The Primaries Will Continue Until Morale Improves

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The system was up and running in no time, running before her, you know? We've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer an exclusive discount to our listeners. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting SimpliSafe.com. That's half off. It's SimpliSafe.com slash Cricut. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Cricut Con is coming up right after the election, and we have just added a bunch more great names to the lineup. We got Governor J.B. Pritzker coming, Senator Chris Murphy, and then over from the House side, Ilhan Omar, Robert Garcia, Sarah Jacobs, Jamie Raskin, Sarah McBride. 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 CricutCon.com. We'd love to see you there. That's CricutCon.com. Easy to understand your cash flow. You know exactly what's coming in and what's going out, so you can make smarter decisions that can help grow your business. Xero's AI can even offer insights to help you make your best move. It's powerful enough for an accountant and simple enough for you. Xero is the all-in-one to get business done. Learn more at Xero.com. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. Tommy Uthor. On today's show, we'll talk about the war with Iran, which claimed more American lives over the weekend and wounded dozens, which the Pentagon is trying to do. We'll also talk about ICE being back in the headlines after killing people in Texas and Maine. Let's talk about how the administration is responding and what we know about how Trump's deportation agenda is playing with voters, Latino voters in particular. We also have a bunch of news from the world of Democratic primary campaigns. Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson is all but certain to be the Democratic nominee to take on Susan Collins in Maine. There's more chaos in the Wisconsin governor's race. And AOC and Bernie rallied for Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan as his primary again. Instead, Haley Stevens heats up. Well, let's start with some big news from the weekend. Spain's 1-0 win over Argentina in the World Cup final in the Meadowlands, capping off an incredible tournament. No one is sadder about it ending than Donald Trump, who wasn't about to let a return to full-on war with Iran stop him from inserting himself into the closing ceremony. The president of the United States on the field. It's now, so they can edit him out of that. Australian broadcaster at the end there. Did you guys see the caption of the picture in The Guardian? No. Where Infantino is with Trump, and it's just the two of them. And the caption is, Gianni Infantino carefully explains to Donald Trump that he is not part of the Spanish national team. That's about right. The energy of accidentally realizing you're in the money shot of a beach wedding. You know, like that is what it reminded me of. they're about to do it get the fuck out of the way did you see the team that the players were doing the trump dance um and therefore really appreciating his involvement because trump did this to one of them and looking confused he just was like yeah i'm gonna milk a cow back to you like my guess is they're just happy because they won the world cup and this is the best day of their life that would be my guess as to why they're happy like for sure but if a monkey did a gesture to me at the zoo i'd do it back it wouldn't be a show of support for his politics i might not throw my poo back at him but right it's like yeah it's like it's cool to go to the game i'd go if i could go it's cool to present the trophy but like get out of the way dude and he also did this at the fifa world cup final in like 2025 and like you can see infantino trying to get him to leave the stage and he just won't do it he just basks in the glory of the cheering like he genuinely believes it's for him i would feel like imposter syndrome and run off there i think he also believes he's wanted there like like i'm donald trump everybody loves when i'm part of their stuff i i'd feel imposter syndrome if i was the president united states in the u.s one right like i would still say something and be like extra proud but i wouldn't get in the fucking picture and especially with spain like the nato summit a couple weeks ago he said quote i don't want anything to do with spain they're hopeless bad people he said call them bad people because they like didn't support the war with iran and didn't want us to use their bases did you see the usa today did a piece on uh the trump curse they're calling it the trump curse so awesome so i didn't know of all about all of these but uh so trump said before the the uh world cup final uh he didn't pick a side but he said it's hard to bet against messy yeah argentina loses uh trump intervenes to get the red card reversed u.s loses to belgium trump shows up at the nba finals it's the only game the knicks lose in 2025 trump goes to the washington commanders game they lose to the lions 44 22 that same year he goes to the rider cup the u.s loses they're calling it the trump curse it's so funny yeah the other thing about that commander's game is so he goes the commander's game the commanders get stomped by the lions and then at that same game alliance receiver named amin ross st brown did the trump dance and then the lions lose five of eight games and miss the playoffs it's even better yeah i think it's like basically there's there's three possibilities okay one is that it's luck the other is that he brings a terrible energy everywhere he goes right that he and that his that's documented right for sure like i think and that that that like corrupts anyone who's seen to be rooting for you can't help us someone playing knowing that trump is on your side allowed to infect you with the kind of negativity and failure that surrounds him i do think it's worth considering the third possibility uh which is much like odysseus discovering the cyclops on his way home due to his failure to observe like morality in the conflict in troy trump is being punished everywhere he goes why are we all catching strays then yeah well that's that's take it up with zeus my friend are we the are we odysseus's men hard time we are the ones being sacrificed it is i'm not saying it's a the punishment is it's not clean, you know? Can I tell you my favorite Trump sports story from over the weekend is there's a golfer named Bryson DeChambeau. Did you guys come across this? I saw you tweeting about this. He had a meltdown at the Open Championship. He got a penalty for like, I think just stepping in tall grass that would have gotten in the way of his swing and he got a two-stroke penalty. So he throws a hissy fit. Deserved. He totally deserved. Deserved. He throws a hissy fit and he sucks. He's annoying anyway. He throws his hissy fit. He threatens to not play the next day, basically quit the tournament and take his ball and go home. He takes all these rules officials, makes them visit the site and then he goes back. of it he threatens to call trump and tattle on the mean rules officials if they don't give him his way he also shut down the whole tournament too right they were all to wait hours and and they all had to wait for him to be done with his his uh uh fit and even the other players who are watching really like that yeah come on man yeah i mean this is what trump has created you know it's like everyone knows if they're friends with trump or they suck up to trump they can just tattle and get what they want or at least try to do that everybody's calling the manager right i want a table you get pulled over speeding i you know i know trump but sir you don't have a reservation i know the owner of the german broadcast of the world cup final so they cut to infantino and trump in the box they show them getting presented the trophy and the announcers go well that's a violation of all the rules those two are made for each other fascinated by power and by themselves too good stuff hit it's good stuff tough tough to hear from germans the cool like the cool part of the story right that sort of suggests the spanish team would not like trump's politics is one of the players a guy named nico williams his mom and dad walked 2 000 miles from ghana to spain she was pregnant with his older brother at the time uh like across the sahara desert barefoot managed to get into this tiny bit of spanish territory to become citizens and then he's playing on the national team that's probably why he wouldn't like trump's immigration yeah wouldn't like his politics he wouldn't be possible with trump's politics. So, unfortunately, Trump trying to make the World Cup about Trump did steal the spotlight from the tournament's real hero. Let's play it. We put on the largest sporting event in the history of the world, and everybody, including from the white house to the to the fbi to our interagency partners to dhs to state locals to everybody to figure out how to get six and a half million people into the u.s and into these games without a single major security incident we have lived up to that measure because you guys have put in the time it's truly truly incredible we just can't say enough about the preparation and the execution it's been flawless he's in every shot i thought this was gonna like you know thanking like all the law enforcement officials who pulled this off it's like whatever it's