The Bruised Hand in the Cookie Jar

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And by the end, actually feel like you understand. Okay. 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 Wright 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. This is LeVar Arrington from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Let me tell you about Xero. That's X-E-R-O. Xero is a financial management platform that loves giving small business owners the clarity to have the confidence in their numbers. 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We'll also talk about how Trump's revenge tour came for Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and is coming for Congressman Thomas Massey in 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. Just bad advice. Just put it in an index fund. Yeah, 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. Speaking of old men, check out four of us over here. He's going to sit here with this guy who's got his fucking nerds got his glasses on and pretend it's not happening. Sorry, I scratched my eye. Don't get used to it, everyone. Hopefully. But first, before we start, tickets for CrookedCon 2021 or 2026 are on sale now for everyone. Come hang with us November 5th through 7th in Washington, D.C. for live shows, panels, and a big fun party to celebrate and or mourn the 2026 midterms. See? I added mourn because Dan. Dan's so superstitious, you know. Crooked's Friends of the Pod get a subscriber-only price. So if you want a subscription loaded with exclusives and a discounted CrookedCon ticket, be sure to join Friends of the Pod. There's all kinds of benefits that come with that. Uh, no more ads when you're listening to any of these, any of your favorite Crooked Pods. Plus you get exclusive subscriber-only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, Only Friends, which is our extra episode of, it's like our secret extra episode of Pod Save America that we do, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Substack newsletters, everything. Uh, get the tickets for CrookedCon and all the info you need at CrookedCon.com. Go to Crooked.com slash friends to subscribe to Friends of the Pod. And, uh, we can't wait to see you at CrookedCon. 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 in, for both terms, in all New York Times Siena polls. Um, and, uh, the, and midterm voters also favored Democrats by 11 points, 50 to 39% over Republicans. Uh, the president's, biggest liability in the poll remains his handling of the cost of living, which his political strategists keep hoping he'll pretend to care about, as evidenced by Monday's White House event on his, uh, his discount drug website, TrumpRx. Uh, 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, 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. TrumpRx is the biggest thing in medical. It's the biggest thing in medical. Biggest thing in medical. You can tell 'cause there's a doctor here. You can tell he didn't like the event 'cause he cut it really short. 'Cause it kind of looked like, Where were they? It looked like TEDxToledo or something. It was just like Joe Gebbia in front of a giant screen. The whole thing was embarrassing. Mark Cuban was there. TrumpRx, uh, by the way, it's not a platform for buying medications. Do you know that? It's just a, it's, it's a, 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, and then Amazon and, and, and Cuban's thing. What, what's, what's his thing called? Cost Plus Drugs. Cost Plus Drugs. Um, you know, they work with the federal government to have some discounts on some extra drugs, but also if you have insurance, it 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 a, it's not weird. It's not, it's certainly not the biggest thing since medical. No. Um. What stood out to you guys in the New York Times poll? 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 and planning to vote for Democrats, but then are ultimately not super satisfied with Democrats either. I was surprised to see that, uh, 70% of people say they are dissatisfied with the Democratic Party and only five percent are very satisfied, which is a third of the number of people that are very satisfied with Trump. And I, I get being, look, Republicans are in power. This is representing people that hate Democrats. It's represented by people that wish Democrats would fight more. It's represented by Democrat. 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, I would be, I would be unsatisfied. I'm unsatisfied, baby. I'm unsatisfied. But then, but then when they gave me the generic ballot thing, I'd be right there. But just the fact that like 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? Right. Who are those 5%? I love everything they're doing. Can't wait to see him on tour. Like some of the some of the staffers, maybe. I don't know. Some staffers. Relatives. Couple of folks on Blue Sky. Mm hmm. 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 there was a number on AI that I thought was just interesting that only 16% of people think I AI is more good than bad. The vast majority are either undecided or think it's more bad than good. So it comes in a weekend where there's all these commencement addresses where students are booing the mere mention of AI. Yeah. Which I love. You can tell there's something afoot 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 poll said they think they're going to war with Iran. Was the wrong decision, including 73% of independents. That is pretty clear cut. And it's not going to get better as this thing kind of drags out and the Strait of Hormuz 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, you know, the glass half full thing of the Democratic Party was 50% say they will vote Democrat, 39% say they will vote Republican in the midterms. So it's one of the better numbers of that nature I think we've seen in a while. We've been saying Trump bad for so long, long now that uh when there's a poll this bad it's sort of hard it's almost like there's a there's a crying wolf thing yeah yeah um or like you know not trump's i mean trump's always been bad but like this is it for trump things that the walls are closing in but nate cone points out in his write-up of the poll 