Trump and Pod Save America Agree: JD Is Lame

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This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Okay, we've been talking about QB Mail for a minute now, Bow, and wow, the feedback we're getting. I mean, so many of y'all love this stuff. You're stopping us in the street going, I love QB. And if you're thinking, wait, what is QB? Uh, do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. Once you know it, you start seeing it everywhere. People ask what makes it different from basic mayo. Well, the answer, egg yolks. QB is made with egg yolks only, giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really love food and flavor use it. Whatever you're eating, QB it. So if you haven't tried QB yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. You'll understand. QB, the original Japanese mayonnaise. ♪♪ Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about the news that Trump appears to be giving up on his $1.8 billion insurrectionist slush fund. He also seems quite uninterested in ending the Iran war, saying he, quote, couldn't care less whether talks break down. We're also going to talk about Tuesday's big primaries. This week, we're going to talk about the United States. This week in Iowa and here in California, as well as more turbulence in Maine for Graham Plattner and more turbulence for J.D. Vance and his quest to become Donald Trump's number one boy, chosen successor. Then New Jersey Senator Andy Kim talks to me about the horrifying conditions he witnessed at the ICE detention center in Newark, where the senator was pepper sprayed by federal agents. Before we start, you guys see that CBS's Scott Pelley accused Barry Weiss of murdering 60 Minutes? That sounds like a really fun meeting to have attended. It was an all-staff meeting convened by Weiss's new hand-picked executive producer, Nick Bilton. No Weiss at the meeting. She really set him up. It's your first day at the office. You're trying to find the bathrooms. You're seeing where your badge works and where your badge doesn't work. Next thing you know, Scott Pelley's saying, you piece of shit, I will fucking rake your dead corpse over the bones of Don Hewitt. And obviously, Lovitz was hyperbole, but not as much as you might think. Honestly, it was pretty close. Reading Oliver Darcy's status has the whole transcript of the meeting. It was something. Anyway, I just bring that up because if all of you want to support the growth of an independent pro-democracy media company that Barry Weiss can't murder, at least not yet, please consider becoming a Friend of the Pod subscriber. You get ad-free episodes of this show, all your favorite Crooked Pods, subscriber-only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer, our secret extra episode of Pod Save America, and full access to all of our sub-stack newsletters like OpenStreetMap. Check it out at crooked.com slash friends. All right, let's get to the news. With the Middle East still a mess and gas prices still high, the president is once again working hard to communicate to the American people how little he cares about these things. Here he is during a hard-hitting Fox interview with his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, focused like a laser on his true passion, interior design. This will be the entrance into the ballroom. The ballroom will be right here. No, the ballroom is a gift to America for me and from Apple and from lots of great people. How often are you coming out here to check the progress? Well, a lot. We're going to have the inauguration here. Oh, wow. This stone can last a million years. You know, most people would put brass on top of a piece of wood. It would be called laminated, and then in about two years, you'd see the brass falling on the floor. You know, we'll delaminate. This is, look, solid brass. Same thing with this. This is all solid, beautiful, solid brass. It's, uh, it's. The pudding. Look, we've suffered a lot under this guy. The pudding labels on the rooms outside the rooms. The Oval Office, like, we know. The whole point of it, man, is we know it's a cool room. It's actually a great thing. You don't need to label it. Did you guys read Ashley Parker's story about Trump as a gay icon in The Atlantic? I didn't see it. You will love it. It's so funny. It's so good. They're having the inauguration out there? No, they're not, by the way. Congress decides what the inauguration is. Yeah, what the. I'm sure he means, like, the balls and some of the, you know, the balls that would happen around the inauguration. I mean, says him. He's not there anymore. Right. He won't be. He shouldn't be that involved in the planning of it. You know, one would hope. He's usually going to stay on as, like, physical plant director. He'll just be chaperone for J.D. J.D., you're going home. No, so that was on Fox over the weekend. For Fox viewers who wanted just a little more on what the government is doing about this terrible economy, on Sunday morning, they get to hear this from top White House economic advisor slash Democratic Party plant Kevin Hassett. People are spending more on gas, but they're also spending more on everything else. Not just groceries, but. Restaurants and so on. And I think that that's a sign that you would see when people are optimistic about the future. Now, Tommy, you put this in Slack yesterday, I think, on Sunday. And I was like, isn't that the clip from last month when Kevin Hassett said this? And then I had to click on it and realize that he basically said the same thing again, but maybe worse this time. No, they just keep putting MAGA Dennis the Menace on TV to say stupid shit. I mean, they could not seem more out of touch if they tried. Spending more on gas and groceries does not suggest. suggests that you're optimistic about the future. It suggests that you need gas and groceries and those are non-negotiable items. They're not taking out loans to start a business. Like, what are you talking about? It's also like, oh, you know, hey, man, like, most people are just. they're just not really paying that close attention to aggregate consumer spending, right? Like, I mean, that matters to you in your morning meeting. Yeah, but then, like, the Laura Trump interview. I mean, Trump clearly wanted to talk about the brass thing he put on the wall. Like, he could. he could write Laura Trump's questions for her if he wanted. It's his daughter-in-law doing the interview. And he, like, they clearly went out and they pitched this. Like, he just. he wants to tell us, I don't give a shit about anyone or anything about. in the world except for myself, my arch. And, like, he seems annoyed almost that we don't believe him at this point. It's so funny because we also, on Friday's pod, covered Besson in the briefing room when some reporter asked him about, like, people's savings being low, people dipping into their savings. And he's like, well, according to the economic literature, that could be two things. One, the Doomer view that you just took, which is that people aren't confident or they're spending so much because they are confident and that's why they're dipping into their savings. Yes, people are. people are racking up credit card debt because they're betting on themselves. That's what's going on. Just thought of it, thought of it too late. Phantom of the ballroom. That's what he's sort of aiming for. Something like that. Something like that. But sort of imagine I said it earlier. The University. Imagine I made this joke earlier. The University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index is at a record low of 44.8 in May of 2020. To 2026. That's lower than. Fucking Doomers. COVID. Doomers! So the biggest concern, by the way, is cost of living and gas prices. Yeah, well, you know what the solution is? Turn that frown upside down, all you Doomers. Believe. Believe in Donald Trump and his. This is wild. Look, if a man can do that with brass, imagine what he can do for your savings. Best in going out there with the $250 bill too. Like the whole thing, it is crazy. It is. He wants to lose the midterms. Do you see him holding up the story being like, whoever edited this, who did a terrible job, who did a pissy cadaver? He looks so. He has such a terrible. Like, kind of, his whole facial expression is just. Like, just. It's so unlikable. Just the holding up the story with the money on it. So obviously, none of this is going too well politically for Trump, but unfortunately for him, even his renovations and corruption are running into some stiff headwinds. On Friday, a federal judge blocked Trump's plan to close the Kennedy Center for renovations and also ruled that he can't just rename it for himself. There was a very long, Truth Social post where he was ranting about that that i have to tell you i honestly couldn't get through it all it's just he was very upset sorry but basically he's like i'm giving up on the kennedy center that's it forget it it's like all right cool yeah um hey man yeah leave her alone uh the same day another federal judge in florida reopened trump's irs settlement with his own doj because of what she called quote grievous allegations that the 1.8 billion dollar insurrectionist slush fund was quote premised on deception then another federal judge in virginia temporarily blocked the transfer of money in or out of the fund while she waits to hear arguments in a lawsuit challenging it finally after all these reports that both republicans in congress and white house aides were pushing trump to just give up on the slush fund altogether it appears as if he's done just that two senior administration officials told axios that trump will drop the slush fund with one saying quote it's dead for now doj also posted a statement saying it'll quote abide by the court ruling blocking it even though that block is only temporary um do you guys we haven't heard from trump in a while he's been in the slush fund for a while he's been in the slush fund for a while he's been in the slush fund for a while he's been in the slush fund for a while he's been in the slush fund for a while he's been in the slush fund for a while he's been in the slush fund for a while he's been for a while he's been Republicans. So, uh, for also Senate Republicans actually were pretty bothered by this in a closed door meeting. Of course, John Thune was, was actually out there saying he didn't like this very much, uh, which is impressive, uh, for him. Of course, the only thing Senate Republicans could manage to do is, um, uh, quietly oppose it and then bravely leave town. That was their way of protesting it. It was, we're not going to give him more money for immigration that we don't need. We're going to leave town to signal our, our unhappiness with it. I assume and hope that we'll still have votes on it this week. I think there's no, given that it's only temporarily on hold, uh, and Trump clearly wants to do this. I think Democrats need to get Republicans on record that they would oppose having this kind of a slush fund be legal now or in the future. And so let's get them voting on that. Uh, because even if they're privately saying it, they'll have to publicly do something. Yeah. The for now bothered me for now. Part of that report bothered me. I'm hopeful that, you know, when you're primarying, John Cornyn, you're primarying Bill Cassidy. And when Tom Tillis hates you, all Republicans in the Senate, maybe they will prevent this from ever passing or coming to be. I don't know. I don't know if you guys read the big New York times piece from over the weekend about how the slush fund came together, but it, it read like a, the blueprint for a future Rico case. It was like Boris Epstein on the outside, like coordinating things. The Trump kids want immunity for like all IRS audits, uh, for their tax returns in the future. The professional staff at DOJ are either horrified or quitting. And then. The white house political staff was just cut out of the process because they probably knew that it was toxic and it's just like the most corrupt sounding shit imaginable. And so I don't know, knowing Trump, it's probably not the end of it. Yeah. Schumer, um, is going ahead with, or he said he's going ahead with making sure they have to vote on it. And do it. The vote is going to be on, you know, originally, I think the first time we talked about, um, Democrats potentially proposing amendments on this, it was like to restrict the fund or whatever. There was a couple proposals out there to just ban the fund completely. Forever. And that's what Schumer is going with reportedly. Uh, he said today, and I think that's great because like what Republican now is going to vote against the ban now that Trump has said, or