The Bruised Hand in the Cookie Jar

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We also have Carlos Eduardo Espina, Simone Sanders-Townsend, Eugene Daniels, David Pakman, Jessica Tarloff, Heather McGee. And then all the other people that we've announced on the website. Plus more to come. Great list. Check out the full lineup and get tickets right now at CrookedCon.com. Love to see you there. That's CrookedCon.com. And our individual results may vary. See website for details. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Detour. On today's show, we're going to 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 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. I was waiting for you to do it. Pretend it's not happening. Sorry. I scratched my eye. That's don't don't don't get used to it. Everyone, hopefully. But first, before we start, tickets for Crooked Con 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 and Dan. 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 Crooked Con 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 Crooked Pods. Plus, you get exclusive subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer. Only friends, which is our extra episode of our secret extra episode of America that we do. And a whole bunch of other stuff. Substack newsletters, everything. Get the tickets for Crooked Con and all the info you need a Crooked Con dot com. Go to Crooked.com. Dot com slash friends to subscribe to friends of the pod. And we can't wait to see you at Crooked Con. 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 percent in their new poll. That is a record low for him and for both terms in all New York Times Sienna polls. And midterm voters also favored Democrats by 11 points, 50 to 39 percent over Republicans. 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 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 health care 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? Well, why did that even really sold it? Yeah. Trump Rx is the biggest thing in medical. It's the biggest thing in medical. Biggest thing in medical. You could tell because there's a doctor here. You could tell he didn't like the event because he cut it really short because it kind of looked like where it looked like TEDx Toledo or something. It was just like Joe Gebbia 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. You know that it's just 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 in Cubans thing, what's what's his thing called? Cost plus drug 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 because 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. 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 got to 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. 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, 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 somewhat. 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 100% right there. I'd be right there. But just the fact that, like, right now, if this whole big, beautiful country of ours is 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 status 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 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. 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 that 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 straightover 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, you know, the glass half full thing of the Democratic Party was 50% say they will vote Democrat, 39% say they 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 now that when there's a poll this bad, it's sort of hard. It's almost like there's a crying wolf thing. Yeah, yeah. 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 Cohn points out in his write up of the poll, no president's approval rating has been under 38 percent for more than a few days in the last 17 years, according to our average. Now we've 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 this is worse than January 6th now for him. Well, the economic indicators are just so bad. I mean, 76 percent say they're concerned about their personal finance. It's the CBS poll. 67 percent say they're concerned about their personal finance. 67 percent say they're stressed. Like both of those have ticked up the last year. Only 29 percent in the CBS, recent CBS poll said the economy is good. 77 percent say their income is not keeping up with inflation. So like gas prices are just killing everybody. Yeah. 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 about 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 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 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 Netanyahu and Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Uh, 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, uh, that has happened to America's relationship with Israel. Yeah. I mean, Axios wrote a story this morning about some of this, 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 say that, like, it, I do think 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 Gottheimer'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, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, 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, Netanyahu says that 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 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 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, 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. I'm going 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. 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 government. There's 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 a 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 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, 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 two fifties coming up. And so if we call it a patriotic fund fund, we're going to have to do it. We're going to have to do it. We're going to 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 like the amount of number coming? How many, how much earnings did you lose when you were at the Capitol on January 6th? 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. We'll sue his own government. 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 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 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 he's got a public apology from the irs uh because he didn't pay and you know that is a that is something that could have come with this 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 using a ridiculous justification based on something that happened the obama administration which even conservative legal scholars have 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 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 i don't 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 gonna be five 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 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 just 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 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 he pretends he doesn't know about it it's like okay i don't know i don't know i don't know 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 vanza 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 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 friends. Basically, stuff that isn't great for your cat. But big pet food. Ooh, big pet food. 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Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate 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 about this. 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. Like cut her sentence down? Wow. I gotta go. 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 in, I'm closer to Tommy's camp. But like, here's the thing. She was sentenced to nine years, right? So she's a non-violent 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. But anyway. 