fine every single shot of that video is cash patel imagine if we had a crooked all hands to celebrate a year of making great content and through it we played a montage of just our headshots no one would be surprised yeah and when i hey i gotta laugh lean with the chick i gotta say what my so i didn't watch that video before so we could see it live my reaction to that video is who is this for you know what i mean like who's getting jacked up to watch cash patel is it for donald trump because he wants you wearing a suit not like the weird thin hoodie t-shirt thing i think it's it's probably for trump it's also he's just in super defensive mode and he's just like i don't know what to do with this i don't know what to do with this now cash patel because he thinks everyone's attacking him unfair right but it's like you know you think i'm a drunk and you think i fucked this up and i tweet in the middle of investigations just because i try to you know before before so like i think he's just like i'm gonna we got one we did one okay and so i'm gonna brag about it now it's interesting though because it's like let's just take it at face value let's just not even forget the aesthetics of it which are ridiculous cash patel in what ways are you responsible for the world cup going well just walk me through some of them well you're saying he's responsible for the world cup not not going to the world cup but you're saying he's responsible for the world cup not not going to the world cup but you're saying he's responsible for the world cup not not going to the world cup but that requires are you but that that requires people wanting it to go badly that he's stymied right like right like what are you talking i'm sure he's feeling like the there was you know a planned attack at the ufc fight at the white house and and they foiled that and so he's probably thinking of himself like i didn't get enough credit i need to put out videos from now on when there's no attacks not enough not enough likes and faves for that foiled plot um it's just amazing like here's me waving getting out of my g5 private jet man of the people cash patel um you also the one thing that i'm not going to say is that i'm not going to say that i'm not going to gotta thank his interagency partners yeah cash patel has been working hard on trying to arrest new york times reporters who reported on trump's air force one did you see today that the fbi or the doj has subpoenaed records not only from these journalists but from their spouses and one reporter's mother yes got the mother's phone records i wonder if they'll bring that up to trump any of the reporters in the white house correspondence association when he's on the dais at the correspondence dinner inside this week maybe the mentalist can maybe dr rose can can or whatever his name is those those man whatever his name is it's a night where we're putting politics aside and the fact that you're snooping on our report of my mom's yeah that's we're just going to put it aside for the night to just sort of honor just be in the same room you think o's could guess the mom yeah that's pretty good like yeah well yeah why don't they just ask him for the fucking leader i forgot it's fucking o's yeah i know i learned that i learned that i learned that from a magician yeah i really did but but yeah like we ask him he'll know you that mentalize that mentalist it anyway enough of that uh trump who uh who just last month told reporters he was skipping his son's wedding because of quote a thing called iran uh did not feel the same way about attending the world cup probably because according to the white house iran is no longer much of a threat they have been literally obliterated never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks iran has no air defenses iran has no air force iran has no navy operation epic fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield the united states has all the cards the straits are now open the iranian military is now destroyed we've won let me say we've won you know you never like to say too early you won we won we won the bet in the first hour it was over well apparently someone forgot to tell the iranians because they've been attacking u.s forces all over the middle east for the last nine days straight uh they've killed at least three americans and likely a fourth that that soldier is still officially considered missing the iranian attacks in jordan have also reportedly injured dozens of american troops and damaged helicopters news that the pentagon has just decided not to report according to the new york times um and if you're wondering how it's possible that iran can still pull off these kinds of attacks you're not alone here's fox news's maria bartiromo i don't understand how it's possible that iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at gulf countries and u.s military bases because the u.s has obliterated iran's military and the president continues to reiterate that i'm reading these talking points and for some reason they're not true i love the idea of her hold on a second and we just the camera follows her out down the stairs to another room with a whiteboard and she starts doing the math on the whiteboard trying to like figure out how the thing is like i don't this doesn't this isn't i don't think they're i don't think they're telling the truth the president keeps reading the president would not iterate let alone reiterate if something's not true like this he would never say that maybe i just haven't been asking my questions loudly enough uh trump doesn't have a good answer uh really any answer uh to maria bartiromo's uh question he threatened revenge on truth social and sent com announced more strikes uh in retaliation uh but this is all he said after the world's cup when reporters asked about the americans who were killed we feel very badly but you know those great people those great patriots are out there fighting that iran cannot have a nuclear weapon this is a far bigger job that we're doing we were doing a little job of stopping them from having a certain capability now we're just ending it what tommy would you make a trump's answer there just a little confusing uh and just the general developments over the weekend well clearly he's pulling from a deep well of empathy at the top there but but uh on the bigger job part it's like there's i think there's two ways you interpret it one is like his factory setting is stuck on bullshit and right so he's like now we're reopening the straight and that's an even bigger message he just does hyperbole with all things but uh maybe it is the beginning of a bigger mission that could include like a permanent escort mission with the navy or taking territory on the coast to try to like permanently claim the straight or her moves i don't think we know i don't think he knows yet probably what he wants to do my assumption has been that trump does not want to restart the war because he doesn't want to raise gas prices right now in advance of the midterms but the events show how dangerous the status quo is and that iran is learning uh the journal had a piece about how they have a adapted their missiles to move in the sort of like terminal part of the flight where they're coming down so they can evade our air defenses and we still have tens of thousands of service members in the middle east that seem like they're not well defended at all um and so like either way like the reporting it makes it sound like he wants to not go back to a full-scale war but as you noted iran has been hitting targets all over the middle east and the pentagon is putting out statements that they've hit uh targets in iran for the last 10 nights in a row so that's not a war what is it we are the war is restarted it's whether he want whether we whether trump wants to go so far as to acknowledge that the ceasefire that has failed has failed which he sort of has i mean he's like the mou is done who cares but then and they've told congress they're officially back in war i guess the the other distinction would be there would be some explanation for what the strategy is behind what they're hitting other than as tit for tat degrading yeah degrading capabilities generally yeah this is i mean trump very well may not want a return to full-scale war for all the reasons you outlined but this is the problem with escalation like it's unpredictable and and they strike and then we have to strike back and then they strike back again and so suddenly the space for diplomacy becomes very very small and they just keep going after each other well it's also like americans are dying their group of like he's at the world cup their group of families are having the worst experience of their lives their lives are being ripped apart because Trump doesn't want the war to escalate because of his political reasons. This is just a blip. He's very sorry. It's very bad. It's so glib. But you know that if what he wanted to do was escalate, right, if Americans had been killed and he was aiming to start the war or he would just declare it the greatest violence against the United States, right? The American service member are in harm's way being hurt by this are purely just sort of pawns either to be like either to downplay or lie about what's happening to them if it doesn't suit your story about how much we're decimating the military or he can use it as an argument for why we need to escalate if he so chooses. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We're finally talking about mental health openly, but actually reaching out for help is incredibly difficult. New data from BetterHelp confirms why. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma Report surveyed 2,000 Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise, yet 74% say society discourages people from doing so. 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PolicyGenius helps you find your most affordable policy that meets your needs. They answer questions, handle paperwork, and advocate for you throughout the process. It's important to get life insurance because who knows? One day, then what's your family going to do? Yeah. Not a fun task to do, which is why PolicyGenius is there to help you do it. With PolicyGenius, you can find 20-year life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for $1 million in coverage. Head to PolicyGenius.com slash Crooked to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. That's PolicyGenius.com slash Crooked. Think about Benghazi with Obama. Think about Abbey Gate with Biden in Afghanistan. Now, we now have more Americans killed than in either of those situations. And this is one where the President of the United States and his entire administration have said, the Iran is obliterated. We have won. The mission is like, not just mission accomplished, like, oops, there was a banner behind Bush. This was like every day they're saying that their military is destroyed, decimated. We control the skies. The strait is open. And also for nothing. The stated objectives, like they haven't done, they haven't achieved anything. They didn't destroy the regime. They didn't get the, they didn't make any progress on their nuclear program. They didn't destroy their ballistic missile programs. They didn't destroy the proxies. Yeah, I think we're in a situation where it, it feels frustrating and unsatisfying because they don't care about getting caught in those lies by the mainstream press the way every other president in history has. But when you look at the polling, like this is the most unpopular war in modern American history. And it's going to get worse as gas prices tick back up. And there's just, there's just no end game here. Like the Iranians want to control the Strait of Hormuz. Trump can't let that happen. How do you sort that out? And you want to talk about the Houthis now? And they announced there's a blockade of Saudi Arabia. Yeah, so the Houthis, so back in 2015, the Saudis launched this disastrous war on the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Hundreds of thousands of people died because of it, mostly because of famine. In 2022, they announced a ceasefire and then some peace talks. So Ben and I were talking about last week, this kind of fragile ceasefire kind of erupted because the Saudis bombed the Sana'a airport. I think they were trying to stop an IRGC plane from landing back in Yemen that had been at the Supreme Leader's funeral in Yemen. We were kind of like, uh-oh, that's ominous. Like, why are we kicking back up this conflict? And so today, on Monday, the Houthis announced that they're going to embargo Saudi ships in the Red Sea via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. So that's the choke point out of the Red Sea to the east where a lot of oil and gas flows. And so I don't know how this would work or how they would implement it. If you have the Strait of Hormuz closed and then access to the Red Sea shut off, that chokes off like another 5% of the world's oil and reform petroleum products that pass through that strait. And so the Saudis, the way the Saudis have been getting around the Strait of Hormuz being shut is they have a pipeline that goes west and south and they've been pumping oil and gas out and getting it out through the Red Sea. If they can no longer do that, it's a huge reduction in supply. At the same time, you have the Russians, Russian oil refinery capacity has been cut in half due to Ukrainian strikes. You have all the oil reserves depleted because of the war because we all just spent it down to try to keep costs low. And then China had been limiting imports during the conflict. Now they're ramping them back up. So you could really see a serious supply shock in price increase. So one to watch. I mean, maybe the Houthis are not actually going to go through with this and they'll try to like calm things down with the Saudis. But this is kind of like the nightmare scenario in terms of energy prices. And oil went over $90 a barrel briefly over the weekend. It's now in the 80s. But gas is up to $4 a gallon again. And this is right at the beginning of this new phase of the war. And the Houthis don't have to completely control this waterway to create a bunch of fear and force ships to either delay, go around, raise the cost of insurance, what have you, right? And, you know, having Iran and Iranian proxies in charge of these two choke points through a quarter or more of the world's oil, goes through is really sort of, once again, showing how much more powerful Iran has gotten because of this conflict. Even the language the Houthis used was just basically, well, this is, Trump is doing a blockade on a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. We're going to do a blockade on a blockade on this side too. That's just how it goes. Meanwhile, Republican, the Republican Congress has done absolutely nothing to rein him in on this. You have a few voted for like a war powers resolution and that's about it. And now, you know, they have a week before they all go on break until mid-September. And the House is trying to pass the NDAA, also the supplemental, extra like billions and billions and billions of dollars more, which is just absolutely fucking crazy. Nuts. Billions of dollars. So ICE is back in the news for all the wrong reasons after agents shot and killed one unarmed man in Houston, Texas, and another in Biddeford, Maine. Both men were fathers and husbands who had been living and working in America for years. Both were driving at the time and both were victims of mistaken identity by ICE. After the shooting in Maine, DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen ordered a temporary pause on vehicle stops by ICE officers, a pause that Susan Collins quickly took credit for, which was then overturned by Trump in less than 48 hours after an intense right-wing backlash to Mullen, despite the fact that ICE has arrested a record number of people since Mullen's been confirmed, even hitting Stephen Miller's 2,000 arrest per day quota a few times this month. This is, of course, thanks to the $170 billion that Susan Collins and her fellow Republicans funneled to ICE which seems to be giving badges and guns to anyone who wants them. The ex-wife of the agent who killed the person in Maine told the AP that because her ex-husband has a history of violent behavior and serious psychiatric issues, when he told her ICE had hired him, quote, she thought he was having a mental health episode and didn't believe him. Jesus. This is the guy who killed the person in Maine. And now, according to the New York Times, federal agents recently received a written notice that the FBI would, quote, no longer investigate confrontation with immigration agents, supposed to be handled now internally through DHS. This is a report that's been denied by both the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. So, I feel like after Minnesota and Nome's firing, we were all worried that nothing would actually get better, it would just get quieter. Sure enough, even Trump's approval on immigration has sort of crept back up, though it's still slightly underwater. What do you make of the administration response to the killings in Texas and in Maine? So, yeah, that Homan was going to be some kind of a step-up from Bovino and from Kristi Noem. The fear was they would continue doing what they were doing, but not as ostentatious. I do think, like, the fact that they determined that these sieges upon cities were counterproductive politically was a win that continued, but that doesn't mean they haven't been more competently and quietly aggressive. And they have continued to put people like this out into the field. We already know they reduced the amount of time these people are trained. They lowered their standards. They've been desperate to recruit. So this is a direct result, not just of what the Trump administration is doing, but what Congress has done to fund and give them the resources to rapidly hire people who have no business using a gun, let alone using a gun as law enforcement as part of the federal government. You read about this guy's background before he's in ICE. This is just a fucking troubled guy, like a terrible head injury. He was doing door dash. He was doing correction. He just was all over the place. Violent towards his own kids. I thought that the blowback to Mullen was very telling, too, on the right, because it kind of goes to the point that he's not running the department, really. This is just like Miller's policies, and he tries to do something on his own to pause, and then Trump immediately just backs off. Yeah, I wonder if Mullen got a call from Susan Collins directly because they're Senate colleagues and they probably know each other. But yeah, I mean, this ICE officer in Maine, he shot and killed a man in front of his three-year-old daughter. You know, it's fucking