at least the white house has signaled that they're giving up on it. So Trump doesn't say anything between now and the vote. Like if you're a Republican voting on this, you can either vote against the ban and really fuck yourself, uh, in the midterms. Um, because now the white house has abandoned it, but now you're on record support. So, uh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if you're supporting it or you can vote for the band and then the band becomes law. And then it doesn't matter if Trump backs off because now it's against the law. Well, right. There's a pretty good position that, Oh, we're Democrats are great. This is ridiculous. There's no good vote for the Republicans. They haven't in the past chosen. This is a political ploy because there is no fun. So I'm voting against this because Democrats are playing politics. They're just giving them an option to be great. Of course, just giving them, that's another, it's another craven pat. They're, they're, they're Republicans have said, this is not necessary or it is too late. Those have been two positions. They've taken in the past and trying to stop Trump. Uh, the, the, the other part of this too, is like in, in, in fairness to Trump, he must be surprised that there's any pushback whatsoever. It sort of, I think must've caught him off guard that Senate Republicans have found a line, uh, because they've tolerated so much brazen corruption, the pardons and all the rest that led to this moment, as even as we're speaking, DOJ is trying to vacate the convictions of the oath keepers that Trump only commuted, but didn't pardon. So they, they, they still are kind of just going full speed ahead without having to worry about the Republicans in Congress. I love that Mike Pence was on the Sunday shows being like, please don't pay the people that tried to hang me. Come on, you know, as Donald, I watch, I watch to hang me. They set up a stocks in a noose. He, I watched part of that Mike Pence on, on meet the press. I don't know why it doesn't sound like me, but, uh, but it was, he's served to you by accident. His book is about, his book is about like the need to take on the right wing populist while he's like up there, just like praising Donald Trump and how on so. And he thinks he's doing such a great job. And then he's like, now I do have to say, I am a big critical of his continuing to support the people that tried to kill me, but nobody's perfect. It's unbelievable that he saw it here out there, like, uh, doing this thing. I think that there's a very small, but non-zero chance that the other option for Donald Trump is saying, fine, I'll just pocket the cash then. Well, he's remember, remember he had that post last week when there was a lot of political blowback on the slush fund. And he was like, I would have just kept the money. Well, that's why he's, he's annoyed, right? Because he thought I'm going to do a $10 billion lawsuit. Yeah. And then I'm actually going to do something really cool, which is, which is going to be like beloved by all, because I'm not going to keep the money. I'm going to be generous. It was like too clever by half. Yes. Yes. And you can feel that this is the white house staff being annoyed at Todd Blanch for running this drug deal behind their backs. So good. Amazing. Um, all right, let's talk about Iran where Trump can't even seem to get a bad deal, let alone one that would, uh, justify the insane amount of money in lives. The war has already cost, uh, military strikes have started again around state media said it was pausing negotiations. Trump told CNBC on Monday morning that he quote, couldn't care less if the negotiations collapsed, that they quote, took too much time and started to get very boring. Um, this was after he complained on truth social about how negative quote, chirping about the war from political hacks is making his job tougher and that we should all just sit back and relax because it will all work out well in the end. Always does. Trump then reversed course again, uh, and said that talks between the U S and Iran were quote, continuing at a rapid pace. Um, taking too long and getting kind of boring is also, um, what he said, the one and only time he went down on Ivana. Jesus Christ. Never, never, never gonna make that mistake. Ivana. That's a, that's a, where that came from. I'm sorry, everybody. God rest her soul. On the golf course. On the ninth green be a blessing. Sorry, everybody. Sorry. It just occurred to me just catching, catching strays from the grave. Okay. Uh, Tommy, we, we were, um, we were reliably told by Scott Jennings last Thursday that Trump had reached a deal with Iran that got us quote, everything we want. What happened? Is it possible that Scott led us astray? Yeah. Before I get the Jennings, I want to just read a little more of the transcript of the CNBC interview. Is this what Trump told Amon Javers from CNBC about the peace talks? I don't care if they're over, honestly, I really don't care. I couldn't care less if they're over, they're over. If they're not, you know, I think they took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring. Mm-hmm again, 13 service members dead, hundreds more wounded, entire global economy is on the brink of collapse. Gas prices are at 50%. So he's bored. Um, it's just hard to wrap your head around a politician saying that a president saying that and, and not being a career ending moment, kind of like onsite, but here we are. Fox news will never air it. This will never have happened in the mega media world. Now, Scott Jennings, uh, know him from CNN. You know him, you hate him. He's a hack. He's a fool. He mindlessly regurgitates, uh, whatever talking points he gets sent from the white house, including blatant disinformation. So I expect nothing better from him. Um, but I, I'd like, I do hope that this disaster makes the Axios and some other news outlets, um, that kind of cut and paste whatever to some senior administration official told them, whether it's Jared Kushner or the press office for whomever, uh, just help like rethink how you're doing your job. Because I get the journalism is very competitive. I get that reporters are battling for every mini scoop these days, but at best you look silly at worst. Uh, you are a pawn in oil market manipulations, right? This happens every Sunday. And then ultimately you're pumping out disinformation to the entire world. Like remember economies in Southeast Asia, like I've stopped because they have no oil and gas. And so on the question of where do we stand on a deal? I don't know. Like one, the, the, the deal was off. The deal was on. We're on, we're on the cusp of a deal. Then we're bombing the Iranians again. Trump just said, talk directly with the Hezbollah representative. You guys see that today? No, that's new. That's interesting. Mm-hmm. Uh, and, and then said, and said that, that Hezbollah in Israel, they're cool. There's a ceasefire in Lebanon. Now the Iran talks are proceeding quickly. Then Netanyahu was like, no, they're not. Yeah. What are you talking about? So who knows? I also, I mean, you tell me Tommy, but like, I don't think that, um, all the pre-spinning of what the deal is going to include from the white house is actually helping the negotiations that much. And in fact, might be hurting them because every time they get close to a deal, then, and Iran's probably thinking, okay, like we're gonna do this maybe, you know, and then Trump goes out and is like, we destroyed them. We got the best deal ever. We got everything we ever wanted. And then the Iranians are probably like, well, fuck, no, I'm not gonna do this now. Trump is gonna have to give on something, whether it's, uh, you know, the duration of the deal, like sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, something, but he refuses to look weak. He doesn't wanna look like he gave a JCPOA like agreement to Iranians. So you're right. I mean, he it sounds like his staff are kind of giving. And then he goes out and says, actually, no, we're going to take the dust to we're going to not give him any money. Like all the reports are bullshit. And Iranians, OK, OK, fuck you then. Yeah, I feel like there's two things happening. One is what an actual deal will ultimately look like if there is one. And then there's how Trump how the Trump administration talks about the deal and then what's reported. And this has been this has been sort of the media has been getting led around by Trump from when Vance went to Pakistan because Vance goes to Pakistan. And then within within, you know, eight hours, 12 hours, the reports are stalemate talk at his head and it talks at an impasse. Talks are falling apart. There haven't really been talks. And we've spent the next last several weeks having deal falls apart, verge of a deal, deal falls apart, verge of a deal. When what would be happening in a normal administration is the long grinding negotiation of a complicated deal. In which there are gives and takes and and like, you know, and puts and whatever. And instead it's the kind of through the Trump prism. And so all these outlets are hearing, I guess, from the administration officials, from who knows, saying we're on the verge of a deal. They report that out faithfully and then it falls apart the very next day. The reality of there will be hopefully there will be a deal. It will look something like the JCPOA and then Trump will declare it the best the best deal in history. Like one hopes that that's what we'll eventually get to. And then this all this up and down shit. We'll have just been sort of like silly Trump chaos on the way there. Well, I guess I think what's what's triggering the hell out of me, though, is like, ultimately, like there will be reporting on it will evaluate the merits of any deal. But that deal could have been gotten without a disastrous war that led to the deaths of thousands of Iranians, the service members, the entire economy. And it's like, I'm not worried about this table losing that context. I am worried about the broader media, like helping Trump sell a deal by like doing this constant, constant incremental reporting by. Retweeting, you know, Scott Jennings saying this is a win for the Trump administration, et cetera. It's like, no, this is a disaster no matter what happens next. Yeah, because the honest thing to report on this or if you were some kind of conservative pundit, the honest thing to even say is glad it's over now. But that wasn't worth it. And not not in exactly those words, but like that is the tenor of whatever deal we're going to get is that like there's no way we came out better than we started. Right. Because even just on the on uranium enrichment, what I saw over the weekend or. Early today was what was on the table was a 20 year moratorium, which is what up from the 10 year moratorium. So that you you claimed this was the worst deal in history. Your deal is just a slightly longer timeline on one piece of it with other concessions. That was our starting position. And they worked down to 15, maybe. So who even knows? Who knows? But it's just like obvious, like that he is just there will be a hard if there is a deal, it will be a deal that isn't some amazing victory for Donald Trump. He'll call it that. He'll get his 24 hours to say that. And then we'll live with the consequences. Having fought this stupid fucking war. Pod Save America is brought to you by Article. 