1055: RFK Jr. Decapitates the CDC

25:14I mean, you know, we'll talk about this, I'm sure, in the coming weeks as we get closer to the funding fight. But we are now piling up a bunch of very big problems, crises in this government that are making it, I think, easier for Democrats to say, look, we're going to fund this kind of fucking health agency. We're going to fund this ICE agency. We're going to fund these fucking this tariff policy. Like we're getting close to that, I think. It's hard to overstate how far out of the mainstream RFK Jr. and Trump are on vaccines. Yeah. Like extremely - And just public health in general at this point.

25:48Because it's definitely vaccines, but it's also, I mean, pandemic preparedness, Ebola, all the stuff that we talked about. The polling on the coronavirus vaccine is very polarized on partisanship. Yeah. But on all the other vaccines, we are at like 90 % trust. So they are in the far, far, far minority here. And so I think whether it's through the government funding fight, whether it's through yelling and screaming about this, like actually drawing attention to this is important because you want this to feel so messy for Trump, who I think is like, he is vaccine skeptic and tag it like agnostic sort of like he sort of tried when RFK Jr.

26:25came on board to like push back on the idea of this. Like you want to make this really messy for the Republicans in the Senate, the House and the Trump White House. Yeah, it was the maybe the most successful initiative of his first term. Operation Warp Speed. He's a vaxxer. He was getting boosted all the time. He's over 65. He'll probably get his COVID booster. We say a lot that this, like, you know, Dem should talk about this and make noise about this. You know, name your issue. But I do think on this one, this is people's health, getting their kids vaccinated, making sure that their family has good medical care, can follow good medical, and trust credible medical information coming from the government.

27:01That's important to people. That is one that I think resonates with people. and that they're going to experience in their daily lives. I mean, every parent at the beginning of the school year is certifying their kids vaccines. Yeah. Right? Like, it's something that is very much in your life on a very frequent basis.

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28:39So we've all become used to the ritualistic Trump fluffing at cabinet meetings now. Must have been some real tendinitis after the one. I don't want to get explicit, but where's the tendinitis? Where do you think it is, Dan? That's a good answer. Three and a half hours. Three and a half hours of Trump fluffing in the last cabinet meeting this week. We have an excellent compilation that our producers put together. Let's listen. Mr. President, I invite you to see your big beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor because you are really the transformational president of the American worker, along with the American flag and President Roosevelt.

29:16And there's only one thing I wish for, that that noble committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since the noble piece, this noble award was ever talked about. And you, sir, are restoring trust to government. I do believe we're in a revolution. 1776 was the first one. 1863 or so with Abraham Lincoln was the second. This is the third with Donald Trump leading the way. And we are saving America. How do these people, like, how do they keep a straight face? I mean, they don't believe that. I assume not, but I'm not so sure anymore. I think people can convince themselves of some really crazy shit.

29:59I want to believe that before the cabinet meeting, before he walks in, they're all doing like a bit with each other and they're like having a fun competition. Like, okay, who can be the most embarrassing? We know that Marco Rubio has got jokes, right? That's what we've heard on the Katie Miller podcast. So maybe Marco Rubio is sort of organizing and maybe it's like a pool. I don't think so. I think that they were too afraid of getting caught doing that and then being kicked out of the club. Three and a half hours. three and a half hours like Fox cut away because we were watching it and like and I had been in a meeting and I came back and I was looking on Twitter and I still see Aaron Rupar and ACYN sending clips around from the cabinet meeting I'm like it's been three hours what is happening yeah it's no substance no substance at the meeting just total fluffing like I love my parents but I don't think I could in public talk about them in the same way like this is how our cabinet meetings went right the five yes it's very similar Barack Obama would lose his mind if anyone was ever that obsequious in his presence and i know everyone's like oh you know about everyone loved obama blah it was a cult but like he he got extremely uncomfortable in cabinet meetings when it seemed like people were just in any meeting any meeting but also you know in the cabinet meetings the pool comes in right and so the pool then you have like a sort of a fake cabinet meeting while the press is there and everyone gives like little reports actually we didn't we had like one person give a what like each new meeting there would be like a different cabinet member giving a quick report and then Obama would say something and then the press would leave.

31:31And then there'd be a real agenda. Usually the press would just be there for Obama's opening remarks. Yeah, that's right. And then they would leave. So here's the thing. You do a fake meeting for the press, then you do a real meeting. They never did the real meeting in this case. They just did the fake meeting for three and a half hours. Yeah. Even the real meeting is not like, I mean. It's kind of fake. It's kind of fake, right? But, and we say that We were in the outside of the cabinet. We were definitely in the outside. There's the people around the table and there's chairs all around. And you had to give up your phone and that was fucking brutal.

32:02Yes, because it's like I wasn't talking, that's for sure. It's like, can we speed through the SBA presentation here? It's going. Anyways, nothing like this. So Trump's cabinet giving him the Kim Jong-un treatment. It's clearly going to his head because here he is musing about himself as a dictator for the third time in the last few weeks. So the line is that I'm a dictator, but I stop crying. So a lot of people say, you know, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator. If he stops crying, he can be whatever he wants. Not that I don't have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States.

32:34I think our country's in danger, and it is in danger in these cities. The statements and the sentiment are, of course, not new by now. I think it was very early on in the administration. He tweeted that he who saves his country cannot violate any law, the Napoleon quote, or at least the quote that's attributed to Napoleon. He seems to be saying it a lot more frequently these days. The White House, I think, told Politico, oh, he's just doing it to knock down all those silly dictator accusations. He's just taking it on because it's so ridiculous. Is that what's happening? He seems to really enjoy the dictator part of the job.

