1040: Trump's Secret Epstein Letter Revealed

22:23Jon Favreau:And they had a debate and the political advisors wanted the Clintons to call for an independent counsel back when we had an independent counsel of all. And the lawyers were like, that's insane. The Clintons were agreed with the political people. They called for independent counsel. That independent counsel was Ken Starr. So it's like the next seven years of their lives were miserable. So maybe you don't want that. You could say, you could announce we're going to, one way to do this. I don't know that I want to give communications advice to them, but one thing you could do is announce that you're going to do a review and you're going to release everything you can release in 90 days, right?

22:58Jon Favreau:Like that's a classic Trump tactic to just kick it down the road. You could just pretend like Aaron Sorkin's in charge and say we're going to do a two-hour primetime press conference about it. You could sit and do an interview with – Certainly not with Trump. You'd need a person to do that interview. Trying to think of who could do it. Who could do it? Like maybe you send Marco Rubio out. Yeah. Yeah. Fellow Floridian Marco Rubio. Yeah, no. I think that they probably just don't care. I kind of thought they would do, I was a little worried that they would say, okay, special counsel, Ed Martin. Or, in fact, do you know who Lauren Boebert suggested for special counsel to look into this child sex trafficking case?

23:41Jon Favreau:I do know the answer, but is it better for the podcast if I pretend like I don't? Go for it. Go for it. It's Matt Gaetz, right? It's Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz. The almost attorney general. The almost attorney general who may know a thing or two about a Florida-based sex trafficking ring. Yeah, sure does. Allegedly. Sure does. Yeah, that would be a real troll. You're getting a subject matter expert there, I guess.

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25:27Jon Favreau:Our listeners get 10 % off their first month at BetterHelp.com. That's BetterHelp.com. Music, food, art. These things define and unite us. And they come in colors that breathe culture. Colors that connect us with their variety and richness. You'll find that same variety in Valspar Ultra paints. Great coverage and durability starting at$29.98 per gallon. Enjoy everyday protection against scuffs and wear with a smooth, washable finish. We're made of colors. And with Valspar Ultra, you can reflect that pride of culture you have inside on every wall of your home. Available at Lowe's. Alright, so no special counsel, but the Justice Department did fire Maureen Comey on Wednesday.

26:16an SDNY prosecutor who went after Epstein and Galene Maxwell. And yes, if you're wondering, she is related to that Comey. Maureen happens to be James Comey's daughter. What do you make of this? Probably doesn't fix any of Trump's Epstein problems, huh?

26:33Jon Favreau:No, it seems to make them much, much worse, right? Like if you had a lot of, you have a lot of questions about what's going on here that all of a sudden out of the blue, Trump fires the person who prosecuted Epstein, Maxwell, and Diddy. The racist question is about Diddy? What do we know about the connections there? Like, I am assuming that this is an idea that has like been working its way through the system. Like there's someone in charge of like petty revenge and they finally got around to firing her. They just happened to do it right at the worst possible moment. Oh, so it was like right person for the wrong thing kind of thing?

27:04Jon Favreau:Yeah. It just don't really, just a truly insane thing to do right now. The theory that the New York Times floated in its New York Times way, which is not directly, but just sort of through their kind of vague language, is she was mentioned in a Politico story last week about not wanting to release some of the information and evidence in the Epstein case for the reasons I mentioned earlier, because victims, sensitive, underseal, all that. And I think the New York Times said she may be getting set up to be a scapegoat by the Trump administration because then they could say, oh, see, she was the one withholding all this evidence.

27:46But I was like, the only problem there is now that they've got rid of her, who's holding up the evidence now?

27:51Jon Favreau:Can you just imagine if Trump went to the right-wing back of people and was like, look, I'm trying to do it. But Jim Comey's daughter is stopping me. And now she's finally out. But she took it with her. She took the files with her. My assumption here in the last New York Times way is that they've been wanting to fire her a long time, but they thought it was probably a bad idea to fire her in the middle of the Diddy trial. And so they just waited until that was over and then fired her, which also happened to be in the middle of the Epstein scandal. You might say that they 86ed her. Oh, there you go.

28:29The traditional use of that, by the way. Okay, thank you. So we're starting to get polling on this. Quinnipiac poll taken over the weekend has 63 % of voters disapproving of Trump's handling of the Epstein situation, only 17 % approve. When you narrow that to Republicans, 40 % approve, but a full 36 % disapprove. A Reuters poll conducted Tuesday and Wednesday had similar numbers, and it has 69 % of voters nice saying they think government is hiding key details about Epstein. So that's people's views on it. Not great. What's your guess on the salience of this issue for people and particularly Republicans?

29:06Jon Favreau:I'm just going to guess that if you ask people what they care about most, cost of living, the economy, jobs, immigration. Epstein is going to fall well below all of those things. But I think that's sort of an overly pedantic way of looking at this issue. What this issue is about is not about the Epstein files per se. It's about, it goes to the crux of what has decided the last several elections, which is a question, like we live in a perpetual change election and it is who people are dissatisfied and angry about the political system that they view to be corrupt and broken and helping protect rich and elites and politically connected.

29:44Jon Favreau:And this entire thing is about Trump going from someone who was coming to Washington to break up that corrupt political system to being someone who is now wielding power to protect the very elites, himself included. And so it goes to something much bigger that I think doesn't show up in polls. What we really should be tracking on this is how people feel about Trump as a change agent or an outsider or part of the status quo. We haven't seen that polling yet. Or I think CNN did ask different qualities, and this is sort of not the perfect substitute for that, but cares about people like you. And he's quite low on that.

30:22Yeah. And he's been low on that for a while.

30:24Jon Favreau:That's always been, he lost that to Harris in the election. One notable polling out there is there's a data for progress poll that shows that 55 % of Republicans who have heard a lot about the Epstein files disapprove of how Trump has handled them. He has a net approval rating among people who have heard some of them and a decent approval rating on people who have heard none about them, which is weird to have an opinion on that. So there is this argument here that the more attention that this gets, the more people hear about what Trump is doing, the very suspicious circumstances in which he changed his position on releasing the files will hurt him more with Republicans.

31:00One more question before we move on this topic. Maybe for good, probably not.