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Schumer hasn't publicly endorsed Turek, but his like aligned PAC has contributed. So his Gillibrands, he, you know, it's reported that he was sort of a Schumer recruit, much to Turek's dismay. Yeah, he should endorse Walls. Right. Tommy, you interviewed both Turek and Walls on the show for people just catching up. What are each of them bringing to the table? What were your general impressions? Yeah, I mean, so Josh Turek is a he's a state rep in Western Iowa and Council Bluffs. He was born with spina bifida, uses a wheelchair. He's a two time Paralympic gold medal winner in wheelchair basketball. And he's just like his life story is just incredibly gritty, determined guy. Like he got cut from the men's team six times before he actually won the gold medal. He just kept coming back and come back and competing. And like there's no doubt about it. I mean, he's a man of his word. He's a man of his word. Like that's how he goes door to door. So like gritty dude, clearly benefiting from being Schumer's pick and an associated nine million dollar vote vets add by that has drastically increased his name ID because no one knew who any of these guys were. And then Zach is a member. Zach Wall is a member of the Iowa State Senate. He's from Iowa City. He was Senate Minority Leader for a couple of years. Our listeners probably saw him speak in 2011, even though they don't remember it or knew it was him at the time. He was a 19 year old. He delivered a speech asking Iowa legislators not to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions that went super viral back in what, 2011. And it was a great speech, really powerful speech, like supercharged his career. So I interviewed him both. I liked him both a lot. Everyone seems to think that Josh is likely to win. A lot of people I know who work in Iowa politics think he is more electable because he's won in more conservative parts of the state. But we're just going to take on Congresswoman Ashley Hinton for Joni Ernst's seat because she's resigning. And no matter who, who wins, Iowa is like ground zero for politics this next cycle. Because you got Rob Sand, who could be the next governor. You have this open Senate seat. And then there's like three competitive House races, a bunch of other statewide things. So like Iowa is absolutely crucial. So this was one we're going to be watching going forward. I will say that I've been impressed by both of them, by both Josh Turek and Zach Walls. And I know some of these Senate primary fights are particularly intense. And I know this one is too. I was kind of joking about Josh Turek probably wishing that Chuck Schumer didn't spend some pack money on him or necessarily recruit him. But like, I think that I understand why Walls is, you know, Walls has tried to make this a race about sort of an outsider versus the establishment as Turek is the establishment. I kind of think that like, you know, Turek being picked by Chuck Schumer is not quite the same as Turek being part of the establishment or the establishment spending money on him. Like a lot of the money that's spent on him doesn't worry me that he's some establishment pick necessarily. I feel like the case for that isn't as strong as in some of these other cases. But I also like, you know, Zach Walls was in here too. I thought he was very compelling as well. So I like both of them. Love it. Anything? No. I think there's some races where being seen as like the Schumer guy, the D.C. guy, I think has been a real cross to bear. I think that was that happened in Maine, which we'll talk about in a second. I just don't think it's been that in Iowa as much this time, in part because this vote that's by has been so big and so significant in helping push push Josh forward. Also, he's a known quantity in western Iowa. I think he's never been worked in D.C. Yeah. So I think it's harder to lay that on him. But we'll see. We should also say that for people wondering the reason that votes vote vets is spending money on him is not because he's a veteran, but his his father was in Vietnam and potentially exposed to Agent Orange. And that's why they think Josh has spined a bit. But also, I think vote vets is seen as doing Schumer's political being here. Also true. Also true. All right, let's turn to California. The big race, of course, is the jungle primary for governors we have covered the campaign a lot and between us we've interviewed tom steyer katie porter and matt mahan we also reached out over a dozen times to the apparent frontrunner javier becerra um and even though they expressed interest they unfortunately wouldn't commit to a time um okay same question for each of you who'd you end up supporting and why and uh who else did you like if this were a ranked choice voting uh who might you uh support after that well my ballot still hasn't been filled out so i'm still gettable i'm still gettable uh i am going to vote for tom steyer because i would like to see if becerra if the polls are to be believed and they've been pretty consistent becerra is going to move on one other will there's a chance tom steyer can be that second person i would much rather have two democrats battling it out for the future the democratic party in this state than i would have becerra versus a republican who has not passed the threshold question of uh opposing donald trump's election lines like that's to me is a threshold question you could be frustrated with democrats in the state you can you can believe that democrats have have have fucked up in california but if you can't say that uh that that donald trump lost that election if you can't stand up to him then that is so fucking dangerous and he's a nut for that so that's where i'm at i also really like my conversation with tom steyer i think he had good answers for some of the questions about where democrats have gone wrong in california and some of the criticisms i also really like katie porter but she just hasn't risen to the top of the polls like she was she kind of slowly fell behind and i think it's it sucks because i really like her but i'm trying to be pragmatic with my vote yeah i mean so if i could wave a magic wand and make someone governor it would be katie porter uh but she is down in the polls and i i'm having the same i have the same rationale i want to vote strategically um because i think steyer and becerra going to a runoff would be great it would kind of be annoying if we had to deal with you know running in steve hilton who's a random british short king who's like deep in the tech community i don't think his height's a problem but the uh i do love that that triggers you of all the all the criticism but like i also love that steve hilton and chad bianco are calling on each other to drop out still even though hilton is like crushing bianco and trump has endorsed hilton but that that's where i was yeah i would if i were doing rank choice i would be katie number one no question because that that's that's who that's who i vote for but that's not the world we live in i um i had a real hard time with this and i voted a couple days ago um i uh i had california is a big state with the it's hard to govern a lot of problems i don't really feel i would think i thought about becerra but like i don't feel confident giving the top job to someone who's had he's had 35 years in elected office to to prove himself but has received um mainly bad reviews from his colleagues um uh and the one exec especially in the one executive job that he's had which was hhs secretary under biden um and you know just an exhibit like i think his housing policy which was also like he's very late to introduce any kind of housing policy whatsoever until after ballots dropped and then even then it was like more nimby than steyer or porter or anything else and now like i hope i'm wrong and if he wins then like great maybe he'll be a great governor but i was like i i just it prevented me from from voting uh becerra steyer like i'm i'm more confident in steyer but even then like on the experience question there is just something for me it was like the combination of he's never had a chance to vote he's never had any experience in elected office or governing anything and is a billionaire who basically like you know ran for president first flamed out there then spent just the uh gdp of a small country on this race and like i think he had like i i like his positions better than becerra and a lot of the other candidates but i'm just like there's just something a little icky to me about it and i am not as worried if it's steve hilton versus becerra or steyer because the state's registration is going to take care of itself and there's just i just i'm it's not a concern i have that steve hilton's going to become governor um so i just voted for katie porter because i like her and it's like i realized that she has it is the least strategic head it is the least strategic thing i could do but katie to me is like like i've known her a while the the temperament with her staff stuff is obviously like it bothered me a lot because like we've known her forever and i actually didn't know that until those stories came up and not i also don't think she's gonna win at this point but i'm like who do i want to be governor she's about the job a lot she has like a really well thought out policy platform she's actually worked on passing legislation and getting things done when she was in congress and i feel like she's just like done the work for the job more than anyone else but if you would rather tom i feel the same way yeah but i would like as of right now and i want to talk to javier becerra if he's willing now like i think javier becerra has said he wants to come on the show but he's hoping that he and hilton get through the other side right and then of course we're doing an interview about a democrat versus a republican which is very different than a conversation about a democrat versus a right now i think tom steyer has answered some of the harder questions better than javier becerra and if it's becerra i'm voting for him and if i'm trying to get the best because i believe you i don't think i don't think hilton's gonna be the governor of the state uh i want the best person to be the governor of california and right now if there's i want to see and maybe also becerra having to beat tom steyer would make him a stronger candidate too so that's that's my kind of yeah hope that we can get tom steyer through this thing so that we have a better debate and javier becerra has to be put through his paces if he is going to win yeah i do feel like you know as blah as this race has been for governor i am very open and hopeful that both like that either steyer or becerra will like prove me wrong and become a great governor and you're right maybe if it's becerra and steyer in a runoff then there's even more time for them to duke it out and and and show their uh show that they're ready for the job um we also got a mayoral race uh going on here in la uh love it interviewed uh challenger nithya raman for the show who we all know um and i i supported her a long time um we also reached out to karen bass um who has come on the show before uh but she opted not to come on before the primary um nithya and bass are in a close race with reality tv personality turned mayoral candidate spencer pratt uh a registered republican quasi endorsed by trump who said i like him i hear he's mag i like him um uh and uh pratt was in new york over the weekend closing the campaign like this that even testing your drugs on a dog is the least of the worst of what these demons are doing to these poor animals and they're not doing anything they're lighting them on fire they're raping these dogs they're abusing them they're breeding them to the point that they die because they've been so overbred sir this is a wendy's yeah i don't doubt that there's horrible things happening to animals in some of these places but what is it it's very weird that he decided to go to new york for several days i think dropped thirty four thousand dollars on his hotel rooms uh and left the state the week before the election yeah there's billboards all around or at least i saw i think i saw these two uh in downtown la of him saying if you're you know dogs vote for spencer pratt so he's trying to make this like the closing thing the for whatever reason they think this is something that's going to break through for them i don't know i the what do you guys think of this race what do you think of that apparently spencer pratt's already sold the rights to do a reality show if he if he becomes the mayor um here's my here's i think this applies to both the governor's race and to the la mayor's race which is when you watch the debates there is a and like steve hilton bianco pet pratt they are capturing what is a very real frustration with democratic governance in this state with mismanagement with a kind of fecklessness and lack of emotion and passion for good government and making shit work work better work faster answer people's concerns i don't think the answers that that these republicans are offering or that spencer pratt are offering are what we need but the fact that there's an opening speaks to the failure of democrats both on policy but also just as candidates to rise to the to meet what is like real and deep frustration with people in los angeles these are all democratic voters for almost all democratic voters and they have real like anger about about what they feel is the decline in los angeles now i like i think nithya uh cares deeply about the city i think that she is thinking hard about how to actually address these issues i think what has been a challenge in both in that debate i think with her on the campaign trail is you know when i talked to her she made this point which had really resonated with me that like there's this feeling when you talk about karen basick where's the energy where's the the hunger where's like the speed where's the sense of urgency right that's been that was about the fires but everything else and