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 um but that is the last president to be this unpopular for this long like it is the fact that this is 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 finances the cbs poll 67 say they're stressed like both of those have been ticked up at the last year only 29 in the cbs recent cbs poll said the economy is good 77 say they're income is not keeping up with inflation so like gas prices are just killing everybody yeah the to me like you look at it too what's hidden is just how many people have just they're done right you get 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 percent which has gone up by like eight points since the last time like so it's gone up from out of the third of the country it's rising up to nearly half are 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 uh uh stood out one other thing that stood out just about about what's happening with iran that you know we got a lot of internet debates about you know the anti-semitism and anti-zionism and the democrats position on israel meanwhile opposition to economic military support to israel has gone from 38 percent to 57 percent over the last two years two and a half to three years support has gone from 54 percent to 37 percent and so a lot of numbers trump's approval and so a lot of hand-wringing support for israel financial aid support for israel is the is just about as popular as donald trump in this country and so look this is not a 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 uh uh lay that at the feet of benjamin and yahoo and joe biden and donald trump uh but the sooner people make this law it's going to get worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and 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 axios read a story this morning about some there's the horrific uh anti-semitism being directed towards uh members of congress and voicemails and threats and all that and it's it's it's horrible and i would just it's important to separate like like virulent anti-semitism from people who are pro-israel and making the case for supporting israel like we i think we talked about this last week but like josh gotheimer's op-ed about anti-semitism and my party has a problem too like it starts with talking about actual anti-semitism and then halfway through it suddenly veers into oh and also democrats are voting against funding uh you know military aid to israel which is now a majority position that's that should not be in the same op-ed well then yahoo and he wants to wean off military support for israel so yeah right i wish i would say the uh the only other thing that stood out to me is on the generic ballot there's real movement just within the times poll right because every poll is it's 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 uh term second term in the time sienna polls and now it's d plus 11 like it's a big shift and then when they take it to 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 uh motivated voters end up turning out in a midterm more so than in a general election so um that's it's pretty big and it's late may you know not not a lot not a ton of time left knock on wood yeah well i mean look trump still has time to become a different person uh 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 dollars get it get it get it uh 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 because there's really no guardrails whatsoever um 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 as uh as clever as they think what about you guys this is particular look this is a trump second term is a political smash and grab job where he and his family and the people around him people do his bidding just take what they want get rewarded they take it from taxpayers they trade on poly market 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 ingratiating you know enriching himself and they made an end run around the judge in this case and they just cut a deal with another political appointee 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 and 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 no one will get mad at us shouldn't a fund to pay out restitution to people harm to the people who are in the country be based on like metrics and not like the amount where's the number coming right how many how much earnings did you lose it's great when you were at the capitol on january 6th when you're right i will say congress passed a law to give the department of justice basically an 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 no one thought to themselves maybe there'll be an administration that just has the fund being unlimited because the president will sue himself will sue its own well in fairness to people that wrote that law you would also assume that if it were to be so completely and obviously and brazenly 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 uh which we 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 uh personal attorney former personal attorney at the department of justice i want to have 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 she's like the deadline's may 20th that's when now it's may 18th and so you know basically proving the point that the judge was worried about uh they have decided to reach a reach a deal beforehand now the justice department uh 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 at the very least settle for zero dollars which has happened in in not exactly similar but cases that are akin to this in the past but instead they're doing this ken griffin yeah doing this exactly the same case his his taxpayer uh info was leaked and he settled it for zero dollars public apology from the irs uh because he didn't pay and you know that is a that is something that could have come but it said no they are proving that this they are in cahoots here by doing this kind of a settlement we have they're they're using a ridiculous justification based on something that happened the obama administration which even conservative legal scholars have to have have have batted down because it had that had actual specific people who were harmed by an actual specific policy unlike this my pitch is james comey tish james la monica mcgyver 