what is this is? It's what we, what did we learn from it? Yeah, exactly. He's an addicted prick who only cares about himself and, you know, and I think we also learned that like, you know, nothing's breaking the fever in the Republican party. The party's broken and you have to, you've just got to defeat them at every level because all the ones who are left are completely loyal to dear leader. And that's about that. And I do think also he might have, he might have fucked himself a little because now you got angry Cassidy who still got votes left to take between now and the end of the year. Massey loses, Tillis has already been doing it. And so they can make his life more difficult. And I do wonder now between now and November, if this makes it like harder for Republicans to break away from Trump, even though primaries are over because they're, they're, they're going to get punished. I don't know. It's just, it, look, it remains sort of extraordinary, right? Bill Cassidy, like, could not persuade his own voters. He would have voted for multiple times in the past to stick with him once Trump turned, right? Like it just tells you something about the, the, the voters showing up in these Republican primaries and what they, what they want. And there was no, the fact that Cassidy was a vote for impeachment and that Trump had fully turned against him. There was nothing he could do to convince them that he was worth saving, nothing. Yeah. Potta America is brought to by hymns. ED is way more common than most guys think. Millions of guys deal with it at some point. And that's exactly why hymns offers us straight forward way to handle it. hymns connects you with licensed health care providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatments from home. Oh, it's some illegitimate ED treatment for this guy. I go out of my office the other day. I saw John Googling a real Chinese rhino horn like Jesus. That's terrible. Yeah. That's fun on you. No awkward appointments with hymns. No pharmacy lines. You see a pharmacy line out the door. Everyone's looking for their boner pills. Yeah. That's right. Just complete a simple online intake and a provider will review your information. Determine of treatment is right for you. I'm here to pick up the medicine for people who have a too big of a penis. Yeah. 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Viagra is a registered trademark of Beatrice specialty LLC. hymns is not affiliated with or endorsed by Beatrice. It's been a bit since we talked about the the stalemate in Iran. Trump posted on Sunday that quote, the clock is ticking for Iran to make a deal. But by Monday, the clock apparently restarted. Trump posted that the US quote will not be doing the scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow, aka Tuesday. The day you're listening to this because the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE asked him to hold off due to serious negotiations that are now taking place. Trump did add that the US is prepared to attack Iran quote on a moment's notice in the event that an acceptable deal is not reached. On Monday, it was also reported that Iran sent its latest peace proposal through Pakistan to the US, which the White House seems likely to reject, even as the Pentagon and Israel are quote, engaged in intense preparations. The largest since the ceasefire took effect for the possible resumption of attacks against Iran, according to the New York Times. What do you make of the back and forth here, Tommy? Like any any chance that Trump's latest threat to destroy Iran got them closer to a deal. I'll scare them into it. I don't think so, but we just talk about these statements where he named checks a bunch of autocrats. They're so weird. You don't have to do that. But he's always like on behalf of the great and highly respected field marshal Asim Munir, I've decided not to like, exterminate Iran, you know, with the delivery date for that plane is supposed to be the fourth, but he once moved up for his birthday for the Qatar. So he wants the Qataris to get that plane there fast. It's the same way that he does the like, you know, personality stuff with G, like he enjoys the idea that governing doesn't involve anyone except the people in the room. There's no people deciding, right? They're just great men making big decisions together at a collaboration and friendship. And so he's not doing it for the good of the country. He's doing it because he was, he has this great rapport with these leaders. The Pakistanis in particular, like they cut a big crypto deal with the world liberty financial. So that's why he likes them. But like you do five seconds of research into the great and respected field marshal and you find the UK authorities have charged him with torture and crimes against humanity. That's a guy's like name checking. But regardless, of course, there's no, I don't think they're any closer to a deal. I don't know. I assume we're in the same place around things. They have a lot of leverage because they can close straight or moose. They know Trump is weakened politically. They know that he wants out of this. He doesn't want to go back to war. And so they're going to wait for the United States to walk back some of the more maximalist positions or just get sick of the shit and move on. Just imagine a sort of some sort of Iranian underling kind of going down the stairs into the, into the bunker where the, where the, the recuperating itola is like pointing at the CNN numbers and saying, look, look, we got it. We got him right. We got Nate Kohn. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, a run, there's always leaks still like, but Ron reportedly has up to 75% of its missile stockpile. But all of its, basically almost all of its infrastructure along the street or from moose is operational for them to show it down. So I, they could always make things worse. Straight to for moose also now has its own Twitter account. Doesn't see that. Yeah. Like, uh, Harle the fog and San Francisco. No, they, yeah, they, they're calling it, you know, something more official, but it's like the Iranian government. Oh, it's the Iranian government. Yeah. Yeah. No, they're doing in Lego. They've made, no, they just made an official Twitter account. So we can get updates from the straight, just personifying the straight. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of cool. Like sort of red, green yellow. Like, sort of when you get the like, sig alerts in like California traffic, it's like, oh my god, the, the straighter moose is red today. Fuck. I'm going to be like, honey, I'm going to be late. I'm going to have traffic, holocaust helicopters over, reporting on the 9s and 5s. Uh, NBC reported last week to the administration's considering changing the name of the war from Operation Epic Fury to Operation Sledgehammer. We have to get a little more phallic again, uh, or something else entirely in order to quote effectively restart the clock with Congress. Is that how it works? New operation name. Now they can't get you. No. Now you can do whatever wars you want. Like, it's, I love this idea that, you know, the War, War Powers Act is such a weak piece of legislation that you can just do like a bureaucratic tweak and get around it. I mean, it's just crazy. Obviously, the same conflict, like, change in the name, doesn't matter. Every president since Nixon has claimed the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. They all hate it. But it was enacted over Nixon's veto in 1973. And so Congress has leveraged here if they want to use it. Republicans refuse to use it. Um, maybe they'll man up now, but we'll see Trump also wants us to know that he's not just focused on wars far away from home. He's focused on wars right now and backyards. There have been a bunch of rumblings about the long rumored regime change move in Cuba. Sources told the AP last week that the administration is looking to indict former Cuban President Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, even though he's no longer in power. Then over the weekend, Mark Pudo reported that according to classified US intel, Cuba has over 300 drones and has recently considered launching them against US military targets and even Key West Florida, which could serve as a handy pretext for an invasion. Cuba's current President Miguel Diaz Canal responded on social media on Monday, writing the quote, Cuba poses no threat, nor does it have aggressive plans or intentions against any country, including the US and that a US attack would quote, trigger a bloodbath. Uh, was you make it the Cuba stuff? It seems like he's, uh, seems like he's gearing up. You want to kick us off on Cuba? I don't think we should go to war with Cuba right now. In the, in the Times poll, there was a question that was something like, when do you believe the US, uh, should launch a war against countries, uh, that have not attacked us? And there was like 70% or like, don't do that. Never. Don't do that. Unless someone has attacked us, we don't even go to war. Whatever Trump had come to believe about killing Soleimani, the getting majority out of Venezuela and how fun that was, uh, he sees the polls showing how unpopular the war in Iran is. I hope that that has at the very least chasing them from their kind of idea that they can be, uh, regime top players without it consuming their politics, but it's terrifying. It's terrifying to imagine that they're going to see what they're doing in the Middle East and decide that, uh, it needs to be brought closer down. Yeah. I mean, look, I'd read the story. It was such an obvious pretext to me. But I mean, look, I don't doubt the Intel, like, uh, is Cuba acquiring drones? Well, it's 2026 in every military has or is acquiring drones. I would be like not getting rifles or, you know, machine guns in World War I. So it also says, like the intelligence suggests the Cubans would respond to a US attack with drones, which again, it's going to say this ex history. You have to get way down to reality check, which is three paragraphs for paragraphs from the bottom till you find out that, oh, by the way, the Intel is that it's retaliatory. This is not a preemptive strike on Miami. This is what they would do if we attacked them because the way I'll know if they did a preemptive strike on Miami, that would be suicidal because you would fucking flatten the country. So I also just would like to think that if we are on the verge of going to war with another country, that the evidence would not be laundered through anonymous sources into a daily tip sheet that perhaps they're going to worry