evil. And it shows that the policy has not changed much, but the PR strategy has. I mean, Nome and Bovino, like you said, they were being pressured to make 3,000 arrests a day, and to do that, they would have Border Patrol invade a city like an army and occupy it in the flashiest way possible. That included flying Black Hawk helicopters over Chicago or having little social media people filming all the stuff they were doing and then releasing it because they were proud of it. And Mullen is still trying to hit 2,000 arrests a day, but the arrests are spread out all over the country, and he's like, less thirsty for press attention than Nome was, although. Probably doesn't want it. low bar. Yeah. DHS is still lying about all these incidents. They're de facto covering up for all these officers, but they're doing it in a slightly less gratuitous way. They're not. It's not like Minnesota where they're saying Rene Good and Alex Preddy were domestic terrorists or that, you know, Preddy was trying to massacre police, right? That was the intention to massacre police was like the line afterwards. And so, Trump, though, is still making it clear that he doesn't care if innocent people are killed. He wants. the dangerous practices like the vehicles arrest to continue if it means more deportations. So it is like they've definitely put a less flashy shine on their policies, but it is still very much the same dangerous, abusive practice. And that you can't give in to the libs, right? Like you can't, if something terrible happens and there's a call from your enemies to be restrained, to show any kind of restraint, you can't give in to that because that is what led us here, right? Like that's the problem. We have to prove we're really tough. Well, the Post had a good story on this about the sort of the blowback to Mullen. And, you know, it came from all the usual sort of right-wing media online spaces, but also the Heritage Foundation. And there's people in the Heritage Foundation making the point that Tommy did, which is they're all saying like, oh, Collins probably called Mullen because they're Senate colleagues. And this is the problem with having someone at DHS from the Senate because you're trying to please all those people who are too moderate. And we have to just put foot on the gas for the deportation agenda. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't like we're just going to keep going. Like Stephen Miller doesn't care if it's unpopular. He doesn't care if people get killed. He doesn't care if what the detention center conditions are. He doesn't care what he just wants to do it. He just wants to get it done and thinks that he is like, and the only thing that's going to stop him is tremendous public pressure, like the kind we saw after Minneapolis or Democrats winning Congress and being able to rein Trump in that way with the power of the purse. Well, look, his, his, Trump's of immigration ratings were in the drop precipitously around the time of the killings in Minnesota. They have slowly but surely ticked back up. They're not above 50 and they're still, you know, they're not as high as they once were, but the, when the attention comes off of it, it kind of, it kind of reverts to a mean and the baked in, the baked in assumption, I think on their part is people know that even if he goes too far, he is, he is strong on this issue. It is symbol of how he is strong as a president, right? Like, I think that is the deeper reason he can justify politically continuing to do this. Yeah. And I think that because it's not in the news and people don't, aren't seeing the excesses of the deportation project, Trump's deportation project, it's like they want, most people want border security. And unfortunately, most people want like approve of the deportations in general. They just think that it's, uh, you know, when they don't see the excesses in the news, they think, well, they're deporting all the right people, right? They're reporting the violent criminals and that's that. And they forget about what happened in Minnesota and stuff like that. And you've got to, that's what you're going to just got to keep reminding people. Um, and my people, you know, coming out in, in, in Maine and Texas to protest this is important to keep it in the news. Yeah. There's also just a, like a fundamental problem in when there is a mass shooting and 12 people are killed in one place that is national news. If there are 12 heinous murders, committed, uh, by people who should not have access to guns that does not get the same coverage because they are distributed, even though it is the same level of, of, of harm. And so yes, they are, they are not wrong, right? That just people do not, uh, pay as much attention when these sort of injustices are distributed. And I know there's no good answer for that other than continue to talk about it. Pots of America is brought to you by HIMSS. ED is more common than guys talk about the good news. Tommy talks about all the time. Yeah. 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Had a pasta dish, a rigatoni with chicken for after my workout yesterday morning. I had filet with gorgonzola, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Well, look at this guy. He's doing the, there's a couple, there's a, so you can, you get your normal meals, but there's a few meals where you pay a little extra, they'll bring you a filet, but you know. It's like $7. $7 more. That's not, this is a very affordable, by the way, It is. It's great. That's the best part of it. It's great. I love Cook Unity. And so many options. I have it every goddamn day. I don't even know if we have to read all the copy. I think our enthusiasm is coming across as sincere. It's the first, if you, in case you don't know what it is, Cook Unity is the first chef-led meal delivery service that makes your meals in small batches inside local micro kitchens across the U.S. I know that's very important. Not factories. So every dish arrives with the kind of freshness you get at the restaurant itself. 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Our friend Carlos Odio at Eckies Research always reminds us that, you know, the economy, not immigration, is still the top concern for Latino voters. In fact, their latest poll shows Trump's approval with Latinos has significantly decreased for the first time since last summer, mainly because his ratings on the economy and cost of living have collapsed. Dan talked with Carlos for this week's Polar Coaster, which you can listen to if you're a friend of the podcast. If you're not, please consider joining at crooked.com slash friends so you can get subscriber-only shows like Polar Coaster along with ad-free versions of your favorite Crooked shows, now including Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. That said, Carlos and Eckies also found that around two-thirds of Latinos think Trump has gone too far on enforcement and deportation. And among Trump 2024 voters who are Latino who regret their vote, immigration overreach was one of the top reasons cited. What did you guys make of all that polling in terms of how Democrats should vote? I mean, I think the takeaway is that Trump's approval is down. Many Latinos now regret voting for Trump, but Democratic approval is not necessarily up. So we need to treat Latino voters like they're swing voters, which they are. They have been. We're still way behind where we were with Latino voters in 2018. Carlos had a good message, which was basically like, don't scold people for voting for Trump. You just say you were lied to. Trump promised you a bunch of stuff. He didn't deliver. You're welcome back in the Democratic Party. I think that sounds exactly right. But I do think it's like the, the thing you hear from a lot of activist groups is that Democrats only show up in the last month of an election. It's all GOTV messaging, turnout messaging. It's not persuasion messaging. It's not early enough. And I think that's like a lesson we need to learn this time. Yeah. Yeah. I think on immigration specifically, I just think you can like reflect what is true and also comes across in the polling. You know, Democrats, I think really did have their, I spent for a long time, had their heads in the sand around the, the difference between believing in, on immigration and opposing a lawless border, right? Like there was just a difference and there was, there was kind of a, I think like treating people like they were pretty stupid about it. But now I don't think it's very hard to say like we believe in a, in controlling the border, but you, the they're terrorizing communities or terrorizing families. You can enforce our immigration laws in a way that is not cruel and capricious and violent, and chaotic. And in the same way he has sort of failed to like, because of his incompetence and chaos, like failed to address like the reason so many people gave him a chance. Cost of living is up. Gas is up. Everything is up. He's focused on all the wrong things on immigration. We have seen so much chaos and so much violence and none of it was necessary. He was elected to do to, to bring down the cost of living and bring some order to places where people felt as though like there, there wasn't information, there wasn't enforcement at the border. Now it's time to have a kind of responsible adults who are going to make good policy and do it in a way that like reflects what people want out of their government