31:05Jon Favreau:No, we are talking about this next week. I'm telling you that right now. Democrats, they have jumped all over the issue, which we urged them to do. I mean, you did. I was on vacation, but. That's right. I did. I did. Me and Tommy did. Our special Epstein correspondent, Tommy Vitor. So what do you think about it? Does he broadcast from Epstein Island? Essentially. Yeah, I haven't seen him. Uh, anything, anything Democrats have to be careful about. And I ask this only because you can, you can almost feel Republicans, some of the MAGA people starting to get negatively polarized and that like, if the Democrats are having too much fun on this and, uh, then I'm going to be, now I'm going to flip and I'll be on Trump's side.

31:47I haven't seen that happen like completely yet, but there's a, there's a balance there. What do you think about that?

31:51Jon Favreau:Yeah, I think the Democrats should talk about this. We want to keep the story in the news, and I use the news in the broadest sense of the news, not necessarily the New York Times, but the social media conversation. But we shouldn't put too much spin on the ball. We should want transparency. We just want answers. We want the exact same thing Donald Trump said he wanted like six minutes ago. We want to know what's in the files. They should be released and leave it at that because there is this risk of polarizing the issue, right, where people just revert to their partisan priors. if we overdo it.

32:23Jon Favreau:And there's no real advantage in overdoing it because the audience that we are trying to reach here is primarily Republicans, right? And in this case, actually more hardcore partisan Republicans. And so the best messengers to do that is not Democrats, right? It is. So like one thing, I wrote a message by Knuzler about this earlier this week, where one of the things I encourage Democrats to do is instead of posting your own social media videos about yourself talking about it, just share the conservative, yeah, the Joe Rogan, Andrew Schultz, all these people, Theo Vaughn, these people who had real influence with some segment of voters, get that content out there, right?

33:03Jon Favreau:That's what we should be sharing. That's more valuable than like a witty refrain, a tough tweet, you know, whatever else it is. It's just like, we should just recognize every messaging strategy begins with understanding your audience. And then the second question you always ask yourself is, who's the best messenger for that audience? Very often in this particular situation, the best messenger for that audience is not going to be Democrats themselves. It doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it, but how we talk about it matters. I also think you need to be – you should be honest about how you've always felt about this case, right?

33:37Like it is not really believable for someone who has never talked about releasing the Epstein files for the last four years to suddenly be like, oh, it's the most important issue to release the Epstein files. What I do think is that Trump's handling of this case is so like it is even surprised me how insulting it is to his own supporters intelligence. And I think he has insulted their intelligence plenty of times over the last decade. But this is this is like a new level where they it is obvious that he is lying when he says that this is created by Obama and Hillary Clinton and Biden. And it's a hoax and all that shit.

34:16Like it is such an obvious lie that even the even the biggest Trump supporter is not going to believe at least privately, if not publicly. And I think getting people to really sit with this idea that this this guy that you really believed in and voted for many times is lying to you and thinks you're stupid enough to just kind of believe the lie or really doesn't care if his lie is so bad that you don't that you don't believe it. Like he just doesn't give a shit about you. And, you know, as we go on in the next however many years we fucking have to deal with him, it's something to think about. The next time he makes a promise, the next time he tells you something, the next time he doesn't fulfill one of the things he promised you'd do in the campaign, you know, you got to wonder, is he lying again like he was lying in the Epstein files?

35:04So let's talk about more traditional kitchen table issues. We learned this week from the Labor Department that inflation is on the rise again. Prices are on the rise again. Biggest jump since January. The culprit is Trump's tariffs, which are starting to hit people. In a hopeful sign that he's willing to change course when presented with new information, Trump did pledge to back off his trade war. No, just kidding. He didn't do that at all. He threatened to fire the Fed chair. The Fed chair he appointed because Jerome Powell won't cut interest rates. and he won't cut interest rates on account of Trump's trade war.

35:40On Tuesday night, Trump showed Republicans in Congress a draft termination letter for Powell and asked them whether he should send it. Firing Powell could do significant economic damage and is illegal unless there's actual cause to fire him. Sure enough, Trump told reporters that, quote, he probably wouldn't do it unless Powell, quote, has to leave for fraud, which is a reference to a multi-billion dollar renovation of the Fed's D.C. headquarters, which Trump and a lot of his aides and allies are calling fraudulent as a way to have an excuse to fire Powell. How big of a deal do you think this is?

36:18Jon Favreau:I mean, it is potentially a massive deal. Like if Trump were to fire Powell, it would fundamentally change how the US economy is viewed around the world. One of our strength is that the US dollar is the global reserve currency. It's the currency that is thought to be so safe and so stable that it's what most federal reserves in other countries keep to ensure stability in their economies. And so if all of a sudden US monetary policy is believed to be in the hands of someone who is operating at the whims of an erratic wannabe authoritarian, that would have massive impact on the global economy. It is a deeply dangerous situation.

36:59Jon Favreau:And even just like if you watch the Dow Jones average this week on the day that story came out that he had written that letter, it's like going up, going up, drops right down. Trump makes his remarks that he's not going to do it. It goes back again. Like this is going to have massive, there'll be massive market volatility around this. I heard our old friend and colleague, Jason Furman, talking about this. Did you listen to Jason Furman on Derek Thompson's podcast? I sure did. I went for a walk this morning and that's exactly what I listened to. And well, Jason's point, it helped me understand it too.

37:31He was like, it's the reason that the Fed is independent, the reason it's important that the Fed is independent and insulated from political pressure is that if you're not insulated from political pressure, you are likely to want to make decisions that help in the short term or you're you're tempted to make decisions that help in the short term so like maybe i'll cut interest rates a little bit now because that'll help juice the you know and if you're if you're completely insulated from political pressure you can make decisions that might have some issues in the short term but long term are going to be the best for the economy so people know the rest of the world knows that you are making decisions based on what you believe is best for the american economy which a lot of the rest of the world depends on.

38:13And if we're just now thrown in Fed chairs to cater to the whims, the short-term whims of Donald Trump, who's the most short-term thinker we've ever had as president, then we're really fucked. Now, apparently there's a story in Politico that the lawyers in the White House may have convinced Donald Trump not to do this, A, because he'll lose in court, B, because all the economic damage it can do. And they just think that this whole, like, let's fire Powell for cause and the cause is these renovations that have gone over budget. And we don't think he was honest to Congress about how they went over budget is just sort of bullshit.

38:54One administration official from the Trump White House said to Politico, whether or not it's illegal, I don't know. But is it a good thing to point out to damage this guy's image? Yeah.

