Trump's New Disaster Policy Just Flopped (w/ Adam Mockler)

This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Your job, your kids, where it's going. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way, because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai.spotify and keep thinking. That's claude.ai.spotify. Hey, everybody. John Favreau here, and I've got Adam Mockler with me today. What's up? Thank you for having me. This is going to be a good one. Thanks for being here. For those of you who don't know Adam, he's built a couple million subscribers doing daily politics on YouTube. I believe as a channel, you started when you were nine years old. Nine years old. Making Minecraft videos. Same channel I use today, yep. This is funny when I learned this, because my six-year-old, Charlie, is now obsessed with Minecraft videos. Really? Yes. It's timeless. This is what he would like. He plays Minecraft. We let him play a little bit, but he also, when he wakes up in the morning, he wants to sit and go on YouTube for a half hour and watch Minecraft videos. Well, I'm sorry, Charlie, but all of my Minecraft videos are privated, because I was nine, ten years old. But I learned how to edit, and now it's kind of built into what I have today. That's awesome. Who knows what that will spring into for you. That's true. And now you're 23, and you're making Scott Jennings lose his shit and nearly cry on CNN. I guess you also just launched a long-form debate show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really cool. I think it's really important to be having these conversations, and to be playing on the battlefield that Republicans have been playing on for the past decade, which is debating, clipping it up, and pushing an affirmative liberal narrative for me. That's awesome. I'm so glad you're doing that. All right. We've got three stories to cover. The first is Trump's war with one of America's most dangerous and brutal enemies, Canada, which he's waging by trying to bankrupt Americans and Canadians alike. After Trump said he'll impose a 50% tariff on car steels and other products in January, Ontario's. The second is Trump's war with one of America's most dangerous and brutal enemies, Canada, which is the United States. The third is Trump's war with one of America's most dangerous and brutal enemies, Canada, which is the United States. The fourth is Trump's war with one of America's most dangerous and brutal enemies, Canada, which is the United States. The fifth is Trump's war with one of America's most dangerous and brutal enemies, Canada, which is the United States. The sixth is Trump's war with one of America's most dangerous and brutal enemies, Canada, which is the United States. The seventh is Trump's war with one of America's most dangerous and brutal enemies, Canada, which is the United States. The eighth is Trump's war with one of America's most dangerous and brutal enemies, Canada, which is the United States. - Yeah. - And the proxies in the region are doing fine. So you can't just read Redefine what winning a war means, then redefine the objectives and think you're doing something. We call this, in my generation, gigacope or megacope. Copium. You ever heard copium? Copium I've heard. Okay, that's it. I've not heard gigacope, but I like that. I just kind of made it up, actually. Guess how many ships passed through the strait yesterday? One ship. One? One ship yesterday. We're back. Usually we're at like 30 to 40 ships. That was pre-war and gas prices hit a record high, the highest ever recorded in the month of August. So, and then we still have, for a war that we've won, according to Scott, we still have 50,000 troops deployed there. Four were killed just a few weeks ago by the supposedly decimated Iranian military. So yeah, I'd say that Scott's right. We've totally won this thing. It's kind of the same thing I was just saying about how they declare a huge victory, but their victory is just kind of. They're reversing something they've done before, but in this case, they haven't even reversed it. I know. And like, think about it. You're, you're, are you millennial? Yes. I'm Gen Z. Just hanging on. So people in both of our generations have memories of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the government would come out and say exactly that, that we're winning. We killed Saddam Hussein. The bad guy is dead. Then it turned into a grinding counterinsurgency for like two decades in the case of Afghanistan. It cost us trillions of dollars that have been added to our deficits. Now, like our generations have to cope with that. Yeah. Because we pay $1 trillion per year just on the interest of that. So just to back up, we are seeing the same exact thing happening now. They're declaring victory, but we're 180 days into this four-week war, and it's kind of manipulating the American public, which is what he was calling out at the end there. I believe that this is