TRUMP CURSES KNICKS

Pod Save America is brought to you by SimpliSafe. Summer, it's here, which means cookouts, pool parties, and wondering if your packages will still be there when you get home from vacation. Or you could skip the worry altogether with SimpliSafe because their outdoor protection can actually help stop porch pirates before they strike. I set up a SimpliSafe, incredibly easy to do. You customize it, it comes to your house, you can install it in a matter of minutes, and then it works great, app's great, customer support, really reliable, gives you peace of mind. With SimpliSafe, there are no long-term contracts or hidden cancellation fees. They earn your business by keeping you safe, not by trapping you in a contract. With SimpliSafe, you can customize your system to fit your needs. Then it ships fast directly to your door. Their app-guided setup is simple, and there's no drilling required, so you can install and arm your system in under an hour and get back to the drilling. Am I right, Tommy? SimpliSafe is more than just a security camera. It's a comprehensive, I did that same exact joke. I thought it was with John. I was like, no, it was with Tommy. It is a comprehensive system of sensors, indoor and outdoor cameras, and 24-7 professional monitoring. Over 5 million people value and trust SimpliSafe with their home security every day. Right now, our listeners will get 50% off a new system when you sign up for professional monitoring, and your first month is free. Just visit SimpliSafe.com slash crooked. That's half off at SimpliSafe.com slash crooked. There is no safe like SimpliSafe. $10 off when you spend $25 or more on participating items. Just look for participating item tags to earn on eligible items from brands like Bubbler, Ghost Energy, Lindor, Halo Top, Vital Farms, Kellogg's, Campbell's, and Heinz. Clip once and save through October 27th every time you shop. Grab these hot deals before they're gone. Restrictions apply. See website for full terms and conditions. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about the biggest outbreak of violence in the Middle East since the so-called ceasefire went into effect, the growing split between Trump and Netanyahu, why Trump ripped off his mic and stormed out of a Meet the Press interview, his new conspiracy about voter fraud here in California and what that could mean for November, Scott Pelley going public with his allegations against Barry Weiss, and Trump's decision to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden. Then Tommy talks to Roger Bennett of Men in Blazers about the World Cup kicking off on Thursday and the implications for global politics. Before we start, if you don't like listening to podcast ads, subscribe to Crooked Media and become a friend of the pod because you get ad-free episodes of all your favorite Crooked Pods. Plus you get to support pro-democracy independent media. Scott Pelley hasn't accused us of injecting any bias. - Yet. - Yet into any of his reporting. But once he starts here at Crooked, hopefully we'll keep the bias out of his reporting. - We don't have time to inject bias into Scott Pelley's reporting. We're too busy injecting him bias into everything we do. - There you go. - That's what I was trying to get at. - Thank you. That's perfect. Let's put that right in. - Yeah. - You also get access to all of our great sub stacks. You get our subscriber only shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer and lots of other fun perks. So consider subscribing. All right. Happy 100 day anniversary to the war that was supposed to be over in just a few weeks. Here's where things stand with Iran and the Middle East as of this recording. Over the weekend, the US and Iran were shooting drones and missiles at each other after oil tankers tried to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without the IRGC's permission. Then the newly negotiated ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon fell apart when Israel bombed Beirut after claiming that Hezbollah targeted them first. Iran responded by launching missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Trump then told Axios that he would warn Netanyahu quote, not to retaliate and told the Financial Times that he quote, calls the shots. Netanyahu doesn't call the shots. Then Netanyahu essentially said, yes, I do call the shots and struck Iran. So for now, both sides seem to have deescalated. And on Monday morning, Trump posted that final, peace negotiations are quote, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way. The president was asked about the war in a prerecorded Meet the Press interview that ran on Sunday. Here's some of what he said as it rained heavily in the background. - Is the United States at war with Iran? - Well, they've been largely decapitated and I call it a military exercise because people would rather have it called that. It's not a big war for us. - How long are you willing to give Iran to make a deal? How much longer? You've been talking for quite some time. - Well, I wouldn't say that. Well, you really haven't. Again, you were in Vietnam for 19 years. You were in Iraq for many years. - Gas is up. Diesel is up. - It's all coming down as soon as the war's over. - 70% of farmers say they can't afford fertilizer. - The farmers are doing very well. - One of your consistent campaign promises was no new wars going all the way back to 2015. Did you break that promise to the American people? - No, no. - What changed? Because you insisted no new wars. - It's so loud. - It's so loud. - 'Cause I didn't guarantee no war. - Didn't guarantee no war. - The rain on this interview. - It's pouring. - It's pouring rain. They have to stop for periods of time. I can't imagine anything more unpleasant than sitting in front of a tractor for five minutes while you wait for the rain to quiet down in between questions about fertilizer prices. - Just hammering on a tin roof. And I know they had the John Deere tractors like strategically placed. But those are the Hezbollah flag colors, by the way. Feel free to Google it. Those yellow and green, just like that. - You and Hassan are big fans of that flag. Here's, so as Trump said, of course, what promise? I didn't make any promise about no new wars. And here's a not so fast montage put together by Decoding Fox News. - Oh, we can't vote for him. He's gonna start a war. No, I used my personality that we didn't have to have wars. - I was the first president in decades who started no new wars. - You started no new wars. We don't need the wars, foreign lands, countries you've never heard of, countries that don't even want us there. We will expel the war mongers from our government. Look at me. I'm the one that kept us out of war. I'm gonna keep you out of wars. I kept you out of wars. We had no wars with Donald Trump. You're not gonna have a war with me and you're not gonna have a third world war with me. That I can tell you. - The war mongers? Did you get that? - It's a third world war. - I think, I think, a third world war. - Not a third world war. - Oh, thank you. - You thought like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, look. - And you're like, excuse me, Mr. President, it's developing nation war. - Yeah, very dated cold war terminology, sir. - It's a global south war. - Yeah, we're not aligned with the Soviets anymore. - I don't know why I decided to go on that tangent. Do you think he's just convinced himself that Iran doesn't count as a real war? - What's the alternative? He's not telling the truth. - Yeah, I do think he's trying to make us believe this. Like, no, the real wars are the ones where you send troops overseas and they're deployed on the ground and they occupy country. And by the way, Vietnam was 19 years. Has it been 19 years, folks? No, this is the little excursion, as he calls it, when we all think he means incursion still, right? - Yeah. - So I do think that's like their attempt at selling this. It's pretty tough though, given the outside's economic costs, given the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. - Yeah, there's just, you know, there's a big space between no war and Vietnam, right? It's like, wow, we're so grateful you didn't launch another Vietnam. Well, that's not the standard, is it? Worse if this war had been going on as long as the Vietnam war. There's also something, he's done it before, but he is so glib when he talks about people who died. He's like, oh, this is not a big war. It's not a big conflict. You lost thousands in these other conflicts. We've only lost 13. And he adds a perfunctory and any death is unacceptable. But to hear like an American president refer to the deaths as being minimal in this way, as if like that is acceptable or that makes it okay, it's like, it's just, it's still jarring. - Yeah. It's not just the fuel prices either. Like fertilizer prices, it's actually hitting farmers pretty hard. His only real message for farmers is like, just wait till it's over. - Right, it'll get better. - Things will get so much better. Just wait till it's over. - By the way, that's also, of course, not true, right? Like prices aren't gonna suddenly drop if there's an agreement. And maybe there's some like immediate effect, but like the ramifications of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are gonna last for a very long time. - So Tommy, what did you make of the Wall Street Journal report on how Trump failed to reign in Netanyahu over these latest strikes? The New York Times had kind of the opposite take, which is that the eventual halt to the fighting on Monday left Netanyahu appearing as beholden to Trump as ever. - So I think the context people need to understand is that the Israelis also have an election coming up. It will probably be sometime between now and October 27th is when it will get scheduled. And so for Trump, we know he has a midterm. A bad result will make his life complicated because of investigations and Democrats being in power. But for Netanyahu, staying in power is existential. That could be the only way he stays out of jail because there's all these corruption allegations and investigations. And so, but politically, Americans and Israelis feel very differently about the war. Americans are like, this is dumb. Why are we doing this? We heard that super cut of him saying there would be no wars. They're like, end it, gas prices are high, end it. The Israelis feel like this is not going well. We have not won, Netanyahu looks weak. And Netanyahu is actually getting attacked from the left and from the right for not finishing the war. And so he's in a tough place politically. Iran firing ballistic missiles missiles directly at Israel because of something Israel did in Lebanon exacerbates that problem for Netanyahu further. So now Netanyahu is in a very tough political situation. He wants the Trump peace talks to fail, but he can't be completely overt in his meddling with those peace talks. He doesn't want to piss Trump off and then lose his political support and the military support. And so he also can't look like he's being fully controlled by Trump. Like when Trump calls the FT and is like, I own this bitch, you know, like that's a tough place for him to be politically. And he also doesn't want to look like he's going to let Iran fire missiles at me, Mr. Security, be Netanyahu without responding. So it was just, he's in a very tough place. It sounds like they navigated it better on Sunday than they did in the last call, where I guess Trump was like, hey man, you're a fucking asshole. You'd be in jail if not for me. But you know, the divergent interests are making this more and more complicated every day. Yeah. Did you see one, one U.S. official told Axios, they described the call between Trump and Netanyahu as quote, polite, while a second U.S. official noted that nobody shouted. There we go. That is the standard. Yeah, it is, it is difficult for, it makes diplomacy a little bit harder when Trump makes all of the subtext text all the time. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, as a rule, when someone says, I call the shots around here, that's rarely said from a position of, you don't usually have to say, if people know, people, if you're calling the shots, you don't have to say it. You're just in the midst of calling the shots. Like, like, like, as he's been saying, he holds all the cards. I hold all the cards in this war and I call all the shots. Well, he's saying he calls all the shots and a call to the reporter before he calls the other guy who's the head of state. Stop shooting. Get the sequencing wrong, sir. Bibi said, I thought this was captured the situation. Israel has a full right to self-defense and we are exercising it. I say this with appreciation and respect for my good conversations with President Trump. And so he just, he does the praise piece, but then he does whatever he wants. And maybe he's being limited in some ways and not in others. But if the U.S. cannot constrain Israel from escalating in Lebanon, how can there be a deal between Iran and the U.S. in which Israel at any moment can break the ceasefire? And so like any ways in which the U.S. cannot constrain Israel is proof that a deal will not be upheld by our side. And so we're just in this place where everyone's testing each other. And, uh, if like the idea of success is getting Benjamin Netanyahu to only bomb outside of Beirut and not Beirut proper, and that's Donald Trump exerting his power. Like, I don't know how that ends with Iran having confidence that we can maintain a ceasefire. This is the rub. Iran has, I think, very successfully made a peace deal contingent on the war ending on all the fronts. So in Iran itself, but also in Lebanon and southern Lebanon, whereas the Israelis are like, nah, these are different conflicts with different timelines. And we want to keep prosecuting this fight again. It's Hezbollah because people in northern Israel are still under threat from drone attacks. And I think that's going to, again, come into conflict here. And from the other side, right, Iran has an interest in making this a larger conflict in which they can use the Hezbollah-Israel conflict as a, as like a part of their negotiation. And so they can prolong it there and then walk away from the table saying they're blaming Israel, right? Like everybody is using the leverage that they have. Reportedly, the argument that Trump made to Netanyahu too was don't retaliate because I think I'm a few days away from a deal. And then if we don't get the deal, then maybe, maybe I'll lead the strikes next time with you. So he really does. That's another one where like, I think he genuinely believes, or at least his team keeps leading him on like, we're so close. We're so we're on the one yard line. We're so close to a deal. And it just never actually happens. Yeah, I mean, I just, I'll believe it when I see it. And I think Netanyahu is going to hate the deal that's on the table. Reportedly, we don't have to go through all the details, but it's a lot of sanctions relief and unfrozen assets. And so I, yeah, again, just, it seems like they're in very different situations. And so, yeah, again, just, it seems like they're in very different situations. And so, yeah, again, just, it seems like they're in very different pages here, Bibi and Trump. Well, even if it's this like mini deal where it's just reopening the straight and you don't even get into a ton of sanctions relief somehow, that doesn't really do anything about Israel and Lebanon. No, or solve the nuclear issue. Yeah, of course. So meanwhile, as the, as the ceasefire was teetering, Pete Hegseth was in Europe to mark the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, where he insulted our European allies with a speech that included lines like this. Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? This is one of my favorite analogies I've ever seen in the history of speech writing, because in that analogy, he is, he is putting current European leaders, they are the Nazis. Right. And the, the migrant caravans or boats, that's D-Day. Uh-huh. And so the, what, why is your, in your analogy, you're making the, you're making the Germans, the Nazis again. Well, he definitely wanted to twist it so that it's like different dangerous ideologies around the continent, but then also wanted to compare the boats landing with the boats landing. It didn't, it didn't work on a number of levels. Yeah. No need to pick just one, but yeah. Yeah. The, the good guys were in the boats landing, but they didn't, they didn't work on a number of levels. Yeah, the, the good guys were in the boats, storming the beaches and now the dangerous ideologies are storming the beaches. So it's like, sir, did the dangerous ideologies raise the flag at Iwo Jima? Because I feel you've got this whole thing backwards. Well, I, I listened to the whole speech and it's so bad. It's obviously we can get into the actual substance of, of going, going to, going to Normandy on D-Day to, to pick a fight for some reason. But he also makes this point. It's always in this sort of like the kind of like, whatever, Christian nationalism, Western, ideology thing that he's always doing. But he's like, you know, we defended Western values that here at D-Day or something, something to that effect. Guys, do you remember who the sides were in Europe? It was West on West violence. You know, it's like, we, you know what I mean? It's just, it's just stupid. It's just stupid. It's also just like when you get underneath the bad analogies and Pete Exethnot being the best speaker, um, like the fact that, uh, you know, replacement, the great replacement theory, which once used to be like this far right extremist, uh, thing that we talk about once in a while. Now it's like the US secretary of defense goes to Europe and it's like the official position of the US government that the, the, the problem with mass migration, we're not even going to pretend it's border security or it's job competition, or it's like, you know, government's having to spend too much money to house migrants or anything like that. No, it's just, it's dangerous ideologies. It is people who come ashore, most of them women and children, some of them dead, uh, because there's, there's men. Yeah. So it has to say that, um, because they're so desperate and leave their countries. And, and this is, this represents a dangerous, evil ideology in the eyes of the US government. And what you said, Christian nationalism, the Pope, the first American Pope is going to spend July 4th on one of those islands, Lampedusa, where migrants come ashore, which he's doing because the last Pope also would do that all the time. And so he's doing it in honor of Pope Francis. And this is like, you know, Pete Hexeth is talking about, this is like evil. Migrants are as dangerous to Europe today. As Americans were to the Nazis. That's the, that's the analogy. He says in the speech that, that, uh, what was being defended on D-Day was the Western tradition of freedom as if, like, like again, it's just sort of going back to Christian nationalism and his sort of whole, like Western ideology. But like, what are you talking about? Like we were on, there was a Western, it was West on West violence. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. They're also like, there seemed to be two criticisms in the speech. He, he, part of it, is a criticism of like defense spending or lack of defense spending in Europe and kind of the, the typical free, you're been free riding on the U S and NATO argument that we hear. And then there was this criticism of European immigration policy and European countries, letting in migrants, many of whom were escaping wars, by the way, some cases were started by the United States. Um, either way, it's just a wildly inappropriate place to be such a dickhead. Like usually cemetery, usually these are just celebrations of the few remaining veterans and the people we've, we've lost, uh, in the war. Um, it's also like an example of how the free world came together. To defeat fascism. Meanwhile, like Pete Hegseth and Trump and the Pentagon are allowing the Ukrainians to just kind of dangle in the wind in their effort to fight back against Vladimir Putin. So it's like, I don't know, just the whole thing felt so inappropriate. How many times have Republicans told us like, that's not the forum to have a policy dispute, right? Like a memorial is not where you talk about gun control or like actual efforts to stop gun violence. And he's just going there and yelling at people for 13 minutes in this weird speech. Long way from a long way from Reagan's Ponda Hawk speech. Well, you know, I was thinking about that. That's, he was thinking about that speech when he was trying to do this. Yeah. It's also like, you know, you have Vance weighing in on, uh, uh, like a horrible death in, uh, the UK. It's like, he's just traveling all the way to Normandy to weigh in. Like immigration is a domestic issue. Like you're talking about a domestic policy issue. Uh, he also at the, in the, to Tommy's point says like, no, you know, in World War II, like there was, we really put ourselves on the line for each other. Uh, it wasn't just slogans, summits and communiques. Like, yeah, man, it was World War II. Yeah. It wasn't up. We were at war. You do, you know, you had to actually fight everybody like in peace. Right. And you would work with your allies, presumably having some kind of conversations via whatever means you'd want. It's just very like stupid, like stupid guy. Uh, like it's just, it's just a stupid, just stupid guy. No slogan. There wasn't just slogans. V-Bag day speech, right? Yeah. It's like, yeah, I got to go there and tell it. You know, I don't, for me, World War II wasn't just slogans. Like, yeah, man. Did you catch how it started? The most offensive line? Maybe it was the very first line was, thank you, Ambassador Kushner. Oh, I didn't catch that. Jared Kushner's corrupt dad. Oh my gosh. Who's our ambassador to France. Oh, is that, is he France? Isn't that depressing? Yeah. I forgot about that. Socrates. good stuff well happy happy d-day pod save america is brought to you by aura frames dads love to tell stories sometimes more often and for longer durations than they wish they would this father's day share some reference photos of the moments he's always talking about with aura frames honestly a lot of dad stories would be much improved by a visual aid every aura frame features free unlimited storage meaning you can add as many photos and videos as you want so the stories never end it comes beautifully packaged in a premium gift box and you can pre-load photos before it even ships then you can keep adding photos from anywhere anytime via the free aura app or texting photos directly to your frame aura makes it easy to shop for dad or any great storyteller in your life the aura frame is an awesome gift for any parent especially if there is a grandkid that they want to see and see constantly especially there's a new pet in your life or you go on a great trip it's just a really cool way to give someone who you love uh photos of you that rotate it's not just you know one frame it's a series of photos uh that keep you fresh in their heart and in their mind and in their stories according to this fun copy about storytelling named number one by wire cutter you can save now by visiting aura frames.com for a limited time listeners can get 35 off select frames with the code crooked that's a u r a frames.com promo code crooked support the show by mentioning us at checkout terms and conditions apply pod save america is brought to you by built we can all agree that housing is expensive rent mortgage it doesn't matter which one you're paying it stings every month but bill can make it feel a little better but here's how it works built started out rewarding members on their rent as of 2026 built members can also earn points on mortgage payments too every housing payment earns you points you can help use with top travel partners like united and hyatt or you can use your points toward lyft rides amazon purchases and so much more you can take fitness classes you can get gift cards at 120 brands you can use it on amazon you can use it for lyft there's so many ways to use your billed products you can use it for your house you can use it for your home you can use it for your but here's the most underrated part built members also get access to a neighborhood concierge you can make restaurant reservations book fitness classes and find new local spots all while being rewarded at more than 45 000 merchant partners it's like having a personal assistant baked into where you live it's simple being a renter and now owning a home is better with built join the membership for where you live at join built.com slash crooked that's j-o-i-n-b-i-l-t.com slash crooked make sure you use our url so they know we sent you all right so the most viral moment from trump's uh meet the press interview was when the president ripped off his mic and stormed off set did he stomp on the mic a lot of people were saying that he threw on the ground and so i mean we can all we'll watch it it's unclear uh it started with some uh some tough questions from christian welker about the insurrectionist slush fund which led to trump repeating his favorite conspiracies about january 6th in the 2020 election and then things just devolved from there uh the whole sequence lasted about six minutes which we won't play in full but but here are the highlights i don't know what's going to happen with the organization fund i love the idea they sent people to jail who did nothing wrong just just to be very clear there's no evidence of what you're saying but the election was rigged it was a dirty election and it's happening again right now in california it's happening right now in california right now it's looking look at what's happening to that it's four days and they aren't even close to coming up that's how they you know why they're doing that because they're cheating on the election there's what do you have evidence to support all i have to do is look you're either crooked or you're stupid you play right into their hands with this your elections are crooked and you're crooked and meet the press is crooked and so is abc and cbs and cnn but mr president one-sided crooked network so let's call it quits because i've had enough thank you darling have a good time please i traveled all the way to wisconsin on and off in the rain and i've given you enough time you ought to straighten out your press because you know what a country can never be great with a dishonest listen we traveled all the way to wisconsin for this interview i can't tell if he did it on purpose i think he accidentally crunched it okay it reminds me of when everything else was on purpose but that but when i went to when i'm into michigan and interview bernie and then like about 12 minutes and he's like this that was the time i was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry remember that awesome wrap it up that