without being so incompetent and cruel. Yeah. He had it. I thought the polling was interesting in that, you know, Latino voters, like most voters, they care about cost of living more than anything else. So that's like the lead message. But you know, sometimes it's framed as a choice between like, do we talk about that or do we talk about what ice is doing? And you know, Carlos and Eckie say that like Democrats should lift up the, the stories of the people who've been killed by ice and then, but then makes the point not just their wrongful, deaths but also the stories of their families and contributions to their communities uh the data shows that among latinos who believe trump's gone too far in immigration most say it's because of the impact his policies have had on families children u.s citizens and legal immigrants um so there is you know the stories in the way that we would tell the stories anyway is this is what democrats should be doing um speaking of the midterms one republican who should be especially vulnerable on her unqualified support for ice is susan collins who is now likely to face democrat troy jackson in november jackson is maine's former state senate president who just lost the 2026 primary for governor he's also a fifth generation logger from about as far north and rural as maine gets it's on the border of canada uh where he's where troy jackson's from uh jackson won't officially be nominated to replace graham platner until the party convention this weekend but he ran the table at the county level meetings where delegates were chosen to the point where all of his major competitors have now dropped out so i i pretend to be a dermatologist uh and i gave him a sort of head-to-toe mole check and he's clear so no moles and nothing else so i just i had to you know put on the stethoscope that whole thing um you know he kept on his underwear i'm not not a fucking maniac early thoughts on troy jackson who's always been our our favorite uh in this in this race we always thought would be the i have no thoughts on troy jackson i'm gonna spend a little more time looking i have thoughts on huge credits of the main democratic party for throwing together a process this quickly that must be hard i like if jackson won't be able to get out of this race he's not gonna be able to get out of this race he's gonna be able to get out of this race he's gonna be able to get out of this race he's gonna be able to get out of this race he's gonna be able to get out of this race he's gonna be able to get out of this race pretty pissed off and the volunteers who were left hanging when he withdrew um we're still in a tough spot he's he's you know the platter left us a mess there's we're behind in fundraising we're behind in name id uh hopefully now this can become a referendum on donald trump and how voting for susan collins is a vote for the donald trump agenda but yeah it seems like he's um already moving towards that uh talking all about susan collins and and it's what could have been a very couple weeks here yeah they figured it out they figured it out like credit to the main democratic party credit to all of uh troy jackson's challengers too who like instead of hanging into the convention have all dropped out and are all supporting him now which is great just so people know who troy jackson is um he so he was state senate president he was re-elected um in last in 2022 in one of the reddest reddest parts of maine uh i looked up there in the the first district the state senate district registration there is 36 percent republican 19 percent democrat 45 no party preference okay so that is uh independent that is an achievement uh winning winning that district um internal polls there's only been a few internal polls with him and collins they have him tied or slightly ahead so it's too early for that um he's got pretty much all of graham platner's positions um he doesn't maybe well it's not some of his older positions sort of just more recent political ones i'd say probably yes political positions political positions um maybe maybe not as maybe not as political positions but he's got pretty much maybe not quite as charismatic as uh as you know he's a little he's a little little gruffer you know what we'll see he came in third for governor and uh used to be very conservative on abortion and gay rights and over the years has now now he gets like 100 ratings from abortion and gay rights groups right so he's sort of changed over time i realize our process is not ideal but in south carolina republicans are like hey lindsey graham you're dead what if your sister just takes over hey that's weird hey we're in the market for lindsey graham and a wig so weird we're just handing a senate seat to lindsey graham sister yeah and there so there hasn't been a lot of um like you didn't give us a process why did you give us this guy i think for troy jackson it's like it's name id right like people don't they don't know who he is i don't i think even people in maine right like you're the state senate does anyone know the state senate president nobody know that nobody i don't even know who the head of the legislature is here and assembly is in california do you guys gonna be very complicated i'm not doing pop quizzes today just so folks know it's not just that lindsey graham's she's announcing she's going to run for it i know and and i just want to be clear we don't know you know maybe she has great and interest like she works with the blind i don't know gotta there's a chance let's just let's just be cool we've loved we always thought lindsey graham's sister was a reasonable person who could have a conversation with let's give her a chance before she if you discover that she makes lauren bobert look like hakeem jeffries unfortunately nancy mace has dropped out of that race won't be running now it's so funny she'll continue to shit post she literally said that she's gonna be running now she's gonna be running now she's gonna be running that's great she posted uh just when i thought i was out they pulled me back in from godfather part three never like the least requested person ever being like fine i'll do it they being yourself right hold you back in the voices uh turns out maine isn't the only speed bump on the road to a blue wave uh the wisconsin gubernatorial primary just got a little jolt over the weekend when lieutenant governor sarah rodriguez ended her campaign after revealing serious financial mismanagement by her campaign manager um she was um you know one of the leading candidates in the uh her dropping out set off a panic among the state's more moderate and establishment democrats who are worried that francesca hong the dsa backed candidate who's leading in the polls won't be able to win in november so even though former lieutenant governor and senate candidate mandela barnes is still close to hong in the polls wisconsin democrats convinced milwaukee county executive david crowley who'd ended his own campaign a week earlier to get back in the race and then governor tony evers who had been staying out of the primary in doorstep crowley seems like they got everything under control up there in wisconsin huh i like i keyed into this because when i saw the uh sarah rodriguez press conference the video yeah and i was like watching this video and i really hadn't been paying close attention to this primary to be honest but then i i watched the video and just someone at the podium being like here is when i found out we were being robbed here is when i found out there was not enough money here and there then i realized there was a problem over here and i was like oh boy i mean i guess it's good to get ahead of this but i don't know how you get ahead of this can win a campaign for governor when you're just getting when your finances are so fucked i still feel like i'm missing something in the sarah rodriguez story the campaign manager double counted donations so they had less money than expected then that same staffer puts out a press release that's like we're doing a million dollar ad buy the candidate is like hey where's our ads i don't ever see them on tv turns out the ad buy was fake because again they didn't have the money they put out their filing and she has like 35 grand on hand yeah so that's obviously bad but do you have to drop out for that well like i mean you couldn't have stuck it out i just think if you're running to be the chief something something i get the argument like it looks incompetent you can't manage your own campaign can't manage your own finances but it's like i don't know the primary is august 11th like i feel like there must be more we're gonna learn about what happened and by the way like when i say rob i have no idea it just sounded like someone at least insinuating that money was going right out the door illicitly anyway she's gone uh bear memory be a blessing this is an important race uh we don't want a republican as governor in wisconsin in 2028 when there will be a presidential election to certify um and so really important that we place to replace tony eves with the democrat um i'm kind of confused why they didn't rally around mandela barnes so um so mandela barnes um who uh we've known mandela for a while he also ran in 2022 for senate um he came like 26 000 votes uh shy of winning in a year where it was a 2022 midterms it was a more republican leaning year um and he's close to hong in all the polls he's he was he's probably