i wanted to see more of that from nithya and to be honest i feel like as a candidate she hasn't shown the same kind of spirit that she's promising uh to bring if she becomes mayor but i do think that she has thought a lot about how to address her housing issues she thought a lot about what is uh has allowed production to leave los angeles so i am voting for nithya um and my hope is that bass and nithya make it out of the primary so that the two of them can go head to head and then i think that'll be like a great contest yeah so i'm full disclosure i'm a nithya donor mostly because your wife asked me to be but i voted for nithya too the reason i'm mad about the status quo too like i share a lot of spencer's rage about the fires especially the communications issues after the fires or during the fires i don't think he's the answer to those problems but i share his anger at the frustration and the problem it wasn't just that mayor bass was out of the country when the government decided to forgive but it's i think hard to overstate how bad the communication was from the city during that period and how scary it was to live here when the sun would go down and the winds would pick up and you'd lie in bed being like am i endangering my children by sticking around the city you know like that's where people's heads were and there was just like the communication wasn't just bad remember that night when there was like four mistaken like fake amber alerts telling people to evacuate when they didn't need to right like that shit is unforgivable so that is why i voted for change um but if we were being honest like i do think nithya has has this race. She has struggled to articulate clearly what she would do. She She seems to struggle to connect with voters on the campaign trail, and then the debate was quite bad. Spencer Pratt, I think, defined her as a co-incumbent at the debate, and she didn't seem like a challenger. And so if she makes the runoff, and I really hope she does, she's got a lot of work to do to get things back on track and to run a lot harder against whoever her opponent is and take back that kind of insurgent, I'm not the status quo message. It has seemed to me like in this race, we've ended up with three archetypes of candidates that we see across the country and have for the last decade now, which in Bass, you have someone who is very much establishment, along with all of the lack of energy that comes with that. And she's kind of just running around bragging that we've reduced homelessness by 17%, and everyone's walking around. And you can see that you're like 17%. It doesn't look like 17%. And is that a big number? And has also been more nimby on housing, has sort of gutted a lot of the housing reforms or hasn't pursued them, hasn't been a great communicator. And, you know, is just kind of in the job and doesn't communicate well or a lot. And then in Nithya, you have someone who is like, this is like what I was just saying about Katie Porter, right? Who has really thought about these issues, who I think is a wonderful. Public servant, and I think could be a really good public servant, but like has not met the sort of performance related requirements of a candidate. And it is unfortunate that you can't just be ready to be good at the job and be really smart and into the policy and stuff like that, and that you also need to perform. But we've said this a million times on the show forever. Like, that's what you need. And we also have like a lot of Democrats like that across the country. And then in Pratt, you have someone who, when there is democratic governance and a person in power, does not fix the problems that an area. Is facing, it is fairly easy for a right wing populist who's good at getting attention and no one's better at getting attention than a reality TV star to come in and tell everyone, yes, you are pissed. I'm pissed, too. And if you elect me, then you can stick it to the people in charge, even though his plans are not just cruel. They're just stupid and that he can't do them. They're against the law. Like, he doesn't have the power to do a lot of the shit he's talking about. He's just making a bunch of fucking, you know, empty promises that he's not going to be able to fulfill if he wins. But no one cares about that. People care about like, OK. He's angry and I'm angry and that's enough. It was so cool when Nithya just like, you know what? Fuck it. And drove down and said, I'm going to run for mayor. And that was it was so exciting because it was like, you know what? She's nobody else is stepping up. People know when everyone is frustrated with Karen Bass. There's a collective judgment that Karen Bass just like just didn't bring like the the energy and and direction of the city needs. And she's going to jump in and be the one to do it. And I wanted that same energy in the campaign, but just hasn't been there like with Bass. Like, you know, she when I talked to her in Love It or Leave It, a couple was right before she came out. She she ran claiming she was not going to be an NB. She put out some housing policies that were pretty good, but then they got watered down through consensus. Also sounds like what Sarah did. Right. And then you and then she comes out against SB 79 because that's what the city council is doing. Took her years to put to put in charge somebody to make someone the czar of filming and in L.A. Right. Like she's just no deputy mayor for housing. And so like that. That that to me. And, you know, part of why I think the campaigning does matter and why I think I want to see Nithya be a stronger candidate and stronger campaigner is because in this moment in in in our in politics today, how you campaign showing that you can do it. That's a big part of what it is to be a mayor, like someone who's going to be out there every day, like hitting the message. Someone's going to be like making news all the time, showing people what you're doing, showing people what matters. Right. Like like it's not just about the kind of performance, not just a show. Yeah. Now, I will say there's been. A ton of, you know, commentary on this race and analysis, people talking about it. I have no fucking idea what's going to happen. Because I know it's what this electorate looks like. I know it's just for people who don't know L.A. It is 15 percent registered Republican. Right. And so even if, you know, Spencer Pratt and some of these polls is getting like 20 percent anywhere between 20 and even as high as 30 percent, that's still like nowhere what you'd need to win a general election, certainly. And maybe not even to advance in the primary. Also, the way L.A. Is set up. Santa Monica has its own like if you're in Santa Monica or West Hollywood or Beverly Hills or Pasadena, like you're not voting for mayor of L.A. A lot of people think they're Pratt voters and then they're going to get to the polls and figure out that they're not eligible. Exactly. Because they're in L.A. County. It could end up so he could either surprise us and do really well or it could be this election where just a bunch of people who don't pay attention to politics at all in other parts of L.A. Just like dutifully vote for Karen Bass or Nithya. Like we I just I don't know. So pretending that I know what's going to happen is just. Yeah. It's just it is an interesting window into just sort of the zeitgeist of the electorate. I mean, where there is a anti incumbent rage across the country right now. But we're in California state where there's all Democratic governance. And so Spencer Pratt is from channeling that in a different direction. It's interesting to see. It's also interesting the way he is kind of exposing the incoherence of the MAGA and the MAHA agenda. Like I remember when they were very mad about the covid vaccine. And now Spencer Pratt is like, I will take all the drug addicts and I will lock them up for five days or whatever. And force them into treatment. It's like, oh, OK, well, that's different than the freedom agenda that we're talking about under Robert F. Kennedy. But OK, well, they don't vote the way it's a freedom for me, not for them, not for them. I don't know if you guys are excited or looking into any other races in California. But Michael Tubbs for lieutenant governor, remember, crooked contributor and former cricket guest is running for lieutenant governor. Love, Michael. And and her buddy Jake Levine is running against Brad Sherman, Congressman Brad Sherman in the California 32nd, which is Palisade. It's an upwards towards Encino in that area. Yeah. And that's when we're giving him a good challenge. And the hope there, right, is that that he can keep Sherman because Sherman is well known in that district and is expected to to like sort of very old and old. He's old. But if Jake can get it to keep him under 50 and then they can go on to a runoff. Oh, one other thing for people watching the returns. A lot of Democrats, including John Lovett here, have held on to their ballots to the very end. And California is always notoriously late in counting. Yeah. And so it's a high probability that this will have a red mirage in in the voting as the returns come in, especially this year. Someone did a party breakdown. I think it was Galen Druk that in 2022, the final party breakdown was 50 percent D, 29.5 percent R, 19.9 percent other. Right now, the party breakdown and the ballots that have come in and this is like Election Day, basically. 45.9 percent, 33.5 percent, 20.6 percent. So that so it's already like it's it's off. And so the first ballots that are going to be counted are the ones that are already in. And so now the electorate could also be more red. But I am I am already worried about the Spencer Pratt. And who knows, Donald Trump could jump into and be like, we won. And then suddenly we're being overtaken as the ballots are counted later in the week. So everyone should prepare for that. One possibility, I think, is like pretty high on the list of possibilities is on election night. You have Becerra won Hilton. And two, a couple of days, it goes Becerra, Steyer. And then all of a sudden Hilton is saying I was knocked out by the Democratic machine. Yeah. The good news is, yeah, that message, I think, will resonate nationally. I think California voters are pretty well conditioned how stupid and long it takes us to count ballots. I wish it was faster. But see, this is what I get when it's faster. This is like the whole thing. It's like that's how it is in California. We do it the stupidest way fucking possible. Why? Why? Every other states can count ballots in a couple of days. Why does it take here two weeks? Fucking stupid. I think it's all the mail, right? Because if you can drop it in a mailbox on June 2nd, on the day of the primary, then like it takes at least a couple of days for the mail to get it. Yes. But then that is not. It's still long. It still keeps going. But there's some built in just because of the mail. Of course. Of course. That's why you got to get rid of those mail-in ballots, like Trump says. Thank God we have mail-in ballots. Our ballot is very long. It's complicated. Oh, my God. There's lots of things. So long. There's lots of positions you've never heard of. It's very. Thank God for the mail-in ballots. Positive America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. According to this copy here, a report by CNBC indicates that almost half of all hiring managers view a candidate's enthusiasm as the single most important element when evaluating them for a position. You don't want the enthusiasm gap. Yeah. I guess you don't want them too enthusiastic. You don't want them like breaking in your office, I guess. You don't want them falling asleep. Yeah. There's someone climbing like World War Z-ing into the place. If you need to hire for your business, how can you separate the candidate from the candidate who are really excited about your opportunity from the ones who are just meh? ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that quickly lets you see the most interested, qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster, and now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash crooked. 