39:05Jon Favreau:That really sums it up, doesn't it? Yeah. I mean, I think the Wall Street Journal had a very big story on this, and they came sort of the same conclusion that there is no there there on this idea that you could use these renovations to get to cause, right? Because the cause here you can be fired for is essentially malfeasance or failure to fulfill your duties. And the courts have been pretty clear that refusing to cut interest rates at the president's command is not is now their malfeasance or failure to fulfill your duty. And that what Trump is really trying to do here is put so much pressure, political pressure on Powell that he will either resign on his own or cut interest rates earlier to appease Trump.

39:45So according to the Times, the person who drafted the termination letter was Bill Pulte, Pulte, who knows, the Trump lackey who is now in charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Pulte has been attacking Powell on Twitter for not lowering rates, which is what you do as the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He's also been driving the effort to exploit the renovation thing. And get this, he's also the person pushing to investigate Tish James and now Adam Schiff for mortgage fraud. So it seems to me like using one of your top housing appointees to go after your political enemies for phony fraud charges and renovation bullshit is the bigger scandal than maybe splurging on a new reno.

40:36Yes.

40:37Jon Favreau:It's not in the job description for the head of the FHA to be just like an attack dog on Twitter or elsewhere. It's very strange and actually probably makes you raise questions about what's actually happening at FHA if this is how this guy's spending all of his time. Yeah, someone, you know, in Project 2025 planning clearly looked at housing and was like, oh, this is one way we can go after people. Mortgage fraud. That's pretty, we can play pretty fast and loose with mortgage fraud. Pulte, just right before we started recording, just tweeted, I am told by very reliable congressional sources that there may be a criminal referral coming from one or more Congress members to the DOJ for Jay Powell's alleged perjury about the$2.5 billion building.

41:22So now they're just going to do a criminal referral.

41:26Jon Favreau:Cool. Really? Just a very normal country we live in. Un-fucking-believable. But that, like, I mean, this is what they want, right? Did Adam Schiff do anything? No. He didn't do anything wrong. But, like, now people are like, well, Trump says Adam Schiff's a criminal, and Adam Schiff says he didn't do anything. And I don't know. And then the administration official that told Politico, well, we're just trying to damage their reputation. We don't know if it's legal. You know, that's how they went. Another Trump lackey on his way to a lifetime appointment is Emile Bove, Trump's former personal lawyer turned top Justice Department official who told DOJ lawyers they may have to say, fuck you to the courts, brokered the deal to drop the prosecution of Eric Adams in exchange for his complete loyalty to Trump and oversaw the mass firings of DOJ lawyers who worked on January 6th prosecutions.

42:12On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Beauvais' nomination to the full Senate on a party-line vote after Chairman Chuck Grassley refused to let Democrats debate the whistleblower report on Beauvais, which led the Democrats to storm out of the hearing. What do you think? Is the fuck you to the courts guy going to get a lifetime seat on the courts?

42:31Jon Favreau:I mean, this is the Republican Senate that confirmed Tulsi Gabbard to be the head of the DNI and RFK Jr. to be the head of HHS and a weekend Fox anchor to be head of the Pentagon. So, yeah, it seems like they're probably going to do what Trump wants here again, which is just the amount of disregard you have must have for your own duties and your own oath of the Constitution to put this guy on the court of all people. Because it's not like it's if it's not him, it's going to be Zoran Mondani. like there's just be another right wing person that trump would put on there and so just to have like just they just don't take their jobs seriously at all they have no sense of separation of powers of independence of advice and consent it's just whatever trump wants that they do no matter how fucking ridiculous it is the the person i can't figure out is tom fucking tillis who is not running again now uh talked a lot about how free he is to say what he wants and talked about how you know The Pete Hegseth thing, he now regrets that vote, and he voted for RFK Jr.

43:32because Bill Cassidy told him to just give him a chance and it'd probably be fine. And then also said, and then voted against Ed Martin, crazy Ed Martin, and said then, well, I'm not voting for any nominees that think that January 6th was okay. Well, Emile Bove fired all the January 6th prosecutors and did all the pardons, and Tillis is somehow just voting for him, voting for him out of committee. the guy who's told the DOJ Trump officials like, hey, we may have to say fuck you to the courts who encouraged lying to a judge over the deportations. Like what is Tom Tell is doing? What do you have to lose at this point?

44:09His next job.

44:11Jon Favreau:Un-fucking-believable, man. There's just like these height. We've seen this before. There's two dynamics that happen with these people. We saw it with Jeff Flake. We've seen it with some other people leaving. Is one, they're starting to wonder what they're going to do next, right? Which usually involves working in some sort of Republican-loving firm or law firm or trade association. And so you have to find some way to balance your previous independence with doing the party's bidding. And there's this other – I mean, this is just a stupid way to run a government. But there is this high school dynamic of Tom Tills has to go have lunch with all these people every week and doesn't want to be the asshole every single time.

44:45Jon Favreau:And so he will put a different asshole on the court just to – so he has someone to sit next to at the lunch table. so yeah so now the guy who uh who put Eric Adams in his pocket it's the most corrupt fucking deal ever is now on a appeals court gonna go into appeals court forever and possibly the Supreme Court if Alito or Thomas retire uh in the next couple years that's who we that's who we could get on the fucking Supreme Court

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47:25So the Republican Congress is really crushing it this week. They're about to pass a bill that would claw back about$9 billion that Congress already appropriated. Much of it would have gone to help sick, starving people, mostly children, in poor, war-torn countries all over the world. The cuts will also defund NPR and PBS because local radio and Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger are all too woke for Republicans. But none of these cuts will come close to making a dent in the$4 trillion that Trump and Republicans just added to the deficit because of an economic plan that gives huge tax cuts to the rich while gutting Obamacare and Medicaid, a vote that at least one Republican senator is already regretting.

48:03Missouri Senator Josh Hawley has introduced legislation that would undo some of the Medicaid cuts he just voted for two weeks ago. Meanwhile, millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance are about to pay a lot more because of what Trump's bill does to the Affordable Care Act. And those price increases are going to hit this winter. The notices could come as early as this fall. One of Trump's favorite pollsters, Tony Fabrizio, has been circulating a memo that finds generic Republican candidates trailing generic Democratic House candidates by an average of three points in the country's most competitive House districts.

48:41But Fabrizio says that if Republicans in Congress undo their Obamacare cuts and extend these premium tax credits in the Affordable Care Act, the polling shows they would actually lead the Democrats in these districts. If they don't extend them and Democrats run on that, polling shows that the Republicans would lose by double digits in these districts. What do you think the chances are that Republicans will try to run on saving Obamacare? Is that something we're going to see? I would love to know who paid Tony Fabrizio for this poll. Because I just do not – Probably that coalition of people who are trying to extend the tax credits.