33:07Like, it's his favorite part. He's not really digging into the substance of policy issues. And he really likes sending the military places, having parades in his favor, being feted by his cabinet member for three and a half hours. And, like, he will say, I'm not really a dictator. But there's no enthusiasm in that part. All the enthusiasm is in the, look at all the things I can do. I'm a dictator. So, yeah, I think he's, like, we know this is what he values in leadership. These are the people around the world he admires. It's not the Democrats. It's the dictators. So it shouldn't be surprising.

33:37It's really dangerous here. And what and we're going to talk about the the occupied, occupied D.C., maybe soon to be occupied Chicago and sort of the politics around crime. But what drives me nuts about the whole debate around crime or immigration is what he's saying there, which is I can do whatever I want if the country's in danger, right? Same with the tweet. He who saves his country violates no law. What he is setting up there is whatever happens, whatever I decide to do, all I have to say is that there's an emergency in the country, that we are in danger, whether in danger from immigrants, from protesters.

34:18from Democrats. I don't know. We didn't even play this clip. I forgot about it. Stephen Miller was on Fox earlier this week. He literally said, the Democratic Party isn't a party. It is a domestic extremist group. That's what Stephen Miller said. They are setting it up so that they can do whatever they'd like with the military, with their secret police force, to anyone in the country and say it is because there's an emergency because the country's at risk. I mean, this is textbook fascism. This is how fascist regimes happen. They fake a threat. They seize power to protect people from that fake threat, and they never give it back.

35:02And it's just like, and we're going to look back on it and be like, well, at the time, he just said it was about fighting crime, and people want crime to go down, or he said it was about immigration, and people were really upset about the border. How could it have been about this? Some of those protesters turned violent. Of course we wanted to bring in the troops. So those comments were part of a longer rant about sending troops to Chicago. Why it's so offensive to him that J.B. Pritzker won't ask him to do it before he does it anyway, which it seems like he will, after he posted about Chicago on Thursday and said, quote, The people are desperate for me to, all caps, stop the crime, something that Democrats aren't capable of doing.

35:44All caps, stay tuned, exclamation, exclamation, exclamation, President DJT. Again, the Gavin tweets are the ones that are silly, right? Those are the ones that are. The administration has also asked for Naval Station Great Lakes, which is just north of the city in Chicago, to offer logistical support for what Christine Noem is calling an ice strike team that is on its way to Chicago. Meanwhile, in occupied D.C., armed troops are still patrolling the streets. The federal government has seized control of Union Station. So that's cool. Mayor Muriel Bowser got criticism from the D.C. Council after saying she, quote, greatly appreciates the surge of officers and believes that crime is going down.

36:21Though she did also say that the masked ICE agents are unhelpful and that the National Guard presence is unnecessary. The New York Times reports that Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb hosted a call with other big city mayors to talk strategy around Trump's deployment, where he urged a, quote, serious on safety, serious on cost messaging strategy. The big undercurrent in the Times story is Democrats worrying about appearing soft on crime because of their opposition to the president's military occupations of major American cities. It's going to kill me. Right? Like, you say the sentence and you're like, maybe we don't want to be soft on crime.

36:53Polls are mixed on this. So there was a new AP poll that shows that 55 % of Americans support the use of the military and guard in assisting local police. Trump was not attached to this. It was not asked as a, do you support what's happening right now? But in that same poll, 55 % oppose the federal government taking control of local police. On the other hand, voters in a new Quinnipiac poll this week opposed Trump's D.C. deployment by 56 to 41. And a new Reuters poll has just 36 % of Americans approving of Trump's takeover, while 46 % oppose. polls also show that DC residents fucking hate it which is also evident by the fact that the Justice Department has now failed to get multiple indictments from multiple grand juries in DC for charges involving alleged assaults on federal officers including Sandwich Guy Sandwich Guy we got off they didn't get Sandwich Guy he's gonna well he's gonna get charged with a misdemeanor because they couldn't even get a fucking grand jury to indict the guy really bring a lie to the idea you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich much.

37:55Dan. It's there. It just came to you. I mean, should we take a moment right now, speaking of great sandwich jokes, to point out what's soon to be available in the Crooked Store? Thanks, Dan. I mean, I was shocked and disappointed by this, but you tell us. Well, Lovett had the idea of having a t-shirt with a sandwich on it, and underneath the sandwich, it says Hero, which is a name for a sandwich. It was pointed out by Saul, our producer. Yeah, it took us all a minute to get it. He got there. He did get it. They also wanted us to wear it during this. It was sitting on the back of my chair. And I was like, no, we're going to end up on Fox anyway.

38:32I don't need to be wearing that shirt while we do. That's right. Wait till we get to the Democratic section. Then we'll be on Fox. That's where we really shine. I do think there's something to be said for all jokes about the sandwich guy aside. It is extremely rare for grand juries not to indict. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they do. I have the stats that's going around Twitter, which I don't know why this is dated to 2010, but in 2010, there were 163 ,000 federal prosecutions and they failed to get an indictment in 11 of them. So that's a 99.993 % success race. Because I'm not a lawyer, didn't go to law school, not like Lovett and took the LSATs and got a high score.