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And in Ohio, we really don't get it because to us owning a home in your 30s working in tech without the traffic and still being able to make it to your kid's soccer game sounds pretty good in fact ohio is the second most affordable state to buy a home your move learn more at your move ohio.com this is matt rogers from las culturistas with matt rogers and bowen yang this is bowen yang from las culturistas with matt rogers and bowen yang okay we've been talking about cupi mayo for a minute now bow and wow the feedback we're getting i mean so many of y'all love this stuff you're stopping us in the street going i love cupi and if you're thinking wait what is cupi uh do you not have the internet it's the og japanese mayonnaise the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle once you know it you start seeing it everywhere people ask what makes it different from basic mayo well the answer egg yolk cupi is made with egg yolks only giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything burgers fries sandwiches chicken noodles chefs use it restaurants use it people who really love food and flavor use it whatever you're eating cupi hit so if you haven't tried cupi yet find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about you'll understand cupi the original japanese mayonnaise we also had more news over the weekend in the main senate race uh where graham platner is likely to win the nomination in next week's primary stories in the new york times and the wall street journal reported that as his campaign began last year platner's wife amy gertner told a campaign staffer that platner had exchanged sexual messages with several women and this was after platner and gertner were married in late 2023 but that they had stopped before the campaign began and platner and gertner had gone through therapy the entire situation is very much the same messy uh the staffer that uh platner's wife told genevieve mcdonald has since left the campaign and and she was the one who originally talked to the wall street journal and she's talked to the new york times and she's become a public critic of platner um platner said that at least some of what mcdonald told the new york times wasn't true but both he and his wife amy gertner and the campaign have all confirmed the existence of the messages um and then janet mills who uh suspended her campaign in april um said that she was not a fan of platner and she was not a fan of platner she said in an interview on sunday that actually she's still on the ballot and uh and she also just um posted the first tweet from her campaign account since uh the tweet where she suspended her campaign and it was a it was a happy pride month tweet well that's that's a sort of neither here nor there i suppose try try or don't yeah you know what i mean yeah you can't half run for office come on what are we doing here um well you could make the argument that she kind of half ran all right what do you guys think about this latest development and how it might impact the race i mean i think the the main risk for platner is the cumulative impact of these stories and scandals along with the reddit stuff because i think main voters were have shown to be quite willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the past reddit posts and accept his explanation that i was in a bad place this happened in the past i've grown i've changed and moved on you know i think voters like okay we get that uh this latest what are we calling it sexting scandal like this stuff was very recent we're talking like 2023 and so um i think these days uh sexual allegations of where it's just infidelity or infidelity adjacent like don't tend to be campaign ending especially when amy gertner said this is a private matter we worked through it i love him i have a great marriage etc but i do worry that the cumulative nature of this stuff might make voters think one like is this guy a good guy and two um what else do we not know about him and so i think platner's campaign can weather this they will likely weather this i would recommend less criticism of the media for covering the story i think it's a valid story to cover um and the new york times and wall street journal ultimately got the story right right and i would just say you know i think you have to own it you have to own that this was shitty behavior it was a mistake that we've moved uh we that the two of them have worked through privately and then in a few days from now that's when you sort of pivot to the message about getting back to issues because that's right that is what we're doing and i think it's a valid story and i think it's a valid story and i think it's a valid story what voters want to talk about but there's going to be a period of time where folks talk about this because it just broke and i think you can't scold the press for covering a thing that was valid enough that your spouse brought it forward to your campaign staff to talk to them about so um you know like it's fair game obviously if susan collins was slinging nudes on snapchat like we'd be talking about it you know what i'm saying so by the fall we might be we uh um sorry all that said like i do think what plat got that hammer and sickle tattoo too yeah which would you have to be mcdonald the platner step former platner staffer did here is really uh shitty on a human level it's unethical um if i were amy gertner i would be furious um and so you know that part of it's pretty gross yeah like if a candidate just had the reddit stories like i was going through a really tough time in my life and i posted some heinous shit it was like and i regret it uh but i've been through a lot of therapy it had to do with my ptsd and i'm on the other side of it you'd be like okay like people grow and they change the tattoo you'd say i this was stupid tattoo i didn't understand what it meant at the time i'm covering it up like okay uh early in my marriage i was a real i was in a really shitty place and i was having these i was i don't know what he was doing sexting whatever but my wife and i have worked through it and it's a private matter she's with we're together because we we love each other and uh that's all that should really count you'd say okay i i feel like you add them all up together and then you're like okay you're like okay you're like okay you're like together and then there's all these insinuations that there's more coming more coming more coming you see why people would be concerned what i find like sort of hard to wrap my mind around this is that like why do we care about red flags right like all these are not what kind of center is he going to be is he a good person does he have our values does he does he have a good character at root or is he a is he a flawed person who's made terrible mistakes who's trying to become a better person or is the insinuation that all this adds up to evidence that he will be a bad senator who's actually not going to do the things he is claiming he's going to do that he's going to be a fetterman right that he's going to disappoint us in some way that he has like fundamental flaws and i don't know the answer to that what i'm amazed by is how many kind of active hyper engaged democrats online who do shape how we talk about these things claim to know with such certainty about this right like they know they know and they're so shocked that other people don't agree with them and i look i'm not a main voter but but a lot of this is do you think he's a bad person do you think that he's going to lose because of these stories which is just another way of saying you think the voters of maine will think he's a person of bad character i don't i don't know but i just uh i find that it's a lot of people kind of fighting over not whether or not graham platner is going to do the things he says he's going to do and it's the person he claims to be now more kind of re-litigating their arguments and and anger sort of at the factions of the party that they're always in dispute with with yeah i was in thinking about this i was trying to separate out like my personal feelings about this with like my political analysis of what it means and personally it's like you know i think infidelity is a mistake and it shows poor judgment i also for me it's like it's not a deal breaker if a candidate with past infidelity issues has worked through those with their spouse to their spouse's satisfaction which is the case here it's like still not great but it's not a deal breaker if it's a deal breaker for other people it's still not a deal breaker if it's a deal breaker for other people i don't judge that either like you make your own determinations i think in in terms of like the timeline when everything happened it is very clear to me i think it's probably clear to everyone now that graham platner did not think he was going to be a candidate for office up until the minute he was a candidate for office and lived his life accordingly um and probably you know other people say well i didn't make mistakes like he did and i didn't get that kind of tattoos correct right like he he lived his life not thinking he would ever be a candidate for public office and then he ran for office and then they were like all right what's in the past and all the stuff's coming out including at the time he decided to run for office these messages which his wife um brought up to the campaign so again all of the accusations and all the stories about platner have been from about behavior and things he did before he started running for office right and so for me i think okay the whole like i've changed and i've grown it's not about like i was a kid and did crazy things it was i was never gonna run for office and i'm running for office and i'm trying to be your senator so what kind of senator are you going to be running for office and i'm trying to be your senator are you going to be right um politically my analysis of this is you're right that like these things start stacking on top of each other and i think that the larger issue for people becomes trust right because and this is where the is more going to come out or why didn't the campaign like first of all some people are like why didn't the campaign tell us this if they knew this i don't think campaigns are necessarily in the business of dumping all of the opposition research they do on their own candidates incredibly personal painful stuff right into the public like that doesn't usually happen absolutely not on this one she came hey just so you know this is something that happened in our past but we're good it's not an issue we're together we're happy that is never of course they don't come up that's a private matter right but i think that um look uh andrew kaczynski on the tattoo story like who's reporting i trust a lot and he's a very good reporter has the you know the story that maybe plattner knew what the tattoos signified sometime after he got up but before he ran and the and you know plattner's been a little sort of sketchy on just explaining that and now this one it was like well, I think that she told the, you know, she lied to the Times and the Times story wasn't right, but it was. So there is this, what I worry about and what I think about if I was them is like, there is a trust issue now that could become a bigger trust issue. And I do think that the campaign and Plattner might think these issues don't matter or they're private or whatever, but he has to now work to build people's trust and keep people's trust between now and November, because people, even people who like him are going to start to question, well, is he telling the full truth about everything? Is there more? Are they transparent? You know, like, and that to me does bear on what kind of Senator you are. So I think the most important thing for them is to like go and do the work and like earn people's trust and take all the tough questions and give all the explanations you need until people are bored, bored asking the questions. Yeah. I think you gotta probably be a little more transparent on this one. I look, I also, you know, I hear what you're saying on how you were sort of thinking about this. I don't think most people, they'll draw a line at when you decided to run to office for kind of like when they judge your decision-making or the morality of this. I think, I think if like the tattoo is a bridge too far to you, I understand that I'm not going to tell you otherwise. I mean, what, what I, you know, when I talked to him about this, when we sort of, they showed us the video, the thing that I always stuck with me was he took his shirt off and sang that song at his, it was a brother's wedding and his sister-in-law is Jewish. So like, you have to be a real asshole to do that and display that tattoo kind of knowing full well and being fully cognizant of what it meant at that wedding. That to me was a convincing explanation, but I've read Andrew's reporting too, that maybe there's some questions about the timeline. I think that's a fully, a totally reasonable thing to wonder about. I think the threshold question is, are there other things in this guy's past that suggest he ascribes to Nazi or fascist ideology? And that's where the Reddit archive is actually quite useful. Yes. Because what it shows