49:16Yeah, there's a couple of them. Some combination of like left and right or –

49:20Jon Favreau:I assume the insurance companies are involved in here somewhere. Yeah, I think like insurance companies like it. I think patient advocates like it, right? Doctors probably like it. But just this idea that Trump's pollster is just out there pushing for the extension of Obamacare tax credits on his own seems not particularly credible to me. Having said that, I have seen Democratic polling on this, which shows that it's not the exact same questions, but makes it very clear that this is a very powerful issue and that Republicans will pay a price because these premiums will go up next year. This is not like the Medicaid cuts and everything else that they have kicked past the midterms.

49:55Jon Favreau:And so you will feed in 24 million people, I think, last I checked. And so there's a lot of people in all the country who are going to do it. And Democrats, if we do this right, both in how we handle the one big, beautiful bill and – or one big, ugly bill or whatever we want to – what are we calling it these days? And – I'm calling it Trump's economic plan because I'm not forcing myself to say big, beautiful bill or big, beautiful betrayal or whatever the fuck the Democrats are saying. Yeah, it's so hard to say. But the goal here is to make Republicans own health care in America, right? So that every single decision, whether it's a hospital closing, changing in Medicaid reimbursement rates, any premium increase anywhere, it has to do with how Republicans have handled this.

50:33Jon Favreau:And so Democrats should absolutely run on it. And I don't see Republicans coming to save the day here, but we should make them pay for it for sure. Yeah, just on the – there was a headline in the Detroit Free Press that one big insurance company in Michigan already announced double-digit premium increases for next year. and maybe not related directly to what just passed, but double-digit premium increases in addition to losing a credit that was helping people pay for those premiums is going to be an even higher price for people to pay. And every single time there's a headline like that, Democrats should fucking scream about it to voters.

51:09Jon Favreau:And there are a bunch of people who are on Medicaid today who at some point will not be on Medicaid and will have to buy insurance on the exchanges if they're lucky enough to have insurance at all. and they will pay more because of what Republicans have done. Speaking of Medicaid, what do you think about famed Medicaid moderate Josh Hawley's legislation trying to undo the cuts that he just voted for? Just get the fuck out of here. I mean, just what are we doing? Like you could have, if you don't like the cuts, you know what you could have done? Vote against the bill. You could have stopped it.

51:40Jon Favreau:Unbelievable. I do think that some of the comments and moves like this from Hawley and others are really going to come back to bite them in the midterms. I mean, to your earlier point about the Epstein stuff, you don't even have to have a bunch of Democrats yelling about health care. You can just have Republicans like Tom Tillis or Josh Hawley or Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski talking about how this is going to hurt people. and then you pair that with actual people who are feeling like they're paying a lot more money or lost their health insurance and talking about it. And it's pretty compelling, I think.

52:14Jon Favreau:There's a great clip of Hawley talking about how bad these cuts are, like six minutes before he ends up saying he's going to vote for him. But that's something that if you're running a congressional race in Missouri or frankly anywhere else, you could use that. As long as you just label it Republican Senator, right? You don't have to believe me. Here's what Republican Senator Josh Hawley said. Here's what Republican Senator Tom Tillis said. Here's what Republican Senator or at least Murkowski said, on and on. Any thoughts on the$9 billion in cuts to life-saving aid for poor kids in Daniel Tiger's neighborhood?

52:42Jon Favreau:I will just say that if this cut to PBS means that PBS Kids is going to stop making new episodes of Wild Kratts, my kids will storm the Capitol like it's January 6th. Charlie loves Wild Kratts. Wild Kratts is, I mean, Wild Kratts is a great show. It has turned my kids, particularly my Jack, my four-year-old son, knows so much about such insane facts about animals. he will walk yeah like try to say something like how did you know that he's like oh it's the wild i was like he's got a wild kratz tony he's got the wild kratz on television i always say did you learn that in school no i learned that i learned that on wild kratz like he just kept going around telling everyone that the gila monster lives in the sonoran desert wherever he goes um but like the more serious point is to pass these cuts to life-saving aid for poor kids and to public broadcasting a few weeks after you gave a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the top 1 % in this country is so gross that it's hard to take.

53:42Jon Favreau:And as it was happening, as the Senate was debating this, Lisa Murkowski said that there was a tsunami warning in Alaska as the vote was happening, and that in the rural parts of Alaska, the only way people got to hear about the tsunami warning was on the public airwaves, local public radio. And with these cuts in big cities, they're probably going to be able to make up the difference with fundraising and tote bags and all the other things that PBS and NPR do. But it's going to be rural parts of the country are going to lose their radio stations, lose their local TV because of what Republicans did.

54:18Jon Favreau:And to what point? It is a drop in the bucket compared to all the money they just sent out the door to rich people. Yeah, the Republican line now is, everyone's got cell phones, everyone's got mobile phones, they don't need, no one gets their alerts, their weather alerts from public radio, and then someone was like, only 12 % of people do it. I'm like, well, okay, that's 12 % of people who aren't going to get fucking emergency alerts. What are you talking about? Just use something else. Also, I realize foreign aid does not pull well, I get it. There was a story in the Atlantic this week that they're incinerating incinerating about a million dollars worth of food that we already bought taxpayers already spent the money on and was supposed to go again to like starving children in afghanistan and pakistan and some war-torn countries and some really tough places and we already bought it it was it was in a warehouse in dubai and now because uh marco because first Elon fucking Musk and now Marco Rubio refused to do anything about it.

55:22Now it's expired. Could have fed a million and a half kids, million and a half kids. And now it's just incinerary, just wasted food, wasted food. And now we're cutting, um, Tim Miller pointed this out. So they're going to cut a hundred million dollars from UNICEF. UNICEF like helps kids in, in life or death situations. And cause we couldn't spend a hundred million on that in the, in the bill and the economic plan, tucked in the economic plan that just passed,$300 million for security at Mar-a-Lago and all of Trump's other homes. $300 million for security for Trump, because I guess he can't pay for that, but$100 million we couldn't do just for UNICEF to help starving kids.

55:59Jon Favreau:Kind of says everything. That's where we're at right now, incinerating food and can't even help starving kids. Fucking ridiculous. One other way Republicans are trying to improve their midterm chances is by redrawing House districts so they can pick their voters. Their first target is Texas, where Trump and Governor Greg Abbott are pressuring the Republican state legislature to hold a special session on redistricting years ahead of schedule in order to, in Trump's words, pick up five seats, pick up five House seats. He's also suggested that other states could follow. But in a pleasant surprise, Democrats are fighting fire with fire.