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 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 motivations and feelings about the crimes they committed, what they've learned from it. That's the- Well, she was, I mean, but the no remorse thing was already factored in because she didn't, she was not remorseful 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 theories. I'm just saying, not just First Amendment, that we take people's motivations 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 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 to that is, I don't think it's going to happen. The answer is, we should allow a process to play out. She would have been re-sentenced. Why did this become a big public controversy? It is because the President of the United States is publicly pressuring the Governor of Colorado to commute Tina Peters' sentence. Now, look, I am 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. Like, 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, as recently as I believe last week, I have to go look at the exact timing, that if Trump, 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. Well, right. But it just, it goes to, like, the reason somebody who even commits a, 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, this is 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, like, a huge problem. Like, it 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. After listening to this thoughtful debate, I still don't give a shit. I might care less, actually. I don't want to be saying this. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, I would say that I'm. It is interesting. I would say that it's, yeah, it's more interesting to me in that, like, I think that, I think he might have 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 Republican prosecutor was against this and said that you should talk to the people that were impacted by Tina Peters' schemes before you'd make this decision. He's also a prosecutor. Well, sure. That's how prosecutors are. But the. There'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. 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 sentences that way. 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 on 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 Peters 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 get. 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? And 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 impeachment. 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 managed by his children. So there are, quote, no conflicts of interest. Seems fine, right? This is, did they really? 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. Yeah, right. That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, that's not how a blind trust works, right? Again, this is part of the political smash and grab job. I mean, they're making money everywhere. This is crazy. So 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. So 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 with Meta. Then there was a half a million to a million dollar position a week before the Commerce Department announced some 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. This is such a coincidence. Paul Pelosi somewhere is like, what the fuck, man? I could have been doing this so much better. I'm like, Jim Cramer now. Do you see the clip of Jim Cramer? 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. Yeah, he's trading. Got nothing to say about it? What? Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Whoa. 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. He's stammering because he can't figure out what to say about this. But when I was watching, I 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, 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 be there. 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, 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. Right. You had to just do corruption. Well, like the watches, the hotel rooms, 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. Two hundred and eleven and six hundred and eighty seven million dollars. So that's a pretty good quarter. It's also like the, just the volume of trading. Bloomberg interviewed this guy, Eric 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. So I didn't, this is like the practical, like the practical way in which this is being done. Like, is there a team that is doing this? Right. Is there a team that runs through there? Like, it feels like they've got like, um, uh, like, uh, uh, Christopher Moltisante trying to like push what this is like. He's got like some fucking back office in New Jersey somewhere with computers. No, it's just Baron Trump in the outer oval with a shitload of Adderall. I was going to say, 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 that I have the BLS data. That's just because he's got the briefing book. Yeah. But again, they took like, uh, seven transactions related to Boeing. One was between one to $5 million. Like the biggest deliverable. 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 because they did a shitty job. We're still uses proof that see, 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. Got to 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 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'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, uh, 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 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 Pete going to do? That seems like bad timing. It was like, you need him for that. Yeah. You don't. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. Um, who's going to drink the booze too early 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 got to schedule a minute for the first thing he tells me every time I call him. Massey, you're a 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 in the world to get into. This is terrible. So, I've got even better genetics than you. I didn't realize how wrong they were. I kind of want him to lose now. That was brutal. I was rooting for him until just then. I'm doing the same. He's going for it, you know? Put that, put that out there. You got to be wary of the Trump impression, you know? Don't, don't do it unless you really feel good about it. You got to 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. You know, like, he thought he could, like, appease MAGA by voting for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and end 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. So, would I 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 is a different story. Like, he's the reason we have the Epstein files because 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, you know, like, we 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, you know, it would be a big loss and I think it tells you everything you need to know about Donald Trump. 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 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 approving RFK Jr. and accepting his fake assurances and his private media. He's 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. Yeah. So are, 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 Massey. But this is sort of the last gasp of this. I mean, it's Louise. It's Indiana, too. Like, well, what do you expect? This is like 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 challenges? Maybe. But like, also, does it lose its force at some point? Right. Like that Trump's like 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 that? Yeah. 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, nothing's breaking the fever in the Republican Party. The party's broken. And you've got to massively you've 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's still got votes 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. 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 getting they worry that they're going to get punished. I don't know. It's just look, it remains sort of extraordinary. Right. Bill Cassidy, like, could not persuade his own voters. He would 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 vote the voter 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. 