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 they should sue the federal government like there are people that are being prosecuted by the government as far as we know publicly nobody on that list would not be kind of uh at least potentially uh um uh included in the people hurt uh that could receive from this 1776 my pitch is no one gets it give us the fucking money back that's our money we oh yeah to be clear 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 paces this is fucking yeah well they're not gonna i mean trump appoints the board it's five people he gets to hire and fire the board it's going to be five people and they're not going to get it back it's going to be five people and it's going to be five people and they're not going to get it back it's going to be five people and cronies dishing out money they don't like this is 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 ten thousand dollars 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 what this is just that i mean like 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 to our friends particularly people who don't care who are maybe criminals yeah uh 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 he was asked at the press conference today what would could this potentially go to people who committed violence in january 6 he said oh it's going to 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 it's like okay also it's a it's a it's a danger going forward too as we're heading into 2028 and donald trump and jd vance or whoever the fuck it is tries to stay in the white house after they lose an election and a bunch of people uh do their bidding for them to help them out what do you think they're going to think they're going to be like well if he stays in there and i help him out i'm going to be okay I'm going to get a pardon, might get paid. Great. You guys don't like my idea that James Comey tries to get into that fund? Come on. Yeah, I mean, I see what you're saying. I think he should write out the amount he wants. In shells. Yeah. Any shell-based crime should apply. Pod Save America is brought to you by Smalls. Smalls makes fresh human-grade food for cats. It's made from the same stuff you or I would eat, but formulated specifically to help cats thrive. Cats are obligate carnivores who need lots of real meat to stay healthy. But most cat foods out there use meat byproducts and cut their food with cheap grains, fillers, and artificial ingredients. Boy, you don't want that. You don't want that. You don't want cheap grains or fillers. Not for your feline friend. Basically, stuff that isn't great for your cat. Big pet food. Ooh, big pet food. They do this because it's cheaper to make. But what they save on cost, your cat pays for, with their health. 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Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the group. Within the first day. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Speaking of Trump allies getting away with crimes, what do you guys make of Jared Polis, governor of Colorado, Democrat, commuting the prison sentence of election denier, Tina Peters. 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 prison so that Trump could pardon her. Didn't do that. But now Polis has commuted her sentence. She was sentenced 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. I read JBL'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 may even go a step further. I think Polis might have done the right thing. By cutting her sentence down. Wow. Excuse me, boys. If you need me, I'll be at the fucking bulwark. Where the real libs are now. Go on. I'm not, 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, so 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 spouting election conspiracy theories, but that is protected first amendment speech. I thought we have to be consistent. Well, that's, but hold on, hold on. I appreciate that. But we understand that if someone were to say, hit somebody with their car and then publicly say that bitch deserved it, that that is free speech. You have the right to say that, but it does potentially inform the sentence. Sorry. Does it? Of course it does. Of course we allow remorse in people's, uh, uh, uh, uh, motivations and feelings about the crimes they committed, what they've learned from it. That's the, well, she was, she was, I mean, but the no remorse thing was already factored in because she didn't, she, she was not remorseful. Right. When she was sentenced, but that's what he didn't say. You didn't show remorse. He said, it's because you have these, these theories. I'm just saying, I'm just saying that we take people's, uh, uh, uh, motivations and, and, and, and expressions. I agree that people have 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, uh, that there is an incarceration problem in this country and that people are incarcerated for too long and that prison is, um, 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. That she would have been resentenced. Why is, why did this become a big public controversy? It is because, because the president of the United States is publicly pressuring the governor of Colorado, uh, to commute, uh, Tina Peters sentence. Now, look, I am sure Garrett 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. Uh, I, like she has kind of done the bare minimum of, of acknowledging that what she did was wrong. But if you go to her Twitter feed, her allies were saying, it's as recently as I believe last week, I have to go look at the exact timing that if Trump, that if, that if Tina Peters isn't released, uh, Trump should invade the state of Colorado. It is a non-violent offense. I mean, I don't think that should happen. Well, right. But it just, it goes to like the, the, the, the reason somebody who even commits a nut, look, there are 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 non-violent offense, but it goes to the core of what we are as a society, or 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, a huge problem. Like it just, I don't know that we'd be having this conversation if, 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. - After listening to this thoughtful debate, I still don't give a shit. You know, I, I