about. Well, you know, we're like with you, pal. But that was, but that was in your time. Sorry, you're right. I do think though every indicator light is flashing when it comes to possible regime change operations, because there's this leak, which creates the pretext of this being an imminent threat. There was C.I. director John Rackliffe just went to Cuba and had this message from Trump. There is the indictment, the rumored indictment of Raul Castro, which was a very important part of the case for why they had to do what they did against Maduro, which is extract him from Venezuela and bring him to New York for prosecution. There's been all these reports of a huge increase of intelligence overflights by the U.S. So I would be very worried if I were Cuban official. And meanwhile, if you're a Cuban human being or citizen, like the United States has a blockade on that's allowed no oil and gas into your country. And people are starving to death. They have one to two hours of electricity a day. Hospitals can't operate. What we are doing is criminal. It is absolutely evil. You're starving a population of people to death. And the most likely outcome is that the government collapses. And there's a mass exodus in migration crisis to the United States, which MAGA has told us they do not want to happen. I don't understand what these lunatics are fucking doing here. But it is just it is utterly immoral, just a horrific, horrific policy right now. I think that the insane thought running through Donald Trump's head is his response to launching a disastrous war in Iran that is unpopular, that has cost us billions of dollars, that is spiked gas prices everywhere is, I got a launcher war that's more popular and easy. I got to go back to the Venezuela model because they all think that Venezuela was some big fucking success, right? And so it's like, that was an easy one. So I got to get my mojo back by going to invade Cuba now that Iran is a big fucking mess. It's just insane. Do you see Rubio in his Maduro tracks? Yes. Like this all just a game. It's all just trolling. It's all content. I don't think it was that flattering. No, I think it was I I talked this in love to leave it, but I do think Maduro wore it better. But the, and I'm even joking. I can just look more comfortable there. Like Rubio looked like the suit was wearing him. But I was looking at that. I was like, why are you doing this? I forget like he was a little pose too. Wasn't like, there was a lot of pose, a lot of pose. But like I was looking at it. I was like, what, what are we supposed to? Okay, look, what is this meant to, but boy, you're tough. You're wearing the same clothes. Close, like, what was the message? And I now, I'm like, oh, it was just about how, how, like, what happened, we'll do this again. Like, we're gonna do this, is it a Cuba thing? Like, what the fuck was the outfit? What are my men to take from this photo, Steven Chung? - Yeah, that's a good question. I agree with you. I do think Trump wants to change the channel and kind of get us onto a new topic that is Neuron that makes him sound tough again. I do think, though, that Cuba falls in the Venezuela around Cuba, axis of evil bucket of like, eocons telling him, "Sir, you'll be a historic figure, sir, "if you make big changes here." - Right. - And he's down-- - Do you know it will garl your balls on it? - Well, I mean, you don't need to do something else to get that, that's already happening, that's priced in. But, you know, he's also in Florida surrounded by a bunch of very, like, rich, hard line, you know, Miami Cubans who, you know, have been waiting for this for a long time and, you know, want their real estate assets back on the island. So, I hope I'm wrong. Maybe I'll fucking Kubano or, you know, like, whatever Wall Street will make up a new term for it, it's not gonna be stupid, but, I like, it does seem like it's nerve-racking. - Well, if we, if he doesn't do Cuba, then there's always Greenland. Remember the critical national security issue of Greenland, a quick refresher of the back in January after threatening to invade Trump did a taco. It announced the quote, "Framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland." And in fact, the entire Arctic region, well, the New York Times is now reporting that the negotiations around that framework have Greenland officials quote worried as U.S. proposals quote, "A amount to a major imposition on Greenland's sovereignty." Yeah, I bet. Greenland specifically concerned about Trump's June 14th birthday and July 4th is upcoming dates where Trump's attention could swing back around to them as he starts thinking about his legacy. Unfucking real. What do you think, do those concerns well-founded? What do you think about the Greenlandic concerns expressed in the New York Times piece? - Let's just pause and sit in the idea that the Danes are concerned that Trump will get more bella coasts around his birthday. That's where we're at. - That's what we do. - That's turning 80. - He's turning 80. - You never know, the America's turning 250. - Yeah. - They're not going to be content with just the fireworks. - No, no. You're going to want to get some-- - No, they want Greenland. - Somebody's got to give him a little, he wants it. Look, he wants it the great at the end of his name. He knows that