39:15I looked this up the other day, not about this, but way back when it seems like all of our colleagues might be getting indicted for the Russiagate hoax. And I was like, why do grand juries turn back indictments like so many times? And I didn't realize like in many cases, there's no judge there. There's no defense attorney. It's just the prosecutor. The prosecutor has, they run the evidence or they present the evidence. And they also instruct the grand jury on what the law is. So they have enormous power here with really no sort of dissenting, opposing argument. Yeah, the point of it is to prove to a jury that you have probable cause for the charge.

39:57Right, yeah, and the standard is obviously much, much lower. So the fact that they couldn't get that, it does tell you that people in D.C. might be getting, I know, D.C., extremely Democratic city. But it might tell you people are getting pretty radicalized against the military takeover. Isn't he on video throwing the sandwich? Yeah. I think the reason is he was throwing the sandwich. It's not a felony. Of course, you can't be throwing fucking sandwiches at police officers or federal officials, but misdemeanor, which is what he's getting charged with and not a felony, which is the way the law is supposed to work.

40:28Back to crime. What's your sense of where public opinion is on this? We have talked about, I don't know if you and I have had the conversation about the DC takeover. We've had it privately, obviously, a million times, but I don't think we've had it on mic. Please correct us. We literally might have done it last week. You can all correct us. Yeah, I don't know. But what do you think? I mean, I think it's worth just acknowledging that the politics of crime are complicated. So in 2024, two-thirds of Americans told Gallup that crime was up over the previous year. Crime was down. And this is not a new phenomenon, TikTok broke our brains sort of situation.

41:01And every year since the year 2000, a majority of Americans have thought crime has gone up. Most years, crime went down. And it's because there's a couple reasons for this. One is the news. This is a worse problem now in social media, but for the beginning, as long as there's been television, the news has led with crime. So if there is one murder in your community, it will be on the news for like six weeks at a time, right? So it never gives you an accurate, you know, the news covers the bumps, not the road. The second is people, and the polling also shows that people are very, think of crime as a serious problem, even when statistically they have no reason to be very worried about crime.

41:39but people's fears are not rational conversation you and I have about flying all the time. I thought you were going to say flying too. And also a conversation we had about inflation, right? This is a different subject. But you can't be like, oh, the economy is doing great. And someone's like, well, actually, it's fucking expensive to buy groceries. When someone's scared of something, you can't – telling them that they're more likely to die from a piano falling on their head than whatever they're worried about. This is an ongoing frustration of Barack Obama. Because remember, everyone was worried that ISIS was going to come to their mall and attack them.

42:08And it's like the odds of that are so small. And you have all these other ways in which you could die. Like you're at risk every time you get a car, much more at risk when you get a car accident. So people's fears are irrational. And Republicans have a strength on crime, right? Trump, he had a one-point advantage on crime in a poll recent that happened in 2024. But every other issue, he's underwater. This is an issue where he is not underwater. Although there has only been limited polling on crime up until very recently. So you hear that in Denver. People are like, avoid his trap. Don't fall in his trap.

42:36He wants you to talk about crime instead of terror. Well, the president invades a U.S. city, the United States capital with armed military. It's kind of hard not to talk about, so you should probably find the best way to talk about it. My view of it is that you can't make it about crime. You can't say, like, I have just told you the facts that crime has actually gone down, and it's gone down a lot in D.C. It's one of the largest drops in violent crime in history year over year. But telling people that is not basically your best play here because then it does sound like you are minimizing crime.

43:04I think you should make this be about the fact that this is a stunt. It's a giant waste of taxpayer resources, and it's happening against the wishes of the local officials and, most importantly, the local police. Yeah. It's tough because if someone thinks that the presence of troops and extra cops and everything else is about, okay, well, there's more cops on the beat. And so that seems good because most people think more cops means it's going to be safer, especially if I saw it. And it's not just about like - And Bill Clinton ran on that promise. Right. And it's also not just about people. Okay, well, you could say like, how many people have actually experienced a crime?

43:45It's not just about experiencing a crime, though it is about that, but it's just about like public disorder, right? Like if you see, if you're on a subway, if you're on a street corner, you see someone screaming and yelling at somebody, like you're like, okay, this is kind of scary, right? And so it's about more than that. And if, but if you think that like, that ICE is about deporting the worst of the worst, and you think that extra cops is about bringing down crime, then you're going to say, well, this all seems fine to me. But if you're walking around the city and suddenly they're tasing delivery drivers and people in masks and hauling them off and throwing them in a van, and you're seeing all these troops armed just in your city day after, maybe a couple of days, it's no big deal, maybe a couple of weeks, it's no big deal, but like day after day after day.

44:32And then you're going to be like, I don't know. Is this really about crime? Because this seems pretty, and to your point about the stunt, I think everyone who saw the National Guard troops just picking up trash in D.C. because there was nothing really else for them to do, they probably don't think, oh, this is scary, but they probably think, yeah, this is maybe a little bit of a waste here. That's what I think the right argument here. So the hard part is like, yes, if you live in the city, you experience the disorder to the extent it exists. If you live in a city and you have to get someone at Walgreens or Duane Reade or CVS to let you get deodorant every single time because they're so worried about shoplifters, that contributes to how people feel about public safety.

45:12But most people don't live in cities, or a lot of people don't live in cities. And so they're not seeing the National Guard. They're also not experiencing the crime. Now, people who don't live in cities are actually oftentimes more afraid of crime. Right. People live in the cities. Because they watch the local news, which is about the city that they live near. I mean, there was a time in which people were so afraid of crime that they wouldn't put sports arenas in cities. Right. They would put them in the suburbs because they thought people from suburbs wouldn't go in the cities because they were so afraid.