like ahead of rodriguez in some polls um several polls show him ahead of the republican candidate representative tom tiffany um and crowley uh who i don't know much about david crowley but when he suspended his campaign he never got more than five percent of the vote and i mean in any of the polls he never hit beyond five percent and so and then somehow evers went out and endorsed him and not barnes i i don't understand it either other than he lost before they could use that same playbook again if you if you lost to ron johnson he's going to lose again i was confusing like 20 of primary voters have already cast their ballots it's almost impossible that david crowley is going to win this what him getting back into the race may do is assure that hong is going to win yeah i mean all the whispering in those articles is they think mandela barnes is basically just as progressive as hong and therefore will have all the same problems i think they're all kind of whispering about bad polling i have no idea if that's true but that's when like politico reports on this and stuff yeah the strategy is baffling yeah like it but it's it's so funny because it's it's one thing to think barnes is also too progressive uh just like hong and so crowley would be the most electable candidate like i get that argument is that i might not agree with it but i get it as a legitimate argument but then saying that barnes is also too progressive uh just saying okay so we'll put him in the primary with two weeks left he never hit five percent and somehow he'll vault ahead of the other two candidates they're just hoping that the tony evers endorsement will do it it seems well it seems to be yeah even with like there hasn't been a lot of great polling but also the polling's had them all pretty low too so like maybe they're hoping there's just a lot of people that have made up their minds they're coming late yeah the other also just to say like barnes was lieutenant governor of the state he's not like coming from nowhere right like i'll just say this like if hong wins the primary and um loses the general it is not this is not like let's blame dsa this is the establishment decided to put in someone else potentially split the vote with barnes and that's where we ended up where we did after sarah rodriguez had to end her campaign right of course i mean he saw the flame out coming i think everyone wisconsin was just like jesus christ what do we do right scrambling right but that's what i'm saying the crowley thing is the weird part it's not like no one could have seen the rodriguez thing coming but the crowley thing is just a it's a weird thing to do pod save america's brought you by chime most of us a bank at 16 and never looked back. 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Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosure. For details. , make change in your communities. So check out my podcast, Assembly Required. New episodes drop every Tuesday on YouTube or 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 business. It puts accounting payments, payroll, and analytics all in one place. So you always have one clear picture of your business. With visual dashboards, Xero makes it easy to understand your cash flow. You know exactly what's coming in and what's going out. So you can make smarter decisions that can help grow your business. It's powerful enough for an accountant. And simple enough for you. All right, let's end with Michigan, where there's a very chill, congenial Senate primary between former Crooked host Abdul El-Sayed, who the three of us are supporting, and Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who we're hoping to have on the show as soon as she can make it work. The polling is relatively sparse and a bit all over the place. In a race where the biggest issue dividing the candidates is Israel, Abdul wants to end all USA to Israel. Stevens does not and has the support of AIPAC, who's spending heavily in this race. Abdul is also in favor of more progressive policies like abolishing ICE and Medicare for All, which is one reason he's been endorsed by AOC and Bernie Sanders, who were in the state this weekend campaigning with him. Here's a clip from one event. They want us to think that these forces are too powerful for us to overcome. That this is just how we are. There's $50 million in this race because they're expecting a return. It's an investment. They've taken to calling me dangerous. Now, I don't know why you would call somebody who looks like me, with a name like mine, dangerous. If you're a corporation wanting to buy a politician with their PAC, I'm dangerous. If you're AIPAC and want to send our money abroad, you're dangerous. If you're AIPAC and want to send our money abroad, you damn well better believe I'm dangerous. If you're somebody who wants government to work for you, I'm not dangerous. I might just be the one person running for U.S. Senate who actually wants to serve you. Thoughts on one of the last and maybe most contentious Democratic primary of the year? I mean, I hate that this has gotten jammed into the Graham Platner discourse frame, at least on social media, because like Abdul and Graham Platner are absolutely nothing alike and anyone suggesting otherwise is trying to smear Abdul in a really disgusting way and just clock that when you read these tweets and judge them accordingly. Some of the issues in the race are nationalized, like there is frustration at the establishment and Chuck Schumer for picking candidates. That's part of the race. There's Gaza, there's AIPAC spending. But if you watch the debates or watch them on the stump, it is very local. It's a lot of auto industry talk. There's a lot of anger at shitty utility companies. Everyone in the race made a video about a bridge from Detroit to Canada that Trump was shutting down. They're talking about health care premiums. So, look, I'm supporting Abdul because I consider him a friend. I think he's really smart and he's good on the stump. He's taken principled positions on stuff I really care about. I think he'd be a good senator. It's like it's no deeper than that. I'm not a Haley Stevens hater in any way, shape or form. If she wins the primary, like I will wholeheartedly support her no matter who wins. This is going to be a really tough race. Mike Rogers is a good, strong Republican opponent. We barely beat him last time. So I think what's most important is whatever happens come August 5th, like everybody's got to put down the little Twitter knives, stop nursing your little grudges, making this about some bigger thing, some factional intraparty thing. And let's come together and win this race. And we have to do a little faster than people have been doing it up in Maine because there's a lot of lingering bullshit happening. You know, there's debate about Medicare for all, which is largely a symbolic debate. Even if you support Medicare for all, it's a very symbolic debate. It's a very symbolic debate. The next Democratic Congress, if we're so lucky to have a Democratic Congress, we'll have Trump as president. There's no hope of passing Medicare for all, but it is a symbol of a willingness to go bigger, go against the establishment, be willing to say something that may not be as popular broadly, but shows that you're willing to fight. Now, what AOC says there, it's pretty clear. Haley Stevens has said she will support military aid and aid to Israel. Abdul will not, right? They're investing to get behind a candidate who will support continuing to give military aid to Israel. But that is a symbol of what happens if either one of them is in the Senate. And put the big ideological distinctions between them aside, Haley Stevens is a reliable Democratic vote. She doesn't have a particularly strong ideological point of view. You go to her web site, it's a lot of nuts and bolts, bring money home to Michigan policies. She supports a public option. She supports reforming ICE. She's just a reliable Democratic vote. Abdul is someone who will push on the party from the left. That is what he would do in the Senate. Now, I think that's a good thing. I think it is good to have people that have a strong point of view and want the Democratic Party to stand for something clear. But in the end, either way, neither one of them is going to stand for something clear. And I think that's a good thing. What do you believe a Democratic Senate should look like? Which is why it becomes a proxy between Bernie and Schumer and all the rest? I do think with a Senate race, because you're there for six years, ideally, this person is there for a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress. And then hopefully, the next Democratic president does make a move to expand health care. Who knows how far they'll be able to go, but ideally. And so, you know, they will get to do, they will get to set the agenda, hopefully, in some ways. But I think, but to your point, I mean, this always happens with primaries, right? Which is because the candidates are generally similar on their policy platforms. You try to find differences that then become magnified in the heat of a race that then make it seem like it is this Manichean struggle between good and evil for the supporters on either side. And look, I think in this one, you're right. Israel is the fighting line. That is where their policy, I mean, she supports aid to Israel with no conditions whatsoever. And he wants to cut it off. And