when the Russians got more territory, they got to be the great. So he just got to find some fucking chunk of land somewhere. - Get me Cuba, get me Greenland. - I just, make Venezuela the 51st day. - Something, we got to expand the map. - I can't believe we're talking about this again. This sucks. It's so crazy. It's like, do you guys see the Tim Dillon bit? We said we're not the high school bully anymore. We're the weird kid who may or may not have a gun. - Yes. - We got the quarterback. We're not the jock. We're the college kid who keeps going to high school parties. - And it really fucking freaked out by us. - And it has a gun. - That is us. That's a country. Good work, everybody. - That is it, that is it. - I think we made a mistake electing this guy. - Yeah. - Yeah, well. (upbeat music) - This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the tools you need to remote and get paid for your services in one platform, whether you offer consultations, events, or other experiences. Squarespace can help you grow your business. Squarespace offers a complete library of professionally designed and award-winning website templates with options for ever use and category. 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(upbeat music) Now that we just talked about Trump, I'm potentially trying to conquer several additional nations possibly because it would look cool on a map. It's probably a good time to mention that there's been a revival of the debate about Trump's age and fitness for the job. And whether Democrats should be making a bigger deal about it, Laura Negan at the Bullwork and Jonathan Lamire at the Atlantic are both out with big pieces arguing that it's time for Democrats to make it a bigger issue. We get subscriber questions about this a lot. We also see a lot of folks on social media making the argument that if you're not making as big of a deal about Trump's age, you were about Biden's, you're being hypocritical. So in the spirit of open dialogue, I guess we're going to debate it. It's debate it. Austin, Austin's bringing out a vote save America mug with three positions in it. So I'm not going to look till we out. Let's all open at the same time. Pro, meaning it's something we should talk about more. Anti, you can guess what that means. And moderator. Okay, great. I am the moderator. I am anti. Wow. I'm pro bitch about it's fucking owned. Um, can I get a little bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum Um, can I get a little, uh, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, NBC music tonight. Uh, all right. Uh, are we moderating this debate? Uh, John, you will be arguing the Democrats must make a greater issue out of Donald Trump's age. Tommy will take the con. Uh, you have the opening statement of 30 seconds. Uh, did, did Joe Biden, uh, lose the last election or have to drop out of the last election because he was tooled. Yes. Yes. Was it the biggest concern of every voter everywhere because everyone made a big issue and Republicans made a big issue of his age? Yes. Yep. So Donald Trump's hands are falling off right now. He looks like he looks like there's like a fucking bad, uh, morgue job on his hands before he got in the casket. Sure. He's basically melting before our eyes. He's got all kinds of bruises all over the place. Aaron Rupar's feeds full of it. All it's just purple. Okay. And yet, and yet Democrats are out there just talking about affordability and not talking about the fact that the president of the United States is decomposing before our eyes and Democrats won't talk about it even though these are the same Democrats that tried to push Joe Biden out of the race. Wow. A powerful argument. Tommy, your counter. Um, John, you ignorant slut. Uh, I don't want to get in between you and Aaron Rupar's feed and your little hand job issue there with the Trump. Um, but Trump is not, Trump is not running again. So none of this matters. Democrats have zero credibility on this issue after spending years pretending that they couldn't see Joe Biden's physical decline as he was shuffling around and sneakers and falling over sandbags. Every minute we spend talking about makeup on this decrepit old man's hands is a minute we are not spending talking about stock trades, the ballroom, Medicare cuts, things that actually matter to people. And, uh, yeah, the napping is weird admittedly. It's also very funny when the, with the White House, uh, says that he blinked for 10 seconds. Long blanks. These are long blanks. Admittedly, that's weird. But he still does a lot of events. He's out there all the time. He's doing rallies. He looks vibrant. He's a big looks vibrant. What are you talking about? You can't even stand up. You can't make a murder. All right. So let me, let me just throw some questions in each of your directions. I'll start or start with you. Tommy, uh, you do notice that there's a significant decline in how he communicates from today to how he communicated even four or eight years ago. That his cadence has changed. That he's not as clear. He is more meandering. He's posting all hours of the night. Like these are things that are, should be our liability. I think he's always done these things. I think he's always been kind of incoherent. I think he's always posted. He's never slept. But I, but I, I'm curious