56:34Tommy and I sat down with Gavin Newsom this week, who broke news right here in this studio about the options he's considering. Let's listen.

56:41Jon Favreau:We can do a special session. I can call for one today if I chose to. We can then put something on the ballot and I call a special election. We can change the constitution with the consent of the voters. And I think we would win that. Or you can look at other avenues, which we are exploring, which are pathways with the legislature to do urgency clauses with two thirds of the legislature in both of our houses to move forward with legislative redistricting in between the constitutional construct, which is every census, the Independent Redistricting Commission does a new map, but it's silent about what happens in between.

57:21So it's a novel legal question, and it's being explored. So not every Democrat is on board. California Assemblymember Alex Lee, head of the state's Progressive Caucus, said that, quote, trying to save democracy by destroying democracy is dangerous and foolish. Another anonymous Democratic consultant told Politico that the optics would be, quote, horrendous and indefensible. That said, most other Democrats in California and in Washington, D.C. are supportive. What do you think? Is this a close call?

57:49Jon Favreau:I don't think it's a close call. I think I wish we lived in a world where we could, where the Supreme Court thought would rule against partisan jerrymandering as an assault democracy. They have chosen not to do that. I wish we lived in a world where we could pass a law banning partisan gerrymandering as Democrats tried to do in the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, but we don't. And so the only way that we can stop partisan gerrymandering is through mutually assured destruction, right? Oh, Texas, you want to do it? California will do it. Florida, you want to do it? New York will want to do it. And that is what we have to do.

58:23Jon Favreau:Because if the idea is Republicans do whatever they want and we will wave the white flag, we are never going to solve these problems because we will never have the majorities necessary to actually pass a law to ban nonpartisan redistricting. If Republicans think that they can come out on the bad end of partisan redistricting nationally, then we can maybe get to the table at some point for them to actually get a deal to actually pass legislation. If they think they can always win, if the dice comes up with the right roll at the end of every decade with the census, then they're going to keep doing this.

58:55Jon Favreau:And so we have to fight fire with fire. I don't think it's a close call at all. Yeah. Nonpartisan, independent redistricting for everyone or we don't disarm unilaterally. Like I just, it's very easy because you need, I mean, this is about national house races. This is about national control of the house. So it's not a state by state thing, really, even though that's who is drawing the districts. Right. And so I don't know, like I just, I, yeah, we can be like, oh, you know, it's anti-democracy. Anti-democracy is like the Republicans winning the house back or winning the house again. And we have no check on Donald Trump for all four years while he's in office.

59:30Like that, that to me is more anti-democracy than trying to fight fire with fire on this one. So, all right, Dan, here's the Wall Street Journal story has published. I'm just reading this now for the first time. The Wall Street Journal has reviewed a book put together for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday. As part of that book, a letter was submitted by Donald Trump. Trump's letter features a drawing of a naked woman And this text, which imagines a conversation between Trump and Epstein There's a voiceover that says There must be more to life than having everything, the note began Donald Yes, there is, but I won't tell you what it is Jeffrey Nor will I, since I also know what it is Donald We have certain things in common, Jeffrey Jeffrey Yes, we do, come to think of it Donald Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?

1:00:18Jeffrey, as a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. Trump, a pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret. Wow. I mean, what the fuck? Huh? Oh, in an interview, in an interview with the journal, oh no, we should, everyone hold on, everyone hold on. Yes. In an interview with the journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. This is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women. He said, it's not my language.

1:00:57It's not my words. I'm going to sue the Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else.

1:01:04Jon Favreau:Wow. Did they publish the letter? Is that in here? I want to see the picture. That is – oh, yeah. Where is the picture? Here, let's look. Don't worry. We'll put it up if we can. It doesn't look – I'm not seeing a picture in here, which is real disappointing. Also, good sources from George Conway. Yeah. Yeah. He nailed that one. Wow. That is wild. May every day be another wonderful secret. We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.

1:01:46Jon Favreau:Enigmas never age. Have you noticed that? Enigmas never age. Man, I could really... We could really use a textual analysis of this. Well, that's what we got for now. Yeah, I mean, this is great. Thank you to the news guys for putting this out in minute 68 of this podcast or whatever we're on. Well, and now we can segue seamlessly from that to a couple of other New York fucking bozos. That was a brilliant segue, right on the fly. We got Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams still to talk about. Andrew Cuomo announced on Monday that he will give this whole campaign for mayor thing another go. By running as an independent candidate in the general election, Cuomo made the announcement in a video that went viral for all the wrong reasons.

1:02:32Let's listen. Hello, I'm Andrew Cuomo. And unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that the Democratic primary did not go the way I had hoped. But as my grandfather used to say, when you get knocked down, learn the lesson and pick yourself back up and get in the game. And that is what I'm going to do.

1:02:52Jon Favreau:My opponent, Mr. Mondani, offers slick slogans, but no real solutions. You deserve a mayor with the experience and ideas to make it happen again. And the guts to take on anyone who stands in the way. The Republican nominee for mayor, perennial candidate Curtis Sliwa, had a quippy retort to Cuomo's candidacy. Let's take a listen. Andrew Cuomo is a creep slapping fannies and killing granny.

1:03:26Jon Favreau:Oh, well done. Well done, Curtis Sliwa. Slapping fannies and killing grannies. Curtis Sliwa. Sliwa? Sliwa? Sliwa, I think. Sliwa. Yeah, it sounds like Sliwa. Meanwhile, sitting mayor Eric Adams, who also intends to run as an independent, has just been sued by his own former police commissioner for running the department as a criminal racket. That follows four similar separate lawsuits from former officers filed last week, accusing Adams of selling promotions, among other things. I don't know, Dan. You think Mamdani has any chance against these powerhouses? Just what? I don't know. I mean, just the Cuomo video is just really, it's a piece of work.

1:04:10Jon Favreau:It is a... Now, Dan, you mocked this video on Twitter. I did. And ended up in the New York Post and a Cuomo campaign staffer, consultant, hit back hard at you. And all of us, I guess. We caught some strays, your co-hosts here, because it says, well, if it's coming from the insular guys of Pod Save America, we must be doing something right. And let me just say, thank you for lessons on insularity, Andrew Cuomo's campaign. From a guy who did no interviews, talked to no voters, doesn't seem to want the job he's running for, isn't sure why he's running, doesn't know what to do other than run for office, and has decided to – I mean, let's back up a step just with Andrew Cuomo.