45:33And so I just think that the argument that Democrats should ignore this is not a real argument because it's not possible to ignore it. You cannot be someone who is a member of the opposition party who has taken an oath to the Constitution and then say, I am just going to stay silent on the military occupation of one American city, possibly spreading to others, because it doesn't pull well. So you would just have to figure out how to talk about it. And I do think the way to do it is to sort of ally the crime trap and try to treat it as a stunt that's a waste of taxpayer resources that runs against the – it's not what people in the city.

46:10or the people who run the city or the people who protect the city actually want. Also, people don't want crime, but I bet if you ask them, do you want a situation where there are these masked agents setting up vehicle checkpoints, asking for people's papers, who look like they might be undocumented immigrants, who have brown skin, or in some cases, just anyone, and they're stopping the cars and they're saying, where's your papers? I don't think people like that. like i throw that in a poll because i don't think i don't think that's how people want to live in this country so i do think it's like it's it's about framing it in a way and and by the way that you know that was happening in tennessee it happened in in dc uh on 14th street like i just don't think people want to live like that either and there's some like this is incredibly dangerous there is a moment you know as you guys talked about on tuesday they're now carrying the national guard is not carrying weapons in dc for no reason no reason that has been articulated but at some point something bad is going to happen something can state level is going to happen and that could be the sort of thing that fundamentally changes the fabric of this country both in how the public reacts to it and how trump uses it

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50:24All right. Speaking of the Democratic Party trying to figure out what to do about our descent into fascism, boy, did they nail it at their at the annual summer meeting in Minneapolis this week. So this event had everything. Land acknowledgements, competing Gaza resolutions, worries about fundraising, polling presentations that advise ditching the phrase tough on crime for serious about safety. Even a proposal for a new fight song, which we will get to in a bit. No surprise that the coverage of the event, which was for some reason live streamed, focused almost entirely on the party's internal conflicts with a heavy dose of mockery.

51:01To be fair, the party did have some wins. Democrats flipped a state Senate seat in Iowa this week with a 20 point overperformance. And the DNC had invested in the organizing around that race. So they took some credit for that. But overall, the consensus seemed to be that the meeting wasn't exactly Democrats putting the party's best foot forward. Afterwards, Democratic operative Adam Jentleson told the Bulwark's Lauren Egan, quote, it would probably be better for the party as a whole if the DNC just turned the lights off and padlocked the building for the next two years. What do you think? I think the whole thing is maybe a microcosm of all of our problems, which is you have in Iowa this great win, right?

51:42Like we know we do well in special elections. We're actually in 2025, we're doing about five to six points better in special elections than we were doing in 2017. So I think that like there is evidence that underneath the challenges we're having at the party establishment level that people are doing the work and winning races. And that's very important. Did you see that turnout was 55 % of the 2022 midterms in that district? That's high for a special election in the summer of 2020. So that is the positive part here. It is the establishment of the party, which is embodied by the DNC, which is a collection of whatever it is, 400-some party chairs, party committee people, just like the absolute establishment of the establishment.

52:28that is still struggling to reckon with the moment we are in. Right? Both, I mean, I will stipulate, I've been in politics a long time, the DNC has been a shit show almost for the entire time of my career. And particularly when we're in opposition. It exists to be a punching bag and a shit show. Like when you have the White House, the DNC is a political arm of the White House and it usually is neither, you don't ever really hear from it. It raises money, it organizes, it does what the White House wants. When you're in opposition, it becomes the vessel for everyone's anger about the party, even though it has so little power and so little influence.

53:01Yeah. Like everyone thinks the DNC like makes messaging decisions, picks candidates, can fix presidential elections, all these things. And it's really, it's basically in a presidential election, it's a bank account for the nominee with some organizing on the side. Here's my big criticism of the whole event. Why did they live stream it? Why did they just, if you're going to have a meeting and you're going to have polling presentations and you're going to do the whole thing and just talk about shit like just don't i mean you can have i guess you have press there i don't know like they can have just they can just have a fucking meeting i mean it's open press like i get that some parts are open press i'm sure they've been live streaming it for 100 years like since live streaming was available well then if you're going to live stream it do we need to start with the land acknowledgement is that something that would have we not learned our lesson first of all and it's not like the landing not like do we think the land acknowledgments do anything do we give back the land like we probably should Maybe people should go do something to help indigenous Americans in the country instead of just acknowledging the fact that hundreds of years ago, something horrific happened on that land.

54:03I don't know. What are we doing? It's very hard to think about what we should do as a party and reverse engineer it from what is going to make it Fox and Friends. I don't want us to do that. but there does need to be a little more savvy about the whole picture that is painted, right? Just a touch. Just a little touch more savvy. Like what is the story you're telling with this? Like there is a world in which you could use this to, like we have a bunch of exciting candidates, like really exciting candidates. We've had to the credit of the Senate and House, we've recruited a bunch of great candidates to run.

54:39The Sherrod Browns, Roy Coopers, a bunch of really interesting people running for House, veterans, former like fired federal government scientists and people working in the VA and all this. You could highlight those people. We're winning races instead of doing that. Instead, the DNC, which has no real say in a lot of these issues, and then we're going to get to the Giles of Resolution in a second, is putting itself in the middle of it. And I think one challenge here is, I don't know what the answer is, but Ken Martin won the DNC race. He was the most insider of insider candidates. He was the chair of the Association of Democratic Party Chairs.