the topic of the argument that you got in with Scott. It's exactly. On CNN, right? Yeah, it's exactly. So how long were we into the war when you guys had your. I got to say we were like 70, 80 days into it, and I could see him. I could see his posture getting worse and worse every week of the war. I was on panels with him, and he got more and more cold as the weeks went on, and he basically backed himself into a corner. And you don't know the question that made him blow up. I said, name one political concession we've gotten from Iran since the beginning of this war. None. There's nothing you can answer to that. And that's when he told you to get your fucking hand out of his face. Yeah, yeah. And by the way, my hands weren't even like. It's so fragile. You know that guy's entire bit is being condescending and smug and cutting people off. But then the moment I don't play by the same rules that he plays by, and I'm like, I'm not moving on until you answer this. He's fragile. He almost cried. I was going to say, yeah, I heard Tim Miller say this. And so I went back and watched the clip, and I'm like, he does seem like he's close to crying. I thought he was going to strike me for a second. When he went like this, I was like, is this dude about to hit me, bro? This is why, by the way, I don't think he can be White House press secretary or a good White House press secretary. Because Trump does love people who are going to fight for him and that will like be punchy on TV. But Caroline Lovett. For all you can say about her, and you can say a lot, she's sort of unflappable. Yeah. And he is quite flappable. Like, dude, he almost cried when John Ossoff said something about Natalie Harp a few days ago. Yeah, that was what we planned. This one really pisses me off. Like, I was 13 years old when I heard the Access Hollywood tape for the first time, and that's burned into my memory. Like the presidential candidate saying he grabs women. Yeah. And then 10 years later, he's yelling, quiet, piggy. So he's like just incredibly demeaning. And Scott Jennings has been blind to that the whole time. But John Ossoff making an innocuous comment is enough for Scott Jennings. Scott Jennings to like piss his pants on CNN and get out of here. It's so annoying. Scott Jennings' transformation, which I think has accelerated, I mean, even since your confrontation with him, because there he was so upset because he couldn't think of a good answer for you. Now he's just like, oh, my answer is just things that aren't happening. He grew a beard after that. He grew a beard and he was just like, I guess the easier thing is to just lie about everything, even just tell the most obvious lies and who cares? Because I'm like trying to. I'm trying to just, you know, get a job. I can't remember. Did he declare the Strait of Hormuz open? He did. He said, oh, my God. He said our ships are freely transiting. He's done that like four times since the beginning of the war. Like, how is this not emasculating? Is that the word? Unmasculating. Emasculating. How is this not emasculating? I think that I think if you asked him, I'm now going to get into Scott Jennings head. I think what because Trump has done this, too, right, which is because we have the blockade, the Navy blockade of Iran, they contend that our ships, our military ships are just in the room. They're in the region and they're fine and that all these boats, all these ships that just won't go through the Strait of Hormuz, that's their fault because they're just too afraid. But, you know, America is saying it's open. You can come through if you want, but it's just these ships. That's their problem because I guess they don't want to get blown up. It's like in high school when I was like, no, she didn't break up with me. I broke up with her. Actually, you can't just inverse reality right now. There's no ships going through except for one, maybe. Yeah. And the same countries that he's been bullying and threatening to annex. Part of he's now asking for help from the same Gulf allies that have been struck by Iran due to our war. He's now asking to put money back into Iran with this 300 billion dollar fund. It's all just despicable. It's a mess. Pod Save America. Breaking news is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. With everyday interactions becoming increasingly impersonal, someone going just one extra step can be huge. Like when my doctor takes the time to call me with test results instead of sending them electronically. They came back positive for gay. It makes me feel like a human being. 