how you would explain the difference, right? Like he is, yes, you're right. He has always been this way. But I think it's indisputable that it is all worse. Like he is rambling more. He is, uh, it's the, it's the weep. But the weep is getting worse. Do you think it's getting, like, he's changing, depending on your perspective? Um, I think I, like, jokes aside, I think I don't know that I notice him that much more rambly than he used to be because he's always been rambly. Like he does look tired. He's legitimately falling asleep in events. It's noticeable. The hand stuff is weird. And by the way, they're clearly lying about the hands up because they initially said it was his handshaking hand. And then the other hand had the bruising too. So he also, he also keeps going to the dentist and no one dude. How many annual dentists trips? He's doing a lot of dentists trips. Yeah. He's doing a lot of physicals and things that no one's telling, no one's telling us why his health is the way it is. And there's no one's asking questions. And there's the doctor's office in the west wing. So you would only go to Walter Reed or Bethesda or wherever he's going now to get like specialized equipment. There's also dental. There's also the dentist office in my house. It's just like a good or special dentist. So John, question to you, how would a Democrat who was somebody who defended Joe Biden's ability to run again, uh, make this argument without seeming like their foolish. I was wrong about Joe Biden. And I should have said something earlier. And that's what I'm doing this time around because Donald Trump is in bad shape and he should not be leading the country. And any Republican that still supports him and that doesn't want to, you know, pressure the cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment, then they are just feeding into this cover up for Donald Trump's age in his dementia. And he is just putting us all at risk and Republicans won't do anything about it. And so when we, even though he's not running again, when we go into the midterms, we know that Donald Trump's approval rating is highly correlated with how Republicans are going to do in the midterms. And by talking more about how he has dementia and he is losing his marbles, then we should, we could get his approval even lower and that Democrats can then do better in the midterms. Last question for you to me. Joe Biden's age and Joe Biden's disapproval in the economy became linked. The fact that the economy was bad was a sign he wasn't up for the job. The fact he was up for the job made people out that he could fix the economy. We are trying to make an argument that Republicans, we have to win the House in the Senate, and that Republicans refuse to tell the truth about Donald Trump. Shouldn't the fact that Donald Trump is decomposing for our eyes, rambling at all hours, falling asleep in meetings, shouldn't we be saying these Republicans won't be honest about that, that who, why are they not telling the truth about this, what are we not knowing about this, shouldn't we be making this one of the lines of argument that we use when we try to accuse Republicans of not holding Trump accountable? Yeah, so allow me to flip flop on the issue, respond to your leading question. Clearly they're covering up something, right, like the guy is the multiple annual doctor visits, like this is crazy, it's all a pretext, we should push for more information. There is muscle memory here, right, like I think if we get people to like a critical mass of concern about this, they can, they will care. I also just, I think trouble hate it. If we call him a sad sick old man, he would hate that, so just working that in there could be fun. Now you argue the other side. Yeah, no, I'll argue the other side. Because I think Tommy's best point was he's not running again, like, and so what difference as Hillary Clinton once said, what's difference does it make if, if he's, if he is decrepit, if they are covering something up, he's like the reason this was a potent argument against Joe Biden is because Joe Biden was asking voters for four more years in office. Donald Trump will never ask voters for four more years in office. He might try to say, no, he won't, he might try to stay in office, but he's not going to ask voters for four more years. I mean, he might run for a third turn. That's not going to happen. Try that. He's going to try to just sit there and be like, I got the military park. Yeah, there's no one's going to let him run. But so he's not going to ask for you. So what is the purpose of Trump, what is the, if we're trying to win a midterm, what is the story we're trying to tell about Donald Trump that is most true? And the story that is most true is what you said at the beginning of this, at this episode, which is this whole term is a smashing grab. He wants to make as much money as he can. He's a megalomaniac who thinks that now he needs this legacy in history where he like conquers half the globe and he doesn't give a shit about people. He doesn't give a shit about people and he's never given a shit about people and that's a consistent story through time and whether he has dementia now or he's losing his marbles or not, like, doesn't really matter. So I think the way that I would square this is, I mean, that's