is the exact opposite. Right. And then that's where I think people kind of refuse to kind of engage, I think, with this broader body of factual information that we have when we want to assess what this man believes. And I will say, this is why I personally, and people have seen me do this online, but this is why I get more frustrated with people, people's, with people being upset at the, at the tattoo thing more than if you're upset with all the old Reddit stuff and you feel like he's apologized for that, but the apology not accepted, then like, that's your decision. And I understand that if you're upset about it, then you're upset about it. And if you're upset about it, then you're upset about this, the sexting scandal, then like, I understand that. But you're right. The tattoo thing, the guy just posted on Reddit, again, like he was never running for office anonymously, has all these things that he said that he's now regretting that are some are offensive, whatever else. None of them even hinted that he has ascribes to any of this kind of ideology. Sounds like a commie. And everyone's like, I saw it when we, yeah, when we were, when you were about to interview him, Tommy, and we saw the video, I was like, what's the problem? It's a skull and crossbones. Now, everyone now can be like, you didn't know it was a fucking totem. No, we knew it was a totem. It was a, it was a skull and crossbones. And I'm sure maybe if Andrew's story is correct, then at some point someone said to Platner, Hey, that skull and crossbones you've got, did you know that's a Nazi tattoo? And he's probably like, well, I've been screened for the army twice and they screened tattoos for this. And no one ever said anything. And I have a Jewish family. No one ever said anything. So maybe he then Googled it and was like, Oh yeah, it is. But again, it was probably like, well, what do I like? I'm going to go cover it up. I'm not. And then he did. Clearly something changed in their thinking between when I talked to him and a couple of days later. He was like, no, I did this. This was the deal. It was a stupid tattoo. I was an infantryman. I was in Croatia. I was a dumb kid, whatever. And a couple of days later he got it covered up. Right. So like something occurred to him that, Oh, actually this is a real problem that I should fix. But this is where it's like, people just sort of call him a Nazi. And it's like, and then, then it's like, you say, well, hold on a second. Like no one, you don't have to listen to anyone. You don't have to believe anyone. You don't have to take more information in. You don't have to have a nuanced view. You can just call somebody a Nazi if you want. The reason symbols matters is because they're supposed to symbolize something, right? Like, we battle about symbols on social media because it's, that's what the medium is for. It's for taking little tokens of something and drawing a conclusion about it. It's very small space. So we do it with symbols, but the symbol has to mean something. Like it has to be a red flag of something. Like, do you think he's a Nazi? Of course you don't. Of course you don't. You think maybe that he's a stupid tattoo. Maybe they didn't care enough about it being a Nazi tattoo. That's a fair argument. Maybe he was pointed out and take it seriously enough. That's okay. All of it's like, just, but like, can we just have an honest conversation about it rather than like, uh, it's a no for me because of the, the, the tattoo. It's like, okay, that you're free to do that. We're just going to, we're just going to have the rest of the conversation, even if you don't want to have it. Also, also the other thing, and I think ultimately here, this is up to the people of Maine and this is up to the voters of Maine. And if this whole time he was going down and down and down and down in the polls and people, and people were not buying this, I don't even like, okay, then, then he shouldn't be the nominee. And like even, even Mills stayed in the race because she wanted to fight it out. Well, so even, even Mills now saying, like, I'm technically still in the race and whatever, like, that's fine. If she wants to campaign for the last week and, and if she's on the ballot, we're going to be talking about this race on June 9th. If the people of Maine now decide that they want Janet Mills instead of Graham Platner because of this last scandal and everything else, then like they should do that. And then, then the national party should get behind Janet Mills and we'll be off to November. Probably she quit because she saw the writing on the wall because, because she, because she didn't want to go down in her last race, but if Platner gets a ton of votes in the primary and still does really well, then like, that's what the people of Maine wanted and they met him and they didn't, you know, it wasn't just online discourse, like they met him. So we gotta, we gotta kind of take the lead of the people in Maine. Yeah. So there's a lot of like a, I know we're all used to losing and being fucking losers and we come to a loser mentality and like a loser mentality is like, um, I like, this is bad. We have to do something else. I'm scared. I don't like this. This is bad. I'm done with this. We can't do this. And it's like, guys, he's, if, if there, if there was someone else running, you could have a debate and maybe vote for somebody else. He's right now, the only person that's going to putting up a fight for this race. If you want to say that Janet Mills should get back in, if you want to say that he should drop out, whatever, say what you want. But really what you're saying is I'm worried he's going to lose. People are also comparing it to like that. Well, people push Biden out when they thought that Biden did something. But I'm like, but that was the opposite because in that scenario, the whole country didn't want Biden and Biden and his campaign were saying, yes, yes, you will get him no matter what. This is a, this is a, this is a flip thing where, where the voters of Maine are like, no, no, we like him. And then other people are worried about it. You know, it's just a different, the Biden thing is so it could come to that. When, when, when nobody was challenging Biden and Biden was the nominee and it still seemed like there was a chance he could win. That was actually when we, when we would talk about how we were concerned, he wasn't addressing his age issues, but he's going to be the person. So we've got to do everything we can to help him win because he's the only person that we're going to have. Then he eats shit in that debate. Joe Biden thought he was having a stroke. Didn't tell us at the time. Okay, babe. But, but, but then it was now clear that he could not win. And so it because it was pragmatic. It was crazy. It was, it was risky, but it was actually pragmatic because it was the only hope of winning the election. Nobody can make that argument right now based on the polls around grand planner. They just can't. Yeah. All right. So that's that. I'm sure we won't talk about that anymore between now and November. Um, one more thing we couldn't resist over the weekend, the New York times published a brutal and hilarious report titled is JD Vance, the 2028 front runner. Trump has questions. According to the times, Trump is quote, not so sure about Vance. Trump has pointed out, Vance's political success has largely depended on Trump's support that Vance takes too many vacations that Vance opposed the war in Iran. And that Vance, frankly, sometimes doesn't look or act very presidential. We of course, didn't want to be unfair to JD. So, uh, we thought we checked the tape of, of some of the moments in question. Let's let's play. JD buds into conversations. What's I want to have, I want to have that for at least a couple of days. Okay. Oh, my wife has the right to skydive, but she doesn't jump out of an airplane because she and I have an agreement that she's not going to do that. Cause I don't want my wife jumping out of an airplane. Well, they say it's racist to do anything. I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I'm sure they're going to call that racist too. But what is a, this, what is a Zach? You're gonna have to help me out with her name here. I lost my page here. Okay. All right. Now you can't move me. I'm the vice president United States. Oh my God. That's so funny. What'd you guys think of the story? I love the story so much. JD Vance is just the gimp from Pulp Fiction. Trump wheels them out at a little box, humiliates and puts them back in. Um, the details are so funny. Like the man who spends one third of his time at Mar-a-Lago thinks JD Vance takes too many vacations. Delicious. I love that Trump thought the, the trophy incident that we just watched there twice was as embarrassing as we all did. And that it just exposed JD is just like a phony non-sports fan loser. I love this. Susie Wiles took away JD's phone privileges and made him stop texting or tweeting like he's some, you know, like her teenage son got in trouble. Uh, that clip of Trump scolding JD for talking in meetings and not acting like some like CCP commissar is beautiful. Like they set him up. They went through his failure tour. It was the Iran talks, the Victor Orban campaign stop, uh, Indiana Republicans trying to job own them into redistricting failure, failure, failure. Uh, he killed Pope Francis. People forget about that. But JD Vance was so annoying to Pope Francis. Yeah. He did get us a better Pope, which who he then, uh, now he attacks him. Like, yeah, don't be a, be careful. Shut up and dribble. And like, ultimately like this is a win-win for Trump, right? Because if whoever comes as JD or Rubio, whoever, if they win, Trump will say that's because of me. If they lose, he'll say can't win without Trump. Right? So he's pumped. no matter what, but it is so fun watching him just, just fuck with these guys. One other thing that jumped out to is, uh, the article just states it as a fact that I didn't realize it wouldn't have occurred to me as a fact that Trump is just spending more time with Rubio than he is with JD Vance. Cause Rubio is of course not just secretary of state. He's, he's, he's national security advisor and JD Vance can't ride on the plane with Trump because he's vice president, vice president can't go on air force one with the president just doesn't happen. Uh, and so he's a little bit outside of things. I will say that the, like the JD Vance his whole life, just having FOMO, the, the, yeah, the, the Vance probably has more power in the Trump administration than Kamala Harris did in the Biden administration. I would say, uh, he has more actively involved. He's in the room for big decisions. I think, I think they've given him almost as annoying jobs though. For sure. For sure. But I think they actually listen when he says stuff, uh, not on the run. That's true. Well, yeah, fair enough. But, uh, I mean, even the thing though, he was by the end, Vince, was saying he was in favor of doing, if we're going to go big, go big or go home. So even he tried to stay on the right side of that. But anyway, uh, I think like what Trump sees is what we see is like Vance can't help but reveal his nature. He can't help it. He can't help it. He can't go into a donut shop and be normal. He doesn't know how to talk to people because he's putting on a show, but they're like that, that like ambitious little nerd, that kind of like that, that, that thing inside of him, it just can't stop from coming out. And it makes everyone, including Trump uncomfortable. And I love it. I just, I just want to, um, zoom in again on the, uh, the social media part with my, my Twitter pen pal, JD Vance. This is what the time says in meetings, Mr. Vance frequently scrolls his phone and he uses social media to fight with his critics. The president frequently posted truth social, but he does not spend time replying to people online as Mr. Vance does. I just love that they have separated out the kind of poster like reply guy Trump's out there. He's posting like 30 times a night in the content creator. Yeah. He's like, yeah, he's, he's a producer really. He's just putting it up. And Mr. Vance is there just replying to people online. Susie Wells and the other staff have all gotten together to tell him to have an intervention and say that, uh, that the fighting was beneath his office. The idea that anyone in that fucking building is going to tell anyone what's beneath the office. And yet they do. I know that I believe it. I know. I absolutely believe it, but they made him say it was for Lent. I liked it so much. I just kept it off my phone. Giving up for Lent. I love that. I love that. I took it off my phone. Finally, you did this weekend. I'm proud of you. Yeah. It was the platinum stuff that did it. I was like, yeah, that discourse is real. I started, I saw it starting blowing up. It's like, I'm just going to, I'm going to save my thoughts for Monday. I was like, I can't have a, a grand platinum thing. And then, and then two fights going on. Uh, Dave Portnoy tweets at me and then Nira with like five tweets. I was like, I'm done. It's like the quadrennial, the quadrennial tweet review where like, you can't be fight. You have to be able to hold one front. And also win on another front at the same time. I've said this before. I was like, the JD Vance thing. Yeah. I'll fight with JD Vance. I'm like, no, not that this is what I did this week. It was not good. Okay. Not good. Yeah. It's not fun. Nice to admit that. When we come back, New Jersey Senator Andy Kim will talk to me about the conditions at an ICE detention center in Newark, where he was also pepper sprayed by federal agents. Pod Save America is brought to you by Quince. If the temperatures heat up during summer, you want pieces that feel like they're going to last. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Well-made basics, but without the luxury markup. 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And 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash crooked for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash crooked. Because to us, owning a home in your 30s, working in tech without the traffic, and still being able to make it to your kid's soccer game sounds pretty good. Your move. Okay, we've been talking about QB Mail for a minute now, Bow. And wow, the feedback we're getting. QB is made with egg yolks only. Giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. You'll understand. Senator Andy Kim, welcome back to Pod Save America. Yeah, thanks for having me back. So, um, for anyone who hasn't been following the story, uh, there's a privately run ICE detention center in Newark called Delaney Hall. Around 300 people are being held inside. Um, some have started a hunger strike over the conditions. You tried to visit last Sunday, were turned away, got in on Monday, Memorial Day. And then by the end of the day, you got pepper sprayed by federal agents. Can you just walk us through that whole experience and what you saw? Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for shining a light on this because this is a problem, not just for us in New Jersey, but all over this country. Uh, this is a facility that has about 800 right now, several hundred of them participating. And the hunger strike and the broader protests, but, uh, I was been able to go there a couple of times and, and look, you know, some of the things that I've heard most recently, uh, you know, these are people that are, for instance, a man telling me that he's got stage three lung cancer, doesn't want to be there anymore, willing to go back to his home country, but not being allowed to do so, not getting the medical care that he needs. You know, there's a pregnant woman there telling me that she's not getting the medical care that she needs as she's gearing up. To have a baby. And she's literally looking me in the eye and she's saying like, do I need to be prepared to have a baby here in Delaney hall? Uh, you know, they, they, she has no movement on her case, you know, no understanding what's happened next on the court. Um, you know, the woman that was translating this for me, you know, turned out to be an 18 year old high school senior who's in there by herself. I actually talked to her mom outside of Delaney hall and she's worried sick. You can imagine, you know, having your, your daughter, an 18 year old high school senior. In a detention facility by herself. Um, you know, this is a young woman who was telling me all she wanted to do is go to the prom and graduate from high school this year. And so like when Trump's telling you, these are the worst of the worst telling you that he's going after the violent criminals. You know, I wanted the people across this country to just hear what I'm hearing inside that facility. And sure they're, they're complaining and, and raising the concerns about the medical care or the lack of medical care. About the, you know, the horrible problems where they're having with food. Like one man ran up to me with a milk carton and showed me what was inside and it was just congealed solid on the inside. I mean, it's disgusting. And, uh, you know, they're raising concerns about the extreme heat that they're feeling. And I felt it too, as I'm sweating there in their room. Um, and it wasn't even a particularly hot day, but what they were also flagging is just like the lack of any movement on their cases. I mean, some of them in there for eight months, some of them in there for over a year. Not having any movement forward in any credible way. You know, one man ran to the hallway and grabbed a piece of paper off the bulletin board and, you know, showed it to me. And it showed me that like on one day, you know, when the courts came back into session after the Memorial day weekend on one day on that Tuesday, this one judge had 74 cases before her in, you know, you know, in just one day. And like, you know, like I did the back of the napkin math, that's like about five minutes per case. I mean, it's a farce of. A legal process that's just, you know, keeping them there while, you know, while these conditions are terrible, not moving anything for it. And who's paying the bill? It's us. It's the taxpayer dollars that are, that are paying, you know, geo group, you know, millions and millions of dollars to run these facilities. So that's, you know, that's, that's at least what I saw inside. First of all, that is just horrific. And, um, it seems like the delay in hearing these cases. is both a function of how many people they are detaining straining, clearly not the worst of the worst, but a whole bunch of other immigrants, some of whom I imagine could be here legally, as well as just the sort of failure to properly resource the immigration courts with enough judges and to properly resource these facilities. Is that what you took away from it as well? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, look, you know, some of this is absolutely just a lack of investment. I mean, like, as they're surging up ICE and CBP through the reconciliation bill, and I'm, you know, down here at the Capitol now because they're about to try to push another, you know, $60, $70 billion towards the enforcement side. But where's the energy towards the courts? You know, we already had millions of cases of backlog that was going to take a decade or so just to be able to get through. Like, we all know that we need to invest in the courts, that we can have a judicial, a judicial process that can hopefully take on these cases in a matter of days and weeks rather than years or even longer. And that should, you know, that backlog is what is putting so much strain on our system and is costing us so much. So that's part of it. But like, look, you can't help but think through, I mean, like, this is GeoGroup, you know, for those that don't, it may not be following this, GeoGroup's a for-profit company that runs this facility, runs 19 other facilities, about 20 facilities around this country. It's not in charge of detaining over 20,000 people for ICE. You know, this is a group that, you know, is just making money off of this all. Like, they're just printing money off of this all. You know, they're getting paid by the bed, by the day, you know, so they're not certainly complaining about this process. And like, when you, you can't help but think, like, look, when Tom Holman comes from GeoGroup into the White House, they run this process. When they just chose, actually, today's the first day of the new head of ICE that they just picked. And it came, again, straight from GeoGroup. You know, like, you can't help but think, like, this revolving door of just profiting off of this, you know, human misery. You can't help but think, like, this is the point, that they are trying to make things so bad for the detainees there, that detainees just give up and sign whatever papers that they want or whatnot. And, you know, and I felt it there. Like, there was just so little accountability. Like, as you said, I tried to get into the facility on Monday, early in the day, I tried to get in. I actually even let them know ahead of time and got approval to be able to go into the facility that day. I show up at the gates, and the GeoGroup guards are just like, nope, like, you're not allowed in. And you're like, I'm a U.S. Senator, and I've had authorization to do this. I have authorization by law, as well as the permission to come. I literally had to call Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen. I talked to him. And told him, like, let me inside. Like, I have a right to be inside. And so, finally, they let me inside, and I go inside, and I talked to the head of GeoGroup in the facility. I told him, by the way, your guards just told me that I can't come inside. And he just looked at me, and he said, you're a liar. He just literally, to my face, called me a liar. I mean, like, I give you that not because it was insulting to me, but I give you that because I want you to understand, like, the kinds of dynamics that there are. Like, that situation was very indicative to me of just a lack of care about any accountability or transparency. Like, they don't feel, GeoGroup doesn't feel beholden to the American people, certainly doesn't feel beholden to Congress. And that is because of just this dynamic between ICE and groups like GeoGroup and CoreCivic and these other companies. In a world, in a league of their own, they're just, like, operating off on their own. And because, you know, Speaker Johnson and others are just giving them that kind of carte blanche. So, they were just in some, you know, in some world of their own and feel nothing, you know. And then, so, when I, and then when I came out from that facility and was alerted by my team and the people on the ground that there was now, like, a standoff of people outside. So, not only is there chaos inside Delaney Hall, but now I come out and emerge outside and see that there's a standoff between ICE agents. You know, they have a row of ICE agents that are armed. They have an armored vehicle. They, and they're, you know, just in a standoff with the protesters there. I mean, look, you know, like, my immediate concern was, like, this cannot become Minnesota. We saw what happened to Rene Good and Alex Preti. I was terrified that, you know, we're going to see that type of violence and potentially bloodshed in the streets. So, I was trying to figure out, like, is there any way to be able to off-ramp this? Is there any way we can be able to lower the temperature? And I was talking to the head of ICE outside there, and at some point, he just told me, like, look, we're going to just drive these vehicles, our vehicles out. And I looked across the field there, and I said, like, you cannot just simply plow your vehicles through a crowd of civilians. Like, you have to try to figure out, you know, how we can try to do this without the violence. And look, I was trying to see if there's any arrangement, but like, again, like, it shouldn't be just on me. Like, when it comes to de-escalation, like, what role are their officers supposed to play? Like, and that's what I think was so alarming, John, is like, there was just like, at some point, just a feeling of inevitable violence. And it was just so to me. Like, the ease with which ICE just went out and drove their vehicles literally through a crowd, just not even, like, not even putting effort to try to avoid that circumstance. It shouldn't be that easy to have violence in the streets of America. Like, it shouldn't be that easy for federal agents that are supposed to swear the same oath that I swear about protecting and defending the Constitution and supporting the American people, to find themselves in a circumstance. So it's just like, you know, I saw this unfold. And immediately, you know, my instinct was to run, run into it and try to put myself between the ICE agents and the crowd. I was trying to keep that physical separation, because that is where we saw so much of the violence escalate in Minnesota. If I could at least keep them physically separated, you know, perhaps we could avoid the worst. But it was so jarring. It was really scary just to see that type of violence in my state, frankly, anywhere in the country. And to know that, you know, this is still could very well be, you know, a problem that we see continue in my state and elsewhere. And so because you put your body in between the protesters and the ICE