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Last night, Abdul put on his armor and proved that he's a bit of a masochist by volunteering to sit for an interview with our pal Jesse Waters. Let's see how it went. Our pal. So you think it's okay for a parent to slash his kid's thing? You think that's okay? I mean, do you really want to have this conversation? Are you circumcised? Yeah, yeah. Mike Rogers, who you and I both agree is a beta and won't come on your show and won't debate me in November. I didn't agree to that, but that's funny. I just think I have the right to the fruits of my own labor. That's America. It's not communists what you're talking about. Billionaires don't make their money off of their labor. That, I think, is where you head off. Billionaires that make their money off their money. You want to talk about budgets? I'm happy to do that. The guy who used to work on your channel, I think he was like the sixth host on The Five, he wanted to raise our military budget to $1.5 trillion, and you don't seem to be upset about that. Yeah, I'm not scared of you. Abdul, I just think you're a little misguided. So the idea that you have somebody like Tommy Tuberville, right, who, you know, barely was good at coaching football, is out here trying to ban Sharia law when there's less than 1% of the Muslim community in America, as if somehow Muslims are out here trying to push Sharia law. So that was the interview. There's a lot more of that. I would encourage everyone to watch the whole thing if you like that sort of thing. So my reaction to the full interview was that Abdul did really well. I also have heard a lot of people say, I just think, like, why did he do it? It was just so, like, contentious. And my thing is I'm sort of, like, grading it on a curve, and the curve is, like, if you're. If you're Abdul El-Sayed and you're a progressive who is running for Senate and you're going to go on Jesse Waters' show, it's not going to be fun. And you're not just going to get a whole bunch of time to just, like, deliver your message the way you want to. But if you can break through the crap and still deliver some of the message, I think that's a win. It's a huge win. And I think it's probably. I think it's still worth doing, that net. Like, I don't think it's going to be comfortable to watch or, like, the most fun interview. I think it's good to do. You can't just cede this ground and let them lie over and over and over. The original interview on air probably had millions of viewers, and then it's pulled tens of millions of more views online afterwards, which means these people are being introduced to fact patterns on Fox News that they wouldn't otherwise hear. I think the clip economy and the way that attention works right now necessitates going into these combative arenas and oftentimes posting clips afterwards. I learned a lot about Abdul's frameworks. I followed his campaign closely. I learned a lot about how he thinks about things. And you know what really struck me is just how, like, un-nimble, how rigid a lot of these hosts are. Like, Abdul is very nimble and flexible. He could jump from topic to topic and give his deep framework. Jesse Waters seems to have a superficial grasp of what he was talking about. Like, he had these snarky one-liners, like, oh, I don't think it's that funny or whatever. But he didn't have any actual substance. And it kind of reminds me of Scott Jennings in a way, too, how these people are used to these rigid conversations where because the rules and the time limit just lets them move on, they're not used to being challenged. Like, when Abdul El-Sayed said, are you circumcised, those types of questions that you ask and they can't answer confidently will Always knocked them off their feet. Jesse Waters is a primetime host. He got cooked right there. He got cooked. Yeah, it's funny because I – so I – my one and only time doing Jesse Waters' show was during the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Yeah, I remember that. And so his producers came and was like, come on the show. And Pfeiffer was like, are you crazy? And I'm like, you know what? Maybe I am. But, like, I'm feeling a little punchy. Let's go do it. Been there for a couple days. And very unlike me, I was like, oh, I had that same thought. I was like, he's very scripted. I could see when he was, like, reading the prompter for his intro to me. And at one point during the commercial break, he was like, wasn't that a good intro they wrote? You know, like – and so I'm like, oh, he is pretty scripted. And I kind of, like, pushed him a little bit. And it does throw him off his game. You realize – now, I think it's much harder to do in a remote setting. Like, I would not have done it just remotely for the first time. Like, I was next to him, so I felt more comfortable doing that. It's hard. It's hard to do remote. Is it a Fox News tactic? Do you think this is a tactic they do is put a delay on Abdul to give him the lower hand? Or is this just a natural delay? I think it's just a natural delay. I think – and I think remote interviews are tough. And they're tough when you have a host that wants to dominate the conversation because you're just – it's easier to dominate the conversation when you're the host and it's remote. Honestly, Abdul gave really solid energy