was a that was a that was a gut punch it's good um you're either crooked or you're stupid actually that's a great slogan for our subscriber push from now on please consider subscribing to friend of the pod because you're either crooked or you're stupid or good.com slash friends um that was uh he was very mad there he really wrote like you're crooked he was he was like the part of these i'm gonna put the whole goddamn system on trial you're crooked they're crooked cnn nbc abc is there anyone else left schwarzenegger was worse at apprenticing than i was he yells at kristen welker like she's the election yeah she doesn't go my elections but but did you when they came back i watched the the the meet the press version and and when welker comes back uh after the interview she said i spoke to the president again and he said he'd happily come on and get into the future so he called her so it's just it's all it's all a show he loves her also like she's such a nice calm measured person the idea that you would flip out on kristen welker like that is so funny he's such a baby he he he flipped out because she said do you have the evidence where's the evidence it's like no and his in his mind it's just like well that's what my people told me and i saw it on on the tv and i saw it in the post and the truths that i that i reposted that i retruthed and so he has no fucking idea he's like all you have to do is look if everyone would just look at what i looked at you'd know that it was crooked i think it's a you're asking for evidence you know i don't have that fuck you i'm making it up on television you know that so mad about the rain as if she's making it rain he also did the because it was too long we didn't play it but he did the whole thing again on where on january 6th the fbi agents the fbi was standing outside sending people in to the to the capital it's like you were fucking president dog they only they only pleaded guilty because they were threatened with jail time talking about they're on video beating up cops yeah everyone has knocked down this dumb conspiracy that the fbi set up the january 6th rioters the fbi that was under the control of donald trump um on the slush fund we'll start there then we can get to the the fraud in california um we talked last episode about todd blanchett telling congress that the administration would not be moving forward with the idea uh even though trump says still he loves it and then uh senate republicans uh blocked the bipartisan attempts to actually ban the slush fund just in case trump changes his mind um now the house is going to give it a go uh democrat tom swazi and republican brian fitzpatrick will launch a discharge petition this week to force a vote on their bill to ban the slush fund two questions um you think the vulnerable republicans who voted to kill the fund have successfully neutralized their political risk i think that was collins um housted and dan sullivan um all up for re-election they vote and then but then they voted for the final bill and do you think trump will actually just let this thing die or is this not the last we've heard of it so he also says to welker at some point uh he still likes the fund uh uh but you have to get it approved and if it didn't get approved i'd be disappointed so that's where he's at now approved they didn't he didn't claim to need it approved in the first place and i was hiding behind the idea of it being approved in some way so he's sort of leaving his options open i think to let it go or do it in some other fashion i think the like it's very clear that they did not appreciate how big of a political problem it would be to launch this thing like todd todd todd blandt clearly thought he was this was going to be he was doing what he trump wanted got him the the nomination to be uh attorney general and then it just the whole thing blew up yeah to me he he sounds like a man who is not ashamed by the fund or worried about the politics it sounds like he thinks he's owed this genuinely thinks he has owed this money he deserves this money just like he has owed the money from cbs because of that lawsuit or the bribes from the tech companies to build his ballroom and god damn it he's going to get it and that's why to me the political risk for all the vulnerable members does not go away because i don't think he's going to drop it and i think it's going to be an ongoing issue and just like to be to be having this conversation is so politically damaging like this man is trying to extort us taxpayers for 1.8 billion dollars to pay off people who beat up cops that is crazy this is the the taxpayer funded transition surgery for prisoners issue of uh from from 2024 in the 2026 midterms like i have not seen a poll yet uh 1.8 billion dollars uh from the taxpayers to pay out people who were convicted criminals on camera trying to murder cops that's that's what we're doing that's where taxpayer money's going at a time of inflation uh and high gas prices but it's like i can't and also for like susan collins and and john husted and uh dan sullivan they voted for the bill they voted for the like they tried to you know vote for the provision that would block it and they didn't and they didn't but then when that failed they gave the green light to the whole bill that went forward and they didn't do anything to stop it they could have voted again because you know who did vote against the final bill lisa murkowski uh and she's the only republican who did and the rest of them just said fuck it i'm just going to vote for the bill anyway it is the sort of like even on the merits like this is the core of the problem of someone like susan collins or these republicans who try to once in a while stake out an anti-trump view but for the most part vote with the caucus which is uh they are part of enabling donald trump and the only reason we got to the point where this fund could be proposed is because of the fact that we're not going to be able to vote because donald trump believes that he has a republican caucus in his pocket and he is right and for all their kind of hemming and hawing all the concerns susan collins has shown she is one of the you know 50 enablers of donald trump time and time again and you can go to your go to the podium and give these statements the end of the day, you support a Senate majority in the Senate, you support Donald Trump being able to do whatever he wants without any kind of accountability. So let's talk about the fraud claims from Trump in that Meet the Press interview, which, again, started with his usual bullshit about 2020, but also included some fresh material on last week's California primaries, where the votes are still being counted. A reminder that everyone here in California gets a ballot in the mail, which you can return by mail or drop off in person. And as long as you get it postmarked by election day, and it arrives within seven days, it does get counted. That process means the count is very slow. And big changes can happen late, especially in an election like this, where a lot of voters, especially Democrats, were undecided until the very end. And that is, of course, what is happening right now. In the L.A. mayor's race, Nithya Raman has now overtaken Spencer Pratt in the count. And it appears she will make the runoff and face Karen Bass in November. That's what some organizations are projecting. AP hasn't gone with it yet. But it's definitely trending that way. This led to many Trump posts, the most recent as of this recording being, quote, not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. Third world nation rigged elections. Now they'll be working on a great guy, Steve Hilton. Hilton is the Trump endorsed Republican in the governor's race, who's currently sitting in the second general election slot, though Tom Steyer is gaining on him. Unclear if Steyer will actually catch him. And plenty of this is happening. And I think it's going to be a great thing. Dipshits are following Trump's lead on this. Here's just a sample. I'm not saying it's rigged. I'm saying it stinks to high heaven. And everybody knows that California is playing around with us. But what evidence is there to prove that there was a raid? I don't. Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream, it is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here. So people can just dig through garbage cans, find ballots and send them in, apparently forever after an election is over. It's not OK. It's got to come to an end. Smart guy. He acts dumb. He's smart. That's what Randy Fine looks like. Randy Fine. Randy Fine. Harvard. Went to Harvard? Twice. What? Let me check it. I'm going to check the facts. Check the facts. I think he just threw in twice. Randy Fine. Randy Fine. Harvard. Undergrad and grad. What was his? I want to know what his graduate degree is. Harvard. Harvard University. B.A. MBA. Wow. MBA. What's the business school? There we go. There we go. Smart guy. I mean, look, a lot of people get into Harvard. But he's a smart guy. A lot of people don't get in. So that's the cool thing about Harvard. So before we even get to the fraud part, thoughts on Nithya overtaking Pratt? It's a bad day for Karen Bass. They thought they could have a nice little runoff where basically she got to run against Rick Caruso with a head injury. And instead, it's instead, instead, instead, she's going to face somebody that has a heart that actually, Karen Bass is unpopular. Nithya, I think a lot of people don't know Nithya, but she has a positive approval rating among people who do know her. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of a lot of the kind of hyper engaged L.A. voter who didn't want to vote for the governor's race to the last possible minute were a bunch of Nithya Raman voters that were paying really close attention. But I do think it's very good for Los Angeles because it means we now get a run a runoff where with real stakes about what kind of Democratic leadership we want, as opposed to what we would have had, which is six months of fear mongering around Spencer Pratt. Yeah, just to be clear, establishment Democrats in California are rigging the election to make it harder for the incumbent mayor to win the mayoral here in Los Angeles, but also rigging it. So the statewide race will include a Republican so that Steve Hilton has a chance to become governor. It's because we know what's up here in Los Angeles. That makes sense. I love his point. You know, head injuries is whacked by a big crystal in the head. Like now it's a real race. Like Karen Bass is a weak incumbent because of her handling of the fires, homelessness. Cost of living like anger and income is generally and Spencer Pratt was was dominating the battle for attention for super online people. If you're a Twitter power user, if you're super politically engaged, Spencer Pratt was everywhere because our algorithms were feeding us his AI slop crap and you know, just felt like he was all over and that's a small slice of the electorate. It turns out because the LA Times did a poll right before the election where they modeled the actual electorate and that poll looks like it was pretty much spot on at this point. Yeah, and so what actually happened is what I think that political professionals always assumed would happen, which is the MAGA adjacent candidate. Spencer Pratt was never going to do very well in Los Angeles in a county where 15% of registered voters are Republican and Trump is 55 points underwater and Pratt was aligned with Trump like that. Of course, that was what's going to happen here. In fact, Spencer Pratt's campaign was nothing special at all. And and like, you know, I think you could look at the media tactics and say there's there's things for other candidates to learn about how to grab attention. But yeah, the LA Times poll that you mentioned, Tommy, it was it was May 28th, so like a couple of weeks before the election. And it was Bass 26, Rahman 25, Pratt 22. Didn't get as much attention because it sort of went against the prevailing narrative of like the super online set, which is journalists and all of us and people. Yeah, all of us for sure. And but today it's right now it's Bass 34, Rahman 27, Pratt 26. And, you know, you could see sort of Pratt going even lower and maybe Bass going a little bit lower as the as the final vote comes in. But we'll see. And it turns out that Spencer Pratt is probably going to finish almost where Donald Trump finished in 2024 in this city. And now that's a bigger electorate. So like you can't it's not exactly apples to apples, but he also he did much worse than Caruso. Caruso spent more money, but also Spencer Pratt raised more than Karen Bass or Nithya spent more, had crazy amount of attention and basically performed like a standard issue Republican in Los Angeles. Absolutely no better at all. Imagine if like Joe Biden had given an interview saying that like Amy McGrath's loss is because of fraud in Kentucky, because everybody loves Amy McGrath and Amy McGrath is doing incredible stuff out there. But there are people that like, you know, they are. They're captivating to the kind of people that are watching really closely that are hyperpartisan. But then voters in LA who I think are really frustrated with Karen Bass, really frustrated with Democrats. They would. And for all we know, we don't know. Right. If Nithya Rahman weren't in the race, like how many anti incumbent votes might have gone to Spencer Pratt? Like, I think it's a I think it's a little bit more than just the kind of he got