55:14He'd been a party chair for a long time. He'd been a very successful party chair, to his credit. But he won the race because he has relationships with all the other party chairs, which is a huge part of the voting bloc. But it was a continuation of what the DNC had been. I know he's trying to make changes, but after 2024, you probably needed someone who was going to come in. A little bit like Howard Dean did when he won the DNC, who was going to knock it over and start from the beginning. And so we're not making any real wholesale changes. We're just kind of making cosmetic changes around the edge, and it's not working.

55:46publicly. That's the thing. And it's the public aspect that's the tough part, right? Because I think that Ken Martin would say and did say to me when I interviewed him, it's like, you know, he's been investing and organizing, doing all this stuff. That's why they took credit for the Iowa thing, and good for them. And he is an organizer at heart. There is a larger problem with the DNC and just the party in general that Ken Martin is not going to be able to fix. Yes, the DNC is an embodiment of the party's larger problems. Yes. And it doesn't seem like they really dug into those that much or at least made a lot of progress, you know, projecting an image of the party that has learned anything from the last defeat.

56:29Right. I think that's the bigger thing is you can't expect the DNC to solve the problem. You can't expect them at the August 2025 annual summer meeting, I guess it is, to have, like, figured everything else out. But there was probably a way to be a little more deliberate in the public presentation of what the party was doing. For example, I'm just thinking of this now. Like, so that candidate who just won in Iowa, invite that person to come speak there. Some of the recruits that we have that are exciting candidates in some of these swing districts, invite them to come speak. I bet they wouldn't come.

57:02That's the problem. Yes. I mean, this is the problem. Yeah, I know. We're going to get to this, the other convention idea going on. But one of the challenges is if you're Roy Cooper or Sharon Brown, you don't want to be. You would never go there. You don't have that. Yeah. You don't have the taint of the DNC being on you. Yeah, that makes sense. While all this was going on, Gavin Newsom did a big live interview with Politico where he did not mince words. I think we have some tape. This guy doesn't believe in free fair elections. He tried to wreck this country. Were you there January 6th? He tried to light democracy on fire.

57:34He dialed for 11, almost 12 ,000 votes. Now he's doing it in plain sight. And people say, oh, it's just Trump being Trump. You think he's joking about 2028? You think when he brings foreign leaders to the Oval Office and he goes to the White House store, have you seen this? Anyone? Is it just me? And he shows them the 2028 hats? He's not being serious? Wake up. You or lose your country. I mean, that's one way to do it. Yeah. Right? Now, I caught a couple lines from Ken Martin's speech. And, you know, he was doing the, like, we got to fight fire with fire thing. And he was trying to, you know, be tough like Gavin.

58:13But, again, that's one person in a whole meeting that gets. It's not that the people there don't want to fight. No, it's not that. It's just it looks too. Like, I kind of, like, we're hammering on them. I'm not trying to defend them in any way, shape, or form. But there was no way this was going to go well. Right. There was just absolutely no way. because there's ways there's ways it could have gone better it could have gone better but it's just democrats are mad at democrats right now so it's one that like if you have a great meeting and the republicans are going to shit on it no matter what the meeting is but if democrats are mad at the party as they have every right to be right now then it's you just create this you're you're pleasing no one with anything you do i do think and wish very much that more democrats would find their own inner gavin newsom and what i mean by that is not just do exactly what he's doing and then try to do the tweets that his office is doing and then say the same things that he's like, like do you find your, find what's making you upset and what's really bothering you and where you think the country should go and like, go say that more and, and be less caught.

59:19I mean, we've talked about this, but like be less cautious. And again, I'm not even saying that like, you know, Gavin Newsom is going to be our best nominee, right? Like I'm not, I'm just saying in this moment, in the summer of 2025, there should be more Democrats sounding like that? I think the, I wrote about this in my newsletter, the message box this week, but there is a fundamental divide, divide the democratic party. And we have divides on every issue. Like as I wrote, we're divided over Ezra Klein's book writings. We're about to talk about Gaza. So yeah. Like, um, so we're divided on everything, but I really do believe that the big fundamental divide in the party and Alyssa Slotkin has talked about this a lot, which is people who think Trump is an existential threat to democracy, which Gavin Newsom does.

59:57And a lot of people who think that Trump is very, very bad, but survivable. That our goal here is to just make it to 2026 and then make it to 2028. And that if you are in the Gavin Newsom camp, you need to think outside the box. You have to be willing to embrace high risk strategies that push the envelopes or willing to run over norms or previously held positions. And if you're in the the latter camp where I think Chuck Schumer is, I think Richard Whitmer is, you just think very differently. And I think more people should be in the Gavin Newsom camp. I am in the Gavin Newsom camp, but I really found that to be the way to understand how people think about things.

1:00:36Because the DNC meeting is, even if people use the public rhetoric that sounds a version of what Gavin Newsom says, the way that they keep doing things the same way suggests that they are in the, this this bad but survivable camp. Yes. And I'll give you an example of why this is not ideologically necessarily, or even old versus young, or even are you going to go hard at Trump or not? Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has been acting now for several years like he believes that we're in an existential emergency. He hits Donald Trump whenever he can, but he also has his Bernie thing, right? He believes that the oligarchy is the problem and he's very economically populous.

1:01:13He's been consistent about this for his whole career. But he's out there pulling huge crowds, probably the most popular politician in the party. And he's acting like this is an existential threat, right? Completely could not be more different than Gavin Newsom in a whole bunch of different ways. It is interesting. I can do a whole podcast on this. But Bernie Sanders, I am interpreting this, but believes that Donald Trump is the symptom of the larger problem he's been talking about for years, which is the oligarchy, unfair economy, a rigged economy. and Newsom, who I think doesn't necessarily disagree with Bernie on some of the things about the economy, thinks Trump is the problem.