agents, the federal agents, eventually, they started shooting pepper balls, you know, and I believe that there's one that struck by your feet. And, and, you know, you inhaled it as well. Secretary Mullen and DHS are saying just a number of things that don't seem to be true, and certainly are not your account, that there is no hunger strike, that the complaints are about certain inmates not getting or certain people that are being held by the facility, not getting their ethnic food of choice, that the conditions aren't bad, that nobody, wasn't was directly struck by pepper balls, which about you, what do you make of just the the what, what they're saying about all of this? Well, first of all, just again, like, I saw what I saw, like, I talked to the people that there is a hunger strike going on inside and a larger protest. And there are certainly people that are not getting basic care, you know, like, like, again, they're not, they're not asking for the moon, they're asking for just a certain baseline of human dignity. As as we're going, especially as we're, again, keeping them there for indefinite amounts of time. I mean, there was I was in the medical isolation area. And there was a man there in a wheelchair. He hadn't left that room in four months. Because like that facility is just not meant to handle someone with a wheelchair. So they're like, you're stuck in this room now. Like, you know, and like not able to go to go and leave. He was like, Can I at least be at a hospital? And frankly, look, there was actually someone who was sent to a hospital, a woman that was sent to a hospital for quite some for no quite a number of days. By the time I got there was like day 12 or 14. The family didn't even know where this woman was. They because ice wouldn't tell her what hospital that she was at, because of security concerns. So you can't tell them where your hospital which hospital you're at. They can tell them the nature of the, you know, the severity of the problem that she had to be a hospital. I mean, she was there for like, all the 14 days. That's a, that's a significant amount of time in a hospital and the family has no idea they can't visit them. And so I asked, like, like, what can the family do to learn about this? And literally, like, like, it breaks my brain thinking about this. Like ice looked me in the eye and said, Oh, the family can FOIA this information. Just like thinking to myself like what? Like, their family member could be in some life threatening situation at a hospital and you want them to FOIA this information? Like, is there any way they can get any information about their loved one? Like, that's like the just the craziness of it. So like, when, you know, when Secretary Mullen or others say this, you know, you know, they're just in like damage control mode. They saw what happened in Minnesota when the American people actually saw what was happening. And the American people, they're smart about this. They understand that there are just lines that should not be crossed. And whether that's for American citizens or anybody in this country. And frankly, look, a lot of the people I met with at Delaney Hall, they are married to American citizens and parents of kids that are American citizens. You know, that's what I think they're afraid of. They're afraid that the American people will understand and learn the truth about what is happening in our name, with our money, but without our say and without our approval. And that's just, you know, that's just wrong. And that's what needs to be changed here. You know, we have the capacity to do so. It's just a matter of political will that's happening. This administration refuses to put towards this. I know that Governor Sherrill sent in state police to help set up protest zones and sort of ask demonstrators to lower the temperature. Some of the activists outside Delaney heard that as her policing them instead of the feds. Where do you come down on some of the tension between trying to conduct oversight, give people a safe space to protest while also trying to maintain safety in the environment? in the general area. Yeah, I mean, first of all, look, I mean, this is chaos that is inherited from ICE, that they have been fomenting. Look, they've been threatening to bring many, many more ICE agents to New Jersey, basically threatening a surge similar to Minnesota. So I understand, look, we're going to try to avoid that scenario. But look, there are legitimate concerns at Delaney Hall. And as a result, there are legitimate, you know, legitimate reasons to be able to protest that. And I want to make sure that we are trying to address that, like we are allowing that kind of space. I get it, like, you know, we can't have this unrest continue on. In fact, I'm hearing it from the families of the detainees saying that it's been preventing them from being able to visit their loved ones, that attorneys are not able to get access because, you know, because of some of the roads have been shut down and other things. So like, look, we want to make sure we're not getting in the way and losing sight of what we're really trying to address, which is the detainees and their conditions. But like, there's got to be a way that we can do this, you know, while we are also making sure that, you know, people have the rights afforded to them in the Constitution, especially for free speech. So like, I'm trying to work on this, trying to address this. I talked with not only the governor's team, but also, you know, Mayor Baraka from Newark. They tried to think through, like, what other steps, what other ways can we do this that isn't going to just further inflame, you know, what is already this horrible situation that ICE has, you know, thrown our state into. But, you know, it is difficult, but I'm trying my best to be able to push forward in a way that is going to make sure that, again, we're keeping the needs and the plight of the detainees front and center here. As you mentioned, you know, one opportunity to sort of make some change here is, you know, the Senate's schedule to consider this $72 billion budget bill funding for ICE that would fund ICE through the end of Trump's term. Obviously, it doesn't seem like Democrats have the votes to stop it in the Senate because it would only require 51 votes. But are you and or other Democrats planning to offer any amendments that you think might actually be able to pass with some Republican support that might rein in some of the abuses we're talking about? Or, you know, make any kind of corrections to some of the things that you saw? Well, look, here's what I'll lay out for you. I mean, there are a whole slew of problems that are facing Delaney. And I want people to know, like, it's not that Delaney, Delaney is not some bad apple that is just, you know, we just have to address that. This is a system-wide failure. Yeah. And problem. As I said, you know, GeoGroup's got 19 other facilities, you know, CoreCivic and other, I mean, like, and then now, you know, ICE is trying to build these. Yeah. And warehouse detention facilities, and hopefully we can push back and stop this. But there's a broader problem, systemic, not just in the culture, but just in the broader process. And that's what I'm trying to expose. You know, and so there's three things in particular I'm trying to push towards, both through the legislation as through other means. You know, like, first, like, let's get, let's surge some medical support to Delaney and these other facilities. Like, like, there are clearly people who are not getting the care that they need. And Senate, Secretary Mullen can, can dispute that. But, like, again, it's not what I'm hearing. It's not what I'm seeing. And, and I just don't see why anyone's going to stand in the way and say, like, look, let's, let's just try to see. I mean, the DHS has a medical unit, you know, we can be able to surge up there in that kind of capacity right away. Like, right now, they have one doctor for, one full-time doctor for about 800 detainees. You know, that many of them have significant medical concerns. So, like, that's what I'm trying to do initially. Like, let's surge up there. Let's have, you know, number two, like, let's have, like, a real investigation into these different claims that are about there, whether it's about the food or the other conditions. And number three, the detainees were very clear with me that it's not just about the conditions. It's just, it's about having that movement forward on their cases. So, I'm trying to, again, take what I'm hearing and figure out how to put it in action. You know, I've been talking to Secretary Mullen this week, telling him what I'm hearing on the ground, trying to see what we can move forward, because they can do this on their own if they want to do right now. You know, they could demand, you know, additional doctors. They could demand, you know, efforts to be able to surge this. And that's what I hope people understand. Like, GeoGroup got a nearly billion dollar contract for Delaney Hall. So, they could hire more doctors tomorrow, today, but that's could have better quality food or fix the extreme heat that I'm hearing. But then again, that's cutting into their profits, right? So, we can change that. So, I have been and will continue to be pushing for amendments along these lines of just saying, like, let's have a baseline of medical resources available. I hope we can all agree that regardless of the circumstances that someone's in there, like, we want to make sure that they're getting some semblance of medical care for key needs. You know, I'm trying to push forward. On something that is about de-escalation training. I literally submitted that amendment before I even went back to Delaney Hall about how we can ensure that there's de-escalation training for ICE and CBP after what we saw in Minnesota. And every single Republican on the Homeland Security Committee voted against my amendment, you know. And then I went back to Delaney and saw and experienced what I did. So, I'm pushing forward. But again, like, this is something that we really need the American people to kind of come behind us on this. You know, the only times we've seen this administration back down or pull back has been when there is wide public outrage. You know, we saw that with Minnesota. We see that actually just today. It looks like we're seeing it when the Trump administration seems to be backing off that $1.8 billion slush fund for January 6th rioters. I hope that's true, that they're backing off of that. But, like, you know, I don't know. I don't think that's going to happen. You know, that's what we really need is for us to say, like, you know, this cannot be what is happening in our country and to be able to try to stop it. And I know, you know, reconciliation and voteramas in the Senate, this is not like must-watch TV. Like, this is not something that's going to necessarily, like, you know, have people tuning in at whatever god-awful hour in the middle of the night that, you know, the Republicans force us to vote on these. But, like, I ask people, please, like, like, for my state, for our country, like, please tune in to what is happening. Because what they're trying to do is give upwards of $70 billion more for ICE and CBP. Not only is there no reforms and accountability in there, like what Americans have been demanding since Minnesota, but there's not a dollar in there for you to help you with your health care. There's not a dollar in there for you to help you with your groceries or for the rising gas prices. There's nothing in it for you to do. It's just more money that's going straight into geo-groups' pockets to just continue this lawlessness that we see. This cannot stand. And this is something that we have to do everything we can to let people know and try to push back against this in Congress. Senator, I know you have to run because you're working on this issue, but I just wanted to say thank you for joining us and thank you for everything you're doing to highlight this issue, including literally putting your body in the way. Uh, at Delaney. So, um, please, uh, please let us know how we can help. And, um, and thank you again. Yeah. Thanks so much for shining a light on this. It's so important. Thanks to Andy Kim for coming on. Alex Wagner and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Positive America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, Dana Roberts, and Farrah Safari with Reed Gerlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrienne Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pelleviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the with the Writers Guild of America East. 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