the kind of standard Republican vote. You know, we don't know how many votes for Rahman are sort of Democrats who are just anti incumbents. And maybe they could have been Spencer Pratt voters. Right. Because they just did not want to vote for Karen Bass. But regardless, as much as people in this city are really frustrated with Democratic leadership, they're not going to vote for someone aligned with Trump who was going around saying crazy shit about about the city. He ran a horrible campaign and he actually became more MAGA the closer it got to Election Day. Like he's I think we talked about this maybe off Mike or I'm like, I can't remember anymore. But he spent the. Weekend before the election in New York on Fox and Friends. He's on Gutfeld to calling for Nithya and Karen Bass to be jailed and then talking about how people were raping dogs in Skid Row. Like, that's how he that's how he ended the race. He became more of like a megalomaniac at the end, or at least openly. He didn't try at all to distance himself from Republicans at all. Like Rick Caruso ran a race where he was at least like, I'm going to listen to both sides like he tried to be as nonpartisan as possible. Which is probably why he ended up doing better than Spencer Pratt. But Spencer Pratt actually got more MAGA seeming the closer he got to Election Day. So anyone was like, oh, it was a brilliant campaign. This and that's like, no, it wasn't. He had the possibility of maybe running a campaign where he had this like angry populist message and he sort of tapped into the frustration with the government. But he just fucking blew it as the as the race got closer. Yeah. And I should say, like, obviously, I've been very insulting to Spencer Pratt. And there's a there like he lost his house. There's a lot of anger about the way the fires were. But he just didn't run that campaign. And I do think there's like a kind of insular conversation that happened. If you look at the map of where Spencer Pratt vote came came from, there's this kind of ring of like wealthier places around the city that that like are people that are very online. I think very kind of like Bill Maher, Barry Weiss world kind of coded, at least like just sort of tapped into that world who are really frustrated with Democrats. You think the Democrats have gone crazy and moved too far left. Right. And there's just not that that's that is a big. It's a big pool of people on the Internet, right? It's a big pool of people who, yeah, on the Internet and just who have like outsized influence and louder megaphones than other people, because it wasn't I will say it wasn't purely an online phenomenon and that like we all know people and we were in circles where someone's like, oh, I've talked to some Democrats who are voting for Spencer Pratt. And now I would always ask him, like, are you are they Democrats who who voted for Karen Bass last time or are they Caruso voters who are now Pratt voters? And you didn't find too many Bass Pratt voters out there. Right. There is a. Genuine frustration with Karen Bass. I personally felt that we talked about this on the show. Her management of the city around the fires, I thought, was really, really bad. And I think for Spencer Pratt having his house burned down, understandably, he was channeling some legitimate and righteous rage about all things L.A. and the fires. If Rick Caruso had won again, I think there's a very good chance he could have done well and made the runoff maybe one outright. Yeah, because he had a track record. He was like, I built the Grove and Spencer Pratt's like, I coined the term Spidey and maybe. leaked a sex tape about Ella see yeah for me like he's self-evidently not qualified for the job so i mean like that this is what was so frustrating i think about the boomlet about the guy was it was just like kind of like tmg adjacent twitter algorithm pumped bullshit and hype yeah backed by nothing well and to your point a little bit about the map it's um it's analogous to for those of you listening from dc or have been to dc like how um people in northwest dc and northwest dc think like that's the whole city and there's actually three other quadrants in dc where a ton of fucking people live um they're just not as loud or as privileged as everyone in the northwest and that i think is what happened in la too is like there's this is a big big city and all those places that voted for bass um especially in in in southern and eastern la um and and and nithya as well like they're just not nithya's areas are definitely um wealthier for sure but um there's just it's just an outsized influence um and a loudness to it and it's just it's just it's just it's just it's just you get from people in the west side that doesn't actually represent most of la um so on the fraud allegations uh how seriously do you guys take those allegations from trump and other republicans as a potential harbinger of things to come in november or future elections i guess i mean trump's gonna say that any election he or republicans did not win was stolen right it's a heads i win tells you lose setup i think this was kind of the perfect storm because you had this spencer boomlet this that just built and built and built that he was some great candidate and gonna win then there's the california voting process and how slow it is we'll talk about that in a second and then you know this just it wasn't like a big election night with a lot of other things to talk about it was a lot of people focusing on this and the slow counting and so um i think what what i found personally so annoying about this is how much information you can find about the process if you try to find it like i got in a little exchange with megan mccain about this on sunday i was bored on a flight she's a unpleasant person um who doesn't know what's going on and she's like apparently want to educate herself but like you can go reporters the counting process is live streamed reporters can and do go to the processing center um the general public can and do go to observe the counting if you want to their representatives from the campaigns observing the counting like the problems are well documented la county is the largest election jurisdiction in the country there are more registered voters in this county than 41 states have statewide i know 10 million people in la county people don't understand this it's really big people it's really big here everyone come visit and and in california most of us vote by mail it's like 80 or 90 percent of california voters use the ballot that gets mailed to your house compared to 15 percent in texas and i love that because our ballot is really long and complicated and there's a lot of stuff you got to google and it takes hours and like i'm glad i could do that at home um and so like like you mentioned vote by mail ballots if they're postmarked on election day received within seven days they get counted the signature matching process can take a lot of time again that's the thing republicans like i was gonna say yeah i think you guys like the signature matching process that's called voter verification um and if there's an issue with your signature there's time to cure it and fix it that can take time takes time to open the ballots check the signatures like what we should do is put more money more time more resources more people more machines throw it at this problem try to speed it up a little bit um that would be helpful but like we have a lot of people here this is how we vote yeah i mean we have a lot of people who are doing it and i think that's one of the reasons why i think it's so important to do it and i think that's one of the reasons why i think it's so important to do it and i think that's one of the reasons why i think it's so important to do it and i think that's one of the reasons why i think it's so important to do it and i think that's one of the reasons why i think it's so important to do it and i think that's one of the reasons why i think it's so important postmark by election day we keep all the kind of pro-voter policies we have and it could be done it should be faster it'd be much faster now i do think one part of this is i a lot of people held their ballots because they were waiting they were being strategic about the governor's race or maybe they just weren't and just actually didn't feel inspired by their choices whatever people really held onto their ballots i think that two things should happen one going into november in california i think we all really need to view it as kind of a civic responsibility to get our ballots in sooner right like i think we can all help by having more ballot in and then two so california now uh counties have to have to uh count the most of the votes within 13 days uh or they have to notify their provisional battles and exceptions but they have to count within 13 days but with some more resources it should be possible that on election day there's going to be a lot of votes that are going to be counted within the election night they've counted all the ballots they've already received and can put those numbers up and then kind of the counts can be happening quicker and that is a resource question you have uh you have uh counties where they're still taking you know it's days and days and days after they're getting ballots that they can ultimately get to counting them they have limited hours they limited space like all of this could be resolved and you know governor newsom has gavin newsom has talked about this about wanting the ballots to be faster i just don't appreciate when the secretary of state of california is like we want to be it's it's accuracy not speed i wish there was more acknowledgement that the process could be faster what the resources would be required because i it's a huge problem and look there's nothing you can do to account for the fact that these people are going to accuse us of fraud but i do think we should be able to count our ballots faster even at this size right i agree like that's what i said no i know more time more money more resources like we should count faster it's it sucks it's frustrating it's embarrassing what i just have no time for is the people who don't spend one second trying to find good information they spread the meme that they got forwarded by their aunt on facebook and then like they're like like people kicking up the quote on facebook and they're like well from trump it's like he doesn't know a goddamn thing about what's happening there's no also let's let's be clear here the the reason we all want it counted faster is because we know that if it's not being counted fast enough then republicans now cry fraud in the election there's no there's no civic governmental reason for it to be counted faster it would be nice we're all fucking impatient people and just want results really fast but like now look to your point love it there are other states uh with mostly mail-in ballots where you can postmark by election day washington state colorado etc and they're all faster than us now they are smaller states i do think the biggest problem with california is we leave it to the counties still yes and so like los angeles actually los angeles county is was still posting updates over the weekend a lot of counties just no one works on the weekend to count the ballots they don't have enough staff they don't post anything on the weekends and there's just not enough machinery so yeah i think there is no excuse for the state legislature which is controlled by democrats and there's a democratic governor to pass more uh funding for staff for resources for a faster signature verification uh process which you could probably do as well you could probably limit the uh window for curing your ballot if the signature doesn't match because it's very it's a you have like 20 days i think to cure your ballot at this point which is it's it's pretty long right so there's there's definitely things you can do on the margin um to make it faster by by making it a whole state thing instead of county by county yeah and yes it is to answer uh totally allegations of fraud but also we're the fourth fifth largest economy on earth why why are we having so much trouble doing something that other places can do faster than us uh like i i do think that that is like it is it's about good government too yeah yeah positive america is brought to you by hymns ed is way more common than most guys think millions of guys deal with it at some point that's exactly why hymns offers a straightforward way to handle it hymns connects you with licensed healthcare providers online giving you simple access to legitimate ed treatment options from home no awkward appointments no pharmacy lines just complete a simple online intake and the provider will review your information to determine if treatment is right for you if prescribed your treatment ships directly to your door in discrete packaging your own little stimulus package that includes sildenafil also known as a generic for viagra which is available through hymns at up to 95 percent less than the standard standard of in the brand name version and if that option isn't right for you there are additional treatment options available so you can find what works best for your body straightforward transparent and designed to make getting care easy to get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ed weight loss and more visit hymns.com slash crooked that's hymns.com slash crooked for your free online visit hymns.com slash crooked prescription required see website for