even some of the other races where AIPAC has played in, I think the difference hasn't been so clear. She's on the right edge of a dwindling minority of Democrats who are taking that position. Even in the Senate, I mean, the majority of the vast majority of Democratic senators are closer to Abdul's position now than they are to Haley Stevens. Right. And so then the other thing you would do is you'd make it about electability. And I do think it's been hard to make this race about electability grounded in a lot of firm data because, look, the polls that we've had have been from not really high quality pollsters. There's been a lot of internal polling from both sides. We don't have like a New York Times Sienna poll or a lot of really good polling. And so in the polling that we have, you know, at the beginning of the race, it seemed like Stevens was performed slightly better against Mike Rogers than Abdul. Now it seems like Abdul has like a point or two on her. I mean, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. So it's really hard to make an electability argument. So therefore, now you're just fighting over personality. Well, what they're really fighting about is like they're hand-waving at the policy shit, but they're like, his name's Abdul El-Sayed and he's a Muslim guy. That is what is happening. It is. I mean, I'm not saying Haley Stevens specifically is saying that, but a lot of Abdul's opponents are, when they say electability, that is what they mean. And that is what has gotten a little ugly. Well, and to your earlier point, and now they're doing the, well, he's got some of the same consultants. And so Graham Plattner wasn't vetted and we don't want another. And it's like, Abdul has been vetted because he ran for governor of Michigan. And that's why his name ID is so high in the first place. And he's been like, you know, he's just, he's served in public office. Right. He's very different. out of obscurity and like the big controversy was about whether or not after he got his md phd he technically did a residency it's like that's like it's very different than a nazi tattoo and a sexual assault allegation but is it like both candidates now are i've seen them in interviews be like well this race isn't really about israel and everyone else wants to make it about israel and gaza but we want to make it about michigan um but even there there's not a lot of like there's not a fight about health care like you're for medicare for all and i'm from from the public option let's let's duke it out you're for abolishing ice i'm for reforming ice let's duke it on that it's there's there's surprisingly little attacks from both of the supporters at least on the policy issues and more on it's more like it's more like money-driven policy issues it's like you've taken all this money from corporations or apac or others therefore you're beholden to them that is kind of the proxy for a lot of the political fights and then but for hayley it's like there's a similarly weird thing happening online with her which is like a lot of people are plucking up speeches where they think she looks goofy and sharing them and then it turns out maybe people don't know what they're talking about and then they're like oh my god i'm not like those speeches we don't really know well i was i was into like they're like there's moments where she's kind of goofy and like kind of she's like gotta we gotta let her rip we gotta stick it to them and like it's kind of sweet and uh there's this kind of aesthetics where if someone who is seen as centrist or pro-israel does something that is slightly cringe that it or it happened to mallory mcmurrow too when she was in the kind of elizabeth warren role to abdul and they were mad at her like this is so embarrassing you're so embarrassing it's cringe like this is the problem this is the problem you don't understand real people because you don't understand what broken-brained online people think is funny anymore uh but if uh uh abdul has made plenty of cringy content and but his he's you know he's good for the movement and so those things aren't as bad and i was thinking about when um like schumer farted on the senate floor and i i do think he did not make the most of it i think he should have done it about how we were having a gas crisis he what happened to the man that schumer used to be the guy at the gas station there was a moment where he could have made news about it sorry i was just unblocking the straight of four exactly exactly look not the only not the only waterway they were having trouble getting things through these days at my age but so but but i know but if like mom donnie farted during press conference there would be stories about how like man everybody's farting again you know like he's so good at this he's so good at this is a master at work generational talent this is why we need medicare for all he'd say or something i don't know how do we get to farting because oh because oh because like there's a lot of like right because of stick it to him let's stick it to him but but at the same time it's like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry okay you want to be this sort of like hard scrabble kind of salt of the earth campaigner but also your campaign is propped up by tens of millions of dollars of outside money and john to your point like one of the reasons that debate is about that outside money and about israel is because she has an establishment figure doesn't have like a clear other than just bringing money home for vision they'll auto bail it like what's the policy place where she feels so strongly she wants to pick a fight with abdul over well this is this is yes and i know this is naive of me but like as we head into a a presidential primary season like my wish is that the the factional war within the democratic party is fought over uh different policy positions because there are plenty of differences between the left and the center-left and i think sometimes what the establishment center-left whatever we want to call them more moderate democrats does is they look at the progressive movement progressive candidates and they either take umbrage or dismiss them or say or just like attack attack attack attack attack attack attack attack attack attack and it's like try to you got to be for something yes you got to be excited about your candidates and you got to run candidates who are exciting and charismatic and have something that they really want to get done but they default to and you can kind of hear this with and i'm not saying stevens does this but some of her supporters do is like but she works so hard and she's just she's got her head down and she works hard and that's like the that's like the thing for all the establishment candidates it's like they just they're servant they're public servants and they're working hard it's like yeah everyone's everyone in public life who's running for office is working hard and doing a lot of good stuff she's sort of a throwback she's sort of a throwback she's sort of a throwback it's sort of a throwback campaign like there was a not that long ago most campaigns were like i'm gonna deliver for my state i'm gonna bring home the bacon i'm gonna get earmarks and pork barrel and just like build a fucking airport over here and you know what if susan collins wins that's why and it's hayley like it sounds like that's the kind of campaign she's running now somewhere along the way i work we found this desire where we also want people to be national figures and have national profiles and see value in that too there's a bit of a race here on the on the the i've put out videos that were so cringy that i sent them to his consultants and i said no more of this was he in a hat i don't remember which one it was it might have been more than one but like he's put out a lot of corny shit now i think there are people rightly pointing out that i think hayley is treated differently because she is a woman there's a lot of misogyny and sexism uh in the messaging you'll see on twitter about these videos they're also just kind of cringy videos at times and like sometimes she's a goofy messenger and sometimes he's a goofy fucking messenger it's not always loaded to say that too like that's the other part of this well that this is where like the attention economy has made people do crazy things yes like there's a whole range of issues that are just not really that much a part of a democratic debate education one of the most important issues where democrats have lost ground for the last 10 years yep or five years really six years and like i'll say something that would like this is one of the reasons why if rom runs for president like it will be good because he will be the person that clip it right shut up i saw wait fuck right after it will be good it will be it will be cause send it he will for he will he will he will have that kind of old-school democratic politics where he like he start now starring on hassan piker's next stream is how ari gets it back on uh survivor 2 fuck because he will force debates about these questions on his road to not being the nominee and like on a broad range of issues that will like kind of like in the way that hayley siemens is not causing not kind of forcing questions back over to abdul on policy questions i think you need center-left figures who do that because we need to have those big debates that's all well hayley's big attack on abdul in