might care less actually, than when we say I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. - I would 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've been the right thing. I do think, I would like to hear Jared Polis answer the question, why didn'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 out the sentence anyway? I would like to know that question. - I'd also say too, that the, 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. - He's also a prosecutor. - Well, sure. - That's how prosecutors are. - But community, but the- - There's also a defendant who pled guilty to, almost the same charges in the Georgia Rego case and was sentenced no time and probation. - Yeah, I mean, look, there's all kinds of unfairnesses and unequal application of sentences all across the country all the time. Like, if that were the case, you'd go and say, "Oh, well, there's somebody else who was given less." You can commute most, most sentences that way. But, but I think, look, in this one case- - And he commuted it. It wasn't just her. He commuted like, you know, it was like 35 or 50 commutations or something like that the same day. - I think he has to answer for whether or not he gave in to Trump's political 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 empathy turn for Tina Peter is when there are so many others who deserve it? That's all. - Yeah, and I don't think it should. 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 standard? Like, is there a process to reach the decision? Did it 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-- - Everybody's at a nine all the time these days. - I can't get there. I can get there. I can get to, like, your criticism, for sure. I can't get to, he should be impeached over this. I don't know if you guys saw that 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, bought $1 million 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. Now, I know this may look suspicious, but the White House did say that Trump's assets are in a blind trust. They're managed by his children. So there are, quote, "no conflicts of interest." Seems fine, right? right? I thought there was no blind trust. I thought they'd already previously said there wasn't a blind trust. Either way, managed by your children. They're saying it's a blind trust management. That doesn't make any sense. Again, this is part of the political smash and grab job. They're making money everywhere. This is crazy. Bloomberg reported Trump had trades that involved Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Meta, Visa, Citi, Boeing, Qualcomm, and GE. Top executives from all of those companies were on his trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. You don't think he's getting insider information? Having that access, talking to them, cutting deals with them? 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-1 business. He took a couple of huge positions in Nvidia right before they announced major news. There was a $1 to $5 million position a week before they announced a partnership. 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 U.S. 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 pat, every single, well, Jesus, I'm like Jim Cramer now. Do you see the clip of Jim? He just glitched out for 60 seconds. Can we drop it in here? Let's drop in the Jim Cramer clip. The president's been trading some Intel in the quarter. Yeah. Yeah, I, uh, yeah, you trade. Got nothing to say about it? What? Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hello. Yeah. All right, don't worry. We're not having technical difficulties here, everybody. What's funny about the Jim Cramer clip is that it's like, people are 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, 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, what are we, what are we, what, why is he stammering? He knows what's going on, but can't get in Jim Cramer's head, but we're just, no, no, don't live and run free inside of Jim Cramer's head. But the, the, like the, 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, um, 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, billion dollar crypto theft and the watches? Like why, like why, you know what I mean? Like, it just, it's just all of it's like leftover from the old world when you had to just do corruption with 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 and $687 million. So that's a pretty good quarter. It's also like the, just the volume of trading, uh, Bloomberg, interviewed this guy, Eric, uh, Dighton, who's the president manager, director at the wealth Alliance. And he said, I'm baffled in the 40 plus years of my time on wall street. This is an unusual amount of trading by any standards. We'd need to see the actual trades to try and understand why anyone would want to do that much trading. Like the practical way in which this is being done. Like, is there a team that is doing this? Is it sons through there? Like, it feels like they've got like, um, uh, like, uh, Christopher Moltisanti trying to like push what he's got, like some fucking, back office in New Jersey somewhere with computers. It's just Baron Trump in the outer oval with a shitload of Adderall. Yeah. Just like minority reporting it. Like I can see the future. I know what's going to happen at the commerce meeting next week. I know the new, I have the BLS data. That's just because he's got the briefing book. They took like, uh, seven transactions related to Boeing. One was between one to $5 million. 