right there. Like, that's the type of assertive, aggressive, almost, like, affirmative messaging that needs to happen. It's really easy to knock on Trump, take down Trump, all of that. But going into those spaces and giving your own affirmative framework is really powerful. I mean, that's going to really help him out there. How do you feel about the Michigan Senate race in general? I think that it's a rough one because right now the polling is neck and neck. But Abdul is very clearly the stronger, more well-equipped candidate. We're just getting off the back of a primary where $60 million was spent in negative ads against Abdul. And from my understanding, Mike Rogers didn't have nearly as competitive as a primary. So Abdul right now is still kind of tainted by these negative ads. And they haven't been able to refocus it on Mike Rogers quite yet. But we're only, like, one or two weeks past the primary. So as we continue to push this, I think that Mike Rogers will be hit with a bunch of negative ads. We'll continue to drive home the message that he's not a good person. He's rather corrupt. And then from there, we should be able to build a good base for Abdul. I mean, I think that we're in a good position. I saw Jonathan Martin in a clip from Morning Joe this morning say that Abdul shouldn't have done it not because he didn't – do well, but because the goal is to make the race about Mike Rogers and Trump and not make it about Abdul. And I get that to an extent. I think Abdul's number one objective is to tie Mike Rogers to Trump and use the national environment, which is a whole bunch of people pissed off at Trump, to sink Mike Rogers as well. But I think because of what you said and because of, like, all those – that $60 million worth of ads in the primary, he's got to – he's also got to do something. He's got to do some work defining himself and reassuring people that the caricature that the APAC ads and other ads and Republicans have painted of him isn't true. And the best way you can do that is to go on Jesse Waters and be tough but also seem like – I mean, honestly, Jesse's saying, I'm not scared of you. I just think you're misguided. It probably is helpful. That's actually pretty good. Jesse Waters seemed really meek in that interview. Like, I was surprised how meek he seemed. I guess with Abdul El-Sayed, he's just got to continue cooking. Like this – and I guess this sounds trite, but the attention economy is very important. And the attention economy is going to be dominated with clips and moments like that. And when you're able to keep having appearances and moments like that, it worked for Donald Trump. He had a million train wreck interviews that only increased his profile. And now Abdul can use his increased profile as a vehicle to attack Mike Rogers, at least in an ideal world. I think that's right. I think that, like, yeah, getting attention in these races is the toughest part. I mean, we just talked about it on the pod yesterday that, like, Troy Jackson has this – this challenge in Maine because it was very nationalized. And everyone knew Graham Platner because everyone was arguing about Graham Platner. But since his exit from the race – It's just kind of lost attention. Yeah, you don't see – it's just hard for Troy Jackson to get attention. Yeah. And now, does he need to get that much attention? Probably not because, again, his goal is the same, tie Susan Collins to Trump even though she's trying to separate herself from Trump. But people need to know who he is. And so you need to do – you need some kind of attention-grabbing thing to kind of define yourself a little bit. Yeah, I agree. And I think Abdul did a very good job of at least getting those moments. And he – He had a very nuanced framework on a lot of these things. They were trying to ambush him and trap him. There's a moment where Jesse Waters goes, you think Sharia law and banning that is white supremacy? Play the clip. And he just tries to ambush him with this clip. Yeah. And Abdul flips it on him in a very clever way. So it's good stuff. Yeah. All right. Those are all of our – those are all of our stories for today. Adam, thank you so much for joining, as always. Where should people go and subscribe to all the good content that you're churning out? You know, I'm on YouTube, Instagram. Wherever you are, we are under the name Adam Mockler. We have a lot of – We have a lot more debates, more CNN hits, more back and forths coming soon. So I really appreciate the time, and let's do it again. Appreciate you being here. And everyone, go subscribe to Adam's stuff, and please subscribe to Pod Save America. It's free. Just subscribe to our YouTube channel so we can keep surfacing good content. That's what we're here for. Peace out, y'all. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Faris Safari, with Ree Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. 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