the debate was like you haven't released your tax returns yet and i just wonder like it was another kind of like it felt like an old-school criticism of someone i just want to call them a celebrity well it feels like he's attacking her on money right like you've got all this money right on your half so she's like i want to do a money thing it's not illegitimate i'm just wondering if voters care i can't tell i don't know we'll find out who knows um speaking of bernie uh cnn reported over the weekend that back in march um when he backed a challenger to a democratic house incumbent in north carolina hakeem jeffries called him and warned him against meddling in house primaries arguing that it's divisive and a drain on limited resources that could go to beating republicans um another member who was on the call said sanders quote seemed not to care what you guys think it was seems i absolutely buy that the most jolene phone call like please please you can i know you can take these districts please stop please stop he's my man it's like i get why hakeem jeffries would not want divisive primaries i can't imagine where he thought bernie sanders would care i can't it's hard to imagine a conversation bernie sanders would care about less other than the debate the interview i had with him where he tried to get out of it a few minutes early where he did this that sucked this is another problem with like the establishment argument is it's the response is always like no no no these primaries shouldn't happen or these candidates guess what the candidates are going to run people are going to sign up and they're going to run for office and they're going to be from all political persuasions and doing the whole and and hillary started this in 2016 with bernie right it's like the they're not real democrats and they're and they're not they don't respect the democratic party as institutions like you know who doesn't respect the democratic party's institution uh america or and actually and more specifically democrats exactly so it's like not the greatest argument to be like how dare you run and how dare you upset our primaries it's like go beat them beat them with better ideas beat them by saying that like their ideas are bad or their or their ideas aren't going to resonate with most american people like there's plenty to go after before just being like don't run yeah it's a you know these are people trying to do a hostile takeover of a failing enterprise you know they're if you think they're not the right people to lead you got to make a much better case to the shareholders because they're looking at your record and thinking i'm going to kind of take a shot on these people yeah let's look at the republican party did that work really well for them for all the establishment figures in the republican party when they were like no donald trump can't be it good point but and also they're facing their own version of this like in arizona andy biggs is probably going to be the republican gubernatorial nominee he's a lunatic in iowa my buddy rob sand is up against this complete unknown dude whose primary work background was like working for the coke brothers for a decade he doesn't even live in the state he's in iowa half the time he's in kansas that colorado guy that's like yeah when i was a kid i killed people what's up what of it what of it we all do it wait what go back that's one of the all-time interviews so i killed someone what of it yeah we got they've nominated this lunatic in iowa who wants to like ban the mrna vaccine uh he wants covid vaccines off the shelf he's like me marxist hijacked the curriculum in iowa there's a decade of republican rule but they're not backing away from him the the the rga is going to put tens of millions of dollars on air behind this guy so it's anyway yeah well like you said i i think it's going to be a bumpy couple weeks in these primaries but once august comes and goes um we're all behind the nominee sure whoever it may be yeah um did you see that on the sidelines of uh one of the events with abdul politico asked aoc about running for president and she said i can't say that i've ruled it out uh she also talked about her own definition of what big tent means um general thoughts on how she's preparing for the possibility of a run in 28 we've talked so much about elections that are happening november we get a little treat to talk do just a tiny bit of speculation before we uh before we end the pod yeah there's a little bit of like uh there's like an axio story about like uh about aoc embracing kind of obama style hope and change as sort of some as a as like evidence of her shift in preparation for running. And I don't really think it like reflects a like if you go, I think AOC has evolved as a public figure. And I think she has learned a lot since she's been in Congress. But I think part of what her appeal has always been is that, you know, she's there's some she's asked and she says, I don't it's something like I don't come from a I come from a working class family. I didn't come from a militant leftist family. Right. Like that's like that's just right. Like reading the stage directions a little bit. But her appeal has always been that she hasn't sounded like what Republicans want her to sound like. She sounded so much more optimistic and hopeful. And she's also, by the way, said something similar about not ruling out like I think a month ago, like this is going to be something that keeps happening. But whether she runs for Senate or president or neither, like she's going to use the power she has. And she is, I think, a more important and attention worthy figure as long as the possibility of running for president out there. The single best way to get media coverage is to suggest that you're going to run for president. She's smart. She knows that this will get her attention for her ideas. I don't know if she's going to run or not. Feels like she might. Like the the only size tent we are allowed to have is circus. It's like the Democratic Party. Our tent has got to be gigantic at this point. We need to fit a lot of people underneath this thing. So I'm glad she's saying that. I will say that she if if I were her and I were thinking of running for president, she is and she's probably being told and knows herself because she's very, very smart that like, you know, her risk is that she's seen as too left and too extreme. And she's seen all the polling data, I'm sure. And if you're going to run for president and you at least want to prepare for the possibility that you might, I think she's doing all the right things that you would do, which is that it may be less than her answers. Right. About like, are you running or not? Like the the way that she's endorsing or not endorsing, certainly she didn't endorse Graham Gartner. She hasn't endorsed this this progressive challenger in Michigan in a House seat and then wasn't on stage for the like she's like being very careful. She's being very careful, but not in a way that seems like cautious, like she's just being deliberate in her rhetoric. Right. Like she said, you know, you can have a clear vision for what we're trying to accomplish as a country and also include everyone in it and show that everyone has a place in that as well. It's just it's not it's not the same as you hear from many of the DSA candidates today. I take her except Mamdani. I should say. Yeah. I take her also at her word when she was asked about this preview, like what she's looking for is sort of outcomes. Right. She's not just about her and her position. And if you think in 2028, there's obviously going to be a big, contentious and very important primary somewhat either the vote of the left will be divided or it will be united behind one figure. If it is her, she knows that as that person she trusts like she knows how responsible and capable and careful she will be and deliberate about how to to to hold that position, whether it is as the nominee or as the person who helps you. Right. To kind of unite the party behind whoever the nominee would be. And that is like the the the figure who is right to like represent like what comes after Bernie is someone who a just truly believes in this fight and representing it as persuasively as possible, but also like Bernie and AOC understand that if the moderate more moderate candidate wins, it is just as important to get get behind them. She she comes across as someone who takes very seriously her role in the party wherever whatever it may be and her role in politics. Yeah. Um, which is a good thing to see. Um, all right. 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 Faris Safari with Reid Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrienne Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefcoat, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelleviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Corrupting our democracy works best when we forget that we the people are in charge. I'm Stacey Abrams, voting rights advocate and host of Assembly Required. In my podcast, I'm talking with some of the sharpest minds in politics and in civic activism to help us figure out how to fight authoritarianism and win. My podcast doesn't just diagnose problems. We give actionable steps to help you feel a little more connected and a lot more empowered to make change in your communities. New episodes drop every Tuesday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.