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 announcement was so underwhelming that the stock went down cause they did a shitty job, but still uses proof that C we see. It wasn't a good announcement. It's like, yeah, you, you thought it was tried to trade on inside information. It just turns out you suck at diplomacy. Like that was the problem. You're you're good at the crimes. You're bad at diplomacy deliver on that shit. Um, all right. So Trump's also doing his best to, uh, drag the Republican party down with him. Uh, on Saturday, he sent yet another message that dissent will not be tolerated when his chosen primary challenger, Congresswoman Julia Letlow took out Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, whose sin was voting to convict Trump and 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's trying to unseat in Tuesday's Kentucky primary. Massey has been the, uh, the strongest and kind of the only Republican in the house breaking with Trump on Epstein Iran and the big, beautiful bill. Uh, Trump has been posting about Massey nonstop. I think right before he recorded, he did like a video from the oval, which is very legal and normal, uh, to just, to just tell people to vote against Thomas Massey. We're going to run the midterms on the hatch act. I assume. Right? Yeah. That's yeah. He says he's, he's, he's, he's grabbing the $2 billion for his slush fund and then trading on Nvidia and Boeing. Yeah. Pete Hegseth was doing an event in Kentucky today, his personal capacity, 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 P gonna do? That seems like bad timing. It feels like you need him for that. Yeah. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. Um, who's gonna drink the booze twirly to say what will happen in the, uh, in the Massey race. But it certainly seems like Massey himself is staying loose. Uh, here he is on Sunday doing his best Trump impression. Whenever I call him, I gotta schedule a minute for the first thing he tells me. Every time I call him messy, you're sharp cookie. You went to MIT. You know, my professor was, uh, my uncle was professor John G. Trump. He was at MIT. 41 years. It's a record. And you know, I went to Wharton, which is basically the hardest school of the world to get into. Terrible. So I've had even better genetics than you. I kind of want him to lose now. I was, I was rooting for him until just then. I'm listening. He's going for it. You know, put that accent work on Trump impression. You know, don't, 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, it's too, it's too big a target anyway. Anyone have thoughts on the primary? Yeah. Look, I mean, how big of a deal this is on Bill Cassidy. Like fuck that guy. I, you know, like he, he thought he could like appease MAGA by voting for a Robert F Kennedy Jr and ended up kind of like selling his soul and his credentials as a doctor and it being worst of all worlds. And he knew better. And we know it because he told us as much before he flip flopped. And so would I rather have him in the Senate than his replacement? Yes, I would. But, uh, ultimately I don't think it's going to make a big difference. Thomas Massey is a different story. Like he's the reason we have the Epstein files. Cause he worked with Ro Khanna 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 on, 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 a finger to help his party build, but, 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, uh, approving RFK Jr. And accepting his fake assurances in 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 whores, you know? Yep. Uh, so, uh, our, you know, good riddance, I suppose. I will say this is, uh, there's a lot being made cuz we had Indiana and then Cassidy and then, and then Massey, but this is sort of the last gasp of this. I mean, it's Louisiana too. Like, well, but what do you expect this is Trump's last midterms, right? And do we think he's gonna spend, he's gonna be spending time in 28 going around doing primary challenges? Probably. I mean, maybe, but like also does it lose its force at some point? I don't know. Right. Like the Trump's like a, an 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 a, what did we, what did we learn from that? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That he's a vindictive prick who only cares about himself and, you know, and I think we also learned that like, you know, the, uh, nothing's breaking the fever in the Republican party, the party's broken and you just gotta massively, you just gotta defeat them, uh, at every level because, uh, all the ones who are left are completely loyal to dear leader. And that's about that. Um, and I do think also he might've, he, he, he might've fucked himself a little, cuz now you got angry Cassidy who's still got votes, uh, left to take between now and the end of the year, Massey, Massey loses Tillis has already been doing it. And so they can make his life more difficult. Um, and I, I do wonder now between now, in November, if this makes it like harder for Republicans to break away from Trump, even though primaries are over because they'll, they're, they're, they're, they worry that they're gonna get punished. I don't know. Probably. It's just, it, look, it remains sort of extraordinary, right? Bill Cassidy, like, uh, uh, could not persuade his own voters. People that have voted for him multiple times in the past to stick with him once Trump turned, right? Like it just tells you something about the, the, the, the voters showing up in 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 them that he was worth saving. Nothing. Pod Save America is brought to you by HIMSS. ED is way more common than most guys think. Millions of guys deal with it at some point, and that's exactly why HIMSS offers a straightforward way to handle it. HIMSS connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatments from home. I want some illegitimate ED treatments for this. I went to my office the other day, I saw John Googling real Chinese rhino horn. I was like, Jesus, that's terrible. Yeah. Shame on you. 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So we thought it was time to get back out on the road and take a closer look at what's actually happening on the ground. I'm Erin Haines, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. And I'm Jennifer Palmieri, former White House communications director. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play Series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. That's X-E-R-O. Because we all 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 there'd be more information. Well, that was the New York Times. Sorry, you're right. 