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. No awkward appointments with hims. No pharmacy lines. You have to see a pharmacy line out the door. Everyone's looking for their boner pills. Yeah. It's wild. That's right. 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If you believe in democracy, community, and fighting for the future, now's the time to do it. To grab your tickets to CrookedCon at 2026, head to CrookedCon.com to get your tickets now. One treatment may be right for you. Learn more at OrderlyMeds.com. That's OrderlyMeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. It's been a bit since we talked about 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 U.S., quote, will not be doing the scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow, a.k.a. 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 U.S. 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 U.S., 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 attack. What do you make of the back and forth here, Tommy? Like, any chance that Trump's latest threat to destroy Iran got them closer to a deal, scared them into it? I don't think so. But can we just talk about these statements where he name 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 Mounir, I've decided not to, like, exterminate Iran. You know, the delivery date for that plane is supposed to be the fourth but he wants moved up for his birthday. 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, yeah, 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 who's like name checking. But regardless, like, 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. Iran thinks they have a lot of leverage because they can close straight over moves. 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 U.S. to do that. to do that. to do that. to do that. to do that. to do that. to do that. to do that. Just imagine sort of some sort of Iranian underling kind of going down the stairs into the into the bunker where the where the the recuperating Ayatollah is like pointing at the Siena numbers and saying, look, look, we got him. We got him right where we got to make cone. Yeah. And, you know, Iran, there's all these leaks still like Iran reportedly has up to 75 percent of its missile stockpile. All of its basically almost all of its infrastructure along the Strait of Hormuz is operational for them to shut it down. So they could always make things worse. Strait of Hormuz also now has its own Twitter account. Does it? Yeah. Like Carl the Fog in San Francisco. No, yeah, that's that they're calling it, you know, something more official, but it's like the Iranian. Oh, it's the Iranian government. Yeah. Yeah. No, they're doing it in Lego. They've just made an official Twitter account so we can get updates from the Strait. Just personifying the Strait. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of cool. Like sort of red, green, yellow, a lot of red, like sort of when you get the like SIG alerts in like California traffic, it's like, oh, my God, the Strait of Hormuz is red today. Fuck. I'm going to be like, honey, I'm going to be late. I'm going to have traffic helicopters over reporting on the nines and fives. NBC reported last week that the administration is considering changing the name of the war from Operation Epic Fury to Operation Sledgehammer. We have to get a little more phallic 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 World 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. It's obviously the same conflict, like changing the name doesn't matter. Every president since Nixon has claimed the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. They all hate it. But it is the same thing. They all hate it. They all hate it. They all hate it. They all hate it. They all hate it. They all hate it. They all hate it. They all hate it. They all hate it. They all hate it. 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 in our own backyard. So 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, Marco Puzo, the president of the AP, reported that, according to classified U.S. intel, Cuba has over 300 drones and has recently considered launching them against U.S. military targets in even Key West, Florida, which could serve as a handy pretext for an invasion. Cuba's current president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, 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 U.S., and that a U.S. attack would, quote, trigger a bloodbath. What do you make of the Cuba stuff? It seems like he's gearing up. You want to kick us off? I don't think we should go to war with Cuba right now. In the Times poll, there was a question that was something like, when do you believe the U.S. should launch a war against countries that have not attacked us? And it was like 70% are like, don't do that. Don't do that. Unless someone has attacked us, we shouldn't go to war. Whatever Trump had come to believe about killing Soleimani, getting Maduro out of Venezuela, and how fun that was, he sees the polls showing how unpopular the war in Iran is. I hope that that has at the very least chastened them from their kind of idea that they can be regime topplers without it kind of 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 it needs to be brought closer to home. Yeah, I mean, look, I read the story. It was such an obvious pretext to me. But I mean, look, I don't doubt the intel. Like, is Cuba acquiring drones? Well, it's 2026, and every military has or is acquiring drones. That would be like not getting rifles or machine guns. That would be like not getting guns in World War One. So it also says, like, the intelligence suggests the Cubans would respond to a US attack with drones. Yeah, I was gonna say this Axios story, you have to get way down to reality check, which is three paragraphs, four 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 we all know if they did a preemptive strike on Miami, that would be suicidal, because we'd 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, Judy Miller would like a word with you, pal. But 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 is 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 just it is utterly immoral, just 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 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. Very possible. Did you see Rubio in his Maduro tracks? Yes. Like it's 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 it and I'm going to leave it, but I do think Maduro wore it better. 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 like, why are you doing this? He was a little posed too. It wasn't like something very posed. It was a lot of pose, a lot of pose. But like I was looking at it, I was like, what are we supposed to? Okay, look, what is this meant to? But boy, you're tough. You're wearing the same clothes. Like what was the message? And I now I'm like, oh, was this about how like what happened? We'll do this again. Like we're going to do this. Is it a Cuba thing? Like what the fuck was the outfit? What am I meant to take from this photo, Stephen 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 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. And he's down. It will gargle your balls. 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, hardline, 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 stupid, but I like it does seem like it's nerve wracking. 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 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 U.S. proposals, quote, 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. Listen to them as he starts thinking about his legacy. Un-fucking-real. What do you think? Are 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 bellicose around his birthday. That's where we're at. That's what we do. He's turning 80. You never know. America's turning 250. Yeah. The end of life crisis. They're not going to be content with just that. 