1:01:48And like Alyssa Slotkin, right? Who you just mentioned. Yeah. You know, former CIA. Yeah. She's in that camp too. So it's like, it's all kinds of people. But, and then the people I really worry about, I'm not going to name names here, but. No, please do. Well, because I can't think all of them, but the people who I think believe we're in an existential crisis, but do not sound like it. you know, like some people have thought about it and like, I think this is survivable and I'm just going to act that way. There's some people who they just don't, they can't get themselves there. You know, they can't get emotional.

1:02:20And I don't want emotional, but like they don't, they don't have the passion. They don't have the fire in the belly. And they're just sort of, you know, very just analytically talking about it. I'm like, what are you doing? I think it's a poverty of imagination. Yes. I think it is very, very hard. I think this is, you guys talked about why everyone's shrugging about what's going on. I think it's very, very hard to imagine what is happening to America actually happening here. Because it was impossible to imagine just a year ago. The idea that you would have a politicized law enforcement agency, law enforcement agencies that would be prosecuting people's political opponents, that you would have military marching in the streets.

1:02:53Like that seemed the idea that democracy could crumble. Like we believed it could last forever. We believe that for a very long time now. And certainly believe that the only thing that could stop would be a foreign power and not something internal. And so I think for a lot of politicians, particularly ones who've been around a long time, there are exceptions like Bernie, it just cannot fathom this is actually happening and are unable to think about it in real, talk about it in real ways, think about it in real ways, and then embrace the solutions that are proportionate to the threat. Yeah, that's well said.

1:03:24And there's just a lot of trying, almost like trying on a costume. Well, that's the fake bullshit, right? It's the fake bullshit. it you get a lot i've said this before like a lot more of them are swearing like they think if they swear a little bit they drop a few fucks then suddenly everyone's gonna be oh they're tough now i'm for the swearing i think it's fine i'm only for the swearing if you swear normally if this is how you talk you know unfortunately this is i wish i swore less on this but like this is how we talk you know and if that's how you really talk then like go do it but some of some of them drop it mid-conversation you're just like where'd that come from i've never met a politician who didn't swear a lot, I would say.

1:04:00Never once in my life. So, again... Maybe Drew Lieberman would be the exception. I like the Gavin tweets, but find your own thing. Oh, yeah, that's just embarrassing. Don't do your Gavin tweets. The other Democrats doing the Gavin tweets is embarrassing. You need your own shtick. Yeah, figure out your own shtick. That's all.

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1:06:46So as I mentioned, the DNC also, we got off topic. DNC also debated two competing resolutions about how to respond to the war in Gaza, with one resolution calling for a complete arms embargo and the other, supported by Ken Martin, calling for a more moderate middle course. After a lot of debate, Martin ended up pulling his resolution and kicking the issue down to a task force of stakeholders. Okay. Again, don't want to beat up on the meeting here, but maybe this is a chance to talk about, But in general, you think the party can get its shit together on this before 2026? It is the question of whether the party will be able to catch up the public opinion, not just within the Democratic base, but within the entire country around military, offensive military aid to Israel during what's happening in Gaza.

1:07:25Yeah. That's the question. Also, side note, we don't need committees doing resolutions. Like, what is the DNC resolution going to do? I know. I know. I know. So it's like we can have a larger discussion about the party platform in the presidential election year. There's some real questions about how useful that is, but that at least has some – you're putting on paper what theoretically the nominee believes in. So then you can hold them accountable to that point. But the mid-year – like just the opinion of the Democratic Party is this. Like is that – I don't know that – like I think there's a real effort that should be done to try to move the other half of the Democratic caucus to be where we think they should be on this vote.

1:08:04I don't think a DNC resolution is meaningful in that task. And I will say, because I'm not going to make the moral case for this again, and especially because the people in the other side of the party who are still singing the same tune about Israel, they'll say, oh, I get that this is emotional, but we get to seem like we're on the side of Israel. That's where the American people are. That's not where the American people are. Look at the polls. If you think that's where they are, those are old polls. And it's not just Democrats. It's, first of all, that Quinnipiac poll, like, if you ask what, if Democrats, if you ask just Democrats, if they believe that we should end weapons sales to Israel, it is like, it was like 70%.

1:08:50I mean, it was overwhelming. But the overall number, including independents, and of course, Republicans are still for it, but like the overall number I think was like, I don't know, it was like 56, 57, four ending weapon sales. Like it's a majority opinion now. I mean, you ask people if they approve of how Israel is conducting the war in Gaza, the numbers are even more devastating. If you ask people if who they sympathize with more, the Israelis or the Palestinians, it's now the Palestinians, which is also a huge shift from October 7th. I mean, and the reason I'm just bringing up the polling is not because that's how I think we should talk about it.

1:09:23But to those people in the Democratic Party who think this is a polling issue, it is not. I think that there is a lot of parallels in terms of the politics. I'm going to talk about the politics. With Iraq. With Iraq. I know. I've done the same thing. Because there are people who know what the right thing to do is, but because of an outdated view of politics are afraid to do it. And those people, especially if they're running for president, are eventually going to get to where everyone else is. but are you, you're going to be late. And I, yeah. And you're going to be, you're going to seem inauthentic.