details and important safety information sildenafil is the generic version of viagra viagra is a registered trademark of viagra specialty llc hymns is not affiliated with or endorsed by viagra pod save america is brought to you by z biotic saturday night with my wife and friends sunday morning with my kids those are both non-negotiables yeah you always i am i i simply must be at my best for the children the problem is the second one used to feel a lot harder after the first one not with z biotics pre-alcohol it's a small thing i added that makes the whole weekend work it's like uh i gotta make sure that i'm fully aware to take care of these kids because i gotta find their parents you the z biotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic was invented by phd scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking here's how it works when you drink alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut it's a buildup of this byproduct not dehydration that's to blame for rough days after drinking pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down just remember to make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow we love z biotics the best we did so i had it at the wedding it was awesome it makes you just you just feel a little bit better the next day there's a hundred percent money back guarantee if you have not tried z biotics yet what is holding you back what's only about it's basically free try it try get a six pack or whatever try it one time when you have like two or three drinks one night i guarantee you it will make you feel so much better the next day go to zbiotics.com slash crooked to learn more and get 15 off your first order when you use crooked at checkout z biotics is backed with 100 money back guarantee so if you're unsatisfied for any reason they'll refund your money no questions asked remember to head to zbiotics.com slash crooked and use the code crooked at checkout for 15 off all right so alex and i talked on friday about the mess at 60 minutes and scott pelly's decision to sound the alarm about what he says is conservative of bias at CBS News under Barry Weiss, which led to Pelley's firing. He then sat down with the New York Times for a conversation with Lulu Garcia Navarro at the interview, which published over the weekend, where he elaborated on his claims for the first time. Let's take a listen. About four hours after our deadline, Barry Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I'm paraphrasing. I don't have the quote, but that's what was communicated to me. And the other thing was, Renee Good's car, you need to describe her as, driving toward the officer. There was a thumb on the scale for the president's version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News. Did you guys listen to the whole interview? And what'd you think? Yeah, I watched the whole thing. The thing that jumped out to me was Pelley makes, he talks about the bias. And sort of pushing on these stories. And CBS gave a comment to the Times basically saying, there was a back and forth, not everything that was requested ended up in the final piece, whatever. So they're saying, look, we had a back and forth about it. But let's assume that there is some bias. The point that Pelley makes is just what I take from his broader interview and the story here is that it's not just about the bias, it's about the incompetence of the whole operation, that they just have not communicated well. Now, I think some of this has been motivated reasoning, right? Because then he then also refuses to meet. It sounds like he did refuse to meet with them for a time as well, right? So tempers were clearly high. But you do get the sense, he makes the point that Nick Bilton, who is a friend of mine, was reading from his phone in one of the meetings. And clearly that was making Pelley get mad in the moment, right? And so some of this is just people that have been accused of being brought in to be pro-Trump, to have bias, to help Ellison get deals. And then sort of ham-fistedly firing people, trying to kind of have editorial opinions, confirming people's worst expectations, and it kind of spiraling out of control. Yeah, but look, I thought what we just watched there were some pretty damning allegations that Barry Weiss is just interfering with segments, not just in a political way, but in a way that was not factual. Make it look like Rene Good's driving at the cops pretty clearly was not, with your own eyes. I also was taken by just how incompetent he described himself. He described the new team as being like, entire episodes of 60 Minutes almost didn't make air. That seems bad. They couldn't get Tony DiCoppo a visa to cover the president's trip to China. Also a pretty big deal. Pretty bad. Pelley also overtly uses the words, he accuses CBS of paying a multi-billion dollar bribe to President Trump when they settled the lawsuit around the 60 Minutes edit of Kamala Harris's interview. And so look, I don't know Barry Weiss. Some people say she's lovely and charming. Some people say she's not. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. People think she's the devil. The truth is obviously somewhere in between. I've met Nick Bilton before. He seems like a nice guy, good author, smart screenwriter. Neither of them has any TV experience and seemingly have no business overseeing the most successful TV news show at this network. I mean, Barry Weiss is the editor-in-chief of CBS TV, CBS News. But Nick Bilton's never worked in TV and he's getting put in charge of 60 Minutes, which is by every measure of success. The ratings are up 9%. They make nearly $70 million in ad revenue in 2025. It's not a thing that's broken, needs fixing, which is a lot of Pelly's point. And I think ultimately, Weiss and Bilton were brought in as part of a corrupt project to change CBS News to make it okay for President Trump in some way to grease the Paramount Skydance merger or whatever merger they want to do in the future. That's what I think Pelly thinks happened here. And there were times in this interview where it can seem a little pompous and sound like self-righteous and it's very emotional, right? Like Pelly seems to compare himself to like veterans in combat at one point, which is a little odd. Refers to 60 Minutes as his spouse being murdered. Yeah. So it's very emotional, but like clearly this guy who loves his job, never wanted to do anything else, never wanted to leave, didn't seemingly didn't think he'd get fired even when he like lit his new boss on fire in front of the entire group. But it was, it's worth the listen, I think. He also, I think, gets most emotional when he's talking about Tanya Simon and some of the other people who've been fired and who have been treated poorly, which I think is telling. I actually think that if you took Trump out of the equation, I think Barry Weiss still would have sent that email, those emails about Renee Good, because this could be happening. She might not think to herself, I am doing Donald Trump's bidding. But the, if anyone has experienced the free press, read the free press or trafficked in any of the circles of the anti-anti-Trump Republicans who are always making excuses for Trump, but they think that they're more like moral and normal and sane. It's the only people who haven't lost their minds. That's like, sorry, to me, it's like the only people that haven't gone crazy. Right. Like if that was like, and we saw this split in the conservative movement between the Renee Good killing and the Alex Pretty killing, and that some of them who were, who tried to, you know, push this narrative that Renee Good was, driving at the cops and stuff like that, they kind of broke off when it was Alex Pretty and it was even more obvious. And they were like, okay, this one is bad, you know? So it actually made sense to me that Barry Weiss would do this because, and I think this is probably indicative of what happened at CBS and why 60 Minutes and the people at 60 Minutes were so angry, is I think Barry Weiss came in and I'm, and I, having seen Nick Bilton's tweets and commentary here and there, I think he's someone who's like, okay, the libs have gone crazy too. They both get in there and they're thinking like, this is another evidence of liberal media that we got to fix. And I'm, I'm sure the staff at 60 Minutes and the reporters there are like, you know what? We take our jobs very fucking seriously and do really good reporting and fact check it a lot. And we don't consider ourselves like part of like the liberal media and bias. And so I think there was that probably that, that clash between ideologies. There's, I think like a revealing point where at some point Barry Weiss says some version, if you're not biased, why does the country, why do people, why does, why does the country think you're biased? Right. Which is an article of faith. They're like, well, what's the evidence for that? Right. And so look like Scott Pelley in that clip is paraphrasing an email he didn't see. Right. Like that is like, I don't know what the exact text of it is. I don't know how they're, I am sure it was trying to push it sort of more kind of in a way that was sort of like more favorable to the Trump version of events, but the non-liberal version of events. Yeah. It was the, it was the entire right-wing media ecosystem version of events. But the other thing that's strange about this interview, right. Is like he, I mean, he wants Barry Weiss fired, right. He, but he also has a lot of like nice words to say about Ellison, which is really strange. Right. And, and what I took from this interview is like, he's like, oh, we were excited when Ellison came to the newsroom. He greeted us. He called me, sir. Right. Like there's this way in which what I was wondering when I was watching the interview, is this somebody who was trying to get Barry Weiss shit canned and then someone who can go back to CBS and he's saying to, to, he's saying to Ellison, Hey, I'm not a problem. If Barry Weiss isn't there, right. You're good. Barry Weiss is, I'm not your problem. Barry Weiss is your problem. Cause now I'm talking about how great you were when you came and she's the one that's got to go. So I thought that was sort of like, because if Barry Weiss is a part of some Ellison project to kind of grease the skids for a deal, right. It would be, it would be Ellison at fault too, but that's not how Pelly talks about it. What he says about David Ellison is this, like he's pissed at Sherry Redstone for cutting the deal with Trump and paying the bribe to make the lawsuit go away. And the lawsuit was obviously bullshit. And I think he views that as it permanently damaged 60 minutes. And so he's like, look, a new guy came in, had some money, had some political swat. Like, we're all good there. Like, if you want to support our project here and you've got the balls to stand up to people, I'm there with you. It did, you know, it could be strategic. And then he's trying to divide the two of them. But like, you know, I found that interesting, too, and pretty notable and maybe believable. But but also it's like he's not dealing with David Ellison. He's dealing with Barry Weiss. You know, like you can be nice to the boss's boss who when they greet you is like, hi, sir. Nice to meet you. And then like Barry Weiss is the one who's murdering 60 Minutes. Right. Right. Ellison. And then and then also Nick Bilton, who she just sent in with and didn't even go to the meeting herself and just made him deal with it all. Look, I stand by with Nick. Look, you go to that first meeting. All right. I'm going to kiss everybody's ass and get her back, get her back on site. Like, oh, fuck. This guy is mad. Could you imagine? I'm just like trying to imagine, too, like you're just you're on you're at your first day at work. And Scott Pelley, one of the most famous journalists in the world, is like you're murdering the most beautiful thing that any of us has ever seen. Round of applause. Do you think someone's holding up the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick in the background? Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. I just don't think that like how can you expect anything else when you have obviously been following along what Barry Weiss has been doing and the firings just happened, right? Yes, of course. Like it's not like it's not like he got to the meeting and all of a sudden someone's like, excuse me, Nick Bilton, they just fired a bunch of the staff. Yeah. And like I met Nick a couple of times. He's always seen nice. But he did a series of interviews with media journalists where he just could not have sounded more pompous and insulting and like, I know this is going to be easy. I know everything, you know, ain't like I'm going to be the one like uploading the video to the satellite truck is like, OK, buddy. Well, it's the Barry Weiss free press salon party circuit it's the exact kind of language it's it's all there's just a whole set of them yeah look the point that pelly made in that conversation is like how could you take a job like this given the circumstances right and that does mean whoever is going to run 60 minutes if he wants to prove something to these journalists has a lot of work to do right and like the the fact i'm like used uh leslie stall and some of the other people are staying right and like i don't know what the what the the future of this thing looks like but i do think that a world where 60 minutes gets to kind of continue to exist and there's and maybe this continues to like boil over into the public and that's i don't know like if you're taking the job right and you've never had tv experience you're doing it after all these firings and you walk in expecting to be given the benefit out it's just like not what's gonna happen right and like barry weiss doesn't have tv experience nick doesn't have tv experience you're taking over like one of the most important jobs in all of television they're not quite qualified for the job they're just not and i'm it's not mean or insulting to say that like you never worked in tv you are not qualified for this job and taking it is ridiculous and what do you think is going to happen it's just give me a break just the last 10 years have been just a rash of people who are like wealthy and powerful and influential thinking that because they're good at one thing they can be good at other things it's a real fucking problem that we have in this country right now just talk to any of the tech pros or donald trump exactly or donald trump one last new story to get to here uh we are recording on monday afternoon california time shortly after we leave the studio trump will depart his golf club in new jersey for midtown manhattan where he will attend game three of the nba finals at madison square garden which will bring traffic to a standstill require ticket holders to arrive hours early for security checks and force the cancellation of the watch party outside msg for people who don't have tickets which is just about everyone so how are people feeling about the decision quote of all the selfish narcissistic things trump has done attending msg to see the knicks play in person monday night is the absolute worst these are the selfish narcissistic things trump has done and none other than ann coulter um but the feeling also seems pretty widespread let's listen since when trump be at mixed games now all of a sudden we're winning he want to be here if the knicks lose tonight i blame trump i don't want trump at the game is i don't want no new people at the game he's coming to game three of the finals and i don't want him there it has everything to do with him disrupting and contributing at the same time to the chaos if it causes the new york knicks to win to lose tonight i'm blaming him i'm blaming the president of the united states of course everyone probably recognizes stephen a there before stephen a was mace that was mace stephen a guest on this show i list stephen a in a bright pink suit in a bright pink tie ranting about donald trump going to a next game that's what i want out of sports media that is perfection um you know trump is expected to be uh to be booed to be booed probably they also there's gonna be an unfavorable uh split screen with uh actual knicks fan zoran mamdani who coughed up a thousand bucks for a standing room only ticket um so that's going to be an interesting thing mamdani also uh decided to throw free watch parties in bryant park and i think two other locations as well because uh the area around msg is closed down um why do you guys think trump's doing this i mean he knows the power of live professional sports and that's the only like kind of monocultural events we really have left that's why he goes to a lot of games usually at valley went to the super bowl i went to do you think the scc championship he went to something like went to a college football championship did you go to nascar yeah i think he's been to nascar um you know so usually he's more welcome in those you know sort of southern nfl spaces i i don't think he will be here i mean he's also buddies with james dolan i think the owner of the knicks um who's a terrible guy who like i was gonna say he surveils people who like are mean to him at games always pals with the owners yeah not a real player guy yeah no but like roger bennett and i talk about this in the interview i mean you guys remember last year when i was at the nfl i was like last year trump went to the fifa club championship in the u.s and he was supposed to walk up with gianni and patino the the head of fifa hand the trophy to the chelsea players and then walk off the stage so they could celebrate and he just stood there and jumped with them and like celebrate with them so he he makes it about himself um because he loves the limelight he loves every spotlight and he will attempt to co-opt this one too yeah he doesn't give a shit about anyone by himself like right we know this when when you have to decide whether the president of the united states is going to attend an event like that the biggest consideration well first of all you talk to service and be like okay what does the security have to look like and you need to listen to secret service and especially donald trump he's been you know survived multiple assassination attempts now right but then when the service tells you what it's going to require security wise and they tell you that well as a consequence it's going to um you know inconvenience quite a few americans then sometimes the president's like well do i really want to piss off that many people by doing this is it really that important if my going means a whole bunch of and then you say well maybe not maybe it's not that important for me to go to magic trump would never say that yeah i think he just wants to go to the game he doesn't give a fuck he wants to go to the game he wants to sit there he wants to be booed by new yorkers uh he wants to he wants to like be the center of attention uh and uh he doesn't care there'll be two hour waits outside that a barricade whole parts of of of midtown manhattan to make this possible to cancel the watch he doesn't give a fuck i mean arguably worse is when he always wants to like if there's a natural disaster he'll be on the scene immediately even when local officials are like please we're trying to clean up the disaster here and we can't have a presidential visit because it's too much mess and security right now and just come later he's like i don't give a fuck he also he thinks he's a new yorker and that new york likes him and they do not well he's because he's also like shit all over it when he left yeah he was like fuck new york fuck that i'm it's become trash now yeah i don't think he's gonna love the split screen i hope whoever's on the ones and twos it's just go mandani cheers like crazy trump booze go back and forth give us a couple back and forth and because mom donnie's so talented he's gonna be he's gonna be so nice about it too like he's not gonna try to you know jab trump at all no they're gonna they're gonna have they're gonna have a shot of donald trump being booed while mom donnie's like gonna be nice it's gonna be i hope we get that there's also only that a bunch of cool celebrities who always go to games like timothy chalamet and tracy morgan and ben stiller who will be like on the wood with the people like join the game and trump will be up like kind of lurking from behind hoping he doesn't get booed we can't say courtside no it would be great if you tried walk down there people were retweeting some old tweets from uh josh hart today next player yeah just like shitting all over trump like he's not a i don't think he's beloved by the no we also remember like trump very specifically i think yelled that or was mean to lebron james it's also like basketball it's so much smaller it's so much closer they're just like right there like it's gonna be part of the game that trump is at this game yeah i mean look at fox news and trump they love to tell athletes especially black athletes to not have political opinions but if you like trump then you are allowed to have a political opinion you can come to the white house maybe you can participate in ultimate fighting championship event on the south lawn right that's how this works yeah sadly no no john at that one yeah if ever didn't make the cut just a real bummer so close so close that's so it would have been very funny it would have been very funny i think what would have happened is you would have shown up at the place where you get the van to the go to the thing and someone would like clock your face and be like oh no that's not i had thought that but like 4 000 people on the south lawn it's a lot of people to really be like doing the face sheet because it's not it was inside the white house it'd be like yeah no way but i don't know i think i think there was i think once you're at that point there nobody knows they random people like celebrities are showing up all the time you never know part of some trump drug deal suddenly i'm walking i'm taking my seat right next to vince fawn and hey buddy he's like what are you doing loved you in swingers loved you in swingers um it's gonna be so hot and so miserable out there it's also i was looking at the weather for this because there's like a like a chance of thunderstorms now too and it's 91 and maybe thunderstorms 91 degrees like humid bugs everywhere awful people all around you imagine having to fight in that yeah and then they get a white said too he was like it's not the ideal it's not the ideal environment to have a ufc fight imagine they're like we got to pull it down because of lightning they don't want to pull it down because of lightning then all of a sudden you have basically a biblical event it hits that just a metal thing anyway all things are possible can't wait to check it out um all right when we come back tommy's conversation with roger bennett of men in blazers today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me think about your career close your eyes maybe it looks good on paper but does something feel a bit off sometimes maybe you're stuck maybe you're burned out maybe you're ready to move up to that next level or maybe you just want clarity on what's next that's where a mentor comes in or a coach or just someone to help you figure out that path to the next rung up on your journey that's where today's sponsor strawberry.me comes in strawberry.me matches you with a real career coach carefully selected based on your goals your personality and your professional background these aren't random internet gurus selling their advice coaches on the platform average 16 or more years of experience across 900 companies and 37 industries that have been leaders founders and executives themselves and it's not just a single conversation you have one-on-one video call with your coach build a personalized plan together and stay connected between sessions when real life challenges arise most people hit a meaningful milestone within four to six sessions whether that's landing a new role getting unstuck building confidence or finally taking action on something they've been putting off for too many years visit strawberry.me and start with the coaching trial today tell them pod save america sent you and get 50 off your first session that's strawberry.me tell them pod save america sent you for 50 off your first session your sausage mcmuffin with egg didn't As someone tuned into politics, you've probably seen the constant bickering about who belongs in the pro-democracy movement. Well, we think it's best to have these conversations in person, and hopefully it will also be more productive. Crooked Con is right after the midterms, and it is going to be the first time we come together to hash it out in person and kick off the 2028 debate. We just posted a ton more info about what to expect from the big event from November 5th to 7th, so check it out at crookedcon.com and get your tickets now. See you in D.C. My guest today is the co-creator and longtime sponsor of Crooked Con. My guest today is the co-creator and longtime host of the smash hit Men in Blazers podcast, the Men in Blazers Media Network, really. He's a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book is called We Are the World Cup. Buy it now. He's also an international man of mystery and a sex symbol. Roger Bennett, how are you doing, buddy? It was good until you just said that, Tommy. It's so lovely to see you. You look amazing, man. You too. Long time no see. I'm thrilled to talk to you now because, boy, there's a lot going on. There's a lot of football, a lot of soccer in the world. There's a lot of soccer in the world. For anyone who wants to learn more about the World Cup, you still have time. And I cannot recommend enough. We are the World Cup. You'll learn about the highs, the lows, the agony, the more agony through Roger's eyes, right? I mean, I wrote the book. If you have had the memories of the World Cup, it will reignite them. I hope you can relive them again as powerfully as you did the first time. And if you're a newcomer planning to watch the World Cup, it will give you the depths, the nuances to understand and feel. Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan poet, once wrote, football is a pleasure that hurts. And we're about to experience all of it. Weeks and weeks of it. And I literally cannot wait. I love the World Cup. This is going to be so much fun. And so before we ruin this conversation with a little bit of politics at the end, let's just talk soccer. So starting with Team USA, I know they are hardly favorites to win the tournament. But, you know, interest has gone up. Expectations go up every year for Team USA. Who should we be watching? And what's a good result, do you think, for Team USA this year? Oh, winning it, Tommy. I know I sound to many of your new listeners that I'm from England, but I love America so profoundly. And like a way I like to believe slips me somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and Kenny Powers. So I adore this team. I first came over here in 1994, ahead of the last time the Men's World Cup was here. It was meant to turn America immediately into a football-loving nation. It's taken a lot longer. But the United States and The Economist was just found to have soccer be the third most popular sport in the world, which is mind-blowing. Amazing. Because I write in my book that before the 1994 World Cup, Tommy, a similar study found out soccer was 67th most favorite sport and tractor pulling, I crap you not, was 66. Where are you now, tractor pulling? So to some degree, the winner of the World Cup from the U.S. perspective will be the massive fan base that it leaves behind. We've always joked on our show, soccer is America's sport of the future, as it has been since 1972. Like it's perpetually the next big thing. I think this World Cup will cement it, normalize football in our sporting reality. But from an actual competitive POV, this is the most talented group of individuals we've ever had. But the crazy thing is, you know, our women kick ass, take names, win things. Our men, in the whole history of our nation, going right back to George Washington, who I like to believe would have loved the football. We've won one knockout game in World Cup history, which is shocking for a nation like ours that invented animal-style burgers in and out. And, you know, the cronut put, you know, human beings on the moon, democracy, all those things. So I'd say if we can win two knockout games, which we stand a good chance of in this very bloated, big, massive World Cup, it would be an incredible result in that this World Cup is going to be big, whether the U.S. do well or not, but the U.S. boys will write their narrative into it, which is critical. Is Christian Pulisic the one we're watching most, or what other names should we be looking at? Christian Pulisic is, if you're a football fan, you'll know, he's jokingly called the LeBron James of soccer. He's from Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was the prince that was promised. He broke through into this team when he was 70. He is probably the most talented outfield player we've ever had in terms of his accomplishments in European football. He's a very sensitive human being. He needs to love and be loved. I just went on first take with Stephen A. Smith and compared him to Trey Young as a player that can do unbelievable things. If he feels great, Stephen A. Smith slapped me down, went mad. That's a terrible comparison, he said, and then went off on Trey Young for a long, long period of time. But I'll stand by it. And then there's so many. Two remarkable human beings. I really do root for this team as individuals. It was a beautiful man. Chris Richards, son of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, SEC country, Roll Tide, who must have been a big fish on every playing field he was in in Alabama, then went over as a teen to one of the greatest teams in the world by Munich, suddenly became a tiny fish in an enormous trout farm, kind of lost all of his confidence, got complete cultural dislocation. But as much as I love him, I love him. He's been able tenaciously to re-summon his presence as a defender, kind of like a lockdown cornerback now in the Premier League. He's won things, still a sweet, soft, soulful, wonderful human being. I mean, there's many, many players like him that I root for. One touch, one goal, one moment. The commercial upside for this World Cup to become the face of this team, to have a TikTok that goes viral because of something beautiful that you do. It's a diversity. I think they're a great face of our nation. They're led by a manager, an Argentinian, Mauricio Pochettino, who's like a globally revered manager. He's either going to lift us up like, you know, a basketball coach going to Iona State and taking them. What's that guy? Patino. Yeah, yeah. He'll have a Patino take us up to his standard. Or he'll Bill Belichick it and just suddenly be, you know, chasing after floundering on the floor at North Carolina. Dub us for a 20-year-old in Syria or something like that. Is that the plan? Go to Milan? Yeah, that's exactly right. You can't wait to leave in many ways. Yeah. But we will go as he goes. If he, you know, if he does his thing and raises us up, joy can be ours. Or we could be just lolloping around on the floor chasing after a cheeseburger in Hasselhoffian fashion. It could be. It could be great. It could be darkness. We do not know. We don't know. And we only have until, you know, three weeks. Three days to find out. Yeah. Well, all hope ahead of us. All right. Let's talk about the big dogs. Some of the best teams. Some of the best players that you're watching. I've heard France, Spain, UK mentioned a lot. Like any sleepers. The UK? Or London. England. Well, that would be amazing. Tommy, can you imagine if it was cities? Oh, my God. That would be cool. That would be cool. The World Cup for cities. That's actually for the future. Then they can get far more than 48 teams in it. It would be amazing. Come on, Sarajevo. England, Scotland, they're also in it. God bless. They're coming over here with a very different goal than everybody else. Their goal is to just drink Boston and Miami dry in the first two weeks of the tournament. And I think they'll probably do it. The Tartan Army. I think America, one of the joys of this tournament that I hope we get to talk about is the world coming to terms with the United States. You're seeing it now all over social media. German fans going to a Waffle House for the first time. Having them. The mind blowing. You know, going to eat lemon pepper wet. What is this? And also American sports fans seeing global football culture. Many of them for the first time seeing 60, 70, you know, seeing thousands of Dutch fans march down the streets of Kansas City before a game in their orange clad shirt, bouncing to the left and the right behind a large bus. No one quite knows why. It's just what they do. It's going to be quite ecstatic. So Scotland, England. I mean, England are fascinating. I mean, they used to have an empire. Then they lost that. They used to have a monarchy not doing so well. Nowadays, they had Downton Abbey no longer on the air. So what they have is football and they invented it. So they think they should win. They've won once 1966, which is like 1066 in the English school kids imagination. And since then, they've always believed with great surety. They're going to win very quickly. Crapping the bed, shattering a nation's heart. They're like. Charlie Brown running at a football with Lucy Holding. Apart from this time round, they're pretty bloody good, Tommy. So it is quite fascinating to think of England winning the World Cup in America when it's the 250th anniversary of independence is mind-melding. So we think we're going to say bye to some great players this tournament. Lionel Messi, it's probably, we assume it's his last tournament, although people said that in 2018 and 2022. Cristiano Ronaldo, we'll say goodbye to him. Bye to all of his abs. Maybe. Although he's like mostly, I think. he's the football player most likely to go like ted williams and putting his head in the cryogenic chamber just freeze it up yeah those abs save them for later yeah yeah is there a next up like so those two they're not just the biggest stars in soccer they are some of the biggest celebrities on the planet most famous people on the planet is there anyone you're watching that can fill their shoes any stars that are going to transcend this tournament we hope the stars young stars and it is a that there's this aged i mean deeply aged we're talking about like footballing lebron age i mean ronaldo is no i mean i it's um it's like 41 um leonel messi late 30s um this is or should be their last dance um and then there's a slew of teens coming through uh will nature abhors a vacuum so this football um a spanish wonder child 18 years old laminia marle who's already won uh massive tournaments um you know he's almost if he wins the world cup with spain having won what he's won already he'll be like alexander the great you know tearing up because there is no more uh world left to conquer um so the earl in harlan a young norwegian who is and other than shaquille o'neal entering the nba and just breaking backboards shattering them uh you know gaming game out i've never seen anyone score goals it's like as if dolph lundgren was a football player if ai created just a yeah some kind of norse demigod he's bringing norway over so there is that battle and again because it's here tommy in the united states this commercial hotbed of sports all of these footballers and we're spring to a slew of the the great footballers in the world they're all looking at the united states market knowing one deep run one you know a set of ecstatic moments the financial payoff for this world cup commercially to kind of be what pele was to previous generation the face of the game in the united states there's the sporting competition but there's also the commercial competition to be that footballer um they all think they can you know be the next pele they don't quite know that david beckham's already won the world cup that man is in almost every single commercial and he's not giving up his hold on our imagination anytime soon but they're also incredible stories um that will fill the world cup up like haiti this tiny team uh for whom you know just qualifying is everything the political chaos that's unspooled over there which has impacted football um you know the football stadium their training center was was set fire to by uh insurgent gangs in porter prince you know the fact that they've even qualified um is remarkable they had to play all their games on neighboring curacao um their footballers you know brought from all over in the haitian diaspora just taking the field for them is going to be just a joyous geopolitical moment where the word haiti is seen in a joyous spotlight a wonderful spotlight so desperately needed um and it could be one of the most powerful storylines in the opening round yeah that's exciting to watch um so you know you got you touched on this raj like the the scale of this tournament is just like unlike anything we've seen before it's happening in three different countries i think there's 16 cities there's 48 teams um i think at some point in the tournament there's going to be six games a day how the hell are you gonna pace yourself here buddy what are you gonna do to like get through this yeah i mean i feel like i was laughing with you i already feel like i'm halfway through but it's not kicked off yet it is epic in scope three nations hosting for the first time canada the united states mexico you know when it was given 2018 it was talked about as a unified uh was the world cup obviously the realities have changed it feels almost like three parallel track um world cups um but what drives me in any world cup is the narrative is the story is the the human wonder um the scale of it is epic um you know i think it's projected to revenue wise um reported 80 billion dollars will be made which apparently is the gdp of of belarus but i'm sure you knew that tommy that's really the first thing that went into your head it's the eye of belarus yeah you know it's it um it it's really a human ecstasy 200 million people watch the superbowl we think of that as the ultimate in the united states five billion people watch the world cup what is the world cup and this is what i wrote in my book um it's like a global eclipse that emanates from the game sweeps the entire world uh instantaneously and holds it in its thrall for thirty nine straight days um and so that's the magic of it the energizing magic what keeps me going is a sense that when these games go on um we're watching human beings live out under the crucible of pressure you know human decision making what separates good players from the truly greatest decisions they make under those pressures there's going to be heroes whose names we don't even know who are going to reveal themselves and within seconds of some kind of kung fu fighting s goal their name is going to be bled out by millions of children in schoolyards across the globe you know um there's going to be heroes who will fall um in in tragedy comic ways and we're going to watch the greatest telenovela and the thing i'm most excited about tommy is i don't know if you've noticed it's a very dark world we're living in a time of challenge i hope i hope when this kicks off you know when leonel messi takes the field all of the darkness kind of is smothered uh it's almost like a the rational is replaced by the emotional and it's that sense of of global unity obviously an illusion obviously fleeting uh but knowing that you're making memories profound memories it's like the theory of my book most of i'd say 87 of my most important memories are located in world cups the cross-generational memories with my dad my mom my grandpa my children uh it's the same for millions around the world that conscious act of memory making that you're sharing with the planet is really what drives me onward i think we've all earned that release that that reprieve from reality and that moment just come together and enjoy it just to ruin this whole thing with politics though i mean president trump understands the scale of the stage right he's got this preternatural understanding for the role that sports plays in culture as we talk today i think he's preparing to fly up to new york for the next game um do we