1:04:51Jon Favreau:He was the Democratic governor of the state. He is a scion to the most famous Democratic family in New York. He gets his ass kicked in the primary, right? He didn't lose – The Trump family? Right. He didn't lose a little bit. He wasn't close. There's no allegation that it was taken from him, but he's running as an independent to try to take it from the Democrat. I mean, that's a wild thing to do. And it's wild that any one of the Democratic Party would support him. It's wild that much of the Democratic Party establishment, that all the Democratic Party establishment is not united behind Zoran here, right?

1:05:27Jon Favreau:We have a choice of a Democrat, an independent who has been accused of a lot of corruption and malfeasance, an independent who is engaged in some sort of bribe with Trump, and a Republican. And we're not going to back Zoran because he has too progressive for you. It's insane. The whole thing's insane. You support the Democratic nominee if you're a Democratic official. Yeah. If you're a voter, you do what the fuck you want. You want to vote for a Republican? Yeah, you can do that. But if you're a Democratic official in this party, you support the person who wins the primary. If the person who wins the primary is too conservative for you, you support them.

1:06:05If they're too liberal for you, you support them. That's like, we set the rules. That's what we do.

1:06:09Jon Favreau:I will just do some live reporting here, which is I had friends who were at the Wu-Tang show on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. Zoran walks in. I heard. Crowd goes bananas. That's pretty cool. Right. Yeah, it's very cool. I don't see the crowd going bananas for Andrew Cuomo anywhere, frankly. You don't think a Wu-Tang crowd? Yeah, no. I don't know what crowd. I mean, the Wu-Tang crowd, I hate to say this because it pains me personally, but maybe not such a young crowd anymore, John. This is their final tour. Maybe like a Frank Sinatra cover singer? Yes, I guess. I don't know. Okay, when we get back from the break, you'll hear Dan's conversation with new Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Kassar about redistricting in Texas, what House Democrats are planning to do on the Epstein files, and the federal government's response to the heartbreaking floods in his home state of Texas.

1:06:55Two quick things before we get to that. Got some new merch in the Crooked Store that'll help spread the word that we are not okay with what ICE is doing here in California, if you didn't already know, and around the country. You can check out our new Friend of Immigrants and California Bear Flag Tees at crooket.com slash store. Also, Dan, you're out with a new episode of Polar Coaster. What did you guys cover?

1:07:16Jon Favreau:We went deep on all the polling we've seen about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and talked about why this scandal is really not going anywhere for Trump and could leave some lasting damage. And we also talked about really interesting new polling from Gallup. It shows that Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are making America pro-immigrant again. that is very, very interesting stuff which shows that Trump may be winning the battle but losing the war on immigration in this country. Well, if you want to hear that episode, and you should, and submit questions for a future one, head to crooked.com slash friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

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1:10:13Jon Favreau:And with Valspar Ultra, you can reflect that pride of culture you have inside on every wall of your home. Available at Lowe's. Joining me now is the new chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Texas Representative Greg Kassar, Congressman Kussar, welcome to the pod. Thanks so much for having me on, man. All right, we've got a lot to talk about today. Let's start with redistricting in your home state of Texas. John and I talked about this a little bit earlier on the podcast, but Trump wants Republicans in Texas to redraw your state's congressional map to get them a whole bunch more seats and try to hold on to power in what should be a tough election.

1:10:46Jon Favreau:What do you think of their plan and what are the consequences? Look, Donald Trump doesn't have a plan to win the upcoming midterms. He has a plan to rig the election rules. He knows that kicking over 15 million people off of their health care, giving all these benefits to his billionaire buddies is deeply unpopular. And so he's trying to figure out how he can completely change the rules of the game in the middle of all this. And he's basically demanding Texas Republicans completely redraw the map, not just nibble around the edges, violate the Voting Rights Act in ways we've never seen before and see if he can use that as a roadmap to steal even more districts and even more seats, just all in his quest to hold on to a little bit of power.

1:11:31Jon Favreau:And what's interesting about this is that it likely puts Republican incumbents in a really risky situation because you don't just change five Democrat seats. You probably change the entire Texas map. And those Republicans could start having crazy districts that don't make sense. They could represent whole new areas, be vulnerable to Republican primaries, be vulnerable to a Democratic challenger. And so those Republican congressmen have to decide whether in this moment where it's their own voters on the line, their own necks, their own districts, whether they're going to stand up for themselves or just be Trump's waterboys.

1:12:07Jon Favreau:Obviously, even though some Republican incumbents could be more at risk, we do want to stop this plan, right? How can that be stopped? The House Minority Leader Jeffries urged Texas Democrats to do the quorum bust by leaving the state, something that Texas Democrats have done before. What's the right way to stop this, the right way to fight this? There's basically three steps in my mind. First, we need to buy time. And that's why House Democrats in the state of Texas need to be ready to filibuster, to bust quorum, which means if 50 House Democrats leave the building, you shut down the session.

1:12:44Jon Favreau:They need to be able to march in the streets to buy time so that folks like governor gavin newsom who's out there speaking out saying that other states may start reaping what the republicans sow so that that pressure can start to build up republican uh members of congress uh in other states and in texas like i said need to start uh feeling the pressure as well and democrats uh need to make sure we fully fund campaigns to be ready to take on those Republican incumbents. And we use that to buy time. Then we also need folks to speak up all over the country. This needs to become a national issue because the Voting Rights Act, as we know it, is under threat here.

1:13:28Jon Favreau:Texas is already racially gerrymandered to hell. If they want to squeeze out five more seats, that means Trump is basically ripping everything up, sending us basically to pre-1965 on many of our voting rights laws. So we got to fire up the country. And then if they end up doing it, we've got to make them pay for it. We can't let this work because then it will just be their playbook every single time. How is what they might do violate what remains of the Voters' Rights Act after the Shelby County decision about a decade or so ago? Yeah, they got rid of preclearance, meaning that states that have a history of discrimination now are basically off the hook for that past discrimination and can do stuff like this call session that should be about rebuilding from the flood and instead just do redistricting in a week or two that's got we lost so much of that uh we lost um so much of them now being able to say they can gerrymander in a partisan way but they're still not allowed under section two to chop up and racially gerrymander such that say communities of color can't just be chopped up into five or six districts in a way that completely dilutes their vote.