1:09:54You're going to seem fake because it is, you know? I mean, I'm sure there's some people can be like, wow, of course you could have this conversion where you're like, wow, I fucked up and this is horrible. And Netanyahu clearly is never going to end this war and just wants to fucking bulldoze Gaza and doesn't give a shit what happens to people and whatever. Yeah. You can come around to that, but a lot of people are just going to, they're going to look exactly like what it is, which is, Oh, this is where the base is and I want to win. And so I'm going to now pretend this whole time that I was actually there were moments to do like, obviously, incredibly great credit to the people who were very critical when the Democrats were very critical when Biden was president.

1:10:28Like, like that is the right thing to do, but not easy to do it against your president, particularly in an election year. But with Trump as president and with the the way things have changed, particularly with the famine in Gaza, the moment is was months ago. and so like that is an actual change of facts on the ground that could cause you to change your opinion but the more the more you wait the more you're going to look like you're playing politics here yeah see jake sullivan yeah uh biden's former national security advisor was talking to our pal tim miller on the bulwark podcast and said that he's advised democrats that uh they should oppose weapon sales like that's jake yeah who's in the biden administration It was the person in charge of implementing the Hug Beebe strategy.

1:11:11So like if you're, what are you doing? If you're, you know, I just don't understand. So Axios reported on Wednesday that senior Democratic officials now want to host a mini convention ahead of the 2026 midterms. I'm now laughing at this because of the conversation we just had. Where they can showcase candidates and emerging party leaders not to be outdone the next morning. Trump posted that the Republican Party might host a convention of their own before the midterms. That to me was the only evidence that maybe this is a good idea. what do you think? I, I, in theory, I understand the idea is that Democrats need opportunities to get attention and having another convention.

1:11:49Particularly if you did a big one, right? You're not filling the, where did we go to the convention? Where was that? Chicago. You're not filling the United Center. It's okay. We all want to forget it. I was like, I know we went to Milwaukee for a week. I know we went to Chicago for a week. We're still waiting for Taylor Swift to come out on stage. Just get Leon Panetta. Just Leon Panetta instead, yeah. Like, so the idea of doing a big event and having, like, good speakers and you'd have to get, like, Kamala Harris would speak there and maybe you'd get a Barack Obama. Like, you would need to draw real attention and get real people to do it.

1:12:15Like, that is intriguing. Joe Biden.

1:12:21Your face is so good. That's so worth it. That's an option. I mean, it's an option. I mean, I actually would say that I'm sure that the people who would attend the Democratic convention would be very excited to hear from Joe Biden. Yeah, yeah. You and I were in the audience for his speech in Chicago, apparently, which is where that was. Keep going. But it does – I'm not sure we could execute it in the right way. It would be my concern. Like I understand the idea of theory, but if you do it and then you just have another giant fight over a Gaza resolution, or the other thing you would see is the most prominent Senate candidates don't show up because they don't want to be there for it.

1:13:00So it's like you're doing this convention and Sherrod Brown doesn't come and Roy Cooper doesn't come. and Graham Plattner, if he's the nominee in Maine, doesn't come. And maybe John Ossoff is busy that week. Then it's embarrassing for the party. Yeah, because then you're getting, it's like a speech from Chuck Schumer, a speech from Hakeem Jeffries, and then now we're looking for more people to fill this speech role. And it's like, quick, where's Kerry Washington? And where's all the select? It's just like, I don't, it gives me the. At first I was like, you know what? We need to get attention. My first instinct was like, oh, yeah, a good idea to get attention.

1:13:32And then having watched the summer meeting and talk about this, I'm like, I just, I think the execution is quite difficult. The Republicans are definitely going to do this. Yeah. Because Trump would like another. And then we're going to, Trump probably did it to goad us into doing it. No, no. He wants to, like, he wants to do it because he wants another party celebrating him. But. Well, and. I think it's to his advantage. Yeah, because I think his big issue for the midterms is the people who turned out for him don't turn out for Republican candidates. And so if he can attach himself to the midterms in people's minds, then he can tell everyone, hey, get out for me.

1:14:03Don't forget about these candidates. It's a double-edged sword, for sure. But he's probably going to get all the downsides of the anti-Trump fervor anyway. So a high-profile moment where he can communicate to his voters that this is, that people who didn't turn out to turn out for this is probably to his advantage. So if he does it, then we'll probably have to do it. Or one place we could just do it is Crooked Con. Oh. Did you know we're having a... I'm aware. Have you heard? I'm aware. November 6th and 7th? Is there a website you can go to? Yeah, it's crookedcon.com. I got it. I get it. Was that an intentional tongue twister?

1:14:37I don't know. Was that a prank from the marketing team on you? Yes, I think most things are. All right, Dan, as promised, just to close out the meeting section, it did include a fight song, which no DNC meeting is complete without. Semaphore's Dave Weigel reported that someone from ActBlue not only shared the song, But I recommended that the party adopt it and in multiple sessions put the lyrics up on a presentation so the attendees could sing along. Did they incessantly text it to everyone? I apologize for doing this, but I do need you to read the lyrics. I can't read the lyrics. I do this off the dome.

1:15:11I don't have a laptop, so you'll have to do it. Fuck. D-E-M-S we rise. Stronger together. Blue skies. Lift your voice. We're bold and true. Onward, Democrats. That's we shine blue. Woo. The thing that is so funny about this, other than the fact that someone thought we needed a fight song. Yes. And that it has a blue sky reference. Yes. A little on the nose. It's the use of the term stronger together, which is the failure of every democratic messaging process ever. No matter how bad it is, no matter how many Yahoo's are involved, it ends up with some version of stronger together. Everything is perfect about it.