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 CIA director John Ratcliffe 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 was 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 US. So I would be very worried if I were a 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 and 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 utterly immoral, just a horrific, horrific policy right now. I think that the insane thought running through 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 to launch a 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's a big fucking mess, which is insane. Did 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 talked about this in Love to Leave It, but I do think Maduro wore it better, but the, I'm not even joking. Like it just looked more comfortable. 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 posed too. It wasn't like. There was a lot of pose, a lot of pose, but, but like I was, I was looking at it. I was like, what, what are we supposed to, okay, look, w what is this meant to, but boy, you're tough. You're wearing the same clothes. Like who, what, what, what, what was the message? And I, 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, what am I meant to take from this photo, Steven Chung? Yeah, that's a good question. I, I, I agree with you. I do think Trump wants to change the channel and kind of get us onto a new topic that isn't Iran that makes him sound tough again. I do think though that Cuba falls in the Venezuela, Iran, Cuba axis of evil bucket of like neocons telling him, sir, you'll be a historic figure, sir. If you make big changes here. Right. And he's down and he will gargle your balls. Uh, well, I mean, you don't need to do something else to get that, 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 don't, I hope I'm wrong. Maybe he'll fucking Cubano 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, it's nerve wracking. Well, if we, if he doesn't do Cuba, then there's always Greenland. Uh, remember the critical national security issue of Greenland, uh, quick refresher that back in January after threatening to invade Trump, did a, did a taco and 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 Greenlandic officials quote worried as us proposals quote amount to a major imposition on Greenland sovereignty. Yes, I bet. Um, 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 on fucking real. Um, what do you think to the, are those concerns well founded? What do you, what do you think about the, the, uh, the, the Greenlandic concerns expressed in the New York times piece? Let's just pause and sit in the idea that, uh, the Danes are concerned that the, that Trump will, will get more bellicose around his birthday. That's where we're at. That's what we do. That's turning 80. You never know. America's turning two 50. Yeah. They're not, they're not going to be, they're not going to be content with just the fireworks. No, no. You're going to want to get some Greenland. Somebody's got to give him a little, he wants to, he, look, he wants to have the great at the end of his name. He knows that the, that when the, when the, when the Russians got more territory, they got to be the great. So we just got to find some fucking chunk of land somewhere. Get me Greenland, just something Venezuela, the 51st state. He's just something we got to expand the map. Can't believe we're talking about this again. This sucks. It's so crazy. It's like, do you guys see the, 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. We're not the quarterback. We're not the jock. We're the college kid who keeps going to high school parties, might be a pedophile and has a gun. That is us as a country. Good work everybody. That is it. That is it. I think we made a 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 every use and category. No matter where you start, your website is flexible with intuitive drag and drop editing, beautiful styling options, unrivaled visual design effects, and more ways to list what you offer. 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We're in the final stretch of the midterms and the political map has only gotten more competitive. with new states and districts emerging as potential flips. I'm Erin Haynes, journalist and expert on all things Southern politics. That's X-E-R-O. It puts accounting payments, payroll and analytics all in one place. Xero's AI can offer insights to help you make your best move. Xero is the all in one to get business done. Now that we just talked about Trump 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. Lauren Egan at the Bulwark and Jonathan Lemire 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 as you were about Biden's, you're being hypocritical. So in the spirit of open dialogue, I guess we're going to debate it. Let's debate it. Let's debate it. Austin's bringing out a vote. Save America. With three positions in it. So I'm not going to look till we all, 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. Let's go, bitch. I'm about to get fucking owned. Can I get a little, like NBC music? Tonight. All right. I'll be moderating this debate. John, you will be arguing that Democrats must make a greater issue out of Donald Trump's age. Tommy will take the con. You have the opening statement. You have 30 seconds. Did Joe Biden lose the last election or have to drop out of the last election because he was too old? 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 it was like a fucking bad 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 Ruppar's feed's full of it. It's just purple. Okay. 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, you're a counter. John, you ignorant slut. I don't want to get in between you and Aaron Ruppar's feed and your little handjob issue there with the Trump. I think it would be a good one. 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 in 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 yeah, the napping is weird. Admittedly. It's also very funny when the White House says that he blinked for 10 seconds. Yeah, long blinks. These are long blinks. 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? He can't even stand up and do events anymore. You can't make him a martyr. All right. So let me just throw some questions in each of your directions. I'll start with you, Tommy. 