1:14:38Jon Favreau:At this point, if Trump wants to demand five more districts from the Republicans, then he may be trying to completely do away with that section of the Voting Rights Act. And if he asks the Supreme Court to rubber stamp this Texas map, then that could be essentially what he uses all over the country. This is a five alarm fire in Texas. It's probably, I think, the biggest political story that people haven't heard of. and this five alarm fire could start spreading all across the country. Have you talked to members of the California delegation? Are they on board with what Governor Newsom is at least floating?

1:15:14Jon Favreau:The members of the California delegation, I know are all in on saying that Republicans might just reap what it is that they sow. So I ultimately am going to let folks from other states speak up for themselves. But here's what say, I think, I believe in ending gerrymandering across the country, but that means across the country. I think that states, uh, blue states should say they're going to implement independent commissions when Texas does. You know, I don't think that you get to national, uh, ends to gerrymandering by blue states, just signing up to do it. And red states not having to pay any kind of a cost for continued gerrymandering and diluting the votes of communities of color.

1:15:59Jon Favreau:Yeah, it seems like there really are only two options to deal with partisan gerrymandering in this country because the Supreme Court has opted out of that fight. Is one - To put it politely. To put it politely, yes. They basically set up this incredibly absurd system where the way to deal with being gerrymandered is to vote, even though you lost the power of your vote through gerrymandering. It's very effective. But two ways. One is national legislation, right, which folks tried to do during the Biden administration. And then the second way is mutually assured destruction, which is essentially what you're suggesting, which is Texas has to know that if they move, California will move.

1:16:35Jon Favreau:Florida has to know if they move, New York will move and so on. And we can't just wave the white flag and let them do it, right? And in the same sort of analogy, in a world of mutually assured destruction, you can eventually do cooperative, you get rid of a, of a nuke, I get rid of a nuke and eventually you get to nuclear non-proliferation. Um, and that's where we want to be. But in my view, um, we have to stop the growing autocracy and authoritarianism, get back to a reasonable democratic majorities, and then no longer have the kinds of Kristen Sinema's and Joe Manchins, who frankly, I think in my view, put themselves over the future of the country.

1:17:17Jon Favreau:No, absolutely. Okay. We're talking right after the House has passed three big pieces of crypto legislation. One of them is now headed to Trump. Two of them are headed to the Senate. You voted against all of them. Can you explain to people what these bills do and why you opposed them? Yeah. So I think what folks need to know is that these were extremely light touch, in my view, regulation of cryptocurrency. Look, we established laws to protect us from big market crashes, like we had in the 1920s. We established those laws after the Great Depression. And of course, they did not foresee cryptocurrency coming.

1:17:56Jon Favreau:But in my view, there's a lot of lessons to be learned from that. The Biden administration tried to apply some of those laws to cryptocurrency. And the crypto industry and crypto lobbyists sued the Biden administration, didn't want to follow those laws we created after the Great Depression. So we wound up in what is kind of a vacuum where they didn't want to follow those laws and the Trump administration wasn't going to enforce them. So they put forward this kind of light touch regulation. What does that mean for you? If you have cryptocurrency and there's very light regulation, it means somebody could take advantage of you, could make a killing telling folks that this thing is worth a ton and then leave you in the dumps.

1:18:36Jon Favreau:People essentially could get screwed out of their money, I think, if there's not strong enough rules. And if you don't earn cryptocurrency, that's actually my greater concern with this regulation, light-touch regulation, because the AFL-CIO came out against these policies because your pension, your retirement funds could get wrapped up in this. My fear is that five or 10 years from now, these votes and this light-touch cryptocurrency regulation could look like credit default swaps in 2008. It could be the vulnerable point that results in people that had nothing to do with this losing their money.

1:19:12Jon Favreau:And in my view, the reason we wound up with light touch regulation rather than something more thoughtful for this evolving industry is because the cryptocurrency industry bought the president, bought the Republican Party, and took out guys like Sherrod Brown, who were trying to get to, I think, kind of the law of the 1920s upgraded to the 2020s kind of environment. I mean, a decent number of your Democratic colleagues voted for these bills. Is that right? That's right. And I, you know, of course, everybody gets to vote their district and vote their conscience. But I and I understand their argument that they would rather if the crypto industry doesn't want to follow the 1920s rules, which I think that they should have, because those are the rules in the books, that they would at least like them to follow these minimal rules.

1:20:00Jon Favreau:I fear that if these minimal rules become the baseline, that a lot of people could put their money in this thinking it's safe, thinking it's regulated, and lose it five or 10 years down the line. And as somebody here in my mid-30s, I can kind of see five or 10 years down the line coming soon. Yeah, it's fair enough. There is a sort of a school of thought among some, you know, this has been pushed by fellow Texan Mark Cuban, among others, that one of the things that hurt Kamala Harris in the election, at least with a segment of younger, basically young male voters, was that Biden administration's approach to crypto in the sense that they were not pro-regulation, but sort of anti-crypto, right?

1:20:40Jon Favreau:Do you think that this is an industry that exists, it's developing, that let's stipulate that these regulations were too light-touched, this is not what you want, but is there a middle ground there you're looking for? Yeah, I would want to get to a place where you have good rules for the folks that choose to invest in crypto. I feel like I sit down and talk to actual crypto voters and it's, and there's, we can have a good conversation. I'm concerned that the crypto lobby written bills are a big problem here. But look, frankly, in my view, you know, I was in Nevada during the beginning of the Harris campaign.

1:21:20Jon Favreau:I traveled all over the state of Texas. And what I heard, I, you know, I almost never ever from an independent or swing voter heard that cryptocurrency was their top issue. I heard that paying the rent and making sure that their childcare wasn't so damn expensive and that government actually worked for them and didn't sound so corrupt in both parties. That's what I heard time after time after time. And I think that we just got to stop getting pulled into thinking that sort of the DC bubble of politics is what's dominating there. But I I also understand that there are millions of people, tens of millions of people that have crypto.

1:21:56Jon Favreau:And we want to make sure that we're speaking to them as being protected and not just let the industry lobby speak for them. The Senate last night or this morning, depending on what time zone you're in, passed a bill essentially codifying the doge cuts. It's going to take$9 billion of congressionally appropriated funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting. I heard you guys were reporting that they're defunding Daniel Tiger. We're very upset about the Daniel. Daniel Tiger, but my kids are sort of, they've moved into wildcats now, and they're very, very upset that wildcats could be defunded.