1:15:53the only thing I am disappointed in is that we can't hear it. Like, is there a melody it goes to? That's what I want to know. I asked Dave Weigel on Twitter, but he did not respond. If there are any... If anyone has... The person from Act Blue, I don't know who it was, but whoever can give us a melody to this, I just, I want to be singing it, you know, because I want to practice for this midterm convention and Crooked Con and whatever else. You heard it here first that if someone can find the melody for this, Jon Favreau will sing it solo. Can you play it on the piano? You can play it on the piano.

1:16:24I will learn to play it on the piano. It will become our new theme song to Pod Save America. That's ridiculous. I think you should perform it at... You should perform it at... CricketCon? CricketCon or the wedding, birthday, celebration, whatever, of whichever Vote Save America volunteer knocks on the most doors. Oh, that's a good one. Jon Favreau will come to your gathering and sing. This is now... That is not up on votesaveamerica.com by the time this episode comes out on Friday morning, it's a failure of the political team. Come up with the melody, everyone. All right, last thing before we go, we have to talk about one more piece of news.

1:17:01Taylor Swift's engagement to Travis Kelsey. What? This first I'm hearing of this. I was in a meeting. I was off my phone for an hour. I come back outside. There's like 40 texts on my, most of them from my wife. I was going to say. In all of the text chains I'm on with her and other Taylor Swift fans, it was wild. Do you know what I was doing when this came out? What? I was talking to Caroline Reston on Polar Coaster, and no one interrupted the show to tell her. About Hunting Wives. We were talking about Hunting Wives at the time. Which I hate-watched, and now can't wait for the second season. Yes.

1:17:33That's how I hate-watched it. If you want to hear my take on Hunting Wives, subscribe, become a friend of the pod. There you go. There you go. Anyway, most of the world offered their congratulations. A nice little moment here in our broader descent into fascism. Even Donald Trump was gracious about it. But then Charlie Kirk, you know Charlie Kirk. Familiar vaguely with him. He recently called us a group of low-T complainers and whiners. Oh, I thought he was just referring to the Tuesday pod.

1:18:03It's true. He had this advice for the happy couple. Maybe one of the reasons why Taylor Swift has been so just kind of annoyingly liberal over the last couple of years is that she's not yet married and she doesn't have children. Taylor Swift might go from a cat lady to a J.D. Vance supporter. And I think we should celebrate that. It's a great chance for Taylor Swift now to get married and have a ton of children. You can certainly afford it, Taylor. This is something that I hope will make Taylor Swift more conservative. Engage in reality more and get outside of the abstract clouds. Reject feminism.

1:18:45Submit to your husband, Taylor. you're not in charge what a what a lucky woman who got to submit to that penis with a hairpiece that is a she is she is one lucky lady she taught you know there's there's clips of Charlie Kirk's wife talking about how I love submitting to Charlie oh wow yeah you are deep in the internet I mean that's why I get that's why I get straight fives on Terminally Online all the time so that's interesting huh It seems like he was purposely trolling. Is that what that is? No, I think that's his legitimate, sincere belief. Yeah, he does think birth control makes women crazy.

1:19:27He's said that before. I mean, he's a real piece of work. Yeah, he's not great. A real piece of work. That's the kind of person you want being a close advisor to the President of the United States. So it's like fucking Taylor Swift is worth more money than a million Charlie Kirks put together. and probably more people go to one of her shows than have ever listened to Charlie Kirk. Yeah, I'd say that's possible. It's just like, what? Okay, man. Good luck. Good luck. Again, lucky lady married to Charlie Kirk. All right. New Crooked merch just dropped. Check out crooked.com slash store to see the latest.

1:19:59Who knows? Who knows? Maybe you'll find the hero T-shirts.

1:20:06And they released the Epstein Files doormat. There may be an Epstein Files doormat in there as well. Again, got to go to the design meetings more. more at once that's where love it is right now probably also a reminder that you can now stream ad free video with a paid subscription to cricket enjoy pod save america pod save the world love it or leave it and offline and exclusive shows like inside 2025 and polar coaster with mr dan pfeiffer no interruptions just the content you actually came for ad free video is available now on supercast sub stack and youtube visit cricket.com slash friends to learn more that's our show for today we'll be back on tuesday with a special episode for labor day which will be marking our thousandth episode.

1:20:47Wow. I know. That's a little behind the scenes. That's why Dan's here, guys. We have to bring him down for the thousandth episode. It's a very, very important moment. Big deal. That's what we're celebrating, I guess. We're going to be answering lots of great listener questions for the occasion, so check it out. And everyone, have a great holiday weekend. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Cricket.

1:21:22Pod Save America is a Cricket 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. Reid Churlin 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.

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1:22:08Hi, my name is Mitch Landrieu. My name is Erin Haynes. My name is Jennifer Palmieri, and we're hosting a new series called Long Play. The South is the new political epicenter of the country. Democrats are way on their heels in this region, but Republicans are going through their own reckoning in the South, too. I mean, the South has always shaped American politics. We know that. The stakes could not be higher, but to win the South, you have to understand it. People in the South feel really misunderstood, left behind, put down on, and they want to explain that to somebody. We're traveling across six southern states to explore the people, the issues, the assumptions that no longer hold, and what the rest of us are missing about a region that will shape the future of our politics and our country.

1:22:54From Left, Right and Crooked Media starting July 27th, watch Long Play series on YouTube at youtube.com slash longplayseries or listen wherever you get your podcasts.