know like does he deliver remarks at any of these events is he going to attend games like what do we know about his um not a lot yet but football is i mean i talked about the number of people watching it is the last um global megaphone that is audible across the entire planet uh there's nothing like it there's nothing like a world cup even salt bay inserted himself into the final season that's how massive it is that's my favorite yeah god bless i mean still got me talking about it four years later um and so you know ultimately politicians of all stripes are drawn to football and have been since the very beginning 1934 second world cup was held in italy by mussolini um who wanted to present italy to the world subsidize foreign travel to italy for the tournament the detail i love most about this story is that he made sure the tickets were intricate paper cuts so that fans would go home afterwards i crap you're not tommy and be like these are the tickets in italy look what an advanced country it is right right um so from the very beginning the roots of the tournament um have always had a geopolitical reality when two teams take the field the nation's history the nation's politics the nation's culture takes the field alongside and that's what gives it its epic power um everything matters it's not you know i love american sports when my chicago bears play you know the la rams it's a big game um it's exciting i know the narrative um but when germany um plays england the levels of history you know i think um was it emerson who said it contains multitudes the world cup contains multitudes and every politician knows that you know and uh president trump has embraced football um there was a tournament here last um almost a dry run called the club world cup um he presented the trophy right at the end the the route that the ritual of trophy presenting in football is that whoever gives it it's often a head of state will hand the trophy over to the you know the sweaty footballers on a podium and then step out of the way um so that they can lift it up and smoke comes off and confetti blows up and then the footballers bounce up and down waving their arms like this which is the standard football guy dance um chelsea football club one he hands the trophy over and then stands in the midst of them um and you know the footballers are confused they don't quite know what to do there's a standard way of doing this and then in the end they're just like sod it they did it with him in the midst of it um it's a it's a remarkable image um you know the smoke goes off the confetti blows up some of them are dancing some of them are looking at at the present he knew exactly what he was doing he knew that was the photo moment that would go around the world and that he'd become front and center so the world The cup contains that power times a million. 2018, Putin ran the World Cup and was very front and center. 2022, it was in Qatar, first game. You and I watched, they had the Qatari leader sitting right by the Saudi Arabian, Mohammed bin Salman. I believe this is your expertise, not mine, but the two of them had had frosty relations before that. To see them unite was deeply like a symbol. I think one was even wearing a scarf for the other country. So there's a story on the field, there's always the story off it, and the optics, the soft power, the hard power is written all over this tournament every time it occurs. You know, President Trump is both head of state and also famously won the FIFA Peace Prize. So maybe he could invite the new Iranian Supreme Leader to the US to sit next to him at a game and we could have another moment like the one you just described. I'm just pitching ideas. Yeah, I mean, while we're pitching ideas, I think there should be a FIFA Music Award like a Grammy for like Kid Rock or Vanilla Ice. I would say you will watch this World Cup with a split lens and who is invited and where they sit is for you and Pod Save the World is going to be, you know, I'd say a sport in itself, but it's not a sport. That gives it a sense of a lack of meaning. But that narrative will be enormous in macro ways. And in micro ways, we just had, Vagner Moura, the Oscar-nominated actor, Pablo Escobar from Narcos, come on, I'll show you, he's football mad. And he talked with an amazing passion about how Brazil, Brazil wears a yellow shirt, it's iconic. You know, it's synonymous with a beautiful style of football that kind of coincides with the advent of colour television. And he talked about how when Bolsonaro was, as president, he co-opted the Brazilian shirt and that shirt became a symbol of his regime. And Vagner Moura talked about how this World Cup in a post-Bolsonaro realm is a chance to reclaim it. So the narratives within this thing, if you're a football fan, you know, it's the Ronaldo, the Messi, the Portugal, the France, the Spain. But if you're a Pod Save the World fan, you know, the World Cup is all of that and more. Yeah. There's always sort of like issues and anxieties going into these World Cups. Sometimes it's political. Sometimes it's, you know, security or logistics. This year, people were talking about potential ICE presidents at games. There are questions about travel restrictions or visas. More recently, you know, there's a lot of discussion about ticket prices. Has any of that deterred attendance as far as you can tell? Is the world still coming to the US for these games in Mexico and Canada? Yeah, the narrative of any World Cup is decided afterwards. And this one in the run-up has been about safety fears, but not just in the United States, in Mexico, the, you know, the drug cartel violence, the global tensions, the travel restrictions. Look, one of the reasons I love football is that more than any other sport, it holds up a mirror to the world that surrounds it. I've always loved that. It's always one of my definitive moments, in life, not just in football, is 1986, England played Argentina. Diego Maradona, his Argentina, one of the greatest to ever play the game, just a street urchin turned, you know, kid of gold, they called him, Piba de Oro, in the shadow of the Falklands War. And England, they were our heroes. And Argentina destroyed them. One goal, a tiny little Diego punched it in, in the era before, before video referees. He punched it in over a six foot two goalkeeper, used his hand and immediately when asked, did you, did you punch that in? He came up brilliantly with his own marketing. He said it was a little bit the head of Diego and a little bit the hand of God. And then when we were reeling in agony as an English nation, he picked the ball up deep in his own half and then just ran through the entire team, single-handedly, every hero, he eviscerated all of them and then just rolled the ball home, which kind of echoed the first goal. I did that cheated because I could, but I also could have destroyed you single-handedly if I wanted to, and I just did. That goal was an agony. And as an English human being, it kind of put us all in our place, showed us where we were in the, in the global food chain. But now it's actually the poster, the photograph I have in my office on my wall signed by him. It makes you feel things, it makes you feel alive. That agony is like one of my proudest agonies. It's an honor to have that agony. So everything is always geopolitical. The run-up to any World Cup in the modern period is always a human darkness. The South African World Cup, 2010, the whole reporting going in was how everybody was going to be, you know, carjacked, there was an epidemic, just the violence was going to destroy the thing, the electricity. Bell was not enough to power the state, it was a disaster. Why is Africa hosting this? It turned out to be one of the most significant World Cups of my lifetime, Nelson Mandela, Africa presenting it to the world in majestic fashion. Same with Brazil, 2014, the violence, rioting, social unrest. In 2013, you know, the people rose up around games, marched on the stadium. Every stadium I was in, there were riots, demonstrations, for social justice, for education, not football. It was meant to be a disaster. And then once a ball is kicked, Tommy, cognitive dissonance kicks in. I'm not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing, to be honest, but it's what happens once Lionel Messi takes the field. You know, all the storyline just falls away and we kind of become mesmerized by that global eclipse thing. So it is a lot of global tension. It is a mirror to the world. The world is understandably challenging. But again, once that opening whistle, goes the past World Cups, everyone has gone from fear and darkness and catastrophizing to a sense of, albeit fleeting, sense of wonder. - Yeah, well, I cannot wait for it to start. But again, the book is "We Are the World Cup." So pick up a copy now. And then Raj, if listeners want to just hear more from you throughout the World Cup, where should they look? Where can they find you? - Tommy, we're headed to you tomorrow. We're going to LA. We have a bus in the style of John Madden, a big orange bus. - Driving it across country. Can't tell if this is the greatest idea we've ever had or the worst. We'll find out. Starting in LA, we're going up to Seattle. Coming back to LA, we're doing, and then going across the country through Texas, through Atlanta. We're going to be doing college game days before the biggest game, starting with the United States. We're going to be on Santa Monica Pier on that first US game on the 12th with Rob Mack. And then we're going up to Seattle where we've got John Green, the great, the greatest novelist. I think everyone would agree. Old Skittles, your man, the greatest Seahawk of all time. He's going to be joining us and more and then back to LA. And then we're going across. And I will say, as we go across, this is a wild time, Tommy. Many sports fans in America will be turned on to football for the first time. America loves a circus. They love an excuse to daytime drink. They love, you know, mass, the desire to cut work, which is approved for 39 days. But I will say, seeing these fans, and there will be thousands of fans coming in, there have been travel bans. You know, there are some teams who have no fans able to get visas because of the modern reality they've been caught up in, in that issue. So like Haiti, Iran, Senegal, Ivory Coast. But there are thousands and thousands of fans coming. And this moment, for 39 days for the world to shine a spotlight on, not just LA, San Francisco, Seattle, but you know, cities like Houston, which are, you know, about to be beloved. When the world finds lemon pepper wet in Atlanta, when there's that, you know, 20,000 Argentinians running around Kansas City, tasting Arthur Bryant's slaps and going, oh my God, we've been doing barbecue all wrong all this time. That to me is a hope how America can be a winner for 39 days, showing a face of ourselves, which is meaningful and warm and welcoming and filled with a kind of joy I once saw from afar from Liverpool. - Oh, it's going to be beautiful. I can't wait for a bunch of Europeans to try Dunkin' Donuts when they get to Boston for the first time. Raj, great to see you. Great to talk with you. Good luck with this tournament, buddy. I'm excited to watch through your eyes. - I'll see you in LA, beautiful. I'm really, really excited to be of your courage. - That's our show for today. Thanks to Roger Bennett for coming on. Alex and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farah Safaree, with Ree Chirlan, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heathcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Kirill Pelleviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Singel. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. As someone tuned into politics, you've probably seen the constant bickering about who belongs in the pro-democracy movement. We just posted a ton more info about what to expect from the big event from November 5th to 7th. So check it out at crookedcon.com and get your tickets now. See you in DC. Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine, and the cool Bahamian breeze. Bahamar, located in Nassau, Bahamas, offers your choice of three luxury hotels, the richly refined Rosewood, the playfully hip SLS, and the stylishly modern Grand Hyatt. With over 45 restaurants, bars, and lounges, Bahamar serves up delicious dining from world-renowned chefs like Daniel Balloud and Marcus Samuelson. Nightlife is a great way to get a taste of the city's amazing cuisine and the unique life venues like the new John Batiste Jazz Club and the Caribbean's most luxurious casino. At Bahamar, you'll find every pleasure under the sun and one-of-a-kind experiences for the entire family, like Bahá'u'lláh Bay, our 15-acre lush tropical water park, interactive wildlife experiences, including our daily flamingo parade, world-class golf, tennis, spa, and so much more. Visit bahamar.com today and discover a vacation destination where memories are made for a lifetime. Bahamar. life spectacular hey it's ryan seacrest for albertsons and tom thumb it's time to stock up and save now through october 27th get ten dollars off when you spend 25 or more on participating items just look for participating item tags to earn on eligible items from brands like chobani banquet pete's coffee triscuit and ozarka clip once and save through october 27th every time you shop grab these hot deals before they're gone save on brands you trust restrictions apply see website for full terms and conditions.