1:22:31Jon Favreau:In the old days, like 10 years ago, there used to be three parties on the Hill, Democrats, Republicans, and appropriators. And the idea that Congress would allow a president to take away money that they appropriated was impossible to imagine. Is there any chance these rescissions get stopped in the House or are they just going to green light this as they always do? Well, the way that we've been able to slow it down so far is by trying to force votes on releasing the Epstein files. That seems to be one of the only places where these guys just do anything for Donald Trump. And I don't know why sometimes I get surprised when it's the same thing over and over and over.

1:23:13Jon Favreau:You never get your hopes up, right? No one ever made money betting on the independence of these guys. It's billionaire bootlicking first, but then before first is Trump, ask us, you know? And so, yeah, you know, they've got this thing about NPR and Trump is saying he's going to run over the appropriators and they're headed that way. Then, you know, we're saying, well, why don't you release the Epstein files while you're at it? And that slowed them down a little bit. But now it sounds like a bunch of the people that have said, release the Epstein files a million times are now like, well, you know, maybe after Trump is gone, they'll just do anything the guy asks.

1:23:50Jon Favreau:And at the end of the day, you know, I'm a relatively new member of Congress. Like this is my third year here. I was hoping that you would get here and be able to have more reason debates and figure some stuff out in the back room. But at the end of the day, I just think that for some of these folks, we just have to beat them because there has to be a cost to just being such a bootlicker. As we're recording this, the Republican House Rules Committee has been meeting. They're trying to find out. They're all very worked up by the fact that the Democrats keep asking for votes on the release of the Epstein files.

1:24:23Jon Favreau:They're trying to figure out what to do about that. Is this a Democratic strategy you guys are going to keep doing, keep pushing this? I mean, we absolutely should because we've got to, like I said, we've got to show people just how absurd the thing is, right? That Trump and the Republicans went and sold this as one of their top policy platforms. And as soon as Trump tells them not to, that they won't. And so I think we've got to make that really clear. And then I think it's also part of making clear to independent voters and for people that this is the issue that they care about, that Democrats are willing to say, I want us to show we're willing to say, look, just because you're really rich and powerful, you don't get off the hook.

1:25:05Jon Favreau:Uh, because clearly, you know, Epstein was interacting with a bunch of really rich and powerful people and rich and powerful people getting off the hook is something that's really upsetting. Uh, and that I think as a democratic party, we have to say, release the Epstein files and you don't get a free pass just because you got a lot of money. Do you, uh, do you have a theory as to why Trump is, uh, did such a one 80 on this? I'm getting inside Trump's head or Laura Loomer's head about why she ended up picking You know, there's already enough mental health strains in this job. You know. All right.

1:25:39Jon Favreau:All right. I will free you from the obligation to. It's like I make sure I go for a run or another workout every morning and I try to stop getting in Trump and Laura Loomer's heads. Okay. All right. Fair enough. All right. You will. You have. I will let the record show you've passed on the opportunity to irresponsibly speculate about what's in the Epstein files. So we will take that. For whatever that's worth, you know? I mean, it would have been great content, but I understand why you did that. Moving on to a much more serious topic. I want to talk briefly about the awful floods in Texas, the administration's response.

1:26:15Jon Favreau:You've called for the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security to do an investigation. What do you see in the response that has you concerned? And is there any chance that Congress will learn any lessons from this in terms of funding for the National Weather Service or other disaster response or climate resilience or whatever else? Yes. So, you know, first of all, the devastation is ongoing. There's still over 100 people missing. Search and rescue is ongoing. All these people dying, including these kids, horrific and tragic. And I think part of respecting the dead is making sure that there's accountability and that we ask real hard questions, like why FEMA whistleblowers said that Secretary Kristi Noem waited 72 hours to approve search and rescue at the federal level.

1:27:05Jon Favreau:I mean, you should only have to think about that for 72 seconds max. So we should be asking those questions. You have severe understaffing at the National Weather Service. We need to know whether that reduction in staffing had an impact in this case. And if, you know, we had one of the chief meteorologists for the central Texas area vacant. They say they brought some other folks in. Who'd they bring in? How did that go? And if there were two disasters happening at once, and as we know, there was floods in Rideau, so right after this, what would have happened? We've got to ask those questions to respect the dead and to see how do we protect people in the future?

1:27:49Jon Favreau:So that's why I authored a letter asking the inspector general to look into this. That's an independent investigation. And I've got some news to break here on your podcast, Not On Purpose. As I was putting these AirPods in, my staff mentioned that the inspector general has confirmed that they're going to launch the investigation. That's part of being on the oversight committee. That's one of the pieces of democracy that we still got that we can use. And so there will be an independent investigation into this. I also think that we have to call the question about whether we're going to fully fund FEMA and fully staff the National Weather Service after this.

1:28:27Jon Favreau:You know, like, we can't just let this happen, give our thoughts and prayers, and then completely ignore that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have severely cut the staffing at the Weather Service, which is opposed to anticipate floods and hurricanes and disasters like this because just a few minutes extra notice getting to a little bit of higher ground saves lives. Myself, some of our listeners are just so heartbroken by what's happened in Texas. Just reading the stories about the girls at the camp is so horrifying. Is there anything that our listeners around the country can do to help to contribute to the recovery there?

1:29:08Jon Favreau:Yes, there is the Community Foundation of the Hill Country, which so you can, maybe the folks here at Podsafe can put that information up in a place that you can get it. They are distributing funds. And that is a really important thing because we are just, we have a lot of rebuilding to do. And then something else we can all do is recognize that these disasters are going to get worse and worse, more and more frequent. And places like Texas, we're used to hurricanes and floods, but not this often, not this big, not this frequent, plus freezes, plus wildfires all over the country. So making sure that we take care of one another, look out for one another, contribute what you can, even just a few bucks to helping in the hill country, and then keep speaking out because as a community, we can reduce the damage from these sorts of disasters, but we've got to take care of one another.

1:30:06Jon Favreau:And I think getting involved in local government is a huge way of participating. I'm a former city council member. And let me tell you, the decisions are getting made there about putting in the infrastructure to prevent floods and putting in the infrastructure for early warnings or hardening your city against wildfires. So I'm in Congress now, but I also really encourage folks listening to get involved at the local level because you can make a big difference to save lives in the future. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. It was a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks a bunch, Dan.

1:30:38That's our show for today. Tommy Lovett and I, he still does this show. He's still a co-host. He's back. He'll be back with a new show on Tuesday. Have a great weekend. Bye, everyone.

1:31:07and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Cherlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellaviv, David Tolles, and Ryan Young.

1:31:42Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.