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 the great at the end of his name. He knows that 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 Cuba. Get me Greenland. Just somewhere. Make Venezuela the 51st state. Something. We got to expand the map. I can't believe we're talking about this again. This sucks. It 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're not the quarterback. We're not the jock. We're the college kid who keeps going to high school parties. And it might be a pedophile. Freaked out by us. And has a gun. That is us. That is the country. Good work, everybody. That is it. That is it. I think we made a mistake electing this guy. Yeah. Yeah, well. 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. No experience required. Every dream needs a domain. Squarespace Domains makes it easy to find the best name for your business at one fare. All. Inclusive price. No hidden fees or add-ons required. 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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, Austin's bringing out a Vote Save America mug with three positions in it. So I'm not going to. 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. OK, 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. The Democrats must make a greater issue out of Donald Trump's age. Tommy will take the con. You have the opening statement of 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 feeds full of it all. It's just purple. OK. Just all. And yet and yet Democrats are out there just talking about affordability and not talking about the fact that the president 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. Um, John, you ignorant slut. Uh, I don't want to get in between you and Aaron Ruppar's feed and your little handjob issue there. with uh the trump um but trump is not 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 uh yeah the napping is weird admittedly it's also very funny when the the white house uh 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 you can't make him a martyr all right so let me let me just throw some questions at any trip your direction i'll start 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 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 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 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 a difference and i think it's a difference and i think it's a difference it's indisputable that it is all worse like he is rambling more he is uh it's the weave but the weave is getting worse do you think it's getting like he's changing depending on your better um i think i i 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 the 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 hand shaking 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 doing 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 office yeah so you gotta go to a special dentist so john question you how would a democrat who was somebody who was a doctor who was a doctor who was a doctor who was a doctor who defended joe biden's ability to run again uh 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 uh feeding into this cover-up for donald trump's age and his dementia and he is just putting us all at risk and republicans are just 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 uh 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 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 uh 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 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 what respond to your leading question um clearly they're covering up something right like the guys the multiple annual doctor visits like this crazy it's all pretext we should push for more information um there is muscle memory here right like i think if we get people to like a critical massive concern about this they can they will care i also just like 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 now you argue the other side yeah no i'll argue the other side because i think tommy's best 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 term that's not gonna happen he's gonna try that he's gonna try to just sit there and be like i got the military just part of it i'm not gonna run for a third term i'm not gonna yeah there's no one's gonna let him run um but so he's not gonna ask for you 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 uh at 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 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 i'm more passionate about the yeah no democrats paid a political price for for defending joe biden uh 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 uh no age should not be the central argument we make against donald trump but if we can uh make the fact that republicans refuse to be honest about not just trump's corruption and and 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 in 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 yeah no i know that's the best i can do but even that as you say that like you 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 hard enough to be out there stealing all the money i just think that the incoherence is priced in like the 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 hand shit 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 it's weird just not up for the job he used to be but now he's not up for the job i i think look i think i don't think anyone should make that that argument i think if you go back and look at even about like the debates with jeb bush first the debate with kamala harris like there's been a crazy decline but even putting that aside here's the thing that i find very annoying about all this this it's the same kind of practiced like obtuseness 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 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 looks like that joe biden was disappearing from the public look if you think donald trump is too old for the job i i'm i'm i'm sure sure i totally agree he's too old he's too mean he's too selfish he's too he's too much of a fucking dictator for the job he's also the most 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 to act as if there isn't a big difference between the way donald trump is aging the way joe biden is aging is to once again deny what we can see with our own fucking eyes yeah but yeah and but to me that is like all beside the point it even if you can argue that back and forth or whoever thinks you know joe biden was worse or trump was worse whatever but it's again the question is to what end to what is a second term president if donald trump was sitting here saying i'm going for more years and we were trying to figure out how to defeat the two one answer is you try to drive down his negativism or you make it an issue that other republicans need to speak to and like suddenly they're vouching for him not being senile or old or whatever i think we're a long way from here to there yeah and because we would if you had if you had a choice between what republicans need to answer for would you rather it be uh 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 pocket and launched a war that shot up gas prices hand makeup or theft think you'd rather do that one and and if he really why not both okay so many things that you can say out of your mouth and if it was so clear right like if he was real like look i agree he's in decline um 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 as having the kind of muttering debate that 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 that's a calm a sad sick old man yeah let's go to town let's go to town get a man figure out if you got the right words um i won okay congrats good for you congrats to our winner john love it that's our show for today dan and i will be back with a new show on friday pods of america is a crooked media production our show is produced by austin fisher saul rubin mckenna roberts and farah safari with reed churlin elijah cone and adrian hill our team includes matt de grote ben hefcoat jordan canter charlotte landis carol palaviv david tolls mia kelman ryan young and naomi single our staff is proudly unionized with the writers guild of america ♪ ♪ Right now, the midterms are the biggest story in American politics. 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