right. Democrats. Because they have more passion about that now. Democrats paid a political price for defending Joe Biden and when people had concerns about his age, even after he dropped out, because it came to be evidence that Democrats couldn't be trusted more broadly. And my argument would only be, no, age should not be the central argument we make against Donald Trump. But if we can make the fact that Republicans refuse to be honest about not just Trump's corruption and unaccountability and brazen theft, but also just his rambling and crazy nonsense and you make every time he does that part of a story about how he's unfit, including because he's getting old, then that's part of why these Republicans can't be trusted. That's the best. I'm not. I love the best I can do for that. But even that, as you say, you kind of just like threw in corruption there, but it's like, so he's, he doesn't know what he's doing. He's crazy, but he's also smart enough to be out there stealing all the money. I just think that the incoherence is priced in. Like the weave is a thing that's like a joke, but it's also not a joke. You know what I mean? Like, people know he's a goofball. He's all over the place. He says weird shit. But also like, he's funny. He's big and imposing. He seems sharp at events a lot of times. And like, the handshit is very odd, but like, it's also weird. It's weird to make an argument that he used to be sharp when we were all saying he's been fucking crazy since he came on the scene in 2016. Yeah. It's weird for Democrats to be in the position to be like, you know what? He's just not up for the job. He used to be, but now he's not up for the job. I think, look, I think I don't think anyone should make that, that argument. I think if you go back and look at the debates with Jeb Bush, first the debate with Kamahar, it's like, there's been a crazy decline for him. He's putting that aside. Here's the thing that I find very annoying about a list. It's the same kind of practiced, like, like, obtuse-ness that some people on our side love to do. Like, how could you say this? If you won't say the same exact thing about Trump that you said about Joe Biden, then you're being a hypocrite. As if we can't see the difference between the way Joe Biden looked and the way Donald Trump looked. That Joe Biden was disappearing from the public. Look, if you think Donald Trump is too old for the job, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sure. Sure, sure. He's too crazy. He's too crazy. He's too crazy. He is too selfish. He's too much of a fucking dictator for the job. He's also the most accessible president we have ever had. He is on camera every fucking day. He's answering questions every day and, like, he seems vital. Yeah. Nuts loses the thread all the ways in which he's terrible and shouldn't be in office. He should be impeached and removed immediately. I'm not in charge of this. But, like, to act as if there isn't a big difference between the way Donald Trump is aging and the way Joe Biden is aging is to, once again, deny what we can see with their own fucking eyes. Yeah. But, to me, that is, like, all beside the point. Even if you can argue that back and forth or whoever thinks, you know, Joe Biden was worse, Trump was worse, whatever. But it's, again, the question is, to what end? To what end? He is a second term president. If Donald Trump was sitting here saying, "I'm a lot for more years," and we were trying to figure out how to defeat Donald Trump. The two-one end answer is you try to drive down as a mechanism where you make it an issue that other Republicans need to speak to and, like, suddenly there, vouching for him not being senile or older or whatever, I think we're a long way from here to there. Yeah. Because if you had a choice between what Republicans need to answer for, would you rather it be their cover-up for Donald Trump being too old, or they're saying nothing about the fact that he's literally stealing from taxpayers out of their pocket and launched a war that's strut up gas prices? Hand to make up or theft. Think you'd rather do that one. And if he really does-- Why not both? Okay, well, you only have so many things that you can say out of your mouth. And if it was so clear, right, like, if he was, like, look, I agree, he's in decline. There's not some magic words that Democrats can use to make something more of it. They can make it more of an issue, but they can't make it the issue. If Donald Trump was as having the kind of muttering debate that Joe Biden had, I guarantee you would be a big political issue, and it wouldn't be because Chuck Schumer decided it was on some given day. Yeah. That's a coma-sad, sick old man. Yeah, let's go to town. Let's go to town. Let's go to town. Get him in. Let's figure out if you got the right words. I won. Okay. Congrats. Congrats to our winner, John Lovett. That's our show for today, Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Pods in America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Safari, with Reed Churlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heffco, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellavive, David Tolls, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengal. Our staff is proudly unionized with the writer's Guild of America East. [Music]