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. These are things that should be a 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'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. It's the weave. But the weave is getting worse. Do you think it's getting like he is changing? Or better. I think like jokes aside, I think I don't know that I notice him that much more rambly than he used to be because I think 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 hand stuff because they initially they 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 dentist trips? A lot of dentist 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 a 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's office in the White House. So you've got to go to a special dentist. So, John, question to you. How would a Democrat who was somebody who defended Joe Biden's ability to run again make this argument without seeming like they're full of shit? 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 and his dementia and he is just putting us all at risk and Republicans won't do anything about it. And so 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 could get his approval even lower and the Democrats can then do better in the midterms. Last question for you, Tommy. 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 that he was up for the job made people doubt that he could fix the economy. We're trying to make an argument that Republicans, we have to win the House and the Senate and that Republicans refuse to tell the truth about Donald Trump. Shouldn't the fact that Donald Trump is decomposing before our eyes, rambling at all hours, falling asleep in meetings, shouldn't we be saying these Republicans won't be honest about that? 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? 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 to respond to your leading question. Clearly, they're covering up something, right? Like, the guys, 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, like, I think Trump will hate it. If we call him a sad, sick old man, he would hate that. So let's just work on that in there. It 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 difference does it make? 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 stay, 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 term. That's not going to happen. He's going to try to just sit there and be like, I got the military. Just park? Yeah, no one's going to let him run. But, so, he's not going to ask for, so, what is the purpose of, 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 episode, which is, this whole term is a smash and 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 think that's right. Democrats. You could say I'm more passionate about the anti-Side. Yeah, I know. Democrats paid a political price for defending Joe Biden 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 can do for you. Even that, as you say that, you kind of just threw in corruption there, but it's like so he doesn't know what he's doing and he's crazy, but he's also smart enough to be out there stealing all the money he possibly can. I just think the incoherence is priced in. The weave is a thing that's like a joke, but it's also not a joke. People know he's a goofball. He's all over the place. He says weird shit, but also he's funny. He's big and imposing. He seems sharp at events a lot of times. And the hand shit is very odd, but it's also 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. It's weird for Democrats to be in the position and 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 don't think anyone should make that argument. I think if you go back and look at the debates with Jeb Bush versus the debate with Kamala Harris, there's been a crazy decline. But even putting that aside, here's the thing that I find very annoying about all this. It's the same kind of practiced obtuseness that some people on our side love to do. 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. The fact that Joe Biden was disappearing from the public. Look, if you think Donald Trump is too old for the job, I'm. Sure. He's too crazy. He's too old. He's too mean. He's 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 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 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 our own fucking eyes. To me, that is all beside the point. Even if. You can argue that back and forth, whoever thinks Joe Biden was worse or Trump was worse or whatever. But again, the question is, to what end? He is a second-term president. If Donald Trump was sitting here saying, I'm going up for more years and we're trying to figure out how to defeat Donald Trump. The two-on-one answer is you try to drive down his negativism or you make it an issue that other Republicans need to speak to and suddenly they're vouching for him not being senile or old or whatever. I think we're a long way from here to there. If you had a choice between what Republicans need to answer for, would you rather it be they're covering 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 pockets and launched a war that's shot up gas prices? Hand make-up or theft? I think you'd rather do that one. Why not both? You only have so many things that you can say out of your mouth. If it was so clear. Look, I agree he's in decline. There's not some magic words that Democrats can use to make something more. They can make it more of an issue, but they can't make it the issue. If Donald Trump was having the kind of muttering debate that Joe Biden had, I guarantee you it would be a big political issue and it wouldn't be because Chuck Schumer decided it was on some given day. - That's a- - Calm a sad, sick old man. - Yeah, calm him down. - Let's go to town, let's go to town. I'm mad. Just figure out if you got the right words. I won. Okay. Congrats. Good for you. Congrats to our winner, John Lovett. That's our show for today. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farah Safari, with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellevive, David Toles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Long Play, our docuseries exploring the people and forces shaping the South, is back. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going, through their own reckoning in the South, too. Tune in on Mondays to Long Play series on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.